13th Valley Page 9

  “Stop it until we have something to talk about.”

  “Let’s you and I argue. There she goes, see?”

  “Just like always,” Leon’s brother said. “A touch of home, Leon.”

  This was followed by the sound of people talking to each other with no one speaking directly into the microphone. There was some jumbled talk of his father selling a portion of his business then Mr. Silvers said clearly, “All things being equal, this year, after you come back, I think Mother and I will pretty definitely go to Europe for about three weeks.”

  “Leon,” his mother said, “you can come with us. We’re going to put the machine away now and later I’ll finish the tape to my son. You all had your turn. I’m going to talk to him in private.”

  “Shit, Man,” Silvers said to Chelini as he clicked off the recorder, “them folks gettin down. Hey, you been over to the Phoc Roc TOC yet? That’s our little club. Let’s get a beer and I’ll introduce you to some of the dudes.”

  “Wait a minute,” Chelini reared back. “Let me think. I’ve seen so many people already I can’t keep them all straight. There was an old man, I mean old, screaming at a dude by the basketball courts. Then three guys in with the first sergeant. There was Egan and the lieutenant. Top was getting me a radio and a rucksack. He told me to get a haircut and this Puerto Rican guy to cut his mustache. Couple of brothers slappin themselves silly …”

  “That’s the dap. It’s kind of a way to say hi.” Silvers paused. Chelini didn’t say anything. “Here, give me your right hand. I’ll show you an abbreviated dap so you can greet the brothers.” Chelini held out his hand. Silvers put out his fist. Chelini balled his right hand as Silvers tapped his twice against Chelini’s. Then he rapped the back of his fist twice, then the top and the bottom. Silvers opened his hand, motioned for Chelini to follow, slid the palm over Chelini’s upturned palm. He snapped his fingers. “You’ll get it,” Silvers said. “Let’s see. The old dude had to be Zarnochuk. Old Zarno. He’s battalion sergeant major. Chews everybody out. Hardass, Man, hardass! Who else?”

  “There was that Puerto Rican …”

  “Oh shit. El Paso. Don’t ever call El Paso a P.R., Man. He’s Chicano. Mexican. History major from the University of Texas. He got a year at law school finished before the draft got him.”

  “Jesus! Is that right? Man, he gave the first sergeant a bad time. The other two were both black, I think their names were, ah, one was Jackson and the other was Doc.”

  “Ah, El Paso always gives Top a hard time cause Top’s such an ignorant shit. Jackson’s from Mississippi. Doc. That’s gotta be Doc Johnson cause he’s the only black medic we got. Doc’s from Harlem. He’s company CP medic. El Paso’s senior RTO. Jax is a rifleman in my squad—fire team leader if we had enough guys to have fire teams. All those dudes been here forever.” Silvers had put on a pair of shower togs and had pulled on a pair of jungle fatigue pants while he talked. He put on a fatigue shirt and picked up his hat. “Come on. Let’s get a beer. I’ll show you where the barber’s hootch is. You in the Oh-deuce now, Cherry. You gotta get your shit together.”

  CHAPTER 6

  They did not look at each other while they spoke but only squinted ahead toward the building. “Why we goin to this fuckin briefin?” Egan asked. “I mean, why this briefin? We never go to briefins.”

  “We never go,” Brooks answered, “because we always … we’re always in the boonies.”

  “L-T, you been ta briefins before. You know they aint goina say nothin.”

  “Come on, Danny. You really can’t tell. We might get something. Besides, the colonel wanted a good showing for the Third Brigade CO.”

  “Shee-it. REMFs givin the briefin only do it so they can kiss the colonel’s ass. And the colonel, he only goes cause he likes to have his ass kissed.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “They already worked everythin out in the TOC before. Or in the colonel’s office or in the general’s hootch while the old man’s ballin some gook whore.”

  “Shhh. Looks like they’re already underway.”

  In the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) it was not atypical for a battalion from one brigade to be placed under the operational control of another brigade for short duration assaults. Airmobility produced a functional efficiency in the deployment of forces which previous warfare had never matched. The helicopter made it possible for entire battalions to be under the operational control of one commander in one area one day and under the control of another commander in an area a hundred kilometers away the next day. If the men didn’t have to disembark and slowly trudge by foot about the jungle mountains it would almost be possible to have only one set of boonierats. The army could have twice the commanders with their command posts and maps and charts and electronic surveillance devices and half the ground troops and simply airmobile the troops, op-con the boonierats, in a continuous hopscotching. Troops would no longer belong to a commander but to several commands and the casualties of one real unit could be spread over the various on-paper units. The quicker infantrymen could be moved, the fewer infantrymen would be needed. Theoretically there would have to be more support and transportation troops and the endless deployment, redeployment, redeployment from fight to fight might be hell on the soldiers. That was reality for the one-in-ten American soldiers in Vietnam who were the infantry. One-in-ten was the lowest ratio of line soldiers to support troops in American military history.

  The 7th of the 402d was the division reaction force, the cooling unit to be extracted from its AO at any moment and inserted about a hot spot until cooled then extracted and inserted again. Brooks and Egan felt uneasy in the Third Brigade rear. They entered the briefing hall as unobtrusively as possible.

  “Gen-tle-men,” a young second lieutenant was saying, “the governing mission of this operation is to conduct airmobile operations in support of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam, to locate and destroy enemy units and base camps and to interdict enemy movement into the lowlands. Our operations provide the secure environment which is enabling the GVN to pursue the national objectives of political stability and socio-economic development. In support of this mission we will be operating from two headquarters; the main headquarters here at Camp Evans and an advance light TOC on Firebase Barnett. The topographic briefing will be delivered by Sergeant Marquadt. Sergeant.”

  Egan and Brooks mingled silently with the company grade officers and enlisted men standing behind the seven rows of seated personnel. The room was bright, lighted by three rows of fluorescent lights and the glow through the translucent shades drawn across the window openings. The room was stuffy. Several senior NCOs sitting in the third and fourth rows were smoking pipes. EM in the back smoked cigarettes. The air about the lights and by the shades was tinted blue. People were shuffling in the chairs and shifting from foot to foot behind. Voices murmured.

  The Third Brigade commander—self-named Old Fox—sat sideways in his chair in the front row. The remaining seats in that row were vacant. The second row was occupied by the battalion commander from the 7/402, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver M. Henderson—The GreenMan—and by various commanders from artillery and supply units. In the third row sat the Air Force and Vietnamese liaison officers, intelligence and operations officers and NCOs. Behind these were more staff personnel, officers, NCOs and clerks and in the last rows the company and battery commanders and platoon leaders who had arrived early enough to get a seat. Standing, leaning against the windows and the back wall and against each other were the majority of lower ranking enlisted personnel and late arriving junior officers. Among these were several men from Company A including Jonnie ‘Pop’ Randalph, platoon sergeant of the 2d platoon, Lieutenants Frank De Barti and William Thomaston, platoon leaders of the 2d and 1st platoons, respectively, and Clayton ‘Whiteboy’ Janoff, a squad leader from the 1st platoon who’d only come to accompany Lt. Thomaston.

  Egan and Brooks found an open space at the center of the crowded rear section, stood side by side
in an informal parade rest and faced forward. “Hey,” Egan nudged Brooks, “can you believe this REMF mentality?” Brooks did not respond.

  “Thank you, Sir,” Sergeant Marquadt said insolently. The sergeant approached the podium with an extended chrome swagger. Behind the podium and indeed covering most of that wall of the building was a topographic map of northern I Corps. The map was fourteen feet wide, eight feet high. It was a composite of twenty-eight smaller topographic maps, each covering a grid of 27.5 x 27.5 kilometers. At the top the DMZ was depicted by two roughly parallel lines seven kilometers apart. The Laotian border was marked in red to the left. Jungles were in dark green, clear forests in light green, lowlands and swamps in white with light blue symbols for rice or marsh grass. The entire map had a brown under-hue from the thin topographic lines circling up to the mountain peaks and opening down the valleys, becoming denser as the terrain steepened. To the right was the Gulf of Tonkin in pale blue. Various areas were dotted with red triangles indicating hilltop firebases.

  The maps were of a scale of 1:50,000. Infantry units carried those sections in which they operated. Artillery units used the maps in their FDC (Fire Direction Control) to plot missions. At the base of each map, in the key printed in English and Vietnamese, were the disclaimers: DELINEATION OF INTERNAL ADMINISTRATIVE BOUNDARIES IS APPROXIMATE, and DELINEATION OF INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARIES MUST NOT BE CONSIDERED AUTHORITATIVE.

  “Gentlemen,” Sergeant First Class Emil Marquadt boomed, “the operational environment is a long occupied, extensively developed and heavily defended supply and logistic base, staging area and communications and transportation center. Resident forces include administrative, logistic, quartermaster and transportation units with organic security as well as some tactical units …” Aw, come on, Man, Egan thought, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “… Central to the landform of this operational area and determinant to the direction of attack is the Khe Ta Laou river valley which runs generally east-west.”

  Sergeant Marquadt swung his chrome swagger and slapped the map. He was a large heavy set man with a ruddy, slightly disfigured face.

  “Gentlemen, this valley is twelve air kilometers long. With the exception of this one major bow the river runs straight through the valley.” Marquadt traced his statement on the map with the tip of the swagger. “The headwaters of the river and the origin of the valley are in the rugged terrain here, to the east.” His voice rose and fell as he traced up and down the terrain. “The floor of the valley varies in width from 200 meters at its narrowest point to about two kilometers where it enters the Da Krong plain,” he boomed. “The Khe Ta Laou will be the single most useful navigational aid for aircraft flying under conditions of restricted visibility.”

  Marquadt belched into his closed left fist and glanced at the brigade commander sitting isolated in the first row. The commander gave no indication of recognizing Marquadt’s presence at all. The sergeant quickly continued. “There is a distinctive feature, a single, very high tree on a knoll where the river bows, which can be located visually from anywhere in or above the valley. It will serve as good navigational reference. You might want to note it on your maps at YD 148321.

  “The valley floor is a brushwood area consisting of grass, bushes, secondary scrubs and elephant grass. The brushwood is discontinuous and varies in density from extremely heavy to moderate. In areas, particularly in the eastern end of the valley, this vegetation forms a canopy covering the river.

  “The landform of the ground north of the Khe Ta Laou …”

  Egan yawned loudly. He stretched his arms, rolled his shoulders. He looked around. Mick, he said to himself, these are the assholes who control your life. Fuck em. Twenty-six en a wake-up.

  “Gentlemen,” Sergeant Marquadt bellowed, catching Egan’s attention again. He was looking toward the back of the briefing hall where the infantrymen were easily distinguishable from the staff and rear personnel by their worn rumpled uniforms. “I spoke personally with several LRRPs (he pronounced it “lurps”) and they asked that I convey to you …”

  “Sergeant,” the brigade commander interrupted gently without turning, “may we stick to the topography of the valley?”

  “Yes Sir. Excuse me, Sir.” Marquadt regained his composure and continued with his prepared remarks. “The north wall is covered with single-and double-canopy jungle. The single-canopy forest averages twenty meters in height with scattered …”

  I wonder what he was going to say, Egan thought. Egan looked at Brooks and he could see the L-T was also distracted.

  “… at the western end of the valley, here, there is a thumb of Laotian territory protruding into the Republic of Vietnam. Highway 616, a major artery of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, runs up this peninsula and connects with supply routes in the hills near Lang Kerie, here, at YD 020295. From this junction …”

  Why’d the Old Fox cut the dude off, Egan asked himself. Fucken typical.

  “… Gentlemen, these are the highest mountains in I Corps. It will be rough out there …”

  That’s what he wanted to say, Egan said to himself.

  “… Or you can look east down the Rach My Chanh across to the Sông Ô Lau. Looking east you will be able to count eleven ridges, each lower than the one closer to you. Eleven ridges with the shadows of twelve valleys reaching east to Hue. Gentlemen,” the voice boomed to the back of the room again, “from this perspective, you are standing on the 12th and highest ridge, with your back to the 13th valley.”

  “What the fuck’s this guy saying?” Egan’s whisper exploded.

  Brooks attempted to quiet him with a stern disapproving glance. “L-T, what the fuck did you bring me here for?” Egan snarled through clenched teeth. “I ken read a fuckin map. I don’t need this fucker tellin me the fuckin valley runs east ta west.”

  “Hush up, Danny.”

  “Jesus H. Christ.”

  “Sshhh.”

  “… There is a paucity of natural helicopter landing zones in the operational area,” Marquadt continued.

  “What’s that mean, L-T?”

  “Scarcity. Means we’re going to have to cut them.”

  “… the few which do exist,” Marquadt said, “are usually one-or-two ship landing zones requiring hovering approaches and departures and are so obvious they will probably be defended or booby-trapped. It will be desirable and necessary to construct new landing zones. Insertion LZs for the airmobile combat assault will be constructed with USAF-delivered weapons at locations jointly selected by ground force and air mission commanders.

  “Gentlemen.” Marquadt closed his chrome swagger. “Thank you.”

  People shifted. A mumble rose in the hall. Brooks and Egan straightened, stretched their backs. Egan was pissed. Marquadt sat down. The young lieutenant introduced a nervous buck sergeant in heavily starched fatigues. The buck sergeant was from the weather service.

  “Sir,” he nodded to the brigade commander, “today’s forecast for the coastal staging area and headquarters area is continued hot, humid and partially cloudy. Humidity: 60 to 90 percent. High Tuesday was 97 degrees; low 81 degrees. Today’s high was 99 degrees; low 80 degrees. Sunrise tomorrow is 0635 hours; sunset 1924 hours. Rainfall to 1500 hours today has been zero; for the month 1.42 inches. Valid period of this report is 1500 hours 11 August to 1500 hours 12 August. Screaming Eagles have been in Vietnam 1850 days.

  “The operational area is affected by winds, clouds, precipitation and ceilings of both the northeast and southwest monsoons during seasonal transition. Weather over the operational area: Cloudiness will occur over the Annamite Mountain Range. Ceilings will average 2500 to 4000 feet. The border areas will experience mostly scattered clouds …”

  Egan was going nuts. He felt trapped.

  “… if the primary winds come from the southeast scattered thunderstorms and showers with bases of 3000 to 4000 feet will develop over the operational area by mid-afternoon …”

  Egan looked at Brooks. Brooks seemed to be listening intently. Egan squeez
ed his hands into fists.

  “… fog, rain and clouds will characterize the early morning weather and may preclude employment of close tactical air support. Visibility in the afternoon will be sharply reduced by a combination of natural haze and flying into the sun.”

  Rufus Brooks heard only portions of the weather briefing although he made a conscious effort to pay attention. His thoughts distracted him. The buck sergeant sat down and the second lieutenant introduced Major Homer J. Walker, Third Brigade Intelligence Officer, to recount recent activity and to establish an intelligence basis for the operation.

  Major Walker seemed the absent-minded scientist who finds briefing his colleagues on his work a distraction from the work itself. He spoke laconically into the papers he held on the podium. “Ah … in the past several months … as I’m sure you’re all aware … enemy activity in our western AO has increased significantly. Let me, ah, recount, ah,” the major shuffled pages of notes, “ah, some of the activity. The NVA apparently is trying to muster an offensive up here in response to the recent Cambodian thrust. As you know that operation, for the American units involved, ah, ended 30 June. Screaming Eagles of the 3d of the 506th op-conned to the 4th Infantry Division participated in the areas around Prek Drang. Very successfully. Since then we have uncovered apparent build-ups both directly below the Demilitarized Zone and along the Laotian border. During the second and third weeks of July aircraft of the 2d of the 17th engaged an estimated 400 new enemy soldiers around Khe Sanh killing, ah,” the major fumbled in the pages again, “209 of them. Elements of the 3d of the 187th discovered a mass grave on 25 July by Ba Da at YD 295315. They observed numerous bodies but stopped the search and did not obtain a definitive body count because of the smell.

  “Activity during the first eleven days of August has increased significantly along a frontal corridor from Firebases Airborne and Goodman in the south up through Maureen, Ripcord, O’Reilly, Jerome and Barnett. On 1 August, the 2d of the 17th killed ten enemy south of Firebase Jerome. Three kilometers north of Goodman the 3rd ARVN Regiment engaged an estimated …”