I, Soldier - part 4

Anyway, back to the Central Highlands. The first thing Binh taught me was how to find and disarm Viet Cong booby traps. A VC defector taught him that. So those were my first combat missions so to say: hours of crawling forward slowly and looking for trip wires, probing for mines, and avoiding punji traps. A punji trap was a set of sharp sticks facing up in a small then covered with something flimsy and some camouflage. If you stepped on top of one, you’d fall through and get impaled. The VC made little signals on the ground with sticks and leaves as warnings to themselves about the traps and mines they placed. I had to learn those as well. It was sort of like learning hieroglyphics. I also learned how to look for tunnel entrances. The key was to look for traces of smoke. The VC slept and cooked underground when they were out in the jungle. Anywhere it was easy to dig, there was a tunnel system and there were VC tunnel networks just outside almost every city and town in South Vietnam.

It’s hard to describe how frightening it is to crawl through a VC tunnel by yourself. After I spotted one nearby from the smoke, I waited a week until I didn’t see any more smoke and felt confident all the VC had left the tunnel. The entrance was hidden under a trap door that was marked with a nearby sign made from sticks and rocks. Anyone who didn’t know what the sign looked like would not have noticed it. The tunnels are made just big enough for the VC, who are smaller than American GIs on average. It’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic. All I took with me was Ka-Bar knife, a Colt .45, and an Army red lens flashlight, the kind that has a pistol grip. To keep from getting snagged, I was shirtless with just jungle boots and fatigue pants. There were enough pockets to hold anything important I found. That Ka-Bar would later save my life. Guns run out of ammo, but knives never run out of stab.

As for footwear, I would later switch to VC rubber sandals made from old tires. They’re comfortable, durable, and help keep your feet dry and healthy. Not sure why so many GIs waded through rice paddies with socks and leather boots. It’s recipe for trench foot, which is painful and takes days heal. Trust me, I know. Getting it once as a kid was enough for me. Avoiding malaria is also important when living in the jungle. Quinine helps, but it’s best not to get bitten by a mosquito in the first place. I slept under a chemically treated mosquito net. The Army issued me a net and a chemical tablet. I soaked the net in a bucket, added the tablet, stirred the water to dissolve the tablet, and then let the net soak for a while. That net worked great. I missed it when I forced to go without it, so I decided to chemically treat my fatigues the same way if there was a good chance I’d be stuck out it the open at night.

I knew they would notice if I took something important or took too many things or left the place looked like it had been searched. I also didn’t know when they’d be coming back. I decided I would spend no more than an hour in the tunnels and would memorize tidbits from important documents rather than take them. I found a kitchen, a basic field hospital, sleeping quarters, an armory, and what must have been the local VC commander’s private office. It felt good to hit the jackpot. Another stroke of good luck was that none of his papers were locked up, as he figured no enemy would ever be in the tunnel complex. Very carefully, I opened all the drawers and folders, quickly skimmed all the papers, jotted some notes down in my notebook, and put them all back just the way I found them. I made a note to myself to request a spy camera so I could photograph documents the next time I explored another tunnel network.

Back at the outpost, I typed up a report of my findings, which included the local commander’s name, his units and their strength, and their activities. I radioed for a chopper to pick me up so I could present my report in person to my commander. Before that, I discussed my findings with Binh and revised the report based on his advice. I decided that Binh should come with me to present the report. It would lend credibility to me and build rapport with Binh. At the time, Binh knew no English, so I taught him some greetings and explained that this was the key to getting American help to the fighters in his village. Americans unfortunately tend judge foreigners by how well they speak English, which often means they do all their business with the worst sorts of people and suffer for it as a result. To that end, I tried to teach everyone at the outpost a little English. We also made a welcome sign in English in case any American visitors showed up. Little things like that make a good first impression.

My commander, Colonel Samuel Truman, was glad to see me. We would come to know each other very well over the next three years. Truman was in charge of about a dozen different special forces teams in the area. A few others, like me, worked alone but were under his command. Truman had fought in Burma and other parts of southeast Asia during WW2 with General Joe “Vinegar” Stillwell. Stillwell’s soldiers were called Chindits, because they fought in the so-called China-Burma-India-Theatre, or CHINDIT for short. It’s sort of like the way we have CENTCOM today. Like me, Truman had a flair for foreign languages. He learned Burmese during the war and spent most his time gathering intelligence from them. He studied French before the war and since French was widely spoken in Indochina at the time, it was easy for him to communicate with other locals, including some French officers who stayed behind. In fact, the countries of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam were all called French Indochina at the time. Indochina included all the countries between India and China: Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.