- "Yammer,
yammer, yammer!" Voices on the "front porch," the "stoop," or whatever
you want to call it. A knock on the door. I am wide awake, M-16 in hand.
A voice, "Dai Uy St. Clair!" It is the battalion S-3. I open the door,
with the M-16 pointed out. He says there is an operation going on, and
the DTOC has been set up at the Soc Trang Air Field, and Major Mong is
on his way out there. I tell him I'll be along shortly, and get dressed.
Before I can get my boots on, Sergeants Prumven, my driver; and Phong, my interperter, are there with the jeep. We dash out to the air field, five klicks out of town. Eerie, that, driving in the dark.
The DTOC was set up in a large general purpose tent, and I spot the division senior advisor and report in. Major Mong is talking to the Div Commander, a new one, General Ngi. There is nothing to do, so we go outside to lean against a small building and kinda doze the rest of the night away.
In the song, "Dawn comes up like thunder across the bay!" Not here! Dawn kinda oozes out of the darkness, and the clouds are thick, and it is accompanied with rain like a cow pissing on a flat rock. Ponchos are no good, and I am wearing rain pants and jacket made out of a poncho, with a orange tiger skin lining. Hell, not even 0600, and I am sweating like a pig inside my water proof clothing.
Mong, Phong and I, go to the Tigers Mess Hall for breakfast. (Soc Trang Tigers, 221st AHC, my favorite mode of transportation { :) }. They sure eat better than we do in the worse mess hall in the military in the world, anywhere, anytime. Shit! I shoulda come out here to eat before flying my road recons. Well, maybe next time, although I pray there isn't going to be a next time. I don't really believe that, we are hearing that engineer captains are going to the world just to get a breather before coming back!
The rain slackens, and it is one of those typical shitty days that are hard to describe. Damp - no, wet, muggy, hot, heavy air, like a limp damp washrag, if you know what I mean. The situation is that a couple of our regiments have a suspected battalion of VC boxed in on three sides, and the 33rd Regiment is squatting across the runway by the choppers, which are all ready, blades turning slowly. But, the weather is on the VC's side.
Lunch time comes and go, but nobody eats. We are all antzy, anxious for something to happen, but Mother Nature is pissing on us again. Finally, about 1400, the rain stops, and there is a visable stir in the DTOC. I go in to ease drop, because I can't stand not knowing what is going on. The Air Force weatherman has just told us that there is a window of two hours of good weather in the area, about 15 minutes flying time away, and the Division Senior Advisor is telling General Ngi it is time to load up and go. That we can load the slicks, fly to the operation, land, unload the troops, and get the slicks out and back to home base well within the two hour window. General Ngi won't budge. Bad weather he says. Number 10 weather, he says. No go. Not now!
Our division senior advisor, an infantry colonel (Wallace, I think) is reduced to begging, and tears of frustration are flowing down his face. We don't go! (We, meaning our division's infantry regiment. There really is nothing for the engineers to do on this one.)
1700 hours, and the weather is monsooning again, and BG Ngi calls off the operation. Colonel Wallace is besides himself, and stops out of the DTOC, muttering something about a fucking way to win a war. Our once proud division, the scourge of the VC during 1966, 1967 and the first nine months of 1968, is sitting on its collective ass, letting a battalion of VC slip away.
I didn't know it at the time, but that is the last division operation we are (almost) involved in during my tour. Major Mong and I go back to my hooch at the MACV Compound, and leaving our gear and weapons, go to the bar, and sit, him drinking that damn cognac and soda, and me, scotch, for a couple of hours. He is in a talkative mood, and I many sit and grunt as he goes on and on. How his father fought the Viet Minh, how he has known nothing but war, being born just before the Japanese Occupation in WWII. How he went to the States a few years ago to the US Army Engineer School Engineer Officers Basic Course; and how he saw snow for the first time. He doesn't mention family, and I never did learn whether he had wife or kids. But, he did live in the largest house on his compound, and there was always a women whom I never was introduced to, and I never really was interested in enough to ask about.
Finally, he uses the phone to call for his S-3, and the three of us go downtown to the Chinese Restaurant for dinner. Mong and I sitting with our backs to the wall, two soldiers wondering what the fuck is going on now, and what the future will bring.
76 and a wake up! I can't wait! (Think I gave a wrong figure a week ago or so.)
