Dwight Davis  The First Hump

Arriving in the boonies gave me an insight into what was to come.  The helicopter landed in a grassy area surrounded by forest and I got out.  The troops had surrounded the “Landing Zone" (LZ) for security.  I then helped the helicopter crew unload the supplies for my company which included several cases of C-Rats, mail, replacement fatigues, and Supplementary Ration Packs.  A Supplementary Ration Pack is a cardboard box about three feet by two feet by eight inches in size in which were 10 cartons of cigarettes, some chewing tobacco, some candy, several tablets of writing paper and ball point pens, and some replacement boot laces.  Each platoon got one of these about once a week.  Other supplies were delivered by helicopter every three days, weather permitting.  Every guy in the platoon got three days of C-Rats (9 meals – there were only 12 kinds of C-Rats) and a change of fatigues.  I was to learn later that the change of fatigues was delivered sporadically.  We once went almost a month before we got a change of clothes and we never carried any spare clothes with us except for a jungle sweater or sweatshirt and at least one pair of extra socks. 

            When a Supplementary Ration Pack was delivered the platoon sergeant doled out the smokes and other contents as equitably as possible.  Some guys were picky about what they smoked so they got less than others who were not so picky.  I took whatever smokes I could get because I knew that we might miss a Supplementary Ration Pack delivery.  The resupply birds also took mail from the troops which got sent to the States upon their return to the division base camp.  The good news was that we did not have to pay for postage; one of the few benefits of being in a combat zone.

When we left the LZ, we went into the forest a short way and stopped to divvy up the supplies.  There I was introduced to my company commander and platoon leader.  The platoon leader’s name was Mel Salazar, a Second Lieutenant who was from New Mexico.  He was 20 years old but looked about 16.  In approximately two months he would be killed, still looking very young and doing something brave and stupid.  I also met the other NCOs in the company including one who would become a very good friend, Staff Sergeant George Keener.  Keener had studied forestry in college in Colorado, even though he was from Pennsylvania, and also had the distinction of having been shot in the leg.  His Dad and he came on some poachers on their land and the poachers starting shooting.  Keener also had the distinction of having volunteered for the Infantry.   He had some other staff MOS (Military Occupation Specialty); however, he decided that it was boring so he volunteered for the action.  The Infantry MOS was 11-B also known as 11-Bravo or 11-Bush.  Our specific MOS was 11-B40 because we were NCOs.  The regular grunts were 11-B10. 

            Almost all the NCOs in the field were graduates of the NCOC I had gone to.  The regular Army referred to us as  “Instant NCOs” or  “Shake and Bakes” because we made our stripes in 90 days followed by 90 days of on the job training (OJT), then a ticket straight to Vietnam, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.  Almost all Shake and Bake NCOs were draftees.  I was to read a few years later that by the close of 1969, 80 percent of all combat troops in Vietnam were draftees.  This was truly a citizen soldier war.

            Because I was a staff sergeant E-6, I was assigned as the second platoon’s platoon sergeant which is an interesting sidelight on the Vietnam War after about 1968.  A platoon sergeant should be a Sergeant First Class, an E-7.  One did not make this rank until he had been in the Army 8-10 years.  In fact, most guys did not make staff sergeant E-6 until they had been in the Army 6-8 years.  While I was in Vietnam the largest number of career or “Lifer” NCOs I ever saw in the field were three in my whole battalion which amounted to approximately 500 men.  Almost all squad leaders and platoon sergeants were graduates of the Noncommissioned Officer Course (NCOC) and were generally referred to as Shake and Bakes, and almost all of them were draftees.  Appointing a Staff Sergeant E-6 as Platoon Sergeant was the result of being grossly undermanned.  I also had a first sergeant who was a Sergeant First Class, E-7, rather than an actual First Sergeant, E-8.  I also had two different company commanders who were First Lieutenants even though that is a Captain's job. 

            I was not in the Army long enough to get a very good understanding of the promotion system.  I had the impression; however, that getting promoted was fairly difficult, at least for enlisted guys.  I met many guys who had been in the Army 10-12 years who were only Staff Sergeant E-6 and I met some others who had been in the Army longer than that who were only Buck Sergeant E-5.  Of course, most of these guys had been busted in grade for some reason.  It was amazingly easy for an enlisted guy to receive "non judicial punishment" which resulted in loss of rank and reduction in pay.  A non-judicial punishment meant that it did not involve a court martial but was, instead, administered by a local commander, generally a company commander.  I am unaware of any officer who was reduced in rank or received a loss of pay.  It seemed to me that you had to be a fairly tough guy to last in the Army for a long time as an enlisted man.  For awhile there was a Sergeant First Class, E-7, in another platoon who illustrated my point.  This guy had a Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB) with two stars which meant he fought in three wars; WWII, Korea and Vietnam.  He was from the Philippines; however, he was an American citizen and he really knew how to soldier.  I watched him field strip an M-60 machine gun in about 30 seconds and then reassemble it in about one minute with a blindfold on.  I was amazed that he had been in the Army for almost 30 years and never risen above the rank of Sergeant First Class. 

            After we had divided the supplies that came with me to the boonies, I met the members of my platoon.  Unfortunately, I cannot remember all of their names.  There was a Specialist 4^th Class guy named Jerry Kline from Ohio who was called Snake.  He was a very good infantry soldier, and often walked point; however, he was always trying to get out of the field.  In the World he was a motorcycle gang member.  There was another guy, a Private; called Bink who was a Black guy from Delaware whose father was a Highway Patrol trooper.  Bink was funny; however, he was low on courage. Another guy was Private Mark Roe.  He was from California and had worked for the largest utility company there before he got drafted.   For a while, he kept a detailed journal of his experiences in Vietnam; however, he eventually quit taking notes after the drudgery set in. 

            There was a Cajun guy, Private Melvin Guidry, from Louisiana.  He was the real deal.  Later he would meet another Cajun guy back in the rear and they would talk to each other using a variety of basterdized French and expressions unique to the swamps of Louisiana.  It turned out Melvin had done something very stupid with regard to his Mom.  He had told her he was stationed as a company clerk in Thailand so she would not worry about him.  The second platoon leader I had, Lt. Glenn Troester, tried to convince Melvin that he should be honest with his Mom because, if he got hit, it would come as a real shock to her.  I don't know if he ever told his mom he was a grunt in Vietnam.  I do know that he got some packages from his Mom that he could not hump in the boonies so he had to destroy them including one with a relatively expensive birthday gift. 

There was a handsome young Black guy whose name I remember but will not mention here for obvious reasons.  He had a sullen personality and generally felt like he had been dealt a bad hand in life.  He wanted desperately to get out of the field and eventually did that by purposely wounding himself in the foot with his M-16 in March, 1970.  Unfortunately, he had apparently not paid attention in training when they explained the ballistics of the M-16.  It is a high velocity weapon which causes the bullet to tumble in flight.  The round is 5.56 millimeter, not much bigger than a 22 caliber; however, due to the velocity and tumbling action, when it goes in it makes a very small hole about the size of a dime; however, when it comes out the hole is much bigger, at least the size of a fifty cent piece.  I suspect he is crippled for the rest of his life. 

            Another guy named Specialist 4th Class Robert (Bob) Stevens, was a handsome muscular guy who was one of the few guys in the unit who had actually enlisted in the Army rather than being drafted.  He would later assist me in probably my only act of bravery in Vietnam.

One of the radio telephone operators (RTOs) was a Hispanic guy from Chicago named Private Mario Flores.  I really got to like Mario because he was bright, funny and generally worked hard.  Mario later earned the distinction of having the best reaction to a “Dear John” letter in the platoon.  We used to gather around and have the guy who just got the Dear John letter read it to the platoon.  Then we would critique the letter.  Mario got one from his girl friend who was a high school student.  It basically said that she had met someone else so it was over.  At the end she said she hoped Mario would not do anything foolish when he got the letter.  His reaction was: “What does the bitch think I’m going to do, jump up and get hit, F**k her!”  I commented: “Mario, I believe you are going to do fine.”  Another funny thing about Mario is that he got mistaken for a Vietnamese a couple of times by some other GIs, probably because he had slightly brown skin and a very youthful face.   He was indignant:  “I ain’t no Dink, I am Mexican man!”  Dink is a derogatory term for Vietnamese who were also called Slopes or Gooks.  Referring to Vietnamese as Dinks was, of course, dehumanizing; however, it appears that all soldiers dehumanize the enemy, I suppose because it makes it easier to kill them.

            There were several other guys, a total of approximately 22, who I remember vaguely.  There was a big black guy named Jake from Memphis, Tennessee, who was a machine gunner and a very good man.  There was another Hispanic guy, Danny Calzada who was an outstanding soldier and mature beyond his years.  He came from a very small border town in Texas.  I learned several years later that Hispanics had the highest death rate in the Vietnam War.  In our platoon, two of the Hispanic guys made it home alive, Mario Flores and Danny Calzada and two of them did not, Lieutenant Mel Salazar and Private Juan Alberto Fret-Camacho.

            There were also several other Black guys, some of whom were outstanding soldiers.  Unfortunately, some of the others would prove to be problems later on.  One of the truly sad parts of the Vietnam War was the extraordinary racism there.  It was not very evident in the boonies where everyone depended on each other; however, in the rear, it was omnipresent.  Black guys hung out with Black guys and White guys hung out with White guys and both groups bad mouthed each other.  The Black guys, who everyone called “Brothers,” made bracelets and necklaces out of black boot laces and wore them proudly.  They also greeted each other with very elaborate hand shakes called “Daps”.  And, back in the division rear, there were many racially motivated assaults which I was to experience as well.

            A lesson I was to soon learn was that we never had what the military calls “Unit Integrity” in Vietnam.  Every month some guys left and others came in their place.   As a consequence, we never had a sense of unit that you would get if you had all worked together for awhile.  The first Army units sent to Vietnam came as whole divisions from the States and they had been together for a while before they  went to Vietnam.  I am certain that you get better unit performance when you were a team before you go into combat.

            My hootch mate (a hootch is any sort of residence or shelter, even temporary) that night and for several other nights was a young guy whose name I cannot remember.  He had arrived in country only a couple of weeks before me.  We made a hootch using a poncho to keep the rain off and shared the ground and guard duty together.  A couple of months later he was shot in the head by a machine gunner from another platoon who was cleaning his 45 Caliber Pistol.   The bozo removed the magazine; however, he had pulled back the hammer first and chambered a round.  Then he vaguely remembered that he should fire the weapon in the air afterward to ensure there was no round in it; however, he forgot to point it upward.  My friend went to Japan a couple of days later and we heard that he was paralyzed. 

One of the most interesting characters in my platoon was the medic whose name was Specialist 5th Class Joseph Bugnitz who was known as "Bugnuts" (I am not making this up).  He had been the medic in the battalion Recon Platoon and distinguished himself as a soldier there.  He turned out to be more of an infantryman than a medic, although he knew his business as a medic.  He was; however, more interested in killing VC and NVA than tending to GIs.   For reasons I cannot recall he was transferred to my platoon.  He taught me a lot about being a "Grunt" (infantryman) and he came the closest to “going native” of anyone I met in Vietnam.  He used to carry Vietnamese rations rather than C-Rats and after cooking and eating rice, he would carry rice in a plastic bag for a snack later.  He never wore a “steel pot” (helmet) that I can recall.  Instead he wore a “boonie cap” or a sweat band tied around his head.  He told me that he and a friend of his

in Recon Platoon once went into Pleiku and did not get back to base camp by curfew.  After a certain time you cannot just walk in or you would be shot.  After getting in this predicament, they broke into a Vietnamese peasant’s house in the city with their M-16s and all and demanded to stay the night.  According to Bugnuts, they got drunk with the man of the house and slept well. 

Within a few days, I got familiar with the routine of being in the boonies.  The gist of it was “humping” several miles a day with side trips looking for “signs,” then setting up in a night perimeter complete with claymore mines out and a “listening post (LP)”.  A listening post was four guys about 100 meters from the perimeter in the area, which seemed most likely to be the path of bad guys walking through the boonies.  Their job was to provide early warning to the platoon then beat feet back into the perimeter. 

For a while, we humped as a company, and then we broke up into platoons, which operated separately and did not come together until we were pulled out of the boonies.  I spent most of my 10 months in Vietnam humping the boonies with 17-25 men several kilometers from the rest of our company.  Apparently, this was part of a philosophy of “ Higher Higher” (brigade and division commanders).  The theory was that the VC operated mostly in small units and that we would have more luck finding them and getting into contact with them if we worked in small units.  It was probably a good idea.  From a day-to-day perspective, it amounted to long periods of exhausting boredom animated with high anxiety about possible danger from ambushes and snipers.  The term “humping” was appropriate because, due to the weight of your rucksack, you felt like a pack mule and it was hot as Hell all the time.

            The reference to LP reminds me of one of the best stories I heard in Vietnam.  It happened to the LP in the Recon Platoon about the same time I arrived in country.  About 0200 hrs. (2:00 a.m.) the guys in the perimeter heard screams from their LP so they grabbed their M-16s and rushed out to find out what was happening.  It turned out that an Orangutan was loping through the forest and stumbled on the LP.  In self-defense, the Orangutan kicked butt.  One guy got a broken arm and another got broken ribs.  If you can imagine an animal

that weighs approximately 165 pounds, which is much stronger than a man reach out with a long hairy arm and slam you into a tree you get the picture.  These guys were legends when they got back to Division base camp. 

It was always very hot.  Soon after one got to the boonies he, stopped wearing underwear and some guys actually wore no socks, which was a stupid idea.  No underwear was smart; however, because it helped reduce the incidence of rashes which were epidemic.  I had occasions where my entire back was covered with rashes due to the heat and sweat produced by humping a 60 or 70 pound rucksack all day long.  We were also subject to frequent “Jungle Rot” which was essentially a staff infection which could be started by very small cuts.  Because we were virtually always in a filthy condition and could rarely bathe, Jungle Rot was constant.  If it got bad enough you got “Medivaced” (Medical Evacuation) to the rear where they got you clean and tried to keep you dry so it would heal.  I bought a wide leather watch band when I was in Camp Enari which eventually caused Jungle Rot on my right wrist.  I got another regular width watch band later and starting wearing my watch on my left wrist, even though I am left handed, to solve the Jungle Rot problem.  I wear my watch on my left wrist to this day.