My Vietnam Year
By Henry Hines
()
About this ebook
What possessed this nineteen year-old to volunteer (or to accept being drafted like so many others) for a distant war in a totally unknown culture? I’ve spent decades pondering my actions. I tramped through I-Corps, the military area bordering North Vietnam, with 20 fellow infantry platoon members. Much happened to our small unit during that year. While writing this book I was amazed at how my perceptions from that time had changed. So it was a healthy trip for me. Join me in the jungles with my small band. I’ll try to explain what it was like.
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My Vietnam Year - Henry Hines
Dedication
To my mother: Geraldine (Gypsy) Stuart Forbes-Robertson Hines; a tough, old, right wing, autocratic Aussie who told a friend that she’d only cried twice in her life; when I left for the Army and when I returned.
To my kids, Nick and Bobi: LEOMTAWCES.
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
My Vietnam Year
My Story
My 1936 Ford
High School Debate
Change of Plans
Boot Camp
Execute Orders as Given
Gas
Shots
Moon Landing
Escape and Evasion
Shake n’ Bake
Armored Personnel Carriers
Grenade Training
Church Services
Ranger School Training
Slide for Life
Warrant Officers (WO)
Alligators
Oreos
Locals
Fungus Among Us
My Last Patrol
End of Ranger School
The Inevitable Trip to Southeast Asia
Ranger Classmates
Area of Operation
Mountain Leeches
Marine Snipers
Mountains
Agent Orange
Female Stowaway
M-16
My Hated M-16
Separate AOs
Officers, Here and Gone
Kit Carson Scouts
Booby Traps
Platoon Leaders
Passion
50 Cal.
The Cook
Los Banos
NVA Activity
Charlie in the Perimeter
New AOs
Defense Targets
Radios
Illumination Rounds
Our Booby Traps
Artillery Support
Helicopters
Coastal Villages
Red Man
Favorite Race Story
Obedience
Guilliams
Doc Pease
Blaylock
I don’t gamble
Sleep Walking
Cycilo Girls
Railroad Bridge Repair
Chasing No One
1st Squad Pot Heads
Snakes
Poor Leadership
Friendly Fire
New Lt.
Ambushes
Ambush Success
Aging Vets
Our Villages
French Villas
Dublin
Night Scope
Gas Masks
.45 Cal. Pistols
LAWs
Monsoon Season
Hooch
Monsoon Village Time
Scout Dog
Seasonal Supplies
Buffalo
Viet Cong Camp
Grenade Fishing
Fisherman’s Boat
Tru Lu
Ho Chi Minh
MPC
Vietnamese Cuisine
Regional Forces
Morale Mid-Tour
R&R (Rest and Relaxation)
Bob Hope
Aid Station Visit
Eagle Beach
New Territory
Morale
Luscious Johnson
Hearing
McNamara’s Gizmos
Mortars 101
Operation Lam Son 719
Our Push North
NVA Regiment Ambush
First Casualties
The Visit
Heroes
Clearing Route 9
ARVN Base Khe Gio
Failing Operation
Strange Orders
Deadly Mortars
Sniper
Hmong Women
Tour Ends
Home
Reflections…
The Long Road Back
You are Already Dead II
Vets
Photos and Extra Items
Hmong Crossbow
Emergency Room Visit 9-15
Vietnamese Men Holding Hands
22
Left Eye of God
About The Author
My Vietnam Year
This all started with an interview by Dr. Steve Feimer for his University of South Dakota, Vietnam Veterans Project. Somehow I ended up on his list of local vets. Answering his questions stirred up memories I hadn’t visited in decades.
I’m writing this first for myself; kind of a cataloging of experiences. I was amazed how some of these past memories appear to me now. This ‘story’ unexpectedly became a personal life review. Perspective wise, I needed this.
My kids are next; as I’ve related some, but not all of these stories and we’ve become especially close. I might not get another opportunity to share these thoughts with them.
And then, welcome to you, who has somehow bumped into this tale. I’m not familiar with the online stories world and how you arrived here. (Amazing how many folks aren’t familiar with the term ‘Luddite’) Regardless, come along for the ride.
A very dear, ‘physically’ published friend, counseled me recently when I mentioned this project, Don’t expect to make money with this!
I told her that if 5 people downloaded it, I would consider it a smashing success.
My Story
Looking back, I’m seeing these stories through older and, hopefully, wiser eyes.
ON PATROL
../Images/001-LoadedInThefield.jpgI never lost a man in my platoon or hurt civilians that I am aware of. I was spared those truly ugly, graphic events. I am grateful. I sleep at night.
So, this story is certainly no gory shoot fest
. Some of us sneaked in and out of this travesty fairly unscathed. Tens of thousands of GI’s never came home and millions of Vietnamese perished while their small country was ravaged. I’ve never lost my belief in a protective bubble that surrounded our small unit. That bubble was obviously unable to encompass the entire conflict.
This is my experience during a year in 1970-71 in this multi decade conflict. It also covers just a small geographic area in this vastly diverse region. My basic operating unit was an infantry platoon of 20 US soldiers from multiple US backgrounds operating in the hills and coastal villages of I Corp, the dividing line between North and South Vietnam.
I’ve come to believe that all men, at some moment in their life, will confront their dark side, privately or with group identification, through anger, fear, race, sex, politics, religion or country. It’s in our genes. This was my moment.
War hangs a unique, primal picture in a veteran’s memories. Occasionally, you will pass down that hallway. In that picture frame, youthful you stares back. In this conflict, whether a volunteer or whether you consider yourself coerced; whatever your particular conflict ‘job’; let’s be honest; it’s a killer’s image. This brief segment in your life will forever flavor your perceptions in all that follows. Who stares back now?
After graduation from a Sioux Falls High School, this 1969 Graduate used a special program, ‘Volunteer for the Draft’, to join the Army for just two years rather than enlisting, which required a minimum three year commitment. His options were ‘cook’ or ‘infantry’. He made the recruiter’s day by asking for the infantry. He knew he would be going to Vietnam and approached his service wanting to do his duty to ‘save the free people of South Vietnam from the Commie hoard of the North’.
– USD Veteran’s Book excerpt
Bear with me. I was originally asked about my wartime experiences by my friend, Dr. Steve Feimer, a USD history professor. The questions asked covered the day I arrived on foreign soil to the day I left. That interview started a cascade of images from those youthful years that I just couldn’t squeeze into a neat folder. Quite literally, paper notes I’d write started piling up, so I’ve added some extra memories on both ends.
There are several hundred thousand personal Viet Nam stories from both sides. This is mine.
My family moved to South Dakota when I was five. Dad was selling steel to contractors building the Corp of Engineers’ hydroelectric dams along the Missouri River in the1950’s. Sioux Falls, SD moved us closer to these massive projects. My folks met at Benson High School in Omaha. Dad remembers this recently arrived Aussie girl staring out the classroom window at her first snow. Her father, Henry Forbes Robertson, had died during WWII. He’d managed a palm oil plantation for Lever Brothers in the Solomon Islands, making him an ideal coast watcher. He radioed Japanese ship movements to US naval forces. Both grandmother and mother maintained for years that he’d struggled hand to hand with ‘Japs’ to his demise. Our recent ancestral history search indicates instead; a post service aortic aneurism while managing a Sydney restaurant. So, the big D
(Divorce) led to grandmother, flamboyant and eccentric, snagging an Iowa, farm boy Yank; an aid to General Douglas McArthur’s Brisbane staff.
Many young, Australian men died in service to their Mother England. Aussie great grandfather ran an artificial limb factory. It was undoubtedly quite busy post WWI. Impossible Obstacle, you say, old chap? Send in the Aussies!!
So there is military history on mother’s side, however, none on father’s.
My birth saved Dad from visiting Korea. Married and now with one child kept the draft at bay.
My uniformed career began with Cub Scouts. Dad was our Pack Master. He wore a Native American (‘Indian’, then) looking headdress (mother’s touch for the dramatic) for our monthly Pack Meetings. Of all the skits, games and songs, my only pack meeting recollection is Dolly S. opening her shirt and nursing her baby. Every little Cubby’s eye was locked on that wonderful, amazing site. Breasts actually existed under those Sears Catalog bra ads! Dolly’s were ample. I checked with little brother on the event. Yep, same memory. He remembered exactly where she was sitting almost 60 years ago. Dolly’s family was called Holy Rollers
, a derogatory label for any Pentecostals by the areas dominant, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist and the other white, Protestant sects, which included my Presbyterian family. Holy Roller
also created a vivid image for we wee ones. Would these people actually roll around on the floor at their church service?! It seemed taboo to ask. Dolly was my wonderful Den Mother. I didn’t connect my mother’s sudden den mother role enlistment with Dolly’s natural life approach until recently. Why now? Mother’s slipping upstairs and long held conservative, judgmental worldviews keep dramatically popping up. In mother’s eyes, Dolly would have qualified in Spades.
CUB SCOUT PACK. I’M ON FAR LEFT. BROTHER’S ON FAR RIGHT. DAD IS PACK MASTER.
../Images/002-CubScouts.jpgIn Boy Scouts, pubescence reigned. In my tent, on my first camp out, two older boys climbed into the same sleeping bag and proceeded to grunt and roll around. I just thought they were playing some game. Keith Perkins, my mentor neighbor, kept stopping by to check on me. I was flattered. Finally, he said, We put a snake in your sleeping bag.
Pulling the bag’s top down, revealed a bull snake curled on my warm chest. I calmly replied I never noticed it.
, (true) while pulling the bag back over the snake. He and his buddies looked baffled, but were soon off to terrorize other vulnerable newbie’s. (My brother and I had tamed
dozens of the local snake species; Garters, Bulls and an occasional Hog Nosed.) Perky
did get me later. I waited almost 2 hours for a Snipe to run by. I was mocked by both his and my mother and others when I returned ‘Snipeless’. I didn’t need to pass that experience on. My son asked What’s a Snipe?
Interested? Check out ‘Snipe Hunt’.
Now, in Scouts, I did bake a Goose Berry pie and I was once left with the wiggling tail of a Skink lizard. (What an amazing, evolved, survival tool!) We had one, SD, mid-winter campout. What the hell were we thinking?? Part of a three boy color guard for Dick’s campaign arrival at the Sioux Falls Airport, Pat Nixon walked over, patted me on the cheek and kissed me. You must be cold!
she offered motherly. She was correct. Summer uniform shorts and knee high socks weren’t adequate for that windy tarmac. We just thought the uniforms looked cool. That kiss was a more impressive comment decades ago. Dick lost to Kennedy but his chance to lead arrived during this story.
If you could repeat a basic study pattern and accumulate 21 Merit Badges, symbols of varying extra, woods lore knowledge, you became an Eagle Scout. It proved you had withstood the hormonal cries of anarchy and debauchery. Parents loved this. The Protestant version of a Bar Mitzvah is celebrated; a ‘Congratulations’ white cake and Kool Aid are served, some old man corners you to sell Life Insurance and your picture is in the local Argus Leader paper, awards covering your chest.
A dapper High School dresser; sometimes my shirt buttoning wasn’t correct. Or, You’re wearing different colored socks!
(Usually brown and black; the same color on groggy, dark, winter mornings.) You know, I have another pair just like these at home!
was my best, embarrassed response. (This still happens occasionally.) Spray painting my Dark Green Wingtips black helped match them to more wardrobe choices. Every local band played Louie, Louie
. The only two schoolboy colognes: English Leather (brother Mike) and Jade East (me). How we both stank!
High school’s major interest was fixing up my old car. Besides the amazing personal freedom provided, it also allowed occasional parking in the country for a smoochfest with a couple of nice gals. Interest wise, the car trumped the girls. Sorry girls.
My 1936 Ford
MY 1936 FORD. ALMOST THE WHOLE FAMILY INCLUDED.
../Images/003-36ford1968.jpgAh, my first car, a 1936 Ford. I paid $115 for it in Valley Springs, a few miles east of Sioux Falls. Mother rode shotgun for my 75 mph trial run down rural, 26th street near our home. The wooden floorboards were missing below our feet which added to the adventure. It had a ‘53 Ford flathead V8 with NO motor mounts. The V8 was just bolted to the transmission and laying in the frame. What was that ticking sound on acceleration? The engine’s torque moved the V8 forward and the fan blades just barely touched the radiator. The blades left a circle on the cooling ‘fins’ but didn’t cut into the cooling ‘tubes’.
The AM radio was a 4 tube, power hungry box under the dash above the steering column. Its operating cables ran up to the dash board control knobs. The significance here is that parking
required a spot on a hill, as the tube radio would drain the 6 volt battery. Ready to go? Release the brake, get a good downhill roll going and pop the clutch to start. I suspect I missed another car parking downhill from us in a passionate moment. I flipped on the lights just in time to avoid rear ending them. Whew!
My genuine Hollywood Wolf Whistle operated on engine vacuum, allowing a variety of ‘Calls of the Wild’. (Don’t waste your money on electric versions.)The wipers were also vacuum-operated. In a heavy rain, occasionally letting up on the gas allowed the wipers to clear a quick view of the road. All fixed up, I sold it for $300 when I left for Basic Training. My thinking; I was off to become a man and needed to part with my toys. Some regrets but I have the memories parked in storage. Those short jeans in the photo tell me my hormones had finally kicked in.
High School Debate
Our 1969 High School debate topic was, Resolved: That the United States should Establish a System of Compulsory Service by all Citizens.
Basically, this meant drafting every young American for a period of some kind of service. Options like the Peace Corps or infrastructure work, like the 1930’s WPA (Works Project Administration) and CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), were included but the Vietnam War was always the elephant in the room. We debaters (Master Baters as we called ourselves) quoted McNamara, Johnson, Rush, Westmoreland