Incoming...The Men of the 70Th

By Jack Manick

It was a monumental year...the Mamas and Papas, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan and scores of world famous rock groups poured out their sweet music and wonderful lyrics to a generation of young people in search of themselves. In July, what was thought to be impossible became possible...Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon and for one shining moment in October, the NY Mets were no longer to be laughed at...they won the 1969 World Series! The year was 1969!

While earth shaking events were happening two hundred thousand miles from home or deep within the confines of Shea Stadium, men of every race, education and age group were fighting and dying 12,000 miles from home in Americas most unpopular war, Vietnam.

Today, 40 years later, writer, husband and Veteran Jack Manick reaches into his soul for one last time and completes his account of a young medic as he walked the jungles and forests of the Central Highlands of Vietnam in 1969.

While in the Bush, he carried a pack, a medical aid bag, two knives, three grenades, a rifle, pistol and an unbreakable commitment to save the lives of his fellow soldiers, even at the cost of his own.

The story of Jack Doc Manick and his fellow soldiers is one of survival...survival in a country laden with malaria, crawling with venomous snakes, scorpions, rats, giant centipedes and tigers and dominated by an enemy determined Not to lose the War!

Incoming...The Men of the 70th, invites you to lace up your jungle boots and take a walk with Jack through the jungles and the fields of dry grass in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in 1969.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481734066

Jack Manick

Jack Manick volunteered for military service in 1968. He served one Tour of Duty in Vietnam as a Combat Medic with the remainder of his three year obligation spread among hospital and Infantry Duty in Germany and the US. His military service was with the 1’st and 24th Infantry Divisions, the 70th Combat Engineers and USAREUR(US Army Europe). Jack’s most recent book “Incoming” details the life of a medic in Vietnam’s Central Highlands in 1969. It is a “walk in my boots” story as seen through the eyes of a 21 year old army medic...Jack. Jack is currently completing a new book entitled “Men of the 70’th”... a compendium of stories written by men from Jack’s Unit, the 70’th Combat Engineering Battalion. It is their stories written by them. This book is his effort to capture a small slice of history before it is lost when those who made it pass on. In addition, Jack has written seven specialty Art Books documenting the life and times of artists who have shaped the destiny of the 20’th and 21’st Century, names like Michael Godard, John Kelly, James Coleman, David Garibaldi and others. Along with Richard Enfantino from Enfantino Publishing, they published their first ever book, “Don’t Drink and Draw,” the life story and art work of world famous artist Michael Godard. It won the “Best Art Book in 2006” Award by the “USA Book News.” In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Jack wrote a Veterans Column titled “Insights of a Veteran,” for Comcast’s “IntheGardenState.com” local content site in New Jersey and was awarded a “Best Military Site” by Military.com for it. Jack believes that every day is a “Gift” from a higher power and that it should be lived with conviction and passion. Transforming what in the heart and soul to the “Printed Word” is Jack’s passion and he plans to continue with it into the future.

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© 2013 . All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/26/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-3405-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-3406-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013914275

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Contents

Dedications

The Enemy Below

Fort Dix

I’d Rather Die Than Take That Pill

Pee And Poop

Operation Foamie

I Shoulda Died

Nickel Bags

Things To Look For

Shake Me Wake Me

Donut Dollies

Physician Heal Thyself

Chow

Ambush In The Valley Of Death…

Ratus Ratus

Woof Woof

Stupid Kills

Mama San

The Ride Home

Fort Riley

Operation Reforger 2

Of Times Lost And Deeds Forgotten

We Made It

The Letter

Best Friends

Walk A Mile In Our Boots

Harold And David Kelley

Kenneth Feador

Ralph E. Alverson

John A. Moede

Larry Ray Harris

Van S. Shipe

Ted Day

Robert D. Stubblefield (Stubby)

James Denison

Henry Mobley

Denny Killday

Vincent Acosta

Joe King

Mike Gaskins

Wayne Henry

Harold Guy

Final Thoughts

To My Fellow Vietnam Vets

About The Author

About This Book

Thanks

Dedications

To the 58,000 plus brothers and sisters whose names are etched into the black granite wall in Washington D.C. , and to those who are still Missing in Action, I proudly dedicate this book.

Your lives are stories of deeds unfulfilled. We can only guess what your contributions to the future might have been…another Picasso…the first man to land on Mars…a cure for cancer…a father or mother to four children…we shall never know. We treasure and remember the time that we shared with you and we shall honor you by keeping your memories, your thoughts, your laughter and your tears alive within us always.

Until we meet again……………………

I also wish to dedicate this book to my wife Barbara, whose steadfast patience with losing me as a husband for these many years that I have been writing. Thank you.

Barbara, I Love you!

To my constant companion and dedicated friend Kimba…I morn your loss and pray that you are with the angels.

Chapter Zero

The Enemy Below

During the Vietnam War 7,013 UH-1 Helicopters served in country…of these 3,305, were destroyed…with a loss of life of 1,074 Huey pilots and 1,103 crew members.

Bright green tracers penetrated the Triple Canopy and followed us like a cat drawn to a fleeing mouse. Slowly at first, then in an ever-increasing staccato, the deadly steel-jacketed rounds zeroed in on us and began punching holes in the body of our Huey…tearing off golf ball sized chunks of cast aluminum from the superstructure and sending them shooting in all directions.

I wondered how much punishment our chopper could absorb before a vital component was hit, sending us plunging to our deaths in the jungle below. The time for negative thoughts however, had long since passed…my only concern was to pick up the wounded and keep them alive until we reached the safety of a medical facility.

Scanning the dense foliage below, I looked for signs of an unseen enemy…a glimmer of light from a fixed bayonet or possibly a gun barrel that’s bluing had long since worn off…but what I saw was nothing!

Our altitude was somewhat over 100 meters, well above the tops of the highest trees, yet somehow the bullets zeroed in on us with deadly accuracy. I felt like the unwilling target in a Fourth of July Shooting Gallery.

Below us, combat engineers worked feverously, clearing away jungle and trees in an effort to build an emergency Landing Zone (LZ) for us. In the span of a few minutes, they had set out C-4 Plastic Explosives and Det Cord against all trees and brush within the proposed new LZ. It was a frantic battle, a battle against time and an enemy determined to destroy us.

Fire in the hole…Fire in the hole rang out over the radio of our chopper just as the explosives below detonated in a massive, ear shattering, heart-pounding explosion. The result was an area, 50 meters in diameter and free of any objects that could cause a potential problem for a helicopter landing.

Somewhere below us, the 311 NVA Battalion was engaged in a desperate battle with Delta Company of the First Infantry Division and B Company of the 70th Combat Engineer Battalion. The engagement was a pointless and wasteful struggle of men and material for a plot of land that had zero value to either side save the price in lives that men were willing to pay for it.

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Waiting for us to get closer

Within seconds, the radio in our chopper sprang to life again…bring in the Medivac…I say again bring in the Medivac! The LZ is hot…I say again the LZ is hot. The hot referred not to the steamy 100 plus degree ambient temperature in the Landing Zone below us but rather the intensity of the direct incoming fire from the enemy. We had come into hot LZ’s before, but never one taking such intense fire.

Mike Echo Six Niner, be aware, we have control over less than 50 % of the area surrounding the LZ, the RTO (Radio Telephone Operator) on the ground barked out into his PRIC 25 Radio. His voice was clear and concise yet embedded within it was a sense of urgency and yes…even fear.

Shit, I quietly mumbled to myself, as a cold shiver ran down the length of my body. I never believed much in organized religion, but maybe this was a message to me from a higher power telling me that something bad was about to happen.

Our Huey suddenly started taking a terrible pounding from enemy fire. Red and Orange lights on the pilot’s console suddenly came to life, blinking on and off in rapid succession…warning us of impending disaster.

In an effort to minimize exposure to enemy fire, our pilot decided to approach the newly created LZ at a higher rate of speed than normal, then dive down into it at a steep angle and pull up just before hitting the ground. It was a risky move, but given the damage that we continued to sustain, a worthwhile one.

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NVA troops patiently waiting

I could feel us pick up air speed then suddenly the pilot pushed the nose over into a steep dive. I felt like I was on an E-Ticket Ride at Palisades Park. I could feel the G forces on my body pushing me back into the aluminum-framed seat. As we approached the ground below, we leveled out and went into a hover. Holy Shit, I thought, we made it!

Nearing the ground, I could see scores of men, wrapped in blood soaked bandages sitting, standing and laying around the outer edges of the LZ…but there were too many of them…far more than our chopper could hold.

Behind the wounded were the dead, covered in ponchos. The hurricane like force of our helicopter blades blew the ponchos off them, revealing a macabre like setting of mangled bodies, lost lives and unfulfilled hopes. Other choppers would later take out the dead, but for now, the living came first.

As the landing skids on our Huey hit the ground, the wounded were quickly brought to us…some on litters, some carried by comrades and others helped by soldiers on either side of them.

On the ground, chaos reigned! Men were running in every direction. The sound of gunfire was everywhere, along with explosions from enemy B-40 rockets, hand thrown grenades, LAW (light Antitank Weapon) Rockets and rounds from our M-79 grenade launchers. Within seconds, our Medivac was loaded with wounded and dying but as fate would have it, we were overloaded beyond our maximum lift capacity.

In other words, we could not take off!

I knew, as did the pilot and copilot that with such a staggering weight on board, we would never lift off the ground but first we had to try. Pulling slowly upwards on the Collective stick with his right hand, the pilot tried to coax the UH1-D upwards. The engines moaned and groaned and strained as they tried to overcome the laws of physics that controlled the situation, but it was not to be. We were pinned to the ground as surely as if we had been welded to fixed metal structures whose roots were buried deep within the Vietnamese earth.

The co-pilot turned to me and started yelling something into the intercom built into his helmet. I saw him mouth the words but heard nothing but static and the background noise of the engines through mine. Designed to drown out 90% of all external noise (specifically the engine noise) and allow us to communicate freely, the intercom system had suffered a catastrophic failure…probably a machine gun round from below.

In our down time at Camp Coryell, we practiced and practiced and practiced for catastrophic failure scenarios including loss of the intercom. Reading lips was one of them and it proved to be a basic skill that was difficult to master. We believed that the odds of ever having to use it were near zero. We were wrong!

Armed combat has a way of turning the unexpected into the expected and of separating the fool and coward from the everyday hero!

I pointed at my helmet and shook my head from side to side, indicating that I could not hear him.

Watching his lips, I could make out the words too much weight, then he held up four fingers indicating four men. We had to lighten our load by removing some of the wounded, but which ones.

The wounded were stuffed into our chopper like sardines in a can…many were critically wounded. The decision on who would stay and who would have to get off fell clearly on my shoulders…a responsibility I did not take lightly.

Seeing the co-pilots gesture, three of the wounded quickly slid off the skids of the chopper onto the ground and hobbled off into the battle that surrounded us. It was a selfless act of bravery…sacrificing themselves for their buddies. It was but one of many that I would witness this day.

We were, however, still one man heavy and since there was no time to re-evaluate the medical conditions of those onboard, I made a drastic decision…I would stay behind.

I yelled into the microphone in my helmet to the pilot and copilot that I would give up my spot, forgetting that the intercom was dead. The pilot pointed to his helmet and shook his head. I then pointed at myself and pointed at the ground indicating that I would stay.

Reluctantly, the pilot agreed and shook his head to indicate so. Good luck he mouthed. I would certainly need it!

I grabbed my aid bag, ammo, rifle and pack, jumped off and gave the pilot the thumbs up signal. I wondered if I had made the right decision. Only time and God could answer that question.

The engines revved up and this time Huey # NP667 started to lift off. Within seconds, my ride home cleared the treetops and disappeared. A big lump formed in my throat. I was now part of a major battle for yet another piece of worthless ground.

I quickly put on my gear and moved into the thick undergrowth just outside the LZ. Suddenly, from behind me, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Shit! I thought it was an NVA. I turned quickly in that direction with my finger now on the trigger of my M-2 Carbine and started applying pressure to it. What I saw was the smiling face of a sergeant from the 1st Infantry who immediately pushed the barrel of my rifle away from his chest.

No more choppers coming in here Doc, he said. It’s too hot. We’re pulling in both units to a tighter perimeter, then we’re gonna call in air strikes.

We’ve got wounded out here, he said, our medic is dead and we need your help.

OK, I yelled out, trying to make my voice heard over the deafening noise of gunfire, death and pain. We made a mad dash to an area about fifty yards away, where the wounded had been moved.

They were scattered everywhere…wrapped and covered with blood soaked bandages. Some grimaced and screamed in pain while others lay quiet and motionless as the forces of life slowly ebbed from their bodies and souls.

Amidst all of the horror, screaming and dying, my mind flipped from kill and survive mode, to Back Home Mode. It wasn’t a conscious choice on my part but suddenly I flashed back to the woods behind my grandparent’s house in Iselin New Jersey in 1964. There, I spent many wonderful hours playing with friends or just by myself. It was there that I caught my first fish in the creek that flowed from Colonia thru to Iselin. It was a beautiful and natural setting. Hardwood trees with large green leaves were everywhere. It would have made an ideal setting for a picnic with the family or a girlfriend.

Seconds later, I flashed back to the reality of warfare and realized that the trees that surrounded me might help save my life by slowing down any bullets with my name on them, transforming a kill shot into a wound shot…at least that’s what I hoped.

Six months earlier, I had volunteered to extend my Tour of Duty for an additional seven months. I wanted to fly Medivacs and I wanted to get out of the army early but most of all, I wanted a British Sports Car!

It was a decision made by a twenty two year old, obsessed with owning a Red or British Racing Green sports car. I calculated that even after sending most of my paycheck home during my first tour that I would be short on money to buy my Triumph.

I was determined to make enough extra money in Vietnam, possibly save a few more lives and return to civilian life with a brand new sports car…you know that low slung, five-speed sex machine that was a chick magnet.

As a medic onboard a chopper, I would earn flight pay in addition to combat and base pay. "What a deal, I thought…after only 18 months in Nam I would have enough money for my hot new car. Wow…Holy shit!

What could possibly go wrong, after all, I had conquered my fear of death during my first tour so this should be a cakewalk. In my haste to sign my extension papers, I neglected to factor in the NVA and VC into my Sports Car Acquisition Equation!

The enemy was everywhere; there was nowhere to go and no place to hide. The fighting was all around me. There was no front and no rear to this engagement. If I was a negative thinking guy, I might have classified this as being a Custer’s Last Stand Scenario.

The wounded were scattered everywhere. I went from man to man, looking at their wounds and how they were bandaged. At Fort Sam during medical training, we were required to make out a medical tag for each wounded man such that when that wounded soldier reached the next level of medical support, usually a field hospital, the nature of the wounds, the treatment and any drugs(morphine) given would be written out.

It was a brilliant idea, but in this combat situation, it was a waste of time. In the time it takes to make out a med card, a medic can be treating multiple patients. The decision to tag or not tag a man was the medic’s decision. I was never forced to make the distinction between seriously wounded and walking wounded; the wounded made that decision for me.

The walking wounded asked for nothing more than a bandage and a return to the fighting. We all recognized that in this engagement, every man played a critical role in determining how many of us would survive.

Based on the number of casualties that I saw and the ferocity of the firing around me, I knew that this might well be the last day on earth for many of us, including me.

The word passed quickly from man to man…we were completely surrounded!

I grouped the most seriously wounded together in one small opening in the undergrowth. Surrounding them were six guards, six guards to protect those who could no longer defend themselves.

The medical supplies that I carried with me as I left the chopper barely scratched the surface of what I needed to treat so many wounded.

A hand on my shoulder and a concerned look on the first sergeants face told me the situation was worsening. "Doc, they’re breaking through…defend yourself!!!!

I turned my attention from the wounded and reached down for my M-2 carbine. It was loaded with two 30 round magazines taped back to back and I had already chambered a round but had purposely left the safety on.

Crouching down into an almost kneeling position, I changed my concentration to the jungle that surrounded me. Small arms fire around me intensified and I knew that the enemy was close…probably only a few yards away, but I could see nothing beyond a few pitiful feet to my front. I could feel the adrenalin pumping thru my body and setting off heightened levels of sight and sound awareness in me. It did one other thing to me also; it pissed me off!

I raised my rifle in the direction of the heaviest small arms firing, switched off the safety and pushed the selective fire switch forward into the Auto position changing my semi-auto rifle into a machine gun. It was my intention to loose as much firepower at the enemy as soon as I could. It had to be a confirmed sighting, however, and not just sounds or the movement of bushes for it was my guess that the enemy troops and ours were now intermixed…a no win situation for either side.

Suddenly on my left, only a few yards away, a small group of NVA burst out of the undergrowth and headed straight for us.

I fired an extended burst of about ten rounds, dropping all but three of them. Ak47 rounds tore up the ground around me as the NVA came ever closer. More enemy to the right…I then fired a longer burst, maybe 15 rounds or so.

Suddenly, an explosion knocked me off my feet. I felt a burning sensation in my left leg and knew at once that I was hit. Looking down I saw that the color on my left pant leg had changed from green to a dull red as blood was oozing from my leg. There were a couple of small punctures in my ripstop nylon pants just above the knee. I saw no other evidence of a wound, so I removed my survival knife and ripped open the pant leg just above the wound just to be sure that there wasn’t a more severe wound that I had missed. There wasn’t!

I reached up to the first aid pack that was attached to my web harness, ripped it open and placed the bandage over the oozing blood. Then I tied it tightly to my leg. I was good to go.

Pulling the now empty 30 round magazine from the receiver housing in my weapon, I reversed it and loaded its sister 30 round magazine and then waited. There was no use in looking for the enemy; they knew exactly where we were.

Seconds later, I felt another hand on my shoulder. It was the First Sergeant. Hold off any fire doc, 3rd platoon is coming up to reinforce the center. Stay here and shoot only confirmed targets. Good job on those gooks, Doc!

With that, the First Sergeant disappeared into the undergrowth. The NVA never again penetrated our perimeter. The only ones that I saw for the remainder of the day were those dead and those dying.

For the wounded NVA, I could do nothing. My medical supplies had long since been exhausted; besides, I had enough difficulty trying to keep my own men alive.

I left the wounded and dying NVA to the care of a higher power!

Just when I thought the tempo of fighting was on the ebb, a B-40 exploded close by and knocked me to my knees. Microseconds later, I flashed back to January 1968 and the day before my induction into the army.

Chapter One

Fort Dix

My military career began at Fort Dix in New Jersey’s Cumberland County. At the time, it was one of the largest basic training facilities in the country. For me however, it was the greatest challenge of my life.

The Reception Station

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One of the Barracks in the Reception Station

If ever there was a need for a good night’s sleep, this was it, but it was not to be, for my sleep patterns were sporadic at best…perhaps a few minutes every hour, but not more. The greater the effort I put into trying to sleep the less the return. Trying to force an already tired body into sleep was proving frustrating and fruitless. The more I pushed, the more it resisted.

My mind was operating at near supersonic speed. Thoughts, sights and sounds flashed past my senses in parade ground like fashion. All that I could think of was what the next three years would be like. Soon, I would be asked to take an oath to protect the United States against all enemies both foreign and domestic. I had never committed to defending anything with my life.

At age 21, I never thought much about death. It was something that happened to old people. As for the soldiers dying in Vietnam, well, that could be avoided simply by changing the channel on the TV. Quite soon, however, the meaning of death would hit me face on, full force, when I saw my first dead NVA Soldier…close up!

My generation grew up in the mid 1950’s, watching TV Series like Victory at Sea or movies like The Longest Day, Objective Burma, 30 seconds over Tokyo or Sands of Iwo Jima. Movie star heroes like John Wayne and Errol Flynn blazed across the screen at the local movie theatres or if you were lucky, on your home TV.

We were fortunate to have a TV set. It was a Crosley. It was big and heavy and I was not allowed to touch it…only my grandparents could change channels or make fine tuning adjustments.

The American Fighting Man has always been portrayed as courageous, self-sacrificing and willing to give up everything in defense of his country…a hero if you will. My Dad, Elmer Manick and my Uncle Stanley Pianko were heroes. As a young marine, Uncle Stan survived the horrors of Saipan, Tinian and the hell of the black volcanic ash of Iwo Jima. Most of Uncle Stan’s fellow Marines never made it home! My Dad participated in five amphibious invasions in Europe including the Normandy Invasion, where they landed the British 50th Division on Gold Beach, the Invasion of Okinawa and the Kamikaze attacks in the Pacific. These are the unknown and unsung heroes of America.

The nineteen sixties spawned the age of rock-n-roll. While struggles for Civil Rights took to the streets and to political forums throughout the country, heroes emerged from within our ranks; heroes with names like Martin Luther King, John and Robert Kennedy and scores of unknown followers who walked the walk for freedom across the country, but that’s a story for another day.

Suddenly, the alarm buzzer on the clock on my dresser started buzzing…No matter; I was awake anyway and just waiting for it to ring. I slapped down the alarm kill switch and sat up in bed with one thought and only one thought on my mind…What I had gotten myself into!

From houses and apartments, from high rises and one-bedroom dwellings, we gathered by the thousands, together in places like Fort Sam Houston in Texas, Fort Lewis in Washington State, Fort Riley in Kansas and on and on. My destination was Fort Dix, a sprawling military complex located in South Jerseys Cumberland County.

Across the country, quotas of men were fed into the machine known as war. In the end, more than 58,000 of us would never return. Of those of us who did, whether clerk or infantry, combat engineer or medic…none would return home the same…All would pay a price, whether physical, mental or both for serving in those terrible war years.

The date was Jan 3, 1968…D-Day for me.

I heard the crackling, sizzling sound of bacon frying in my grandmother’s old cast iron frying pan and that smell…Wow! There is nothing like the smell of bacon frying and A&P‘s 8 O’clock Coffee percolating through my grandmother’s all glass coffee maker in the morning. It saturated the entire house.

It was time for me to get up, eat breakfast and be driven to my drop off point in Perth Amboy by my grandfather. At both the Draft Board Office and later at the Induction Station in Newark NJ, we filled out paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork.

Sixteen hours after arriving in Perth Amboy, my fellow travelers and I sat in a charter bus traveling to our final destination, Fort Dix. The bus driver seemed to find every dip, bump, and pothole in the road. It made sleeping impossible but who could sleep at a time like this. I was too nervous.

Two hours later, our bus slowed then came to an abrupt halt in front of a gate guarded by two men in uniform, each carrying a sidearm and a rifle. After a brief discussion between the guards and our bus driver, we were on our way again. Passing by the guards, I could not help but notice how tired they both looked. It was a feeling that would permeate my body and soul for the next 12 ½ weeks of training.

Minutes