Growing up in the Land of Tattooed Men: Another Vietnam War Story

By Joseph Herren

Growing up in the Land of Tattooed Men serves as an account of one young mans impressions, observations and judgments as he experiences both the immediate and the farreaching effects of the Vietnam War. The authors goal is to use the story as a means of sharing a little of himself with his current and future grandchildren. The author, a retired geothermal power plant operator, began this project upon learning of his daughters first pregnancy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477102961

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Joseph Herren.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012907479

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4771-0295-4

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4771-0294-7

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4771-0296-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Cover art:

Title: Choppers

Author: John D. Kurtz, 1968.

License: Public Domain.

Title note:

From Appendix I ( . . . the first nation of the ancient Vietnamese was called Van Lang, which translates to Land of Tattooed Men.)

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Contents

Preface

Prologue

Before Vietnam

Processing into Vietnam

In Country

Flight Platoon

War Stories

Life on the Base Camp

Short Timer

Questions and Answers

Epilogue

Family Pictures

Appendices

Glossary

Endnotes

This book is dedicated to my family, my friends, and everyone

that encouraged, helped, or offered constructive criticism

during its creation. Special thanks to my wife Michele

and our friend Ruth Anne Phillips.

If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten,

either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.

—Benjamin Franklin

image002.jpg

Title: South Vietnam

From George L. MacGarrigle

License: public domain

Preface

My name is Joseph Herren. My wife’s name is Michele. In 2001, our daughter, Shelley, became pregnant with her first child, our first grandchild. Upon learning this news, Michele suggested that an account of my military experience, especially the time spent in Vietnam,¹ might provide our future grandchildren with a little insight into their grandfather’s life and his time.² Agreeing, thinking that the project wouldn’t take more than a couple of months, I began to write.

Since I was not a trained writer and the events I intended to chronicle took place thirty-four years earlier, I began my mission by digesting several how-to books and placing memory topics on a sheet of paper. After organizing the topics into broad groups, I catalogued the easier recollections and noted the deeper memories as they surfaced. Various activities triggered recall, including research, dreams, and music. Tem Moore, an old army buddy and close personal friend, helped me with several of the harder-to-summon details.

By definition, autobiographies are nonfiction; however, certain liberties must exist in order to render any life history readable. In this book nearly all discourse is paraphrased, some events are deliberately presented out of sequence, and most of the names have been altered. In addition, since time has a way of blurring the line between events witnessed firsthand and events reported by others, I have decided to call my story a work of creative nonfiction rather than a memoir. Furthermore, the book makes no claim of its author being an academic, a historian, or a hero. The project’s simple goal is to provide my grandchildren, once they are old enough to understand, with a sense of my life during a short but interesting time period. Accuracy and objectivity have been maintained to the degree memory and perception will allow.

The pictures used in this book are either owned by me or cited works of public domain.

Prologue

Cruising at an altitude of twenty-five hundred feet, over one of Vietnam’s densest jungles, the young helicopter pilot thought he detected a slight loss of aircraft control. Moments later, a persistent audible alarm, accompanied by a pulsating red warning light, validated his growing fear. Soon, the helicopter’s cyclic and collective controllers felt as though they were rooted in a bucket of quick drying cement. Consciously trying to separate logic from desperation, the well-trained aviator weighed his options.

That day, in 1968, like the long string of days preceding it, began with every indication of becoming hot, humid, and generally miserable. The mercury in the rusty old Coca-Cola thermometer, tacked to the maintenance shack’s north wall, would eventually swell into triple-digit territory, humidity trailing close behind.

I was a nineteen-year-old helicopter crew chief, stationed in South Vietnam, attached to the army’s 187th Assault Helicopter Company (AHC). My primary job duties included maintaining and protecting the UH-1D helicopter assigned to me. The UH-1 series helicopter, officially named the Iroquois but better known as the Huey, was built by Bell Helicopters and began service in Vietnam in 1963. By 1967, when I arrived in country, the Huey had become an icon of the Vietnam conflict and had changed the way the army conducted the business of war.

Having been in country a few months, I had outgrown the title of new guy but had yet to shake the label of cherry. Admittedly, my skills and knowledge fell short of the more experienced crew members; however, I had received small arms fire and even taken a few hits. The guys in the flight platoon did not care about that; they deemed me a cherry because I had not been shot down. Considering the alternative, I hoped to remain a cherry as long as possible and did my best to ignore the annoying label.

After donning a flak vest and slipping an M16 over my shoulder, I stuffed my flight gear under one arm, balanced a full case of C-rations on the opposite shoulder, and headed to the flight line. I met up with Mr. Miller about halfway out. Eric Miller, just a couple of years older than me, was a warrant officer, and army warrant officers are addressed as Mister, not Sir. With the scent of mess hall bacon and strong coffee saturating the predawn air, we stopped and briefly exchanged pleasantries. Eventually, Miller reached for the heavy box of rations, explaining that he was filling in for Mr. Webb, my usual aircraft commander (AC). Webb had evidently exceeded his monthly allotted flight hours.

Navigating our way around the fresh rain puddles, Miller mentioned that we had been assigned that day’s miscellaneous assignments, known as ash and trash, which in this case were mostly courier and supply missions. He then suggested, schedule permitting, squeezing me in for a little unofficial flight training, otherwise known as stick time. I liked Miller; he was a confident, capable, no-nonsense guy that, on occasion, did not mind putting a crew chief behind the controls.

Just as I finished checking the helicopter’s tail rotor gearbox oil level, the door gunner, Mike Smith, arrived carrying the ship’s two heavy M60 machine guns. While Mike, an ex-infantryman nearing the end of his tour, attached the guns to their mounts, Mr. Johnson, a new copilot, emerged from the dark. Once I completed the preflight inspection and released the main rotor blades, Miller fired up the Lycoming T53-L-11 turbine engine, secured tower clearance, and gently removed the helicopter from its two-sided sandbag revetment.

We started the morning with a supply delivery to the pinnacle-shaped crown of Nui Ba Den, the Black Virgin Mountain. From there, we headed to a fire support base (FSB) named Burt. Due to the number of bad guys in the area, Miller brought us in with a rather steep approach. The helicopter idled as a tired and disheveled-looking passenger, carrying a sack of Burt’s mail, boarded the aircraft. In the sixties, the only form of communication with home, for most soldiers stationed abroad, was the mail. Moments later, after lifting off and clearing Burt’s perimeter, several green tracers caught my attention. We were being fired on!

As the helicopter strained for altitude, I spotted two shooters and laid a lethal stream of M60 fire on their position. Neither of the men wore a uniform, so I presumed they were regional Vietcong (VC), not main force VC or North Vietnamese Army (NVA). Believing the brief event was over, we continued on.

About fifteen minutes further out, Miller, who was on the controls, keyed his mike and cautiously reported a change in the feel of the cyclic controller. He then started questioning me about the hydraulic oil system. As Miller’s detailed description of flight control abnormalities poured from my helmet earphones, the passenger began to impatiently tug at my sleeve. In an exaggerated manner, the stranger pointed toward the deck. Leaning around to have a look, I saw a large and still growing pool of dark-purple hydraulic fluid, which by this time had surrounded the soldier’s feet.

The fluid flowed from the area of three servos, located just behind the front transmission housing. The bad news was that a single reservoir fed all three mechanisms. I interrupted Miller to report the leak and, noting that the situation could turn into total hydraulic failure, asked him to consider turning around. Miller remained quiet for a moment, then soberly replied, Too late. Seconds later, an audible alarm sounded and one of the alarm panel’s red lights started to blink.

With a note of apprehension, Miller stated that the aircraft was getting harder to control. Suspecting the trouble might include something other than just hydraulics, he made the decision to set the helicopter down. After spotting a clearing large enough to land in, Miller, struggling with the controls, set up the approach. Johnson, the most inexperienced member of our crew, managed to calmly relay our situation and location to the Tay Ninh Tower. Once the descent began, no one spoke. Firmly clenching the machinegun’s spade handle grips, I searched my side of the helicopter for signs of enemy activity. Nearing the ground, Miller ordered the copilot to get his hands on the controls. The helicopter landed hard enough to bounce the passenger from his seat; however, aside from a few bruises, everyone was okay.

Releasing my machine gun from its mount, I noticed that the passenger’s faded and wrinkled uniform displayed no indication of rank but had a black Combat Infantry Badge (CIB) sewn over the left breast pocket. Since an infantryman must experience a certain amount of combat before receiving a CIB, I figured he knew more about ground attacks than any of us. I told him to take my M60, along with the ammo box, and help the rest of the crew set up a perimeter.

After retrieving my tools from the rear cargo compartment, I removed the jump seats, soundproofing, and panel from which the hydraulic oil leaked. Sure enough, the oil line leading to the cyclic fore and aft servo had been ripped open by a bullet. Since I had neither the parts to make the repair nor the fluid to replace what was lost, I stopped troubleshooting, grabbed my rifle, and cautiously headed toward one of the makeshift perimeter’s many weak spots.

Cranking a round into the chamber of my M16, I settled behind a small mound of dirt, not far from the helicopter. The combination of heat, humidity, and apprehension caused perspiration to steadily drip from the end of my nose. Unsure of what I should be doing, I raised the rifle to my shoulder and concentrated on the seemingly impenetrable tangle of green foliage before me.

Interrupting the continuous and surprisingly loud drone of insects, one of our radios cracked with the voice of an inbound gunship pilot requesting smoke. Returning to the helicopter, I grabbed a smoke grenade, pulled the pin, and tossed the canister into the tall grass. A thick purple fume, guided by a slight breeze, snaked its way into the gray sky. Within seconds, the jovial gunship driver confirmed: Goofy-Grape and set up a very low orbit around our position. The ship’s rocket pods and miniguns hung heavily from its sides, reminding me of an old west gunslinger looking for trouble. The intimidating helicopter’s presence definitely boosted our confidence.

Several minutes later, two lift ships arrived, loaded with grunts. The infantry soldiers quickly off-loaded and set up their own perimeter. They would protect the downed UH-1 until a CH-47 (Chinook) could sling load it back to Tay Ninh. In Vietnam, downed US helicopters were either removed by larger helicopters or destroyed in place.

Smith and Johnson gathered our machine guns, while Miller and I removed the radios from the nose of the disabled aircraft. I noticed the passenger still clutching the mailbag as we all boarded the nearest ship. The moment the rescue helicopter’s skids separated from the ground, a tinge of relief swept over me, like I had gotten away with something. I also felt a large meaty hand pounding my left shoulder. Shifting my body, I saw Bill Newman’s smiling face. Newman and I were both crew chiefs assigned to the first flight platoon.

Soon after returning to Tay Ninh, we appropriated another helicopter, scrounged some replacement flight gear, and picked up where