True Grunt*: Not The Monster of Vietnam

By Billy White

True Grunt is not about a Vietnam battle or a Vietnam journal/ memoir. It is a response to seeing short "Vietnam War 50 years later videos" on TV. These videos show two sides of the infantry in Vietnam. One side depicts the infantry fighting heroically and the other depicts the infantry committing some kind of atrocity. I served on the front lines with the infantry/grunt in 1970-1971. With many grandchildren, I don't want this mixed message to be my legacy. In those years, the infantry especially became the most maligned soldiers in our country's history. We were known as the baby killers and monsters of Vietnam. Those names continue to haunt us today. By seeing and experiencing my life as infantry-"grunt"-at that time, I hope the reader of True Grunt sees the infantry as moral men of intelligence and courage. They fought in some of the worst conditions of war. It is also a story of hope as one Vietnam Veteran regains his life, overcomes personal tragedies, and even disease from Agent Orange. It's time to project "50 years later videos" with just one message. Thousands of Vietnam grunts like myself were true to ourselves, our morals and our country. We won a great Victory in Vietnam. No asterisk needed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646700646

Book preview

War with an Asterisk

I wrote my first story as an infantryman/foot soldier nicknamed grunt in Vietnam with a big asterisk without knowing it. I wanted to share the experience of a cavalry charge using helicopters as horses. I wanted my family to feel and see something of my infantry life. I wrote this story of King Kong on March 25, 2017, almost two years before I wrote this book. This story should have been about the cavalry charge. But right in the middle of it, I compared my service record to that of a WWII veteran. I then took offense to the public perception of Vietnam foot soldier as the first losers of a war and evil monsters. I thought that I ruined a good story with this asterisk of self-worth and defense of character and almost deleted it.

Countless times over the years, I’ve heard that Vietnam paled in comparison to other wars. First of all, those wars had great causes, and we won them all. Our country said that we lost the war in Vietnam. Almost all the time, everyone said that they didn’t know why we were in Vietnam. Cruelly, it sometimes came down to those prior wars were real wars, and that was when men were men.

It is very hard for war veterans to tell their stories and harder for them to write about them. It is even harder to write when you have to put an asterisk behind every story. An asterisk meant to take exception to perceived public opinion on Vietnam. An asterisk often done in self-defense.

My courage to write and share memories of Vietnam really began on Veterans Day 2018. I shared a story on Facebook that was written March 25, 2017. Below is that story but now edited.

King Kong

Last night, I saw the movie King Kong with my daughter Becky and my grandson Jacob. This version of King Kong took place in 1973, and the main characters are Vietnam veterans on their last assignment from Vietnam. All the helicopters, weapons, music, uniforms, explosions, and food are Vietnam era. For a Vietnam veteran, it’s like an explosion of memories. In one scene as they are approaching Kong, the helicopter pilot flips on a switch which starts blaring music. In the movie, I don’t believe they had soldiers sitting on the edge of helicopter. We always sat on the edge of the open doors of the helicopter when approaching the drop zone for battle. Hearing and seeing those charging helicopters flipped my switch. Here are memories as I related to Becky and Jacob.

In Vietnam in 1970, the army’s main strategy of attack was to put American soldiers in a situation to draw the enemy out into the open. In a war of unknown enemies, it was like going into Medway where I live and shooting only Republicans without harming the Demo crats. It’s pretty easy to know who the enemy is when they are shooting at you. Often, the plan was to send four helicopters with a platoon of twenty-eight soldiers into a rice paddy or an open field near a village. The landing area would often compare to a square of four football fields surrounded by woods. The story that follows is what we called landing in a hot LZ. That means landing in a hot landing zone. It was a situation that that we knew would be hostile. We would expect to be fired on from many directions.

The enemy hearing the helicopters coming would line the perimeter. Everyone and his neighbor of the same political persuasion of a village would come out to take a shot at the helicopters. For the Americans, it was running a gauntlet. We had in most cases a situation where we had to land and hold our position. We had to hold our position long enough for artillery bombardment, napalm, or gunships to obliterate all the territory surrounding us.

Before we came to the attack zone, each helicopter would have three soldiers sitting in the open doorway on each side. There were no straps holding you in. Just the weight of your fifty-pound pack on your back and the pressure of bodies against the side of the door was what kept you from falling out. In the middle of the helicopter would be either a medic, radioman, lieutenant, or sergeant. Each helicopter had seven from the platoon. The cockpit had a pilot and copilot. On either side of the helicopter, there was a machine gunner next to the three soldiers sitting in the open door. These machine gunners were part of the helicopter crew and didn’t leave when we were dropped off.

Flying high above the above ground, it’s actually very tranquil and beautiful. When you’re sitting with your feet dangling in the air, you feel like a hawk swooping over the ground. As you approach the target, the helicopter descends rapidly. At this point, the second helicopter in many cases is abreast of you. You can see faces of your fellow soldiers in the other helicopter looking right at you. The helicopter pilot about a couple miles from drop-off sometimes flips the radio on, and music blares. Other times, we are just singing anything at the top of our lungs. At this point, the helicopters are flying very fast below treetop level. They are using trees for cover. The helicopters were often called our horses. This is the modern-day cavalry charge.

What happens next is what you might call the glory of war. It’s the time when the horrors of war haven’t happened. It’s the exhilaration and the extreme height of emotions. Everything is at stake. It’s the letting go of fear. It’s the time to control yourself, but every part of your body is stoking the fire within you.

As the helicopters reach the trees, explosions of bombs from the enemy rip the earth beneath you and set fires to the brush and grass. Red and green traces of aimed bullets worm their way through the trees. The machine gunners who are right next to you on the helicopters start firing. The hot ejected shells from the machine gun land on you like hot cigarettes and burn. Some fall into your shirt and crawl down to your belly like fire ants. Everybody sitting next to you is squirming. The trees are now whizzing past. With all the squirming, you are trying to hold your weapon, pick off the hot shells, and not fall out of the helicopter as it swerves to avoid exploding shells.

Abreast of you is the other helicopter; your buddies are yelling at you. Some are singing, laughing. It seems like everyone is screaming. The music blares, and the fire in you is raging. You find yourself dancing with your arms.

The helicopters slow down but don’t set down on the ground. You jump with full pack, maybe five to ten feet from the ground. The helicopters fly out, leaving you alone with only your twenty-eight men. Nobody knows how many enemies are shooting at you. If it’s a rice paddy filled with two feet of water, you might sink up to your waist. In a rice paddy, your only salvation is making it to one of the two-foot walls that make up the square. With bullets and bombs splashing around you, with every step you sink, and a fifty-foot run feels like a mile. When you reach that small wall, it’s special. Maybe the horrors of war kick in then, but getting there is memorable.

If we land in an open area, in the dry season, the grass could be on fire and there is a whiteout of smoke. There the safety is the tree line. There you have to weave through bullets and black shadows. Sometimes, these areas are booby-trapped. I once jumped out of the helicopter and landed near pointed bamboo sticks (punji sticks) about eight inches tall dipped in shit. I didn’t escape unharmed as I did get some puncture wounds on my hand. Any scratch or cut in the jungle can be lethal where infection sets in so rapidly. The bamboo sticks are probably the tamest of all the booby traps planted everywhere.

Our main objective was to fight the enemy long enough for air artillery support to blanket the area with bombs. For half an hour or even hours, we would fight to keep the enemy, whose strength was unknown in a kill zone around us. This would give us enough time to call in gunships, artillery or napalm to bomb the area around. Gunships could put a bullet every three inches on a one-hundred-yard football sized field. Also, artillery would be called into explode around our small perimeter. The artillery shells when exploding would also rain hot flakes of metal which would feel like hot matches on your skin. The bombs landing so close that the ground bounced around you. Several times, we had flaming napalm dropped in the area where the enemy was. Nothing can express the explosion of napalm. The height of flames, the searing heat and the smells. Watch a movie called We Were Soldiers with Mel Gibson to see the effects of napalm. Nothing can live through that.

After the fight, the helicopters came back for the wounded and resupplied us with ammunition. There were no cheers, mostly a feeling good to be alive. Most sat quietly smoking cigarettes or eating some canned food. There was no bravado for the survivors who survived a mini-Alamo where you fought or died. We didn’t go back to a base with its protective defenses, hot food, and showers. After a small rest, we then went into the jungle for more enemy to fight. We spent the nights waiting in ambush, patrolling, and then sleeping on the damp jungle floor.

Many people say we lost the Vietnam War. Most infantrymen like myself were involved in over seventy-five days of combat. This doesn’t count the daily patrols laced with booby traps, snakes, animals, or drinking dirty water from puddles. This doesn’t count the over two hundred days sleeping in the jungle where you could be killed while you slept. In WWII, the most action a soldier who fought for four years would have been twenty-five combat days, which was rare. After most battles, the soldiers went back to a base camp. Indeed, Uncle George’s total combat in WWII was when he fought for eight days in Iwo Jima and then was wounded. I’m very proud of my uncle and all the other veterans of that war. I do not mean to detract from their service. This is only done for comparison purposes.

Those WWII veterans can talk of victories at Iwo Jima, the Battle of Normandy, and the Battle of the Bulge. People can relate to those battles, and those veterans could mark those battles with names. How do most Vietnam infantry veterans relate to their many unknown minivictories? There was nowhere to retreat to: it was either kill or be killed. Victory was just leaving the battle alive. Probably, the biggest disgrace of Vietnam was Hollywood’s portrayal of Vietnam. They portrayed soldiers walking through the jungle smoking pot. Nobody in his right mind would be smoking pot in booby trap or combat areas. Hollywood did stories of atrocities by Vietnam soldiers. There are American atrocities in every war. Yet, we were called baby killers when we came back.

Our life was mostly living like guerillas in the jungle and then a few days back in an artillery base for bunker guard duty. We spent all those days in the same clothes. We rarely had a chance to wash up or even bathe. I spent over 180 days and nights in the jungle. We did the above helicopter cavalry charge fifteen to twenty times. We had many moments of attacking the enemy without helicopters. Each scenario was different, but you had to bring yourself to that same heightened extreme level of emotion. We called it taking it to the max. I can’t say that all of these cavalry charges had good memories or at the time that they were all glorious experiences.

In other wars from the Romans on, battle preparation meant that there were battle lines of stomping soldiers, drums banging, shields and spears colliding, flags waving, horses whining, soldiers running and yelling, cannons roaring, and generals and kings roaring. All of these sounds and sights led to such a heightened intensity and were once-in-a-lifetime experience. This was the time before the horrors of war. As terrifying as our helicopter charge might seem, there really aren’t any memories to compare it to. It’s the time when fear leaves you and every pore of your body oozes hot lava. That is the glory of war that old vets often talk about.

Below are pictures not of my platoon but is very representative of what I described above. First picture is a view from door gunner who was next to three soldiers sitting on edge of helicopter. Next picture shows the soldiers with feet dangling, the formation of the helicopters, and how close we were to each other.

Story 2

In the World

I posted my first story about Vietnam on Facebook. That story is now my first story in this collection of stories. The reaction to my story on Veterans Day 2018 was that most of my family or friends never heard me talk about Vietnam. Others would thank me for my insight on Vietnam and wanted to know about my story. I said that I would try to post more stories on my experiences. I delayed as not sure what would happen as I recalled them. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to open up. I wasn’t afraid of regressing to living my life in the past. I’ve lived with it very well over the years. Often opening up a story at random when asked but avoiding too much detail.

On February 26, 2019, one of the major networks did a two-minute segment focusing on Vietnam fifty years ago. Part of the segment focused on TV journalists killed and wounded covering the first televised war in our history. The network then showed videos of US soldiers lighting Vietnam hooches on fire. The videos showed women and children crying while their homes were on fire. In a war where over fifty thousand Americans were killed and were thousands of heroic acts were documented, this network focused on the ugliest of scenes. There was no mention of why these homes were burned. I was very angry at seeing this video. I wouldn’t want my children or grandchildren seeing this video. Even after fifty years, the press was still showing the US soldier in a horrible light. This inspired me to write a story from someone who was on the front lines who could tell what it was really like to be a foot soldier in Vietnam. The only way that I could write my story was to open up memories long hidden. It would be a lot more difficult than I thought. At times, it was very gut-wrenching. Sometimes writing with eyes blurred with watered memories.

With four children, eleven grandchildren, and one great grandchild, I started thinking that when they grow up, will they associate that image of evil soldiers to me? Would history show the infantry only in the light of the events of 1971? Would history explain that we as soldiers fought to stop the rising wave of communism? Would they know what it meant to be on the front lines? For future generation, I wanted them to know me as someone that they could be proud of. I wanted them to see me as a True Grunt who stayed true to his moral values and served his country under some of the worst conditions—not only in the jungle but maligned at home. I would want them to be proud of our Victory in Vietnam. I would want them to see me as someone who put the war behind him by furthering his education and someone who tried to make a better life for his family in spite of personal tragedies.

When I started writing, it truly was like opening a giant bag of memories. When you reached into that bag, it was like picking a number from one to hundred. So as someone approaching the age of 70, I started writing stories as they came to me. It wasn’t meant to be chronological but, in a way, it looks like that. When writing these stories, I realized that I was very opiniated on certain topics. There was such a bad reputation given to the infantry in Vietnam. The first thing that I had to do was repudiate that and defend the honor of so many good soldiers.

My story covers my arrival in Vietnam from October 8, 1970 as a 21 year-old; my departure, October 28, 1971; and my years after Vietnam. It also covers the events back at home during that time. Those events at home led to public perception of the Vietnam soldier as a monster a dummy, and a loser of a lost cause. Soldiers on the front line at that time became the most maligned soldiers in our history. Perhaps experiencing life on the front lines of a soldier at that time might change that perception.

I initially was assigned to Company B, 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Division. We were headquartered out of Chu Lai, which was a military base. The base is gone now, and where it was is now an airport called Tamky Chu Lai Airport. Now on a map, it appears in the middle of Vietnam on the coast near the cities of Tam Ky and Quang Ngai. When I was there, we were about one hundred miles south of North Vietnam. The last months of my tour of duty, I spent in the Chu Lai finance office of the 23rd Administration Company. Here, I had a room with a bed, an eight-to-five job, and no weapon. The army at some point realized that they couldn’t just send the infantry soldier from the jungle to home. They hoped to desensitize these combat soldiers with normal noncombat jobs.

When I started writing, I remembered so many stories from my year there. There is no other year in my life that I can remember so well. There are two parts to this year in Vietnam. One as an infantryman, a grunt; and the other as an office clerk. Two completely different worlds. Probably the most detailed memories are on the front lines.

On the front lines, we never talked about home as a place. We never talked about life in the States. We never talked about going home. We had a great expression. It was always when I get in the world or when I was in the world. I can’t wait to see my wife, girlfriend, friends, family kids back in the world. It was a perfect expression. It meant that we might have been dropped on another planet or just dropped into hell. We were in a place that didn’t even come close to the world we knew. Soldiers that weren’t on the front lines had another great expression. They called being in the jungle on the front lines, in the shit. We were doing things that we never did in the world we came from. Vietnam in reality is a beautiful place. But in war, it is awfully hard to find beauty in anything.

The infantry in Vietnam were called grunts. The name was a reference to the sounds of a pig grunting while wallowing in the mud or the sounds of men grunting while carrying heavy packs up a hill. Like pigs, we grunted as we got all the dirty jobs. We grunted under the heavy weight of ammo and supplies in the stifling heat of the jungle. Our schedule was living on patrol in the jungle for seventeen days. After many days without a change of clothing, we were as dirty and as smelly as pigs. Then we had three days at our headquarters and artillery base where we assumed bunker security. Then repeat. After three to four months, we got taken off-line and then put in secure area with no responsibilities but to unwind for three days. We had no homes, no roofs, no showers, no hot food, and no safe place to run too for seventeen days. Everything that we owned was on our backs.

The Vietnam infantryman life was similar to those who were on front lines of all wars. Each war presented different conditions, and they were similar in how bad conditions were. The infantry at Valley Forge, the army in the German forest, the army in Korea and now Afghanistan, as some examples, suffered in snow and cold. The soldiers at Gettysburg fought in the hot wheat fields of July. The marines in the islands of the Pacific in WWII and the soldiers of Vietnam suffered in steamy jungles. On the front lines, there is always fear, hunger, shortages of both ammo and food, sickness, hopelessness, no knowledge what your army plans next, and no real knowledge of how strong the enemy is.

What made Vietnam different was that there were no real front lines; we spent most of the time with a handful of soldiers, and we were exposed to many more days of combat. In 1970 and 1971, we were almost always dropped into the enemy area by helicopter or rarely by truck. There was no front, no sides, and no back. We never dug foxholes at night; too difficult to dig in the jungle. We were surrounded anyways. We lived in enemy territory. Our total force alone in the jungle was twenty-seven to twenty-eight soldiers. It was not much of an army with no knowledge of how strong the enemy was. If you look at our schedule of 17 days in jungle and 3 out, over in just 6 months, there was close to 150 days in direct contact with the enemy. In a year, it was close to 250 days. In World War II, the average infantryman over four years was exposed to combat twenty-five days. Every day exposed to combat is another chance for mostly bad memories. It makes it that much harder to adapt to life when you leave the service. So many Vietnam soldiers and now our soldiers in the Middle East are experiencing that.

In Vietnam, for the foot soldier living in the jungle, we knew that we could be killed at any moment. But maybe the hardest part was becoming dehumanized. We were called grunts, same pig for a reason. We lived in filth, endured exhaustion, slept in water, drank from mud holes, and learned how to use our basic animal senses. Soldiers of past wars experienced this but for not as long a time. Seventeen days is not a long time in the world, but seventeen days in our world it was. Not only that, but you knew the pattern would last a year. To really know Vietnam is to know the world that we survived in.

Below are some pictures of my platoon.

Story 3

The Infantry Role in Vietnam. CIB

Many people think that all who go off to war are infantry, the foot soldier with his weapon toiling and fighting on the front lines. Truth is, for everyone on front line, there are eight-nine in the rear supporting the foot soldier. There are people who work in offices handling payroll, truck drivers, engineers, cooks, police, construction workers, artillery, helicopter pilots, etc. This is not meant to portray these support troops as not subject to combat situations. Mortar attacks, enemy infiltrations and sometimes a base being overrun would put them into heavy combat. Helicopter pilots with their machine gun crews, PT boats patrolling the rivers, construction crews with rifle in hands, and many occupations are often in daily-combat situations. The infantry is not just about combat but surviving in the worst conditions imaginable. It’s the way of life that separates