A Time to Kill, a Time to Heal

By Roger Helle

Ron entered the long hospital corridor looking for his brother Roger. After searching the ward unsuccessfully, he approached a doctor standing by the bed of a patient. "I'm Sergeant Helle's brother," he said. "How is he?" The doctor looked at Ron and said, "I'm sorry, son, but your brother is going to die. There's nothing else we can do." Just a few beds away, drifting in and out of consciousness, Roger heard the doctor's death sentence. Not yet twenty-three years old, he felt fear grip his heart in a way he had not even experienced on the battlefield. That fear caused him to do something he had never done before. Roger silently prayed, "God, if there is a God, if you let me live, I'll do anything you want!" Then he slipped mercifully back into a drug-induced sleep. That prayer would be answered in a way Roger could never have imagined, but only after years of nightmares, alcohol, and tortured emotional battles. Peace did come at last as Roger not only made peace with Vietnam, but the emotional pain of his past as well. Roger and Shirley Helle live in Chattanooga Tennessee. They retired from Teen Challenge in 2017 after 40 years of ministry. The Helle's continue to travel across the country speaking and ministering.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781641919180

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Acknowledgements

The Bible says in Proverbs 31:10–12, Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her; so he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life (NKJV).

Solomon, in all his wisdom, must have been talking prophetically about my wife, Shirley, when he wrote those words thousands of years ago. Without this wonderful gift God gave to me, a gift that took far too long to realize her value to me, this book would not have been written.

For forty-five years now, this incredible woman has made my life what it is today. Through her, I came to understand what forgiveness and mercy really look like. I am, of all men, richly blessed. She is my best friend, my confidant, and most of all, she is my encourager.

What God has done in our lives is almost totally accomplished because of her love, support, and encouragement. When others did not believe in me, she always did. When others defamed me, her words lifted me up to heights that I never imagined. When I did not believe in myself, her faith and trust caused me to push ahead.

I can now reflect back and realize that if I had lost her, I would be lost today. My life is rich and fulfilled today because of this precious gift God gave to me, even before I acknowledged Him as the giver of this Gift. She is the mother of my wonderful children and the best grandmother in the world. Shirley, may God continue to use you to touch thousands more lives than you have already touched by your compassion and love.

Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also praises her. Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing. But a woman who fears the Lord shall be praised (Proverbs 31:28–30).

For 230 years now, this great country of ours has remained free because men and women have sacrificed to serve this nation in our Armed Forces. This is dedicated on behalf of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and finally, my beloved Marine Corps, of course. Our country remains today the land of the free only because of the dedication of those who served and continue to serve America. With all its faults, it is still the greatest nation in the world, and those who live here share in its incredible opportunities.

This book is dedicated to those who have paid the ultimate price to keep us free. To those who have fallen on foreign shores and to the families who still grieve them, this book is dedicated to you. Your sacrifice is not forgotten. Your courage will always be remembered until that day when God will wipe away every tear.

You are our heroes! It is also dedicated to those that serve today, around the world, in the War on Terror, which is really a war for freedom. May God bless you, and may you know that we are proud of you.

In addition, I want to acknowledge one of my personal heroes, my twin brother Ron, who was awarded the Navy Cross, which is our nation’s second-highest medal for valor in combat. He also received three Purple Hearts as well. Ron and his wife, Lynne, are regarded as best friends to Shirley and me.

Greater love has no man than this, than to lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).

Prologue

It was only 10:00 a.m., but the temperature was already well over a hundred degrees. Roger wiped the sweat from his eyes as he scanned the trail ahead, looking for any evidence of booby traps or trip wires. He shifted the straps of the two fully loaded demolition bags that carried over forty pounds of explosives. The patrol was going out to destroy the enemy tunnels and bunkers found three days earlier. As he walked point, Roger felt comfortable out front. That’s where a leader needs to be.

As his eyes scanned the trail ahead, he felt the pain of something hitting his thigh, and he heard the thud it made when it hit the ground at his feet. In the split second it took for him to gaze downward at the grenade lying at his feet, the sudden explosion lifted him off his feet, propelling him backward. As he hit the ground, fear and adrenaline together caused him to struggle to his feet. Wiping blood from his eyes, he saw a Vietcong soldier across the field, aiming his rifle at him. Roger saw the barrel recoil, but because of the explosion and the ringing in his ears, he did not hear the sound, but he felt the bullets as they slammed into him, driving him down once again.

He tried to break his fall but was unable to stop, hitting the ground face-first. His mind was spinning as he tried to comprehend what was happening. He struggled to roll over on his back, to get his face out of the dirt so he could breathe. As he rolled over, he looked up into the face of a young North Vietnamese soldier who was standing over him. Helpless, he watched as the young man brought his rifle with its bayonet down into Roger’s stomach. He felt the burning pain in his groin. This was a nightmare, it wasn’t real. He knew he would soon wake up, he would be safe in his village or somewhere, but this nightmare would not stop.

Once again, he struggled to his feet, taking several steps before falling to the ground one final time. Pain unlike anything he had ever experienced racked his tired body. He knew he was going to die. He closed his eyes, wanting the terror to be over and for death in this stinking jungle to claim another victim. After three tours of duty, Roger knew he was going to die in this empty field. God, just let it finally be over.

Chapter 1

God, Country, and Corps

Vietnam. The name itself was a mystery to me, an exotic place far away from my inner-city neighborhood. In my senior year of high school, I remember a teacher yelling at the unruly kids that some of us were going to end up in a rice paddy in Vietnam. I didn’t know what a rice paddy was, and I certainly didn’t want to be in one. Now, here I was as our transport plane made its plunging descent into the huge airbase at Da Nang, Vietnam, looking out the window at the muddy rivers and streams and emerald-green rice paddies below.

Coming from a family that had seen service during both World War II and Korea, I did not know why my twin brother, Ron, and I decided to join the Marine Corps a few months before graduation. Growing up with an alcoholic mother and a workaholic stepfather, I did not realize how wounded I already was inside. Even though I was an identical twin, I remember the many times my mother would look at me when she was drinking and tell me that I would never amount to anything. She told me I would be a bum, just like my real father, who had abandoned her with three small children when my brother and I were only four years old. I guess I wanted to prove her wrong.

Joining the Marines was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life. Boot camp was demanding, both physically and mentally. I had been a minimal athlete, very minimal. I had low self-esteem that I tried to compensate for by being the class clown. The physical demands of the Corps were beyond anything we had ever experienced. But both Ron and I wanted to be one of the Few, the Proud, the Marines.

We made it through boot camp and infantry training and picked up our first chevron (PFC), but not together. Stress fractures set me back, and we were separated by several weeks. Months of training later, here I was, flying into a country that, only in recent months, began to be more and more on the evening news.

The Arrival

Anyone who arrived in Vietnam will never forget the sights and sounds of that first moment. As the C-130 transport dropped out of the sky to avoid ground fire at the end of the runway, it quickly rolled up to a Quonset hut as the ramp went down. Immediately, we ran off the rear ramp and were literally smacked in the face with a wall of heat and humidity. Sweat immediately soaked our clothing, and smells unknown to us before assaulted our senses. As quickly as possible, we were herded into the receiving area and processed as replacements to take the place of Marines killed or wounded in action.

My best friend, Danny, and I were assigned to F (Foxtrot) Company, Second Battalion, First Marine Regiment, First Marine Division. I did not yet know the illustrious history of F Co. in WW II and Korea. I only learned of their not too good luck since arriving in Vietnam only weeks before me. On a recent search-and-destroy mission, Operation Harvest Moon, the company had been dropped by choppers in front of a regiment of hard-core Vietcong regulars. While whipping the well-entrenched enemy in the heavy monsoon rains, they also took a lot of casualties.

Being a new guy to a unit that had trained and shipped out together is never an easy experience. No one wanted to invest the emotional energy to get to know some new cherry replacement that might not be around very long. However, being bigger than the average Marine made it a little easier because it discouraged only the angriest from anything other than the typical new-guy verbal abuse. The only way to get around it would come in time and with experience, if you lived through it.

The battalion had recently arrived at a barren strip of ground less than a hundred kilometers from the DMZ dividing South Vietnam from the Communist North. The little town of Phu Bai that Highway 1 ran through was only a short distance away. It was called Highway 1 because it was the only paved road in that part of the country, and it ran from Saigon in the south of Vietnam to Hanoi in the north. We were helping provide security as well as labor to establish a forward airbase in this northern province. F Company was part of the perimeter security for the airfield being built.

My first night in Vietnam was spent on perimeter security around the growing airfield being established. My job on this night would be to man an OP (outpost position) at fifty yards beyond the main line of defense, which consisted of bunkers and foxholes. The purpose of the OP was to spot an enemy attack in time to alert the perimeter defenses to respond to the attack. Usually, the outpost had two men so they could take turns sleeping; but due to the casualties sustained in the last operation, there were not enough men for two, or so I was told.

It was a cloudy night, with no moon or stars, and it was pitch-black. I heard sounds that I had never heard in the city growing up in Toledo, Ohio. But I had seen the movies where during the island-hopping campaigns in the Pacific during WW II, the Japanese would slip up on you during the night and slit your throat. Barely eighteen, my heart was in my throat when I heard a sound out in front of my foxhole. I strained my eyes into the darkness, trying to see this enemy before he could see me. My heart was pounding; the adrenaline was pumping. Every nerve in my body was on edge, and sweat was coursing down my face and back as I strained into the blackness, looking for the enemy. Suddenly, a lizard jumped nearby, nearly giving me cardiac arrest. Perception was not always reality here. Later, I realized that so far, Phu Bai was a relatively secure perimeter, and this was probably my test to see what I was made of. I was glad I didn’t set off any claymore mines or fire off several magazines of rounds to kill an enemy lizard.

That’s how it would be in this far-distant exotic nation. I had heard the few returning veterans say that Vietnam was months of sheer boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. What was dangerous and what was not? Who was the enemy and who was friendly? Where were you safe and where was your life in danger? I was about to find out. Welcome to Vietnam!

The Daily Grind

Our battalion’s responsibility was to patrol the area around the newly established airfield and not only keep the enemy from attacking but deny him access to the surrounding countryside. Daily patrols around the area became our regular activity as well as providing perimeter security at night. Falling asleep was never a problem. After a while, you could almost sleep standing on your feet. The area around Phu Bai was flat from the coast of the South China Sea. It then becomes rolling hills until it reached the mountains on the border of Vietnam and Laos to the west, less than thirty kilometers away.

Day after day, we patrolled the rice paddy dikes and scrub brush area around the airfield. Day after day, all we saw were farmers tending their rice paddies and little kids riding their water buffaloes to the fields. Everyone seemed friendly, even if the adults seemed a little nervous at first. The little kids would sometimes follow us as we walked. We came to learn that the trails they ran up and down were usually safe from the Vietcong’s booby traps. It was also very noticeable that there were no young men in the fields, only old men and children. The young men were at war; which side was the $64,000 question.

One day you were sweating buckets, the next day the sky was pouring buckets of rain on you. Kind of like living in the Midwest, only hotter! My friend Danny and I were in the weapons platoon, and our job was to carry the 60 mm mortar tube and base plate. With all your gear, flak jacket, weapons, and ammunition, and the mortar tube or base plate and rounds, as well, it would not take long to drain your strength. The problem was to not become so bored that you let down your guard. We soon learned that just because we did not see the enemy did not mean that he was not there.

Chapter 2

First Contact

There were three types of enemy forces we had to be looking for. The most common was also the most difficult to spot. He was your garden variety Vietcong (VC) guerilla fighter; farmer by day, soldier by night. We called him Charlie, Victor Charlie, VC, or Mr. Charles. They were not well trained or equipped, but they knew the lay of the land because it was their home. At night, they would slip out, plant booby traps, or set up ambushes, hoping to catch you off guard as you patrolled the unfamiliar trails that they knew like the back of their hands. While not well equipped, if you set any pattern in your routine, they would watch you for months if necessary, waiting for you to make a mistake and then strike you when you least expected it. These were the ones we looked for in the area around Phu Bai.

Somewhere out to the west toward Laos was what we called main force or hard-core Vietcong regulars. These were men and women recruited by the Communist in the south who went to jungle camps to train and operate against the American and South Vietnamese forces. They were better trained and equipped than the guerillas and would stand toe to toe in a firefight with the Marines, where the locals’ tactic was to hit and run.

Then there was the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). These were soldiers from North Vietnam, equipped by China and most every East Bloc Communist country in Eastern Europe. They were better trained and equipped and infiltrated into the south through a vast network of trails and concealed paved roads called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They used bikes, baskets, and even trucks to carry troops and supplies to help liberate their countrymen in the South. So far, only the First Air Calvary had encountered them a few months before my arrival at a place called Ia Drang Valley. While the Cav held its own, they paid for their victory dearly. The Marines had not yet had to face the NVA in large numbers.

Our first contact happened on a bright, sunny day as we patrolled near a small river. As we approached, a shot rang out from across the river, and everyone hit the deck. Fortunately, this was probably a local VC who saw us coming, pulled his weapon out, and took a couple shots at us and disappeared. We returned fire, but he was gone before the first bullets hit where the shots had come from. There is no way to describe how it feels to come under fire. Your heart begins pumping harder, your adrenaline surges, and you move faster and easier than you ever imagined. There is also an element of fear that comes with it that you try not to think about.

Most of our patrols were just hot days in the beating sun, making sure that the local VC were kept off guard and to be aware of any buildup close to the airbase. We constantly had to keep on our toes, but so far, the enemy did not want to stand and fight. He preferred to hit and run, hit and run. This was classic guerilla warfare at its most basic element. We did not know we were about to go to step two in Chairman Mao’s strategy for guerilla warfare. What we had experienced so far was nothing compared to what lay ahead for us.

Baptism of Fire

The platoon sergeant came into the tent about 2:00 a.m. Get your gear and form up outside in five minutes. We had been on alert for an operation being conducted by South Vietnamese Army forces and were sleeping in our clothes. In no time we were by the company area, and helicopters were coming in, and we were being loaded and were on our way. As a PFC and a fire-team leader, I had no idea what was going on.

Danny was next to me in the dark chopper. Over the noise of the engine, he leaned over and yelled in my ear. I have a bad feeling about this one, he said. I don’t think I’m going to make it!

I yelled back, Danny, don’t worry about it. It’s a piece of cake. We’ll all make it back. He didn’t respond.

When you know that you are going into combat, and we all did this night, your mind becomes filled with all kinds of thoughts. You ask yourself if you are ready for what lies ahead. Every man faces that moment when, in the quiet places of your soul, you wonder if you will have the courage to do what needs to be done. Or will fear take over and you abandon your buddies and run away. Only time would tell.

The choppers landed, and we all sped out into the darkness, setting up firing positions, expecting enemy fire at any moment. Soon, the entire company was in position, peering into the darkness as flares floated down around us, casting eerie shadows on the jungle and rice paddies around us. Artillery fire could be heard in the distance. It was 0200 hours (2:00 a.m.), and the stillness was making us all nervous. Throughout the long night, illumination flares were dropped around us, once again casting those long eerie shadows into the dark jungle around us.

Many times the shadows cast by the slowly falling illumination made you think you saw something that was not there, or was it? Peering out into the shadows on 100 percent alert, we all had our thoughts about what lay ahead for us when dawn came. It was obvious, as we set in this defensive position, we were not moving until first light. Finally, about 0500, the sky began to lighten as dawn approached. All squad and platoon leaders were summoned to the company commander’s position. They were told that a nearby South Vietnamese Army unit had been hit by an enemy unit of unknown size. The ARVN unit (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) had been badly mauled, and as usual, the enemy disappeared into the jungle. We had been lifted in to cut off their retreat to their suspected jungle base camp. We began to move out in search of our always elusive enemy.

Vietnam has such a diversity of terrain. We walked through dark jungle trails, out into open fields, slogged our way through slimy rice paddies, where the mud tried to suck your boots off your feet. This early in the war, we did not have the jungle boots that were a little better than our regular boots. We faced heat, sweat, mosquitoes, and more heat. As we crossed stream after stream or stepped down into the muck of the paddies, you could see the leeches swimming toward you, trying to find a free ride. It was the ones that you didn’t see that ended up on your body, sucking your blood with their voracious appetites. You also had to watch out for snakes, especially bamboo vipers that hung from branches. Their green color made them hard to see until it was too late.

By 1500 hours, we were exhausted from the search, but the signs of the enemy were beginning to appear everywhere. Blood trails, bloody bandages, and hastily planted punji stakes (sharpened bamboo stakes covered with manure to insure infection if you stepped on them) were everywhere. We came to an open field and spread out on line, sweeping toward a patch of jungle that lay several hundred yards ahead of us. Waiting in the jungle tree line was the 810th Vietcong Battalion made up of hard-core regulars. We were about to have our real baptism of fire.

The sun was beating down on us as we walked across the open field, moving toward the jungle tree line ahead. We realized that we were actually in a Buddhist graveyard and began to move around the marble headstones and round mounds where bodies were buried. My platoon leader, a staff sergeant was about six to seven feet to my right and Danny the same distance to my left. Every muscle in my body ached from the long search we had undertaken since dawn. Every part of our bodies ached for a rest, but we also sensed that danger was very near. I looked up in the sky as an O1-E Bird Dog observation plane flew over us.

Years later, in a chance meeting, I would learn what a forward observer (FO) and the pilot saw what we did not. Suddenly, the whole tree line in front of us exploded in gunfire. The sound of AK-47s, Chinese .51 caliber machine guns, and mortars caught us by surprise, even though we expected it. The gunfire raked the line of Marines, and bodies began to drop to the ground—some to avoid the bullets, for others, it was already too late. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the platoon sergeant’s head snap back as a bullet tore into it. Then I saw Danny propelled backward as a round hit him in the middle of his chest.

I instinctively threw myself to the ground as the volume of gunfire increased. My mind was numb from the scene that assaulted my senses. I knew that the platoon sergeant was dead, but I didn’t know if Danny was alive or not. I began to fire my rifle into the tree line as we tried to overcome the enemy fire and obtain fire superiority. Between firing, I would look over to Danny to see if there was any sign of life or movement. There was none. I could see the company commander twenty to thirty yards away behind a marble tombstone with his radio man calling for gunships and artillery support. Within minutes, we could hear the sound of artillery rounds sailing over our heads, crashing into trees. We continued our fire, and soon several helicopter gunships also strafed the tree line.

Our bodies were now pumped with adrenaline, as well as the fear of being the next one to be shot. It was with a disconnected awe we watched at first; distant artillery rounds flew over our heads and crashed into the jungle in front of us, sending earth and foliage flying into the air as well as enemy body parts that we would not see until later. Then helicopter gunships would swoop in and fire their rockets and mini guns into the tree line, but the heavy firing continued as the enemy dug into the ground hidden amongst the trees popped out of their holes or trenches to keep the heavy volume of firing. Our enemy was tenacious and was not going to give up ground easily.

After what seemed like hours, but was probably less than thirty minutes, the command went down the line to assault the tree line. All this time, there were screams from wounded Marines as the enemy continued to rake our position. The sheer volume of noise made it hard to hear what commands were being given. But we had trained for this for months, and soon hand and arm signals went up and down the line. We were directed to fire at different locations, especially where the enemy had heavy machine guns set up to try to keep the choppers from getting in too close.

As the frontal assault began, I really did not want to get up. I felt frozen to the ground with fear. I wanted the ground to open up and allow me to drop into its safety. But as the other Marines got up and began to fire and maneuver toward the jungle, I knew I had to go too. I fired at the muzzle flashes that appeared like twinkling lights. My heart beat wildly as adrenaline surged through my body. I did not see any enemy soldiers, only what appeared to be shadows in the darkness of the jungle.

Before reaching the tree line, an explosion in front of me propelled me backward as sand and dirt stung my face, temporarily blinding me as I hit the ground. I lay there dazed for what seemed like minutes but was probably only seconds. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. I rolled off what felt like a log onto my back to reload my weapon and saw blood all over my shirt. I ripped open my jungle fatigues to see where I had been hit but saw nothing. I looked over at the log and realized it was a human leg. I felt like I was going to be sick, but there was no time. The battle was not yet over.

I got up and plunged into the trees as we moved forward, firing at the shadows and checking the bodies of the dead Vietcong that littered the ground. Some looked serene in death; others were grotesque in the various positions they had assumed as their life slipped away. We moved from tree to tree, hedge to hedge, shooting at the enemy as he popped up from spider traps in the ground or from behind trees. Gradually, the enemy fire stopped as the few enemy soldiers still alive retreated into the surrounding countryside. An eerie silence descended on the field of battle. My mind went to the battlefields of years past. I wondered if this is what it was always like. When the killing was over and the field was yielded, was it always quiet like this?

After only forty-five minutes from the start of the battle, we were called back to the main battlefield. Marines were being treated for various wounds, and others were simply covered up with ponchos to hide the face of death from those of us who remained. I went over to where the platoon leader and Danny had fallen. We put the staff sergeant’s helmet on to cover the gaping wound in the top of his head. This man had taken me in as a new replacement and schooled me in the ways of a man who had faced death before—not just in Vietnam but in Korea as well. He was a Marine’s marine, and now he was dead. I had never seen death like this before. A person that you might be talking to one moment would be dead the next. I tried to think what his family would do when the telegram came announcing his sacrifice, but my mind would not allow it. There were far too many emotions to process.

I moved to where Danny had fallen. As I approached the tall grass where his body lay, I saw his face, frozen, gray in death, his eyes open, and his lips slightly open as if he were in the middle of a sentence when death reached out and snatched his soul. We picked Danny up and put his body in the black body bag and carried him to the LZ (Landing Zone) where the choppers waited for the dead after all the wounded had been evacuated. We placed his body gently inside the door of the chopper under the gaze of a door gunner watching the jungle behind us with his M60 machine gun ready in the event of any enemy fire. Because of the number of casualties, the Marines in the chopper grabbed this faceless bag and flung it into the back to make room for the others.

When that chopper lifted off the ground that day, something hurt deep down in my soul. My mind was assaulted by emotions that I had never felt before. My heart felt like it was being ripped out by the loss of my friend. We had gone through training together, had shared our hopes, dreams, as well as our fears. We had bonded as men who live in life-and-death situations do, and now he was gone. In combat, we could take the masks off with each other and be real about our feelings without fear of rejection. And yet there was this tremendous sense of relief as I realized that I had come through this brief moment of hell on earth and I was still alive.

At eighteen years of age, I had never seen anyone die. As we climbed aboard the choppers to go back to our base, I turned my head away from the others and silently wept for my lost friend. Emotions raged in my heart. Sorrow for my friends who had died and those wounded that I would never see again. And the guilt that came with knowing you were happy to still be living and at the same time guilt because you were. But something else happened at the same time. A hatred for my enemy began to grow in my heart as well. We wanted revenge. I wanted revenge!

That night on my cot, as the sounds of battle off in the distance were but a mild distraction, I looked around the tent at the empty cots. I tried to think of those families back in the States that would soon be receiving that dreaded telegram telling that their son, father, husband, or brother was dead or wounded.

What I felt earlier returned with a vengeance. But all I could do was be thankful that I was alive. Once again, I felt ashamed and yet relieved at the same time. As I lay there, feeling the effects of the adrenaline wearing off and the emotional strain of combat settling in, I began to wonder if I would ever leave this place alive. This was not the Sands of Iwo Jima. No little spot of blood on Sergeant Stryker’s (John Wayne) back. I had seen bodies of men from both sides ripped apart from the fierce volume of shooting. This was war. It was bloody, and my time has just barely begun.

Chapter 3

Hearts and Minds

We learned afterward that the engagement had been named Operation New York and that we had decimated the 810th Vietcong Battalion. But it had cost us as well. F Company had gone on the operation with about 219 Marines and had only 78 men who were not killed or wounded. We were no longer combat effective and would be inactive until more replacement arrived.

Years later, while speaking in Indiana, I would meet a county sheriff who was a forward observer in the Bird Dog observation plane that flew over the battlefield that morning. After sharing my story, he came over and began weeping as he told of seeing the enemy trap before us but was unable to reach us by radio to warn us. Thirty years later, he was still carrying guilt for something beyond his control.

During this time of inactivity, while waiting for replacements, word spread about a new program that the Marine Corps was starting. It was called Combined Action Companies (CAC), and it consisted of squads of Marines and a Navy corpsman (medic) who lived with the Vietnamese people. Each squad was called a CAP unit, and they lived in villages throughout the countryside away from the bases. Vietnam was a different war. This was guerilla warfare where the enemy waited until it was to his advantage before he let you find him, as Operation New York proved. The enemy’s strategy was to hit and run, making us pay a price in casualties that we did not want to pay. Like the French, they thought we too would pack up and leave.

The CAP unit was a brand-new strategy thought up by the commanding general of the Third Marine Division. We were going to take guerilla warfare to the enemy’s backyard and deny him the freedom of movement he needed to keep the countryside under his control. We were also tasked with training the local militia made up of PFs (popular forces) and RFs (regional forces). This made us a major pain in the butt for the local VC and their ability to move freely.

Like anything military, we had acronyms for everything; the PFs being called Puffs and the RFs called Ruffs. Our village would have a platoon of Puffs. I volunteered and was quickly sent along with a squad of Marines to Phu Bai Ville just five kilometers from the base and only ten kilometers south of Hue City, the old Imperial Capital. We quickly began to patrol the area around our village and tried to make friends with the locals as we trained the Puffs how to patrol and how to fight. As most Vietnamese are small, their weapons were a combination of old stuff left over from WW II and Korea. Most had M1