Jade Cross Book 2: Book 2: Before the Adventure

By Harold W. Weist

Master Gunnery Sergeant Travis Tolbane, USMC (Ret.) served in Vietnam twice. He was an interrogator, and his interpreter, Nguyen Ba had been on several operations.

After one

• Language: English
• Publisher: Authors Press
• Release date: Oct 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781643148878

Harold W. Weist

The Author, a twenty-year retired Marine Veteran, Was born and raised in Findlay Ohio. At age 17 he joined the United States Marine Corps along with a good friend. Throughout his military Service served he had a variety of assignments on both sides of the oceans. He served a regular tour and two temporary assignments in the Republic of Vietnam, December 1965 - January 1967 with the Third Marine Division as an Interrogator/translator, 2 months in 1969 at Third Marine Amphibious Group, and 2 months in 1970 in the Saigon Civil Assistance Group working with the "Open Arms Program." After his retirement in 1973 he moved with his family to Florida City, Florida. During his thirteen years in Florida, he worked in Nuclear Security [Six years}, and Retail Security, Skating Management and teacher. He Volunteered with the Red Cross teaching all levels of first aide, and conducted Water Safety Instructor classes. He also Taught Skin diving and SCUBA diving. He relocated his wife and self to Mount Juliet, Tennessee. Harold received an Associate Degree in Management, IT Major He ran computer operations for a chain store before retiring from the workforce. He worked for the Wackenhut Security full and parttime for a few years, His last as a Mall Security Supervisor.Having finally retired fully, he has, for several years, volunteered with Veterans Service Organizations. Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 5015, American Legion, Post 15, and The Vietnam Veterans of America, chapter 1004. He brought the Field of Flags to Wilson County Tennessee's Fair Ground every 4th of July weekend for a few years before age caught up. Proceeds of it goes to Veteran Service Organizations to aid needy veterans and their families through-out the year.

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Author’s note

I dedicate Books two and three to all of my Marine acquaintances and to all who have served in the service of our’ country, especially during my service time. The Viet Nam Recreation Center especially. I’m sure many of you can relate to some of the chapters in the next two books. Where would we be without memories past.

None of the characters names, or situations in the books reflect any one I served with. Am I reflected in the books? I’ll never tell!

THE JADE CROSS TRILOGY

JADE CROSS BOOK 1: TREK FOR THE CROSS

At the end of the Sixteenth Century in Dai Viet, what was recently known as North Viet Nam, a devotee to the secret No Name Society began an assignment to receive what would take him to China for the No Name Society. The devotee, Troung Van Ba began, the perilous trek to receive a Jade Cross from a Chinese Master cutter, a Mr. Hu, along with a secret document related to the Chinese intentions for Dai Viet, to invade or not to. Along the way there were sub hamlets where he would receive an update on the safety issues along his route. At one he was assigned a young, beautiful, 16, years old guide, Tran Thi Mot, which found both taking an immediate dislike for each other. She was assigned to Van Ba as the route had been changed, and he would never choose to work with a woman, A Vietnamese man thing.

In addition to enduring many hardships during the trek, robbers, murderers, and anti No Name enemies wanting the icon for themselves, were encountered, and battles were fought. Once the Jade Cross was obtained, they were joined along the way by two allies. Many hardships were encountered until the icon was placed into the hand of the No Name Leader, Nguyen Hai. During the trek love evolved between the two protagonists. Van Ba and Mot could not have known that their trek and acquiring the Jade Cross would spur an adventure in the twentieth century, beginning and ending in Vietnam.

JADE CROSS BOOK 2: BEFORE THE ADVENTURE

Master Gunnery Sergeant Travis Tolbane, USMC (Ret.) had served in Vietnam twice during the conflict. He and his interpreter, Nguyen Ba had been on several operations during his first tour. He was lucky to have had Ba assigned to him on his second tour also. They became fast friends, being bonded for life due to several incidents during military operations.

After one miserable operation during cold and driving monsoon rains Tolbane caught a thief, a rouge marine private, attempting to steal merchandise from a mini PX situated in a Conex box at a military enclave on the combat Base at Chu Lai, Republic of Viet Nam. The thief cursed Tolbane, swearing revenge on him for pushing his face into mud. Tolbane had not the least idea that this thief would be his bane during his after-military life, even costing him his first true love.

Tolbane had settled in a small Tennessee town called Mount Juliet, Tennessee. He found a house there and a job as a mall security manager in Nashville. The thief had become the overall boss of several smash and grab gangs in Middle Tennessee area and was headquartered in Nashville. The thief finding out that his sworn enemy, Travis Tolbane was the mall security manager at a mall, he engineered, along with his secretary and lover, Soapy, havoc that affected Tolbane, his friend, Detective Parnell, who had served with Tolbane in Vietnam on a couple of patrols, and mall employees, from a blotched fake shooting to kidnaping and murder, and taking the life of Tolbane’s love.

Neither Travis Tolbane nor his friend, Sgt. Parnell could know that after the thief was taken down, their’ friendship would later lead to an adventure that began on a patrol in Vietnam in mid-1966 near Hoi An City and ended with the taking down of a vicious Vietnamese Piquerist, who had formed a bogus No Name Cult in the States and believed he was the reincarnation of an ancient, adored Vietnamese General. He had a hatred for Tolbane and his live in Vietnamese lover, the beautiful Mai, and whole incident would climax in Vietnam.

JADE CROSS BOOK 3: THE JADE CROSS

Going home from his job as the mall security manager at Perkins mall in Nashville, Tennessee, for the day, Travis Tolbane, Retired Master Gunnery Sergeant, USMC, was ambushed by Vietnamese thugs. It was a close call and he was lucky that Metro Police was close at hand. Then shortly after that on the same night he discovered his friend and former interpreter, Ba, had been murdered by a horrendous method known as, Death from a Thousand Cuts, and was staked out like a cross on his kitchen floor.

Various information and incidents led the group, now four, with a Vietnamese Priest, that had been targeted also, joined them in believing the attacks stemmed from a marine Patrol in 1966 in which Tolbane and Parnell were a part of in which a bejeweled Jade Cross was found and then reburied. They also realized the incidents were in a mad Masked Man’s CAUSE, who thought he was the reincarnation of Tran Hung Dao, a famous Vietnamese General from the end of the 13th Century and stilled revered, which was a drive to recover an iconic jeweled Jade Cross, take the beautiful Mai for his lover, kill her love and friends that he hated with a passion, and reunite all of Viet Nam under his power, with he and Mai ruling beside him, along with his bogus No Name Society doing the dirty work.

Tolbane’s friend Sgt. Parnell of the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department (MNPD) and Tolbane’s Vietnamese lover, Mai, half-sister to Ba, received several threats and attempts on their physical wellbeing over a several-day period. They then learned another previous non-active-duty Marine acquaintance was brutalized in the same manner as had Ba.

After a friend of Mai’s was brutally beaten and raped the four tracked and followed the mad Masked Man to Hawaii and, Hong Kong where he had left a trail of blood, and finally to Hoi An City in the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, where he continued to spill blood.

Their quest for the Jade Cross and putting an end to the murderous, piquerist, Masked Man would be aided by a powerful Vietnamese ally, who was once Tolbane’s prisoner during the Vietnamese Conflict. Will the four friends find a real No Name Society, and along with their ally succeed in stopping the Masked Man’s CAUSE and finding the precious, jeweled Jade Cross, or will Viet Nam be their ultimate fate.

1965

Republic of South Vietnam

It was late November of 1965. SSgt Travis Tolbane was uncomfortable on the fold down bench, pipe frame seats and backs with cloth strips crises crossed and stretched between the pipes, as the aircraft hit a small area of light turbulence causing minor vibrating of the craft. He was turned slightly to his right with his knees against a huge packing crate, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean between Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Futenma, Okinawa and Da Nang, Quang Nam Provence, Republic of Viet Nam. The whole center of the C 130 Cargo plane was loaded with huge crates, piled a little higher than his head and extended nearly to the seating area on each side of them, bound for the war zone in the Republic of Viet Nam. He was not alone in this discomfort.

Marines he didn’t know were seated along both sides of the interior of the craft and were as cramped up as he. The thing that puzzled him was that most troops were being transported by jet passenger aircraft or by the sea for whole units to the conflict zone; why not him. He was feeling it strange too that this craft left from MCAS Futenma. He had been with Marine Air Group 16, First Marine Air Wing, a helicopter unit, when it moved from the old WWII era hospital, Camp Mercy, to the newly constructed Air Station in 1960. He had flown in choppers many times, but never in a prop driven C 130 transport loaded to its capacity droning along. He wondered how in the hell did he end up in this cramped situation in what seemed to be a lumbering air plane, half scaring the crap out of hm.

After he graduated from boot camp, he went through Advanced Combat Training at the 1st Infantry Training Regiment (ITR) at Camp Geiger, Camp Lejune NC. Serving 30 days mess duty to start, then a training cycle. When the training cycle was complete the newly promoted PFC found himself sitting in front of a Gunny Sgt. in the Regimental Headquarters. The Gunny informed him his MOS had been changed from Infantry to clerical as two clerks had been transferred out and they were in need of fresh blood. While clerking at ITR he learned to type and the ins and outs of Marine Corps Procedure Manuals, the Landing Party Manual, NAV. MCs. and others, and developed various methods of helping fellow Marines with their administrative problems. He excelled in his tasks and received two meritorious promotions before his transfer to Okinawa.

When he rotated back to the states, he was now an E-5 Sgt. He was tired of clerical work and took a Foreign Language Aptitude Test and scored higher than the average individual. When informed of his passing the test he was required to fill out a form indicating what three languages he preferred to study. He found himself attending the US Army Language School, which later became the Defense Language Institute, West Coast Branch, in the Middle Eastern Language Division studying the Arabic Language, so much for wanting to learn German, Spanish or French.

A Year later he was on the Second Composite Interrogation Team at Camp Lejune, NC, which later became the 2nd, 4th, and 6th ITTs. Until he received orders to Viet Nam, he had kept himself immersed in Middle Eastern history and present affairs and even had a temporary assignment in Morocco. He made Staff Sgt. the first time he was eligible.

Nearly six hours after takeoff they were on the final approach to the Da Nang air strip. Over the intercom they were informed by the pilot to fasten their seatbelts as well as a possibility of sniper fire hitting the plane on the approach and landing. On touch down they were to grab their gear and when the ramp was lowered, by a crewman, to get off the plane as quickly as possible and run hell bent to the Terminal building if they wanted to keep from getting dinged with a lucky shot from some Victor Charley (VC)¹ sniping at them from afar, and line up at the Marine New Arrivals counter, have a copy of their orders in hand to check in and get their unit assignments and transportation instructions.

This made Tolbane wonder even more about what he had gotten into. It wasn’t the run to the building or the carrying of gear that got to him. It was the god-awful heat and mugginess that hit him and the others when the ramp came down. He did feel better though when he felt he was safe in the terminal building even though it was hot and muggy in there too. There was some confusion with the marines digging out a copy of their orders they had stashed in their gear to start with and then they were in line to hurry up and wait, behind an empty counter, and to wait was the Marine Corps standard procedure.

After checking in those going to units outside of the Da Nang area were told where to wait for pickups outside of the terminal. The rest, including Tolbane, were sent to a tent area, a few GP tents (General Purpose), with folding cots where they would receive their ‘In Country Orientation and Briefings’ to prepare them for their tour. It became basically classes on what not to do or get your butt kicked out of country and how it would affect their military careers. This was on his second day there and after the Orientation he sat around in the tent, sweating to extreme even though the tent sides were rolled up, except going to chow, until midday of the third day. Then a jeep pulled up to the tent and Tolbane met one of his future team mates was told to grab his gear and climb aboard, and was transported to his Team’s Command Post.

He had a little problem in the beginning of his tour adjusting to the questioning of prisoners as he had no knowledge at all of not only Vietnamese language and culture, the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam, Popular forces and the Viet Cong, and exactly what was really happening in the skirmishes the troops were having, the terrain, the location of the various hamlets, sub hamlets, and the actual way the people lived, worked and how they were caught up between the two sides of the conflict. The fact that the military maps weren’t dependable didn’t help any either. He worked hard to ply his trade working with various Vietnamese Army (ARVN) Interpreters assigned to his team. He learned a lot about the Vietnamese history and their’ traditions. The one thing he was really surprised at was the fact that they were testing the use of a polygraph operator on certain VCS/VCC (Viet Cong Confirmed/Viet Cong Suspects).

Soon he was finding himself feeling confident in his ability, especially when working with an interpreter named Ba. A month and a half after arriving in Da Nang he was assigned to one of the Teams Sub-Teams assigned to the Seventh Marine Regiment at the Chu Lai Combat Base; Ba was sent with him. The Sub team’s CP was a tent at the Military Police‘s (MP) Captive Collection Point just off the end of the runway and lived in hard back tents on top of what seemed to be a sand dune, was their billeting area overlooking the China Sea coast line and parts of the combat base.

He and Ba had great success in their endeavors there. He worked well with the Regimental S2 Shop while being on several operations with the Seventh Marines down in Quang Ngai Provence, close to Quang Ngai City. It wasn’t long until the Intelligence Officer was asking for Tolbane and BA rather than one of the other interrogators, depended on Tolbane and Ba’s extraction of vital information on the operations from Viet Cong Suspects and those Confirmed as Viet Cong as well as interviewing the local people.

It had been a few months since he had wondered what the hell he was doing there. Having a work ethic was not a problem with him. He had always dedicated himself to his work since boot camp where you were immersed from before dawn as in O Dark Thirty Hours to Taps at 2200 hrs. His major concern was when being transported to and from Quang Ngai Provence in two and a half ton trucks and whether or not they would be ambushed by the enemy. So far only a couple of trucks had hit land mines. As fortune would have it the vehicles were empty of troops and the drivers and their assistant drivers only received minor wounds because a rear tire had hit the mine. For the first time he saw for the UH1 Huey helicopter gunships. His only experiences with helicopters was the UH 34s of MAG 16. The UH1s were buzzing around overhead for their protection while the convoy was held up. He had had no idea they were even there before the rear of the truck hit the mine.

When the next Staff NCO promotion list came out Tolbane found he was promoted to Gunnery Sgt. All of his team except himself, Ba, a Corporal and his Interpreter had returned to their Da Nang CP leaving them alone in their compound. Sometime in late May he and Ba returned to Da Nang, their Temporary Assigned Duty (TAD) had been terminated, as the First Marine Division Headquarters had arrived in March and now had their own Interrogation Translation Team which Tolbane had helped orient and train in the art of Interrogation, as well as the current situation, including sociological makeup of the people and the geography of the area. The new Team was fresh out of a six-month Vietnamese course at Language School and had no prior Intelligence training knew as much about Viet Nam as he had known on his arrival in country.

His Promotion Warrant was waiting for him on his arrival at Da Nang. After receiving it he and the other Team Staff NCOs grabbed the team’s jeeps and went to the Army’s ‘Take Ten Club’ in Da Nang for His ‘Wetting Down’ party. Of course, he had to foot the bill as being the celeb of the party and receive the ‘Tacking On’ of his new rank by Senior Staff NCOs, which consisted of being punched on each upper arm by each of the others as hard as they could leaving one with sore bicep muscles and bruises for a day or two, or three, such was another great Marine Corps Tradition. He was poured into one of the jeeps when the "Wetting Down’ was over and taken back to the Team CP and tossed onto his cot.

Viet Cong

Prologue

Viet Nam, early 1966

Before the Jade Cross Adventure

Reminisced! That’s exactly what retired Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant Travis Tolbane and his former ARVN, (Army of the Republic of South Viet Nam), Interpreter and friend, Nguyen Ba, had done before Ba left Tolbane’s security manager’s office at Perkins Mall in Nashville TN. They had only been reunited by accident one day when Ba was shopping at the mall a couple weeks before. This had been Ba’s second visit to his office since they found each other and they were maudlin for a few minutes before talking about the times they had during the Viet Nam conflict. Good times and bad ones.

They briefly mentioned a few incidents they were involved in, except for the time Tolbane saved Ba’s half-sister, Nguyen Thi Mai, from being raped at age 10 in Saigon. For some reason or another that situation was not mentioned. When Ba brought up a certain night, which was nasty, rainy, cold, and miserable they both felt a little chill go up their spine just remembering it. Tolbane replied that he remembered it too well, and quipped to Ba, "It’s like the beginning of Charles Shultz’s Snoopy Dog’s Novel when Snoopy writes his beginning of It which is about it being a dark and stormy night.

Ba laughed and answered, You got that right Sarge! It was a dark and stormy night and raining like it was pounding on a gator’s back. Their Sub-team that they belonged to was on temporary assignment to the Seventh Marine Regiment at Chu Lai, Viet Nam, and the sub team was located at the Captive Collection Point along with the Military Police unit, just off the south end of the airstrip. It was Monsoon season; there was nothing but everlasting pouring and drenching rains. Besides the problem of trying to get dry, and staying dry was most important. Everything around their quarters had a pungent smell of dampness and mildew, nothing ever seemed to dry out. The seasonal rains also brought a chilling effect opposite to the sub tropic heat of the dry months. During the late afternoon one day they received word from their sub team Commander to pack up what gear they needed, as they would be set up in Binh Son District Headquarters’ building, again, on an operation, and to report to The 7th Marines Regimental S-2/S-3 Shop, ASAP!

They gathered their weapons, packs, flak jackets, ponchos, and gear which consisted of extra ammo, flashlights, pencils, clip boards, report forms, field message books, rubber ladies,¹ some extra C rations, matches, and heat tabs in a water proof bag with draw strings. One of their sub-team mates drove them in their open-air jeep over some paved and some muddy roads in a driving rain. Their Sub-team was one of the only Marine units still using jeeps as opposed to the jeep substitute, the Mighty Mite, the Corps had adapted, in the drenching rain to their destination. Arriving they grabbed their soaking wet gear and moved quickly into the S-2/S-3 hardback tent. Once inside they were given a semi-hot cup of stale coffee and received an up-to-date briefing on the operation, they would be a part of, named appropriately, Operation Mud Flats, and they would be supporting the Regimental S-2². Three Companies of the 7th Regiment’s 1st Battalion was in contact with a large Viet Cong Main Force unit supported by a reinforced local village guerrilla force a little west of the Binh Son District Headquarters building. The Regiment brought one company from each the second and third Battalions, and would set up its Headquarters a ways to the left of the district Headquarters.

Two hours later Tolbane and Ba were riding in the Regimental Headquarters convoy in an uncovered 6x6 truck, the sides up, only protected from the rain by their, helmets, flack-jackets and ponchos. It was going to be a long, boring, bumpy, wet ride, and with a chilly and shivering drenching until they reached the warm, dry comfort of the Binh son District Headquarters.

The Binh Son District Headquarters was a large stucco building with offices, jail cells and interrogation rooms. Tolbane and Ba figured they would sleep in one of the latter as they had done on other occasions. It was nearly night fall when they arrived and the Regimental CP, (Command Post), would be set up in large GP³ tents about seven hundred yards to the west on the peak of a rise with a mild slope down to the District building. As Tolbane and Ba were being dropped off at the building they could barely see the tents going up west of them in the heavy down pour, and troops being posted as guards. They were glad they would be inside the building and be somewhat warm and dry. Taking their gear inside, they were in for a disappointment of the worst kind for that moment in time. They were greeted by a District ARVN⁴ Sgt. who pointed out to them that there wouldn’t be any of the Interrogation rooms available for them as an ARVN unit filled the building.

Alas, alack, a re-enforced platoon of ARVN Soldiers had taken refuge from the rain for the night until they received word on their mission and to pack-up and move out the next morning when transportation arrived. The two could see the troops were crashed out all around the place, on floors, desks, gear spread all around, and you name it. The ARVN Sgt. offered his most humble apology and informed them that they could use the bunker facing to the west as it wasn’t manned that night due to the marines sitting up their CP and having guards posted on a slope in that direction. Both Tolbane and Ba knew of the defensive bunker having been at the District building a few times before. They were not impressed. They grudgingly grabbed up their gear and headed through the torrential rain, sloshing to the bunker to make themselves at home for the night.

The bunker was about twenty-five yards from the building. Its pit was about four feet deep, ten feet by six feet, was sand bagged another three feet high around three sides with firing ports, leaving the side towards the building open for entry. Logs had been placed on the top and then covered with sand bags and dirt on top of the bags, to protect from grenades or etc. Due to the monsoon rains the ARVN’s had put a kind of eve around the top to help keep as much water out as possible. When the two entered it the ground was damp, but at least it was not a muddy mess, but it had a sour smell to it. As usual its previous occupants had not been really tidy and they threw out a few pieces of garbage and trash out of it. They dropped their gear into it and then climbed in, Ba almost sliding into it because of the mud around it.

Their first task was blowing up their rubber ladies⁵, their lungs were the duty air compressors. It was a little harder to blow them up than normal since they were wet, chilled and shaking. They finally got them inflated, laid out their extra ammo just in case, then arranged their gear where it would, they hoped, stay the driest. Then they discussed whether or not to take turns standing guard during the night. They decided since the Regimental headquarters had a Marine platoon placed on guard close by, they decided it was safe enough to get what sleep they could under the miserable conditions because they had no idea how long they may be up the next day. They lay down on the rubber ladies wrapped up in their ponchos, which were already wet inside, caused by the condensation from their body heat, and their flack-jackets. There would be no warmth that night. They shivered and talked for a while then drifted off to sleep.

For a few hours they had slept fitfully, waking up, shivering, turning over, listing to the pouring rain, then falling back to sleep again. Such is the misery any army’s troops would face in in the field during that kind of weather. It was about three thirty in the morning when all hell broke loose. In addition to his issue Colt 45 cal. APC, Model 1911 A1 semiautomatic, Tolbane carried an M-14 rifle he had scrounged up, and Ba had an M2 30 cal. Carbine with the automatic selector switch. They woke with a start at the sounds of M-60 machine gun and M-14 fire from the marines, some unidentified weapons shooting at the Marines, and some grenades exploding. The sounds of small arm weapons were nearly muted by the sound of the monsoon rains consistently pounding the earth. It was one hell of a night for anyone to have a fire fight.

The two grabbed their weapons and manned the gun ports, awed at the light show of the tracer rounds, from both sides on their flights. Almost immediately two ARVNs with an old US 30 cal. Machine gun and two boxes of ammo jumped into the pit and pushed them aside and set up their gun. Needless to say, it was over crowded as hell. Other ARVNs had manned the building perimeter in the prone position and driving rain. This chaos went on for about an hour before there was a Cease Fire order given to the marines. The VC had withdrawn. All of the deployed ARVNs went back into the building and Tolbane and Ba continued their fitful sleep for a couple of hours more.

Around 0630 hrs. Tolbane woke and told Ba to remain in the bunker and get some more sleep, left the bunker and trudged up the slope in mud and rain to the S-2/S-3 GP tent to find out what had happened during the night and what the plan of the day was. He found out about the attack by reading a Sit Rep⁶ on lying on a field desk there. He learned that an undetermined size Viet Cong force had tried to attack the Regimental CP, not knowing that side of the perimeter had been reinforced by a returning scouting patrol during the night. The attacking Force was of undetermined size but believed to be more than thirty attackers. Ten VC bodies with arms were found and, thank goodness, only three Marines were slightly wounded during the melee.

A Second Lieutenant named Hobbs, the Assistant S-2 Officer, was on duty along with a couple of S-2 clerks. He apologized to Tolbane about his and Ba’s situation at the District building, stating he hadn’t known about the ARVN platoon taking over the building for the night. Tolbane replied, That’s okay Sir. Forget about to do or die, ours is only to do and shake and shiver in the rain. The Lieutenant smiled; he was familiar with Tolbane’s witless quips on occasion. He asked Tolbane, still a Staff Sgt., if he’d like to make a cup of C Ration Coffee while he was there. Tolbane declined as he hadn’t relieved his bladder yet. He was realizing he should have done that first. Now he needed to keep his legs crossed for good measure.

He was about to dash out of the back of the tent to relieve the situation for God and Country, not counting his own comfort. He learned from Lt. Hobbs that one platoon from ‘B’ 1/7 Company had two captives but it would probably be around 0900 hrs. before they would arrive at the District Headquarters. The Lieutenant then briefed him on what the operation was about.

The First Battalion only had three companies operating on the sweep of an area. One company, Charley, was guarding the Battalion’s Enclave back in the Chu Lai area. The Battalion was conducting a sweep of an area, with two Companies up and one in reserve, where there had been reports of a large reinforced VC Main Force unit operating in that area and forcing the people in various sub-hamlets to cook for and feed them, support them as ordered, to pay rice tax, and whatever else was needed.

To begin with, two platoons each of Able and Bravo Companies had been ambushed with several casualties, none serious, no KIAs, and the reserve company had been snipped at. Then suddenly most of the Bn. was engaged under fire by the large unit. Two more companies, Fox Trot and Lima, were being transported in from the second and third battalions at Chu Lai to reinforce the besieged Bn., either as a blocking force or as double envelopment maneuver, not sure which one at this time.

Later in the morning the ARVN platoon, reinforced by one M60 machine gun squad, a 30-caliber machine gun team, and two extra M79 Grenadiers will try to get in position to provide security on one flank and help evacuate some of our wounded to a zone where the Medi-Vac helicopters can land. Everything was quiet in the contact area during the miserable night. The only action happening during the night had been the failed, hap hazard-try at over running our Regimental CP by an unknown sized VC force. That was the gist of the update for time being.

It’s really quiet out there right now, but I guess it’ll start up again pretty soon as usual, the second Lieutenant opined. Tolbane agreed.

After the briefing, Tolbane quickly left out the rear of the tent, took care of his much-needed bladder business for god and country in the rain. Emitting a huge sigh and feeling greatly relieved, he hurried back to their bunker to brief Ba on what had happened during the night’s melee, and as to when to expect their first-captive’s arrival at the District Headquarters.

Approaching the bunker, he saw the ARVN unit saddling up in front of the District Building, loading their gear on trucks and preparing to move out in the still driving and torrential rain. After seeing how these troops had respond to the fire fight during the night he wasn’t nearly as pissed as he had been about their taking up the whole District building. Now he thought about what those poor Devils might be going into. Who knows when they’ll finally get out of the rains again, and for that matter, how many of them would make it back from the operation, safe and sound today?

Very seldom had Tolbane ever felt so maudlin about the ARVN deployments. Seeing them respond to the situation during the night in the drenching rain gave him a little more respect for those troops. Tolbane suddenly snapped back into reality. Their current situation had to be paramount in his mind.

He and Ba gathered up their gear and moved into the District building when the last ARVN left, putting their gear in the coroner of the first interrogation room. Then taking off their ponchos and flak-jackets, hoping their jungle utilities and boots would dry soon from their body heat. Even so, the room had a slight chill and smelled musty. They broke out their C rations, made coffee from the packets, water from their canteens, and lit the heat tabs, and had breakfast. For some unknown reason they both ended up with a can of C ration scrambled