We stayed at the POW Compound for approximately 21 days. The 3rd Platoon was assigned to the area around the Battalion and the 2nd Platoon guarded the bridge on the Tu Cua Road.   We had the honor of running a patrol during an all out Typhoon that literally made the rain come down parallel to the ground. Banana trees were falling down like drunks on a late Saturday night bender.
     I remember getting ready to go out on this ambush.  It was raining harder than anything I had ever experienced. This was a Typhoon! No one told us there was a storm coming.  Not that it mattered. The ambush was going to go regardless of the weather. It did not matter if there were twisters and Marble Mountain was being blown away, we would be going out on the ambush. 
     I had a poncho that I tried to cover myself with but a poncho consist of a plastic or rubber like material that has a hole in the top for the head. It has a hood and it falls down over the body like a blanket.  Putting the Poncho on over canteens, web gear and four bandoleers of ammo was a trick. On a good day, the poncho was awkward to wear.  With strong winds blowing, it was a nightmare! Really a waste of time!  The wind blew it up over the head. The rain blew in on the body. Everything got wet. 

I said to Fred, we had to be crazier then the gooks to be going out on a night like this one. “Yeah”, he responded, “they are resting in their warm tunnels while we go out in weather trying to find them.  We would have more luck finding them if we went door to door”. I agreed whole-heartedly that going door to door would produce better results.       

We lined up to leave the comfort of the building we were staying in at the POW Compound and Solomon inspected us to make sure we all knew what we were doing and that we had all the gear that we would need for an ambush. We had a gun team attached to us and a Corpsman went with us in case anyone got hurt. Fred took the point and I had tail end Charlie. 

Out we went, into the fiercest rainstorm I’d ever been in. A gust of wind that must have been 90 miles per hour nearly blew me over.  I could not see two feet in font me. The rain was so thick it was like walking through a solid sheet of water. I had a hard time keeping up with the man in front of me because the rain was so blinding and the wind was blowing so hard. I could feel it blistering my face as it pelted me with unending sheets of wind driven water.  It was like being in a sleet storm but a 100 times worse. This was not going to be fun! I think it was at this point that I remembered my Mother asking me if I really wanted to be a Marine.

     When we went through the gate that took us into the jungle around the bottom of Marble Mountain, we looked like a train of people. No one was more then a foot behind the guy in front of him. Any further and you would loose sight of him and get lost. When the guy behind you is depending on you to stay in contact with the guy in front of you, it is real important that you do so.  That is, if you care about your teeth. Anyway, banana trees falling like bowling pin in a bowling alley. We couldn’t possibly tell how far we’d gone or where we would be setting up but Solomon kept trudging along just the same.
We were slipping and sliding right along.  We were either slipping or falling down or being blown over wind. Ponchos were flapping, Marines were cursing; Not ones idea of a group of highly trained professionals moving quietly through the jungle.

After what seemed like hours, Solomon finally yelled at the top of his voice for us to stop and to set in into two man holes. We would be 100 % alert until 01:30 (AM) then switch to one up and one down for the rest of the night. Heck, it was only about 21:00 (PM) as it was. The next four hours were miserable beyond belief. What small holes we could dig filled with water as fast as we dug them; so, we sat in water up to our waist while we were on watch and curled up against anyone near us to keep warm where we were off watch. I kept trying to recall my recruiter mentioning nights like this.  Try as I may, I could not.  

       The typhoon passed about 02:00 hours but it kept raining the rest of the night. But, it was a light rain compared to what we had just experienced; so, it wasn’t a big deal. Wet is wet we; couldn’t get any wetter and drying out was out of the question. At about 04:30 we gathered our things and made our way back into the POW Compound. I never did find out the official magnitude of the typhoon but I can say for sure that any wind that blows a grown man over is a big wind.

Nothing much went on the rest of the time we were at the Compound. Rest and relaxation was something we needed and something we got at the POW Compound. However, our vacation was about to be over.  We would soon be faced with daily contact with the enemy. Not something we had had for a while. Some of the new guys had never had it.  Things would definitely be different. We’d become a tight knit group the last few months, a thing that is good; but is also hard when you start loosing men.

We left the POW Compound and moved to a place called the Cantonment.  The Cantonment was just a few miles south of Marble Mountain but it was in the middle of “Indian” Country. It was an above ground hole. The engineers had taken bulldozers and pushed the dirt out into a circle creating a large 360-degree manmade, aboveground hole. The berm created by the engineers protected those living in the Cantonment from the always-present snipers.  It did not, however, protect them from the damn thing filling up with water during a typhoon.

Carl King and the Skipper during the monsoon. This is back at the contonoment in Battalion Area.

Written By: Carl E. King and Bobby Hingston