We were the USMC cutting edge, in reality we were tired, scared, hungry, our clothes were torn, dirty and rotting off our backs. The edge was dull, but full of spirit. June of ’68 was here; I had been in the bush for 30 days and still alive, two of my corpsmen friends were dead, two others were wounded.  Fox Company was called “ bad luck Fox” or “jinxed Fox”, they had lost 29 men, killed and a uncounted wounded, since 1May 68. Since we were undermanned by 50% in the first place and our losses of over 1/2 of that 50% put us about 75 % under strength for a Company. Such is war. We took it with a stiff upper lip; there was nothing else for us to do. We would get new men in a while to fill our ranks, so life went on. When we got hit or ambushed the men died in large numbers, the NVA would wait and wait, watching for a weak link in our armor, then strike, hard and fast. When the shooting would start I hit the ground, not having to fire back I could keep down.  An ambush is god awful scary, scary time. The confusion, the bullets and B-40 rockets shot at us, the yelling, the cries of the wounded, and the NVA artillery zeroed in on your position. Then the quiet, with snipers shooting to keep us down as they retreated back into the dark jungle to lick their wounds, we worried about ammo resupply, and getting the wounded to surgical units, how many NVA were still out there was a unknown, a time to move cautiously about, to probe the area in front of you. My curiosity about war was over, I wanted to go home.

  One day I looked up and saw a pilot eject from his burning fighter plane that was returning from a N. Viet Nam bombing run, I think he was over Cal Lu when he bailed, and I’m thinking I’m glad it’s not me gliding in to that jungle. Another time a fighter landed on the airstrip, needing repairs to get home. When he finally took off he buzzed the base on a low level, high-speed pass as a thank you to us. It was great. I love those pilots, when they are dropping bombs or napalm right in your lap to keep the enemy at bay, you can only have praise for them.

  The base took over 438 heavy artillery and rocket rounds in the month of June and 600 rounds in the last month. Mostly harassment, Khe Sanh was in a stalemate with the NVA, we could not move freely around with the guns blasting us from Laos and the NVA couldn’t overrun us. The Marines would have to pull back and try different tactics. So we removed anything of value to the enemy and destroying what couldn’t be moved. Convoys going east carried it all, a lot of convoy screening for possible ambushes and small operations, routine day patrols and night killer teams was the rule. The trenches the NVA dug during the siege were in front of our lines, were half filled in by bombing and every once in a while ammo bunkers were found. I can’t imagine the pounding the enemy took out there. We learned the smell of death well, following our noses to check out who was rotting in the sun. There was small hills over looking the base, which Marine units manned, the enemy wanted these positions for direct shooting into the base and tried many times to over run them. One position was on Hill 471 over looking Route 9 headed into Laos, the 9th Marines had a royal battle there in the past. I liked patrolling around the Ville in that area; there was pineapple plants with small fruit to eat and coffee trees for shade. Pigs the villagers left behind were see running around, climbing to our positions on the hill at the end of a patrol was hard on the legs. Another position was bridge security on Rt.9, three or four clicks from the base. The steep cliffs made the road bent into a hairpin turn at the stream. I thought it was a bad place to be. It rained and rained and we were freezing, one marine found a wool long sleeved shirt in one of the bunkers and we all envied him. I’m glad we didn’t get hit there.

  Time was running out for the base, bunkers were tore apart; the old French command bunker was blown up in a huge explosion with a small mushroom cloud rising above it. We had work parties and patrols day and night. Toward July, I’m not sure of the date, maybe 4th of July, when it was dark the whole base opened up with everything they had. Tanks, 105’s, quad 50’s, dusters, machine guns, m-16 firing all at once. It was quite the sight, red tracers flying everywhere. We had a hell of a lot of firepower there. The word was passed that we would walk out, abandoning the base at night. That was scary, walking down Rt. 9 in the dark with “Puff the magic dragon”, a AC-47 equipped with mini-guns and flares, circled us lighting the way, ready to unleash a storm of 30 caliber bullets at about 6000 rounds per minute, they could plow the ground in front of you with great accuracy, a flying meat grinder. When they worked out it was a steady steam of red tracers coming out of the dark sky, 450 red tracer rounds per second. I don’t know where we stopped to be picked up by 6x’s, maybe by Cal Lu, to transport us to a Quang Tri ammo dump under construction. Patrols in the county side were nice, it was flat land and out of artillery reach. We got some beer, first one in almost 2 1/2 months and cases of Pepsi. We dug holes in the sun baked dirt to bury the pop to cool it, which didn’t work very well, then someone came up with the idea to get a 6x for a ice run in to Quang Tri. The idea was that we needed ice for a medical emergency, which worked great at the ice plant. I don’t know how long we were there, 2 or 3 weeks, I’m guessing. There was no rats, there like up around Khe Sanh, where I slept with a K-Bar knife in my hands to stop “ incoming rats”. They owned the night, like the NVA, running over you looking for soft lips and ears of sleeping Marines to chew on. They were huge and hungry. 

  Moving out in a convoy of 6x’s the company headed towards Cau Viet river mouth on the coast. At Dong Ha a LST was boarded for a ride down river. Kids lined the river bank begging for food as the boat slowly moved by, with us throwing cans of C-rations ashore for them. The area was a free fire zone so the villages we moved into were deserted. It had been a rich Ville, cement and plaster houses were blown up with ragged walls standing. It looked like the Hilton Hotel to us, these battle damaged ruins. Anything to get out of dusty or muddy fighting holes. As usual, we were at the wrong place and had to move out to tree line fighting positions. The place was called Camp Little John, and the lot of us felt safer. It was on the coast, the opposite from Khe Sanh on the border, but still near the DMZ. As usual the day patrols and night killer/ambush patrols. Amtracs would carry us about on some patrols, as would little motorboats and these things they called “Otters”, amphibious like Amtracs but a lot unstable to me. With both of these we rode on top, mines, gasoline and humans didn’t mix to well, so these Otters would rock one way and roll the other way, just when you thought it was going to roll over it would recover and go the other way. I would rather walk on shore, then ride those things in and out of the river. The enemy contact was light, compared to the border base. The NVA would rather cross in numbers further west in the in the hills and mountains, though they sent out troops to keep us busy in that flat sandy area. The best part was that we could swim and wash in that fresh/saltwater with saltwater soap.

  The Platoon moved closer to the sea, setting up in a Platoon Patrol Base, PPB, running our day and night patrols as usual. My first contact with South Vietnamese Army troops was there. They looked like children playing with rifles. I was not too impressed. A little tidal stream by the PPB offered swimming and since I had found some survival fishing tackle at Khe Sanh, where it had come from I haven’t a clue, decided to go fishing, so with c-ration meat as bait and a little pole the fishing began. They were small, but the excitement was great, with the first catch I went running like a crazy man to get my camera, wanting to record my trophy fish. On patrol during the day I can across a NVA first aid kit, lying on the ground, the marines in front had walked past it and me, probably the only one looking at the ground, saw it. I was scared to touch it fearing a booby trap. One marine looped a string around it, backed off and pulled, nothing happened. He kept it. One day a huge column of smoke hung in the sky, the ammo dump at the main base had blown up! Rotating back some days later the area was a mess, artillery and mortar rounds littered the ground, which you didn’t want touch. 

  The corpsmen were called to Battalion Aid Station for the yearly written test to advance in rank, which was very important out there, the more rank, the less field combat. Sitting there taking a Navy test in the shade of the DMZ was one thing I’ll never forget. The Chief Corpsman walking about clucking like a mother hen with his brood of Corpsman, our faces creased with concentration. Then back to the bush as usual. About 9 months later I advanced in rank to HM-2, an E-5 rating, stateside.

 The months had turned to August of 68. I had been there going on 3 months and still alive, but demoralized. So much bloodshed, death and destruction and we were still not winning anything, just maintaining our positions. Still, things were going good with us, rumors of heading back to Da Nang floated about, and that was exciting news to all of us. Little did we know what was ahead of us there. Before we would ship out for that southern city a small operation had to be done, in the DMZ. That was not a happy thought for us. I think it was the last large-scale assault of that no-mans area, due to political reasons. This time the rumor going about was the high percentage of lives to be lost, a 50% chance to return. That scared me greatly. 
 
                                                             Next: Assaulting the DMZ.
By Michael Pipkin