Authors: Thom Nicholson
There are occurrences in a war which leave profound and permanent impressions on those who experience them. Every soldier experiences them. Some are good, some bad. Some are memories you treasure, and some become nightmares. One such experience had a very definite and life-changing effect on me. It involved me and Sgt. John “Sandy” Sanderson, one of the many young NCOs assigned to CCN as recon team members. Sandy had been in SVN about six months, running recon on Team Blacksnake as the One-one, or second in command, when I took command, and he went to work for me.
He was a fine young soldier, brave and dependable in the bush. When the leadership position on Recon Team Asp became available, I had no trouble agreeing with Sergeant Fischer’s recommendation that the twenty-year-old soldier take command of the team. He worked hard, and his team was in first-class condition when they were certified as ready to go. I watched in approval as he led his team of soldiers during the train-up phase of its preparation for field operations. I grew increasingly fond of the young Tennessee soldier, even though I stayed as aloof as possible. The only son of an upstanding Memphis family, his gentle southern style and baby-face good looks made him an easy man to like. He went out of his way to get along with just about everyone.
Sandy had joined the army after two years of college. He had attended the army’s instant NCO academy after basic training and then volunteered for Special Forces training. He
was the top graduate of his class at the Phase I and Phase II Special Forces NCO courses at Fort Bragg. Of course, Sandy wasn’t going to be a career soldier, but he was a damn good soldier just the same, the epitome of the American citizen soldier. I couldn’t help but like him far too much.
CCN was doubly blessed by the caliber of the young men who filled its ranks. They were all double volunteers, for SF and then CCN. All were confident and proud of themselves. They may have had doubts about the way we were prosecuting the war, but they accepted their jobs and took gratification in doing them right. The SF units in Vietnam had no trouble with the drugs and blatant insubordination the rest of the army was cursed with by that time in the war. CCN officers could safely sleep at night and confidently go into the field with any of our men without fear of fragging (the deliberate killing of superiors by soldiers from the ranks).
When I considered the quality of the American NCOs we were privileged to command, and add to that the brave and loyal Montagnard strike troopers, I am convinced CCN had the best troops in South Vietnam. I seriously wondered why every officer in the U.S. Army didn’t try to get into Command and Control North. I don’t remember ever meeting a CCN enlisted man whom I didn’t like and respect. I hope I left them with a similar impression.
The night before Sandy took his team into isolation for the first time as team leader, prior to insertion behind the lines, he stopped by my tiny orderly room and invited me to have a drink with him at the NCO club.
“Sure, if you want. I’d be happy to. How about 1930? I should be finished with my paperwork by then.”
“That’ll be fine,
Dai Uy
. I’ll see you then.” Sandy smiled and left me to the relentless paper pushing. I barely made the club by the agreed-upon time.
“Hi, Captain. What’re you drinkin’?”
“Just beer, thanks. I’ve sort of taken the vow ever since the camp was overrun last August.”
Sandy ordered for me and queried, “Would you like to go out on the patio? It’s too nice a night to stay cooped up inside.”
I had been behind my desk all day. The little covered patio looked out over Da Nang Bay and at night was as beautiful as any peaceful beach on earth. After the sun came up, it would be a much different story. The daytime view was less inspiring. Then, you saw the polluted gray waters, the smog over Da Nang city, and the numerous ships anchored haphazardly in the shelter of the semicircular bay. Standing solidly at either end of the bay, the two guardians, Monkey Mountain to the north and Marble Mountain to the south, loomed dark and somewhat forbidding.
We sat and sipped our beer, casually talking of inconsequential things for a time, enjoying the gentle swish of waves lapping against the sandy beach beyond the razorwire barricade. Before I realized it, Sandy was really opening up to me, telling me things I never knew of himself. I listened, not sure where this was all leading.
He paused and took a sip of his beer. “I’ve even got a little girl back home. Her name’s Nancy Sue.”
“You don’t say. Your wife?” I didn’t remember that from his personnel file.
“No, my daughter. Her mother and I were going together when I got her … well, you know. That was one of the reasons I joined up. I knew I wasn’t ready for marriage yet. I sort of planned to make things right when I got home. It really hurt my folks, my knocking up Suzanne like I did.”
Sandy flipped the cap off another beer. “I was wrong not to do the right thing, I know that now.”
“That’s all right. You can make it up when you get back.” I was getting a mite uncomfortable with what was going on. It was a job for the chaplain, not me.
“That’s why I’m talking with you, Captain. I don’t expect to get home. I’ve made out a new will naming Nancy as my beneficiary. I wrote a letter to my daughter and my folks. I want to leave them with you to take care of for me if I don’t
get back from this mission. You make sure they get sent to them. Will you do that for me?”
“Hell, what are you talking about? Of course you’ll get back. Don’t even think otherwise.”
Sandy looked out at the dark water. “No, it’s not gonna happen. I’ve had a feeling for some time now that my string has run out. I’ll not make it back from this one.”
“Well, hell’s bells, Sandy. I don’t know what to say. You want off the roster for the mission?” I hoped I wasn’t hearing that from this kid I liked so much.
“Negative, Captain, I don’t want that. It wouldn’t matter anyway. I’ll go. I’ve got to. If I was here at camp, or in Saigon, or in the bush, the same thing will happen. If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen. I’ll go with my team. You just promise me you’ll take care of this stuff for me if something does happen. You promise?”
“Sure, I will. But dammit, Sandy. Maybe you shouldn’t go out if you feel that way. Shit fire, I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t sweat it,
Dai Uy
. I’ll do my job. I just wanted to make sure you know what to do if something happens and I buy the farm.”
I shook the hand he offered and spent a few more minutes with him, but I was damned uncomfortable. I tried to reassure him that he’d be okay, but he just nodded, as if humoring me, and stared at the dark water. I don’t think he really heard a word I was saying.
Finally, I made my excuses and headed for Major Skelton’s desk in the TOC. I respected the veteran officer and wanted his opinion.
“You think he’s trying to crap out of the mission?” Major Skelton voiced what was the most logical explanation to Sandy’s bizarre prophecy.
“I don’t think so, sir. Sergeant Sanderson is a fine NCO. He seemed really sincere to me. I don’t know what to think.”
“Well, certainly, we can’t let a man out of a job every time he gets a bad feeling. I’ve been scared, and so have you. All
you can do is take his letters for him and give them back when he comes in. He’ll feel like a fool then and won’t pull a stunt like this again.”
“I suppose so. I don’t mind saying it was eerie, hearing him say it the way he did. Well, thanks, sir. I’d better get some rack time. See ya tomorrow.” The major waved me out and returned to the stack of papers on his desk.
A couple of days later, Sandy took out his team, which was assigned the job of planting magnetic sensors along a new stretch of road another team had discovered. If the sensors were placed in the right location, any wheeled vehicles that drove past would set them off, alerting the airborne controllers in the Prairie Fire aircraft to call in an air strike. At least, that was supposed to be the plan. It was one of many high-tech schemes we tried to implement during our watch on the Ho Chi Minh trail.
Sandy’s team found the road and placed the sensors along its edge, and then pulled back to its RON site. On the morning of the next day, the team was scheduled to be airlifted out. I went over to the TOC to listen to the extraction on the big radio. Several TOC members were already gathered around. “What’s going on?”
One of the intell sergeants looked up at my interruption. “Team Asp is in trouble. They’re receiving fire on the LZ. They’ve called for air support. The choppers are orbiting away from the LZ waiting for it to cool off.” That meant the unarmed choppers were hoping the LZ wouldn’t be hot before they returned for them.
We all waited anxiously, listening to Sanderson and the airborne controller discussing the requested air strike. After what seemed a long time, but wasn’t, the fighter-bombers arrived. They dropped their bombs and agreed to a strafing run along the hillside where the recon team was waiting. The plan was for the air force to knock out the heavy sniper fire, allowing the choppers a chance at getting into the LZ.
The first plane made its initial strafing run, and I heard
Sandy give the corrections for the second plane. It was silent for a few seconds and then, “
Mother of God, pull up! Pull up!
” The airborne controller was going crazy over the airwaves.
“What’s wrong?” Our radio operator queried.
The answer from the controller chilled my blood. “The second plane missed his target and strafed the hilltop instead. He strafed the ground where Asp was dug in with his guns on full stroke. Jesus, man, nobody could live through that.”
The F-4 Phantom jet was armed with a 20mm Gatling gun as its main armament. The weapon was a deadly device, designed to bring bad hurt on men in the open. I had seen it in action just a few weeks earlier on the hilltop, back in July. I knew what it could do. The men in front of my position that terrible night had been blown to pieces. Just scraps where there had once been a living man. The 20mm shell exploded on impact with the ground, spraying hot shrapnel in all directions. When six thousand of them are coming down every minute, it puts a lot of hurt on anything in its way.
I listened as the extraction choppers carefully returned to the location of the unlucky recon team. The enemy fire was suppressed, and they encountered no resistance during the recovery of the team members. The pilot reported the bad news to those of us standing helplessly beside the radio in anguished anticipation. “Three KIA and three WIA.” The entire team had become casualties.
“Roger,” came the reply from Covey. “Take ’em direct to III MAF Evac Hospital. I’ll try and get a report from the air force. Covey out.”
I do believe we would have promptly lynched any air force jet jockey unfortunate enough to be around us at that moment, but in truth, it was just a bad break. After a careful investigation, the air force released an official report, which simply stated that the aim point was unclear, and it was an accident, and they were very sorry, etc., etc.
Meantime, I had three wounded Americans and three dead Yards to worry over. The team One-one had a bad hole in his
leg, and Sandy, the team One-zero, was desperately injured, hit in the neck by a bit of shrapnel from an exploding shell. He was unconscious and barely alive.
Early the next morning I drove over to the evac hospital, which was only about a mile up the road. The team’s One-one had already been medevacked to Japan, and Sandy had been taken to the hospital ship
Repose
, anchored in the middle of Da Nang harbor. The
Repose
was one of two fully equipped hospital ships serving off the coast of Vietnam. It was as well staffed and equipped as any modern hospital and much closer to the action. Only the very, very seriously injured soldiers ended up on it. It must have been a depressing assignment for the doctors and nurses assigned to the converted passenger liner; they received a relentless stream of mangled and dying young men. That would have been enough to make me go off the deep end.
I spoke with Lieutenant Colonel Donahue the next morning. “I’d like to go out to the
Repose
and see how Sergeant Sanderson’s doing.”
The old man was agreeable. “I don’t suppose it will hurt. Take his mail and anything you think he might need. I’ll tell Sergeant White to get the motorboat ready for you after lunch.”
“Thanks, Colonel. I hope it’ll boost Sandy’s morale. He was feeling low before the mission even started.”
First Sergeant Fischer and I pointed CCN’s little motorboat toward the hospital ship immediately after lunch. The water was smooth and reasonably clear for a change. The hull of the big gray and white ship soon loomed over us. The massive red cross painted on its side was a great bull’s-eye to any enemy submarine that might be in the waters. Fortunately, North Vietnam didn’t have any submarines. They just had unending columns of brave young men to feed into our grinders.
I asked for Sergeant Sanderson as soon as we climbed on the main deck. A white-suited corpsman took us down into the bowels of the ship to a sick ward and turned us over to a navy
nurse, who was boss of the floor. She was dressed in a starched white uniform, white hose, and soft-sole white shoes. Her light brown hair was sort of pinned under a nurses’ cap, and except for the tired look on her face with dark circles under her soft brown eyes, she was darned attractive to a horny soldier like me. Thank goodness for angels like her; she had more important things on her mind. She tended the suffering.
“You can only stay a minute, Captain. The sergeant is badly wounded and needs his rest.”
“How bad is it?”
“He has a severed spine. Right now, he’s paralyzed from the chin down, with just a little feeling in his hands and arms. We’ll know more after the swelling in his spine goes down.”
“My God. That’s awful. Will he get better?”
“Maybe.” She smiled at us tiredly. “We’ll have to hope so, won’t we? Follow me.”