Chapter 1

The first time I saw the sun breaking over the mountains of Vietnam was on the dawn of a chaotic day during the Tet Offensive. Our ship was carrying a load of M-48 tanks that were too heavy and too difficult to maintain in the jungles and less than ideal armor fighting terrain in almost every quarter. They were good for defensive positions and for guarding bridges and that sort of thing, but their best tactics were virtually useless in the muddy monsoon season and navigating poor road systems with hard-to-detect non-metallic improvised explosive devices.

The concepts of modern day armored warfare was not a Jungle thing except for the lightweight beestings of the French light armored fighting vehicles or the Russian hybrids of troop transport and swift armored cannon used more for mobility than any other reason. The hills and rice paddies of Vietnam were not for armor but they did make a hell of a racket and impressed the shit out of illiterate civilians more at ease with bicycles and motor scooters.

I got scooped up in a raid on all available personnel in Camp Pendleton right when heavy losses were hitting the ground troops in Central Vietnam. The U.S. Army forces in the south were also caught with their pants down at a time when things were just starting to look like they were coming together after years of slow attrition.

It looked my poker playing days were over to fill days of boredom and they told me I was transferred to a tank unit and relieved of any an all interrogation duties using my newly acquired language training from the State Department school in Arlington, Virginia. Since I didn’t have any family to speak of at the time, it didn’t matter much to me because I did have a love of tanks that went back to a previous hitch in the Army when I got to ride all over Germany. Now, that was a great Armor fighting terrain almost everywhere you looked except maybe right in the highest parts of the Alps.

We were all hot to trot to get off the tank-carrying ship with the hold that was home to about twenty of the metallic monsters that drank diesel fuel and burned oil in gulps that made our supply lines vital umbilical cords stretching all the way back to the port city of Da-nang on the South China Sea. The city was infiltrated by small groups of Viet-Cong that had fought their way almost from the Ho-Chi-Minh trail over by Cambodia to the port city and the American Headquarters for all Marine Corps action in the Central part of Vietnam. They were mostly being led by North Vietnamese Regular Officers who also acted as a political cadre to insure proper thinking along correct Communist propaganda lines with instructions straight from their main office in Hanoi.

I got put in charge of a “Light Section” which in Marine Corps lingo simply meant a pair of tanks. The “Heavy Section” was a trio of tanks. You can get the sense that armor in the Marine Corps was not as plentiful as armor units in the Regular Active Army doubtless due to monetary budgets that insisted Marine Infantry make do with less Infantry support than the better equipped and better supported Army Units. I remember at the time, a lot was being said about the fact the Marines had better Air Support since they had their own Air Wings, but the truth of the matter was that the Air Wings had already been committed to support other priorities deemed more important than close air support for the Marine ground units. Everyone knew that and didn’t expect our guys to come in like a “white knight” to pull our chestnuts from the fire.

The movement from the shoreline to the nearby Tank Park outside the city was tense and exciting because enemy action was anticipated the entire time. In fact, it was a let-down of sorts when it was uneventful. That first night was highlighted by periodic alerts for “rocket attacks” when the enemy hit the center of the headquarters with randomly targeted rocket fire not unlike the “depth charges” used to zoom in on submarines hidden from view. The enemy didn’t have to see us to know we were there. They just had to have a bit of luck in hitting the right place with them firing rockets like a blind man swinging haymakers in a heavyweight bout.

It took me about three weeks to pass through the final line of defense for the Da-nang enclave and get situated out in the countryside for some noisy and visible support for the Infantry elements of freshly arrived from the land of the big PX/BX Gyrenes. I never really fit in well with the armored unit because I saw things from the perspective of actually using tanks as a mobile strike force and not just anchored strong points to bolster a defense. Later on, in operations along the Perfume River, I hated the fact the tanks were used primarily to bring in ammo and other much needed supplies because the troops on the move were not as easy to support as a long standing defensive position with lots of suppressive firepower. There was a noticeable shortage of logistical support by air in the period after the Tet Offensive. This is from a “boot on the ground” perspective and not some after action report typed up for upper echelon consumption.

I followed the trail of our shipload of M48s and was not surprised to see that after only nine months in-country, the original twenty was whittled down to only six in operational status. It was a combination of “sitting duck” RPG attacks and cleverly placed anti-tank mines that did most of the damage but some of it was due to lack of in-depth armor logistical support in terms of spare parts and no real mechanical repair depot to restore functionality to units cannibalized to stay in the field. My memories of where we were sent and how we got there are somewhat hazy at this late date but I remember being demoted to a single tank commander when I supported some black Marines request to NOT fly a confederate flag on the second tank. Actually with five of the eight crewmen on the two tanks being black, I expected some support for my decision that was according to the book and not an emotional response in any way at all. It was particularly ironic that the black company ranking enlisted man was the one that broke the news to me on a morning that seemed rift with terrible omens like the scores of bodies floating down the river bloated from decomposition in the humid tropical sun. In all honesty, I was of the personal opinion the flag of the Confederacy was a romantic and inspiring tradition and not a symbol of oppression that most of the black troops considered to be a signal of “red neck” bullying. But the rules said only American flags and flags of unit identification and that was the “book”.