Chapter 2

On the plane to Okinawa, I had plenty of time to think. I was very afraid and I felt very unprepared for combat. Not only was I a 'cherry' in combat, but I also was a virgin. I knew many green soldiers died their first month in combat. I didn't want to die and though irrational, it really bothered me that I might die a virgin. If I got back, I swore that I would become a good student. I had withdrawn from Yale in good standing. I thought, I can return. Thirteen months and I can be back in New Haven. This time I will enjoy college. I need to get some separation from Mother. She is really getting me down. When I get back, she will be in Florida most of the time.

At Camp Buckner in Okinawa, I got lectures, shots, paperwork, and a combat issue. I put the two pairs of the steel reinforced combat boots which Grandfather had gotten me in my duffle bag and wore one of the leather ones issued to me at Camp Buckner.

The VD lectures frightened me. After seeing the slides that went with the VD lecture, I thought, Maybe I should wait until I go on R & R to rent a girl.

A big Negro master sergeant laughed when he gave me my orders, "You're in for a real experience. You're assigned as a replacement in a battalion of the Alabama National Guard. They are in the Highlands. They will love your Yankee ass."

I was flown into Danang, and then to the battalion headquarters in An Khe, where I was assigned to Company C of the Dixie Division of the Alabama National Guard. The battalion had replaced the 101st in supporting the First Air Cav.

I was assigned to the first squad of the second platoon. The 1st sergeant, Lonnie Holton, took me to the squad area. "Sergeant Curtis, PFC Jenkins is a replacement assigned to you."

Sergeant Curtis asked, "We're light three Top. Any chance for the other two?"

Sergeant Holton said, "You're lucky you got one."

When Holton left, Curtis said, "Your buddy is Williams." He showed me to my area.

PFC Dallas Williams said, "I'm a replacement too. Draftee or RA (Regular Army Volunteer)?"

"Draftee."

"RA, from Johnson City, Tennessee," he said.

"I went through basic and AIT with a guardsman from Elizabethton. I'm from Long Island."

"Elizabethton is practically next door, but it's a helluva long way from here. Try to get some sleep. We were out all night on patrol. We have to be on the fence in three hours."

It was hot and dirty. I wasn't able to sleep.

Sergeant Curtis got us up to go on watch at the perimeter fence. A private, Eddie Shaun, complained, "Damn Looney, he could have sent us a mosquito wing."

Dallas said, "As PFC's we outrank Shaun. The low man has to burn the shit pans from the latrine. He had hoped the replacement would be a private he outranked."

Shaun was a slow talking, clumsy, good natured country kid from outside Demopolis, Alabama. He grumbled about everything, but tried to pull his weight.

The squad ate and went to the trenches to watch the concertina wire.

Dallas said, "Charlie doesn't hit us often during the day. Most of the time, we sweep the area in company patrols during the day, and then we go out on ambush squads at night. This outpost is west of the First Cav. We're supposed to protect this approach and keep Charlie off them."

I nodded.

"The platoon took eight KIA this month. This squad had two of those and two wounded sent home. We're the replacements. They've been here a less than two months." Very softly he whispered, "Inexperienced National Guard sergeants, most don't have a clue. Nobody gets friendly with the cherries; too many aren't around very long."

A mortar round came in before I could tell him how encouraging what he told me was.

Dallas said, "Charlie fires off enough to keep us from sleeping. A direct hit on an area usually injures anyone inside. My father retired from the Army. I know a little about the Army."

I commented, "Everybody looks really tired."

"That's what Charlie wants. At night sappers try to come through the fence and frag us. They fire off enough mortars to make things interesting and keep us awake. You learn to sleep when you can."

That night while we guarded the fences, Dallas said, "We take turns. I sleep and you watch. Then we switch. We watch each other all the time. Some of these guys aren't very dependable."

I did a double shift and woke Dallas. There had been some incoming mortar rounds but no attacks. I got a little sleep before the company went on a sweep. The company walked double file through some villages and back. Snipers shot the point man and disappeared. He was KIA; another man was wounded. They weren't from our platoon.

That evening the squad went out on night patrol, but didn't make contact. We got two and a half hours rest and went on a company day patrol. The road and paths were mined and booby-trapped. We didn't take fire though. We got most of our sleep as we guarded the perimeter concertina.

On my third night patrol, my squad was ambushed. We were fired on for less than a minute, and then it was over. One man was wounded and went to the battalion aid station.

The next day, I got Thanksgiving cards from Grandfather and Mother. I hadn't realized it was Thanksgiving. One day seemed like the next.

The man wounded in the ambush returned to the squad a day after he went to the aid station.

I made it through the first six weeks with shrapnel wounds that required me to go to the aid station once. I was tired, dirty, and insect bitten. I had learned to deal with the attacks, ambushes and snipers, but I knew I could get killed anytime.

The VC soldiers were good fighters and were ruthless.

As we came into a village, a little girl of three or four ran to Eddie Shaun and detonated a grenade. It killed her and Eddie. I received shrapnel wounds; more shrapnel that the medic could handle and I was medivaced to the aid station. They took out the shrapnel, gave me a purple heart and my CIB. I stayed overnight and I was sent back to duty.

Not long after I got back, another man in our squad from Demopolis was killed when we were ambushed on night patrol. Like this man and Eddie, many of the guardsmen in a company were from the same area of Alabama. Some had been friends since grade school. Multiple losses were really hard on the men and their communities. He was the third man from Demopolis to be KIA and the fourth in the squad killed from the original guard unit.

The company held against two full-scale night attacks, but the company lost several men, mostly wounded. Most of the new replacements, both sergeants and privates were Negroes. Most in the company were glad to get them. But as more Negroes came, trouble began. Negro cliques formed and some of the Negroes used drugs. The company's culture was stronger anti-drug than anti-Negro. Any man on drugs couldn't be trusted. The Army couldn't handle problems with Negroes. Some stayed high and refused to go out on patrol and on the fence they paid no attention to what went on; but no one could do anything about them. Some of them didn't care what happened to them.

Sergeant Warren, the 4.2 mortar platoon sergeant, warned his platoon, "If I catch you high, I'll shoot you. Nobody on my tubes uses."

I didn't doubt him, but some of the new Negro guys did. Two of his men were killed by a grenade. The Sergeant reported a sapper got them. Everyone knew the Sergeant had fragged the men. No charges were every filed and the dopers stayed out of his way.

An ARVN mechanized infantry lieutenant colonel controlled dope sales in the area. His unit rarely fought and was not dependable, but nothing was done about it. Drugs were plentiful and cheap. The longer we stayed, the percentage of men who used increased dramatically.

My squad got a three day R&R, which the men called I & I, intoxication and intercourse. I got cleaned up, wrote letters, and slept most of the first day. The second day I went to a bar with Dallas and two other guys in the squad.

My first experience with a whore was a disaster. I was too excited and didn't even make it in her. At least the bargirl didn't tell anyone. I went back to the unit before I tried again.

I hadn't been back from R & R long when I got wounded in a mortar attack. I was profiles on restricted duty for two weeks. When I reported back to the unit, the new CO asked, "Can you type? The morning reports are a mess."

The morning report was somewhat difficult to figure out and had to be typed correctly with no erasures. The company's old morning reports were neither computed correctly, nor typed correctly. I figured out how to do the report and typed the prior week's forms. I gave the XO two of the completed reports. I had learned not to be too swift in the Army.

The XO and CO were ecstatic that I could do the morning reports.

While I was at the CP, I received a package from my Grandfather that included underwear. One of the t-shirts had my fraternity Greek letters on it. I wore it one day as I did the clerical work.

The CO, who that day had been promoted to captain, asked, "You're a DKE?"

I said, "Yale, sir."

The Captain said, "University of Alabama. The S-1 is a brother too."

I liked the CO and the XO. The CO, Thornton Canter, was in law school at the University of Alabama, when his guard unit was activated. Thornton had been the captain of Alabama's football team and was from Birmingham. He had a job promised in the trust department of First National Bank of Birmingham when he finished law school. He'd come over on the advanced party and had only been recently transferred as CO.

Thornton transferred me into the company clerk's line and the former clerk was transferred to a squad. I moved into the CP, but at night I usually slept in the communication section's trench and bunker. It and the CP drew the most mortar fire, but the commo section also had the deepest trench and it was the safest place to be.

The Negro clerk complained to the Inspector General that his MOS was clerk and that he was transferred because of race. That he was incompetent didn't seem to make any difference. He was school trained as a company clerk and had the MOS. Thornton was required to take him back.

Before the CO cycled home, he promoted me to sergeant and transferred me back as a squad leader. Before I left as company clerk, I sent home unassembled; a trench gun, an M-16, and a couple of knives that were spread between several boxes.

In the early spring, the company was sent to Plei Me. The lieutenant colonel's ARVN mechanized infantry unit was supposed to hold a likely NVA ambush point on the road. My company was to relieve a company under siege in Plei Me.