The war in Vietnam took on many strange faces during its course and one of them was the “pacification” programs which were instituted in order to help win the “hearts and minds” of a local populace and thereby encouraging them to support the US effort.   The 25^th Infantry Divisions 3^rd Brigade forward support base was established near the village of Dau Tieng of which, and along with other outlying villages, was the target of such a pacification program during the summer of 1968.  The mission of this pacification program was to go into these villages and provide food, medical assistance and assurances to the local population that the Americans would protect them from attacks and raids by the NVA and local VC.  In theory it was probably a good program.

  Another policy that the “powers to be of American leadership” came up with was the establishment of three separate and distinctive fire zones thereby providing a guide for fighting the war in a given area.  Troops were always advised of whatever “zone” they were in and were expected to adhere to the mandates of said zone.  The first zone was a “no fire” zone which simply meant that you could not fire a shot anywhere in this zone or you would be arrested, court-martialed, and jailed in that order.  This was fairly cut and dried and there was no room for discussion about it.  The second fire zone was a semi-fire zone which generally meant that you couldn’t fire first, however you could return fire if fired upon and the punishment for not following those guidelines were the same as the first.  The third fire zone was a free fire zone that allowed you to shoot at anything that seemed hostile.  The reasons for these explanations will become apparent as we continue. 

During the summer of 1968 the small hamlet named Dau Tieng and the surrounding area had been declared a no fire zone as it was adjacent to the 25th Infantry Divisions 3^rd Brigade forward support base and was undergoing an intense program of pacification, or so it was claimed.   This was not a popular plan amongst the men on the forward support base as they have had a continual bombardment of rockets, mortars and sniper fire into the base area for months and they could see no reason to declare this region a no fire zone.  During this time the main elements of the units claiming Dau Tieng as a base camp were in the field between Saigon and Cambodia acting as a fire break between Saigon and the NVA army during the TET offensive. There was only a small detachment of about eighty men left to keep the base camp open and to defend it if necessary.  One of them turned out to be me. 

 The day of 3 July 1968 I had been delivering the last of the new M-16A1 rifles to the troops in the field as was part of my job being the Supply Sgt of one of the combat companies.  The previous M16’s were prone to jam if you looked at them wrong and on more than one occasion ended up being a better club than a rifle.  Upon returning to the base camp at Dau Tieng by helicopter that afternoon, I noticed a lot of enemy activity outside the wire as we flew into the base and I thought it very strange that nothing was being done about it.  After landing and getting to the company area I checked with operations about what was going on and discovered that they were aware of the buildup of enemy forces outside the perimeter but could do nothing about it because we were in a “no fire” zone thanks to the pacification program.  All military action in the area had to be passed by the local village chiefs before being implemented and they would not give us permission to fire into the area.     Even though intelligence had been advising them of the buildup all day and pleading with them for permission to begin an offensive, they steadfastly refused.   It would appear that they were more afraid of the NVA/VC than they were of us, and for good reason.  Everyone I spoke to was incensed that we could not take the offensive before the enemy buildup got larger.  Darkness was settling in and everyone was really on edge.  The word from higher up was not to fire and we knew the penalties.  All we could do was to watch them continue their buildup and wait.  We began to feel like sacrificial goats but there was nothing we could do about it.  It was estimated that there was at least a Battalion size element of NVA regulars along with an unknown quantity of VC coupled with artillery support surrounding us unopposed.  As the night got darker our fear got larger.  Enter the no fire zone policy.

 In the early morning hours of July 4^th, 1968 at 2:15 hrs our worst fears became reality as a huge artillery, rocket and mortar attack was launched against the forward support base at Dau Tieng.    Just before the attack started I was walking across an open area while hoping against hope that nothing would happen and the sun would rise peacefully in the morning.  You never went anywhere in Vietnam without you steel pot and your weapons, even from tent to tent in base camp and I had mine with me. As the rocket and mortar rounds began to drop all around me I dove into the nearest bunker. Rounds were landing everywhere and small arms fire was coming in from all directions.  The sky was lit by explosions and flares and the den of noise was deafening. Pulling my helmet down over my head and trying to keep from being blown apart from rockets I saw several NVA about fifty yards to my right and they were moving my way as if they seemed to know I was there.    I immediately let loose several short bursts of rounds from my M-16, dropping two of them immediately and wounding several others.  Now I had removed all doubt about whether or not they knew my position and it appeared that they were now intent on coming after me.  I began firing at them again as they took cover and I saw another group moving in from my left at about the same distance.   I could see other men firing at the NVA from various positions, but my immediate concern was that I was being trapped between two advancing groups and I was all by myself.  It seemed like there was no way out as rounds began to tear up the ground and sandbags I was using for protection.  The artillery, rockets and mortars continued to reign down in torrents of deadly steel and I was amazed at how the NVA seemed to avoid them as if they had a map.   I knew that if I stayed where I was, my position would be overrun in short order as I was receiving fire from both the left and right sides now.  The explosions from all the incoming rounds shook the ground as the NVA continued to fire at me from two different directions and I could not see any way out of my imminent death.  I knew if I didn’t do something right now I would be dead in minutes.   I emptied a magazine in one direction, slammed home another magazine, emptied it in the other direction and began my run back across the open area I had just crossed before the fight began.  The ground was shaking from explosions and I could feel bullets in front of and behind me as I ran for my life.   Somehow I had managed to cross most of the open area through the barrage of rockets, mortars and small arms fire running a zig zag route as best I could.  With only about ten yards to go I would reach a washed out creek and some kind of protection. My mind started screaming “you can make it” and I thought I could when a thunderous explosion happened behind me and I was thrown into the air like a rag doll doing a back flip and coming to rest flat on my face.  I could feel nothing.  I could hear nothing.  I could see nothing.  I did not hurt anywhere.  Whatever logic I could muster or any ability to reason at that point dictated that I must be dead.  Not having a lot of experience to draw on in situations like this limited me to this basic question.  Was I dead or not? Time passed I know, but I was immune to its passing.  However, whether it was five minutes or five years was subjective as I had no basis for comparison. I didn’t know what to expect, if anything and my mind was running but not making any sense.  The thought of this being some sort of a final transition of my ability to reason or think and the nothingness of the beyond flashed into my mind.   Not being a religious person, I did not expect to see God or the Devil but I was not prepared for this nothingness.  I was at a loss for any kind of interpretation of what was happening to me when I began to feel myself rising from my prone position ever so slowly in an effortless motion and began to see the battlefield as it was presented below me like a three dimensional map complete with action figures.  What was this?  I had no control.  I slowly rose higher until I began to see the overall battlefield from ten feet, then 20 feet and continuing up at a slow progressive level. I could see the explosions on the battlefield and see the streaks of tracer fire like flaming tongues of dragons lashing out death to all.  I could see my body lying face down with large amounts of blood coming from my back and most of my clothes blown off.   How odd I thought that I should die on the 4^th of July, almost naked with only my boots, pistol belt and .45 on my side, and even more peculiar to see it from this bird’s eye view. 

 Something was beginning to happening that didn’t make sense, as if anything did at this point in this maddening kaleidoscope of insanity.  As I continued to rise there began to lurk in the depths of my mind that I had some kind of choice to make but it wasn’t clear what it could be.   This thought began to gather momentum and flew into a full frontal view at what seemed to be an impossible speed and I was taken aback by its content.    I had a choice to live or die! All I had to do to continue this upward spiral was to say nothing and let death take its course.  There were no signs indicating what death was other than what I was currently experiencing which was a void of all things I have known in life and no further assurances of things good or evil.   The second choice was to scream “NO, I’m not ready to go!”  And the ascent would stop.  I would live but as with death, there was no further assurance of things good or evil.  There was no road map laying out a destination or a purpose to assist in any type of decision.   This presented a quandary I was ill prepared to deal with.   It’s not possible.  Do I really have these choices or is this just a final cruelty to add insult to an ugly death?  Something kept reminding me that time would not wait and I needed to make the choice soon or the choice I was presented with will be withdrawn as quickly as it appeared and I will most certainly be dead.   There was a terrible tug of war going on in my thoughts about going or staying and I knew that I must have gone insane just before this happened to me.  I felt no pain now and strangely no remorse or sadness. The remembrances of war and the pain involved for everyone made a strong case for not living any longer and I strongly considered this path as the seconds ticked off the clock.  It would be over for me and an easy way out.  Suddenly, thoughts of a summer morning with the sweet smell of Honeysuckle dancing in the air, the warmth of the sun on my face, and the faces of my children growing up without a father somehow sobered me into some type of a reasoning capacity and I remember saying to myself, “I am not ready to go yet” and screamed those words in my mind.   I had no idea of what the future would hold as nothing had presented itself to give me any kind of clue during the short time I had to choose.   

  Almost at the same instance of forming those thoughts and screaming those words in my mind, I felt myself slowly descending back to the battlefield and toward my lifeless body. Just that quick, the course of my life changed and I knew it.   I began to hear the sounds of battle again with the explosions of rockets and mortars echoing as they hit the ground releasing a starburst that would be pretty had it not been designed for the death of men.  I could hear the crack of rifles and machine guns and the cries of men at war and it was sickening.  I began to wonder about my decision to stay but I was on an irreversible course back to my body and whatever was to be.   Suddenly I awoke from what could only have been a dream and realized that I was lying in the open on a battlefield and I realized that if I’m not dead, I will be if I don’t move to some cover.  I tried to get on my feet and run, but my legs weren’t there to support me.  I could not get up.   I knew at that moment that I possibly could have made the wrong decision by coming back as I could not bear the thought of losing my legs and being a burden on someone for the rest of my life.   I could not bear to look and see if my legs were truly gone but my mind had no other explanation.  The den of battle was getting worse and I was terrified of dying again as I’m not sure that I would have been afforded those choices again, but I couldn’t move.   Desperation set in as I brought myself somehow to reach down and feel for my legs even though I couldn’t bear to look and see if they were still there.  Reaching the area of my legs with dread I felt them still attached, but there was no feeling in them.   My eyes welled up with tears of joy as the knowledge that I still had both of my legs settled in, and the next second those tears of joy turned to tears of fear as I realized I could be paralyzed the rest of my life.   I could feel no pain or anything else in my legs but I was bleeding so much from the wound in my lower back I knew I was in trouble.   Seconds passed and the war kept getting closer and I decided I’d better try and crawl to cover and I began dragging myself using my arms the final ten yards or so to the small washout in the creek that I originally had been heading for.  Making it to that wash I rolled in and up against the rim and there was still no feeling below my waist.   I pulled my .45 out of the holster and shakily held it in front of me not knowing if I had the strength to actually pull the trigger if I needed to.  I was a physical wreck and the mentally terrified.   Drifting in and out of consciousness as the battle wore on above me I knew I was out of it, or at least I thought so.   Time wore on and the battle above me raged for what seemed to be an eternity and then the sounds of war began to become more sporadic.  Feeling started to return to my legs and my left food was beginning to experience extreme pain from what I was later to find out was a broken ankle.  The boot was still intact however.  It seems that when the rocket landed behind me it picked up something and threw it with the force of the explosion against my left ankle breaking it.  Pain began to radiate from my lower back as if my body had been cut in half and I was to find out later it was the result of about a quarter size piece of shrapnel that had lodged in my spine just below the beltline.  Blood was flowing freely from the wound in my back and I could taste blood in my mouth apparently from the concussion of the exploding round.  The combination of the pain from the wound in my back and the broken foot was excruciating.   Suddenly I began to hear the voices of NVA soldiers moving toward me with what seemed to be a great sense of urgency.  I really thought they would pass me by as I was tucked into the side of the wash and it was pretty dark, but such was not to be.  One of the NVA soldiers had entered the wash and was using it for cover and was rapidly closing the distance toward me.  I saw his silhouette come into view and watched his stride in what seemed to be slow motion as he began to move past me without ever seeing me.    My heart thundered in my chest and I was sure he would hear it but there was no need for that as he kicked my broken ankle as he passed me.  When he kicked that boot with my broken ankle in it I immediately was made aware that all of the feeling had come back into my legs including my feet and I let out a scream that that sounded like it came from the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition.   The NVA soldier twisted around and leveled his AK47 at me at the same time a flare lit up the sky.  I fired one wild, desperate shot that caught him in the right side of his forehead and he fell instantly to the ground.  That was the last action that soldier would ever do as he fell dead next to me.  It was a totally lucky shot and if I had missed he would have cut me in half with his AK47.   I grabbed his rifle and prepared for his fellow comrades to return, but they didn’t.   We lay there together for what seemed an eternity and as I watched the blood run from his head and his brains begin to swell through the hole made by the bullet, my thoughts turned to my earlier experience and I wondered if he was going through the same process of having a choice that I did.  Of course I had no way of knowing, but I’m sure this will cross my mind every time I see death in the future.  Is this something I will experience in my life I when I face death again?  That’s a question that can only be answered at another time.

 As we lay there together in life and death I listened for other NVA soldiers but heard no others and the battle was winding down. I was terrified of not knowing what was going on but in a short while I heard American voices and I screamed for them to come get me and they did.   As the medic’s showed up the first thing they did was take my .45.  That’s a good thing because I believe I would have shot them for pulling me out by my broken foot.  

There are possibly many days in some people’s life that are truly life altering and for others there are but a few, if any.  This day has certainly been a life altering day for me and I’m sure that my mind will never be the same after this day.

The war goes on and the no fire policy is intact.