Combat Swimmer (10 page)

As I've mentioned, the SEAL One mission was to interdict VC trying to ambush shipping headed for Saigon. This was a hit-and-miss proposition at best, but at least we were in the field. As night fell, we sat among the mangrove trees on the canal bank. At this point Chuck introduced us to “stay-awakes”—little green pills guaranteed to keep you from sleeping and missing a firefight.

SEAL One SOP for ambushes called for the squad leader to initiate fire after popping a handheld illumination flare. It also called for one man to be in rear security, about ten meters behind the squad. I didn't like that tactic because I couldn't communicate with the rear guy. But when in Rome . . . I also figured Chuck wasn't going to put us anyplace too likely to see action on our first mission. So I put Charlie Bump in rear security.

We waited and the tide came in. Once just after settling in, we'd thought we heard movement to our rear. Bill Garnett whispered to me that it was probably “Charlie.” Now, “Charlie” was not only our man Bump, but also slang for VC, as in “Victor Charlie.” Chuck's two guys overheard, swung to the rear, and took their weapons off safety, ready to fire. I grabbed them—“No, it's Bump.” We decided we'd have to start calling Charlie by his last name only!

After four hours the tide was high and we were neck deep in water. I noticed two logs in front of us and pointed them out to Chuck.

“Not logs,” he said, “crocodiles.”

They went by no more than six feet away. I didn't tell my guys what they were.

Some time later I was staring across the canal, and there was a twenty-foot water buffalo. When I pointed it out to Chuck, he said it was the stay-awakes: they made some people hallucinate. That ended them for me.

The rest of the night was uneventful. We got out of there just before dawn, “experts” at last.

We had one more operation scheduled, but Chuck felt that we didn't need it. Instead, we did what SEALs do when the work is over: we partied. West Coast SEALs and East Coast SEALs found they had more in common than not. After the party, Chuck and I liberated a bottle of scotch from the officer's-club bar, parked ourselves on the ground behind the club, and proceeded to tell lies until about 0500.

At seven in the morning, I was asleep in my bunk aboard the barge. Someone pulled on my shoulder. I did the right thing—I rolled over and took a swing at the intruder. Who was, of course, the messenger of the watch.

Ducking, he yelled, “Hey, Lieutenant, ease up! The Red Cross just sent word your wife had a baby—a girl.”

Still bleary-eyed, I said, “Sorry 'bout that.”

“No sweat. I took the liberty of ordering flowers in your name. You owe me twenty-five dollars.”

I was completely awake in a New York minute. Becky had finally had the baby! Our second child, Anne. I'd felt bad about leaving her in January; but, as usual, she'd understood: duty called.

“Thanks—you're a good man,” I told the messenger, feeling like a real asshole. I gave him the money and apologized profusely. I made sure a bottle of his favorite booze found its way to him that night.

We returned to Binh Thuy later that day.

 

Our main problem before we started operations out of Binh Thuy was how to clear an operations area for ourselves without informing the VC of our whereabouts. At each Vietnamese administrative level there was a U.S. military adviser, and this dual chain of command—half U.S., half Vietnamese—ran all the way to the highest level in Saigon. It was common knowledge that the VC had infiltrated the Vietnamese chain at every level. So we had to figure out a way to inform our chain without the Vietnamese side knowing; otherwise, we'd find artillery and air strikes raining down at the most inappropriate times.

We worked it out that we'd tell the local U.S. military advisers, in general terms, where we wanted to operate. Usually the coordinates we gave them covered about a hundred square miles. They would say nothing to their Vietnamese counterparts, and we would never appear on any map in any operation center. To protect us from inadvertent artillery fire, the U.S. advisers would just tell the Vietnamese not to fire. This worked, for the most part.

While we officers were developing the procedures for putting everyone (including ourselves) in their “comfort zones,” the troops got bored. One night Bob Gallagher, the chief petty officer of the 2nd Platoon, took a couple of his men to the Army NCO club at Can Tho Air Field, a Vietnamese base with U.S. Army advisers assigned. Can Tho was also a supply base for the Army Special Forces units who “advised” Vietnamese forces near the Cambodian border. One thing led to another, and Bob's crew got into a fight with the entire club—three against about thirty—and did some serious damage to a couple of Army sergeants. The Army sent a colonel to Binh Thuy to investigate. He came in with fire in his eyes, ready to hang all of us.

“What the hell are you guys doing, letting all your SEALs beat up on our men?”

“Well, sir,” Jake explained, “there were only three of our men in the fight.”

That was the end of the investigation. Nothing more was said and the colonel left with his tail between his legs. It didn't take long for the truth to spread around Can Tho, and I don't remember us ever having a problem after that. Anyway, once we began to fight the VC, we didn't need other enemies.

Finally, we were able to get to work. We started out just doing ambushes at night along canals known to be VC transit corridors. Sometimes we were successful interdicting VC, but most of the people were curfew breakers or fishermen trying to get an early start. Sure, we were authorized to fire on anyone we saw in the areas in which we operated, but I got no satisfaction out of killing people I didn't
know
were the enemy.

The problem was, our enemy didn't wear uniforms. Often I wasn't sure until we'd already done the killing, and could inspect the sampan, whether we'd hit a good target. If I saw weapons before we opened up, there was no doubt. Sometimes we'd find the weapons after the hit and I'd feel better. Eventually, if I didn't see weapons, I'd call the sampan over to our position. Any hesitation or other indication that the occupants weren't innocent civilians and I'd open up.

Often they'd come over for inspection and we'd find nothing to suggest they were the enemy. Yet I knew that just because we didn't find any contraband didn't mean they weren't Vietcong. Often, the VC would draft villagers as messengers; the villagers would travel unarmed, with the messages in their heads. One night we had about five sampans lined up on the riverbank with us as we continued to wait for the “bad guys.” After a while I sent them on their way. No doubt we released some messengers along with the innocent, but I could live with that. I just had to find another way to fight the VC.

The next stage was to patrol in enemy-controlled territory. The Navy intelligence system wasn't set up to provide us the information we needed to go after specific targets, so instead we collected tactical intelligence. I set up many a patrol into VC country with the notion we'd move until we found the enemy, and then we'd attack. Sometimes we found VC, sometimes we didn't, but we learned something new each time we went out. Operating where no other U.S. force had been, we soon knew where to go to get action. Ours wasn't a perfect system, but each time we showed up at a VC's door we created havoc. And every time we went into a new area we provided the river patrol force with another piece of the VC puzzle.

Since we'd been prescribed no strategy from above, we SEAL officers decided our “strategy” should be to kill VC wherever and whenever, terrorizing them by hitting them in their “safe” areas. I chose when and where to operate, and my decisions were based on one goal: to kill as many VC as we could without our missions falling into a predictable pattern.

 

I
n total darkness on the Bassac River, the twenty-two-foot armored, reinforced-fiberglass SEAL Team Assault Boat (STAB) throttled back, slowed from twenty-five knots to five, and turned toward the riverbank. Six of us crouched expectantly in the boat. My adrenaline meter was pegged.

I put my hand on Bump's shoulder. “Are you all set?”

“Yep.” Charlie is a man of few words.

Slowly he lifted the AN PVS-2 night-vision scope to his right eye. “I can't see a damn thing at the insertion point.”

“Look to your right, toward the canal.”

“Got it. Looks like we're on track.”

“Lieutenant,” said the coxswain, moving one of the earphones connecting him to the boat radio, “Mr. Baumgart says we need to come left five degrees, and we'll hit the shore two hundred meters from the canal.”

“Roger. Do it.”

Lieutenant Satch Baumgart, our boat support officer, was in our armored LCPL, cruising near the middle of the Bassac, using the boat's surface-search radar to guide us to our insertion point. Satch and his men from Boat Support Unit One in Coronado ran our specially configured boats. He was lying just off our insertion point, ready to give us fire support if we needed it. We were not using secure radios, because in those days the encryption device for our PRC-25 VHF radio was bigger and heavier than the radio. If we needed to communicate with the River Patrol Force Tactical Operations Center (TOC) at Binh Thuy, Satch would use a code book to “kack up”—encrypt—a voice message.

Bump squeezed my arm. “Take a look at that shit.”

I took the night-vision device and put it to my eye. The greenish glow of the scope revealed nothing but a solid wall of vegetation. I knew from the maps that the area near the Long Tuan Secret Zone was covered with thick nipa palm along the rivers and canals, but this was worse than I'd expected. Moving through nipa palm is no fun. The plants grow very close together and the stalks of the plants are solid. I never could figure out if it was a shrub or a tree—not that it much matters.

We'd been operating for more than two months. Our rules of engagement called for us to do our thing in areas that were thought to be inhabited only by the VC. We, unlike other forces on the river, were allowed to fire before being fired upon. The PBR patrols had to take a round or two before they could return fire. Sounds like a strange way to fight a war, but the Mekong Delta was inhabited by many Vietnamese who weren't VC. Unless they fired first or you were in an area designated a free-fire zone, U.S. Navy forces couldn't shoot.

Tonight, our ambush site was on a canal in the western end of the Long Tuan Secret Zone, one of the most hostile areas in the Mekong Delta and a designated free-fire zone. The intelligence guys thought the canal was a major transit point for VC in the area. I knew I wouldn't have to worry about fishermen breaking the dusk-to-dawn curfew.

“We're about a hundred meters out, Lieutenant.”

“Roger. Slow down and let's drift for a minute.”

As the boat's twin outboard engines went idle, we moved slowly toward the riverbank. We all listened. Ears are better than eyes in complete darkness, and there was nothing darker than the Bassac just before the rise of a full moon. The moon would be up at 2200 that night. It was now 2030.

“I can't hear anything.”

“Neither can I, Charlie. Keep looking through the scope.” I turned to the coxswain. “Bring her to just above idle and head toward the beach.”

Now I could see the riverbank. The tide was ebbing. It would be low in about one hour, leaving a bank about three feet high.

The boat grounded slowly in the river mud, the bank about five meters away. This was the hairy part of the mission. If there were bad guys in the foliage in front of us, they'd have a field day. Even knowing that our operational security was the best didn't keep the big butterflies out of our guts. We were hanging out.

Charlie went over the bow of the STAB, then me. We struggled through the mud to the riverbank. Behind me was Fred McCarty with our radio, followed by Pierre Birtz. Jess Tolison came last, just behind Petty Officer Doyle from SEAL Team One's detachment at Nha Be. He was there to see how we did our thing. By then we'd had quite a bit of success working in the delta, and those guys wanted to have a look.

Near the top of the riverbank, I motioned for the men to form a semicircle perimeter. Behind us, the STAB was backing slowly away. The silenced outboards made no sound. From where I crouched, I could hear only the lapping of water against the hull as the STAB returned to the LCPL.

We sat and listened intently, growing attuned to the night sounds—insects chirping, frogs croaking. A light breeze whispered through the dense nipa palm. No man-made sounds.

I squeezed Bump's shoulder. I didn't have to say anything; he knew what to do. Easing his lanky frame up over the bank, he started slowly toward the canal mouth. I slid silently right behind him. The rest of the men followed, keeping about five meters apart. Rather than trying to walk through the nipa palm, we kept just in front of the riverbank. It would have been stupid to thrash our way through—nobody could move through that stuff without making noise—and from the bank we could easily hear anyone coming our way.

Our feet made a sucking sound as we waded through the mud. I wasn't concerned. The withdrawing tide uncovered holes in the earth, and the noise they made sounded just like someone walking, pulling his feet out of the sticky delta mud. I'd been fooled by it in one of our first ambushes, thinking we were about to be overrun by a large force.

As we neared the canal mouth, Bump held up his hand to stop the patrol. This was another danger area. If the VC were taking any action with a large group tonight, they would probably have a sentry somewhere near the mouth of the canal.