Vietnam (26 page)

For $10 you could get a coffee jar full of grass that GIs smoked in old corncob pipes, or for $15 you could get a carton of ready-rolled joints, packaged to looked exactly like Winstons or some other proprietary US brand of cigarettes. For a few bucks extra a mama-san would paint opium on the paper.

Some restricted their smoking to off-duty hours, while others began smoking dope as soon as they woke. Men would run the risk of going out on patrol high, hallucinating, or paranoid on weed, or even tripping out on acid. Regular potheads grew their hair long, giving birth to the hippy GI. There was the occasional shakedown, but by and large NCOs turned a blind eye, only too well aware that drugs helped their men get through their year in the'Nam.

Many took their drug habit with them back to the US where they were confronted with a world that they barely recognised. The pace of change in fashion, behaviour, and attitude was so fast in the 1960s that even those who had not spent a year in Vietnam found it hard to keep up. Soldiers returning to the States would be greeted by stoned hippies asking, 'Howzit goin', baby killer?' or taunting them as 'army motherfuckers'. They would see protestors burning the American flag. The flag that they had fought to defend had become as debased as the Union Jack, which had sprung up everywhere since the invasion of British bands and fashions in 1963. Even out of uniform, they found it hard to blend in. Combat veterans were distinguished by a distant look in the eye known as the 'thousand-yard stare'.

One veteran who later became the lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts recalled waking up yelling while on a domestic flight soon after returning home. 'The other passengers moved away from me – a reaction I noticed more and more in the months ahead,' he said. 'The country didn't give a shit about the guys who had come back, or what they'd gone through. The feeling toward them was: 'Stay away – don't contaminate us with whatever you've brought back from Vietnam'.'

Public hostility and rejection made it hard for Vietnam veterans to reassimilate. They felt that they were being forced to shoulder the nation's collective guilt, shame, and humiliation, with very little sympathy or understanding even from friends and family. The result was that as many as 700,000 veterans experienced some sort of emotional or psychological problems after their return, recognised in 1980 as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Even the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, unveiled in November 1982, had to be paid for by public subscription rather than government funds. Impressive though it is, visitors often note that the black marble wall carrying the names of all those listed KIA and MIA (killed in action and missing in action) is practically underground and cannot be seen from any major thoroughfare of the capital city.

NIXON'S STATED POLICY
was that the war was going to be concluded by diplomacy, not on the battlefield. After his inauguration on 20 January 1969, he set about marrying diplomatic activity to troop withdrawals to bring 'peace with honour'. He brought in Harvard professor Henry Kissinger as assistant National Security Adviser to handle the diplomacy, while Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird would deliver on Nixon's campaign promise to withdraw troops, despite the protests of MACV.

General Abrams was to press ahead with Vietnamisation and produced a 'glide path' of fourteen incremental withdrawals which would extricate US ground troops completely by November 1972. The first phase would remove 25,000 men, largely the 9th Infantry Division, between 1 July and 31 August 1969. The 3rd Division of the Marine Corps and the 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division – some 40,500 – were withdrawn in phase two between 18 September and 19 December. By the end of 1969, some 51,670 men had left Vietnam. For those who remained behind, of course, the fighting became more intense. With the Americans going home, the Communists now knew they were winning. But America was not about to give up without a fight and Nixon was determined to keep up the pressure on Hanoi by intensifying the bombing campaign.

'I would rather be a one-term president than see America accept the first defeat in its 190-year history,' Nixon told a TV audience.

Even before President Nixon entered the White House, it soon became clear to the Communists that he was going to play hardball. He believed that the Soviet Union and Red China wanted the North Vietnamese to enter into constructive negotiations. So, while widening the war in Southeast Asia, he would put pressure on the Soviet Union – and later the Chinese – to abandon their North Vietnamese ally. Both Communist powers sought to improve relations with the US. Nixon also toyed with the idea of what he called the 'Madman Theory' – hinting that he might be crazy enough to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam to encourage the Communists to negotiate.

However, once in power, Nixon found that the Soviets exerted no influence over the North Vietnamese. On 4 August Nixon's National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger held a secret meeting with Xuan Thuy in Paris. He restated America's position that the North Vietnamese should withdraw and allow the Saigon government to come to some compromise with the Vietcong. Xuan insisted that the Saigon government be dissolved. Nixon tried appealing to Ho Chi Minh directly, but was rebuffed. The war on the battlefield would continue.

In March 1969, the Vietnam War had turned, briefly, into a conventional conflict when an armoured column pushed up Route 9 to Khe Sanh, which had been virtually a no-go area since the Marines had pulled out in July 1968. The road was in a terrible state. In places it was washed out and NVA sappers had left hardly a bridge or culvert intact. The 1st Battalion of the 77th Armored Regiment took with them armoured vehicles carrying bridges to cross ravines and giant bulldozers to cut away cliffs where mountain roads were too narrow for tanks to pass. The column was supplied by a shuttle service of CH-47 Chinook helicopters and CH-54 Skycranes. On 18 March, lead elements reached what had once been one of the most beautiful valleys in Vietnam, now a moonscape honeycombed by B-52 raids: a wasteland of unexploded bombs, mines, abandoned fortifications, barbed wire, rotting parachutes, devoid of vegetation. The armoured column arrived in the ruins of Khe Sanh at 1300hrs, taking the NVA completely by surprise. They fled into Laos. Lieutenant-Colonel Carmen P. Milia commanding the armoured column wanted to follow and engage the enemy in conventional tank warfare. Instead, he was ordered to cut south across country to interdict traffic on the Communist-controlled Route 926. The bulldozers went first, cutting a path through the jungle. The column reached Route 926 five days later on 26 March. But on 30 March, it was ordered to withdraw. The operation was declared a success. In 43 days, it had swept a hundred square kilometres of 'injun country'. However, only 73 enemy had been killed.

To the south, the US Army's last large-scale action of the war was about to get underway. In the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, Westmoreland had committed forces to the A Shau valley on the Lao border, one of the least hospitable parts of South Vietnam. The valley was a thirty-mile-long funnel which connected the Ho Chi Minh trail to Thua Thien province in the northwest. Its rolling terrain was covered with eight-foot-high elephant grass and the hills around its rim were lush with triple-canopy jungle. This had been one of the major staging areas for Tet. In April 1968, the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and the ARVN had helicoptered deep into the valley. They encountered heavy antiaircraft fire but little resistance on the ground. In August, the 101st Airborne Division swept along the valley floor. They uncovered supply caches, but the NVA melted away leaving their anti-aircraft guns behind them.

Early in 1969, MACV intelligence discovered activity in the valley again, and the 101st were sent back. This time, they established firebases along the edge of the valley and helicoptered men in. Again they uncovered supplies but the enemy proved elusive. In May, the 101st, the 9th Marines, and the 3rd AVRN regiment planned a number of hit and run raids. This time they were in for a surprise. On the morning of 11 May, B Company of the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry – part of the 101st – landed at the foot of Hill 937. Covered in lush green vegetation and spiked bamboo, this rugged peak was known to the Vietnamese as Dong Ap Bia or Ap Bia mountain. Americans would learn to call it Hamburger Hill.

Bravo Company were on a routine search-and-locate operation. They knew that the enemy was in the area, but expected them to melt away as they always had before. As they moved cautiously up the north slope of Hill 937, the undergrowth suddenly erupted with machine-gun fire from hidden bunkers. Those a fraction slow in hitting the deck were cut down. Survivors returned fire with M16s and light anti-tank weapons, then retreated down the hill with the wounded, their job done. They had located the enemy: the rest was up to the artillery and air support. Within minutes the firebase at Ta Bat opened up, then the USAF pummelled the bunkers with high explosives and incendiaries.

When the smoke died down, Bravo Company advanced up the hill again to mop up, but once again they came under withering fire. Again they withdrew and more fire support was called in. For the rest of the afternoon and the following night, bombs and shells pounded in the NVA positions until logic demanded that, if there were any enemy left on the slopes, they would be in no condition to fight. Logic was wrong. One of the GIs on the next advance was Spec 4 Jimmy Spears. He recalled that they ran 'into garbage' – automatic fire, rocket grenades and lethal claymore mines hanging from the undergrowth. Again B Company was forced to withdraw. As they prepared a new LZ to medevac their growing casualties out, more air and artillery support was called in and the enemy position was pounded for another day and night.

It did no good. At Hamburger Hill an irresistible force had met an immovable object. The irresistible force was the commander of the 3rd Battalion Lieutenant-Colonel Weldon Honeycutt. Codenamed Blackjack, he was a tough son-of-a-bitch who liked nothing better than walking point. His determination to shift the NVA from Hamburger Hill whatever the cost earned him a price on his head. The immovable object was the NVA's fortifications. The 7th and 8th Battalions of the 29th Regiment had built bunkers flush to the ground, hidden by dense undergrowth. They were practically indestructible and their interlocking fire converged on every approach to the hill. What's more, the air and artillery support was systematically stripping the hill of any cover and it soon became clear to the men of the 187th that, if they continued to attack up the denuded slopes, it was not a question of if they were going to die but when. But attack they did.

On 12 May, B and C Companies made another attempt on the blasted hill. The attack lasted just 30 minutes before it was decisively repulsed. Rocket and automatic fire accounted for another thirty-seven casualties. The following day, B, C, and D Companies went up the hill in separate lines of attack. Charlie Company was in the lead, but their commander fell wounded, his radio fell silent, C Company fell back, and the attack fell apart. The hill was blasted with artillery shells and bombs once again. The night was spent listening for activity, but the men who advanced again the following dawn expected a bullet with their name on it.

The attack on the morning of 15 May was reinforced by elements of the 3rd ARVN Brigade. But the thinned ranks of Bravo Company, supported by A Company, moved out again. With helicopter gunships rocketing the enemy positions, they inched forward desperately searching for any scrap of cover. Even the odd patch of undergrowth provided no haven: the NVA had spent the night rigging up more claymores. However, this time the grunts broke through and began clearing out the bunkers, slowly, one by one. But then disaster struck. Lead elements of B Company were strung out across the exposed hillside in sight of the crest of Hill 937 when a helicopter gunship bore down on them and let rip with its rockets and machine guns. Bodies flew through the air. The mutilated lay there screaming. After everything they had suffered the last four days, the last thing B Company needed was 'friendly fire'.

Later that afternoon, battalion headquarters came under fire by enemy RPGs. Honeycutt was wounded for the third time in the battle. He refused to be medevaced out. Many of his men wanted to see him go – in a body bag, preferably.

There were no attacks on 17 May. For 36 solid hours, the hill was bombarded with high explosives, napalm, and CS gas. The GIs were issued extra-heavy flak jackets. They were almost unbearable to wear in the heat, but everyone cursed that they had not been issued a week earlier. On 18 May, two full battalions attacked with the 3/187th being joined by the 1st Battalion of the 506th Infantry. Amid desperate fighting the grunts reached the summit of Hamburger Hill. Then the heavens opened. Visibility dropped to zero and the thunderstorm turned the soil of the slopes, already churned up and loosened by repeated bombardment, into mud chutes where men could not keep their footing. They were bombarded with grenades and mines that were detonated within the enemy's perimeter. Another retreat was ordered.