Letters to Mike 6

6) November 27, 1967 Letter to Mike

Back again,

I’ve got a few more facts about CRIP before I go into our record.

First let me tell you a little about the VC.

They are always moving but never in large groups. Large groups would be selected by the many spotter-planes and choppers that fly 24 hours a day. (This is in our area where the land it open -no dense jungle). They mingle with the population – anybody could be a VC One night on an ambush near Cu Chi they killed one of the post barbers – a Vietnamese. Whenever you enter a hedgerow to search houses there are always women and kids but never any men – they all hide. That’s why whenever we SEE one run we shoot. It’s also why 90% of our mission are “0s”. Intel can become old overnight.

Charlie [VC] shoots and runs – you never see him shooting at you. When he mortars the ARVN compounds outside Bai Trai – our place has never been hit – he drops about 5 rounds in then picks up and leaves before we can react and go after him.

Okay, another way we get our body count. The first time I saw this was the day after we killed 27. We went out to the same area to search for weapons. We found a VC platoon leader. They didn’t even question him, just took him out on the berm, made him kneel down, and then filled him with about 40 30 cal. Rounds at point blank range. Since then, the ARVN – not the US, we can be tried for murder if we do it other than a direct order from an AMERICAN officer – have executed 7 or 8 other “prisoners” that won’t talk. To get the prisoners to talk they nearly drown them in wells or nearly beat them to death with rifle butts. – they might as well be dead.

Well, we have fucked up two times I know of, for sure. The first was on our first night mission. One half of the platoon got separated from the other, and in trying to find the one half our group wandered in front of them unknowing to both groups. The saw us come out of the woodline in the shadows, and at night – “if it moves open up with everything you’ve got”. They did. The first 5 guys in our column (I was at the rear) were met with several little red tracers from M-16s and carbines for about a half a minute that seemed like an eternity. They were down in the water and mud, and couldn’t even breathe the rounds were so close overhead.

Somebody was alert and called a cease fire before our group returned fire – it could have been bad. As it was, a US got a minor leg wound (he walked out under his own power) and an ARVN was hit in the chest above the heart with a carbine, but the bullet hit at such an angle the BOUNCED OFF leaving only a bruise!! It could have been worse also had it not been for someone who let his bolt go forward to chamber a round just before he opened fire. The noise of the bolt tipped off the front of the column and they were able to get the jump on the firing, and get started on the way down before it began. They were only 50 or maybe 25 meters away.

We were out in search of some mines reported to be stored in the area. Well, 5 ARVNs found one, not stored, as they started through some bushes. There was an ear-splitting bang and then ominous silence broken only by the low moans of the wounded. One of them never had a chance to moan. With tragic timing a huge rainstorm, worse that I had ever seen or have seen since, washed over us, making it impossible for the medivac choppers to even take off from Cu Chi to come and “dust off” the 4 wounded. We had to carry them, bodily, including the one who died instantly, nearly 8,000 meters (or about 5 miles) through a driving rain, in the dark, across rain swelled rice paddies, knee deep in water. It took nearly all night – some carrying weapons, others carrying the wounded. The ARNVs refused to help! Something that never has been explained. The US GIs had to do ALL the carrying. When we reached the road, two GIs collapsed from exhaustion and I wasn’t feeling well. One ARVN died while we carried him and another died two days later. As far as I know the other two are okay. Even the “old two timers” said it was the hardest night they had ever put in in Viet Nam. One had been here 11 months at the time. Really a dramatic night.

As for our record, I can say I’ve been fired at – close by the VC, 3 times. All three times I was forced under water to get away from the bullets. I’ve been fired at remotely by the VC about 2 other times.

On numerous occasions, I’d say 6 or 7 anyway, the ARVNs not S-2 but other ARVN units in the area, have shot at us, sometimes rather close, not knowing who we were. One time our own gunship helicopter saw us in a hedge complex and mistook us for VC. One pass with the M-60s brought a rain of lead and a bullet in the ankle for one of us. Thank God we made radio contact before they made a second pass, probably with mini-guns!

I’ve shot at several VC, but don’t have any confirmed kills. The guys I’ve shot at were all killed but only because the rest of the platoon was shooting at the same time. Like a huge firing squad you kill a guy but nobody knows who actually did it (they’re usually 300 meters away and running, for one thing) so nobody feels bad. “You get a point for your target if someone in the next lane shoots it”.

All right, CRIP is the first and so far only combined VN and US unit (US and VN working as one unit with integrated squads) in Viet Nam.

(2 star) General Mearns has told us in person that we have the best body count record of any unit our size in ALL of Viet Nam and better body count record than many large BATTALIONS in our short existence!! Our size: About 20 men.

In 4 months we have killed a total of 78 VC and captured several suspects, weapons, and mines, etc. All this with a loss of only 3 ARVNs killed and 4 ARVNs and 3 US wounded, none of the wounded have been serious enough for a trip home.  That makes our kill ratio something like 26:1 in favor of our side. We kill VC but we don’t take casualties. The brass loves it and all try to take credit for forming us. Even Westmoreland came to see us one day. All he did is walk through our hutches (barracks) and then had a briefing by Lt. Cito. When he arrived at first we were out in the field and he was in the radio control room when we called in a body count. He was really impressed by the “black berets of Bao Trai” – the Rat Pack. I’m pretty proud and fortunate to be a part of it myself. I have been on EVERY mission from the very first to yesterday’s. Of the seven left out of the original group (the rest have gone home) I’m the only one who can make that statement.

A new chapter is now beginning and it breaks my heart. We’re leaving Bao Trai soon due to the lack of intelligence reports in the area, and moving to Trang Gang where the VC are thick and the terrain favors their type of fighting. It’s a bad place to be, and it scares me some, besides the fact that our easy living is ended and we’ll be living in the dust, mud, and “cat holes” for a while. The stupid part is that it is only 20 minutes by road and 5 minutes by chopper to the area from Bao Trai. We’ve had several successful missions there. Why leave a secure comfortable compound tor a dangerous vulnerable and primitive camp? The S-2 (Intelligence) boys don’t like it either, as their families are here in Bao Trai. It might not last. We’re on a 7 day trial when we move. If it doesn’t work out we might return here: I hope, hope, hope!

That’s it: my first six months in VN in a rather large nutshell. Any more Questions?

Form the lower intestine of Asia,

Bob

P.S. Write me a book about Germany. Achtung!