Death in the Jungle (4 page)

Fourth Platoon won the title. We had the privilege and honor to represent our command during its annual ORI (Operational Readiness Inspection) by the NOSG (Naval Operations Support Group) staff. We spent the next two weeks jumping out of airplanes, diving, demonstrating demolitions, undertaking demolition raids on San Clemente Island, drawing hydrographic charts, et cetera. All went well, with UDT-12 receiving a grade of excellent and a letter to the CO and men for a job well done.

In June ’66, six of us were finally sent to Fort Benning, Georgia, to Jump School. Generally, everyone was anxious to go because once we’d graduated, we would receive a second additional fifty-five dollars a month for hazardous duty pay. Because we were divers and worked with demolitions, we were already receiving the first additional fifty-five dollars a month.

The biggest mistake I made at Fort Benning was letting
a Marine Force Recon guy give me a Mohawk haircut. It was my idea and his workmanship. All went well concerning my new look during our individual inspection the next morning. No comments were made by the instructors until our daily run after PT. Because PO3 Leslie Funk and I were the fastest runners in the thousand-man class, we were given the privilege of running circles around our platoon while it ran in formation. It was during this time that we passed the Commandant of Jump School, a bird colonel.

Seeing me, he yelled, “You, get over here!” I knew I was in big trouble because of the anger in his voice. I quickly ran to him and dropped to the push-up position, yelling, “Airborne, sir.”

Continuing to yell, he spat, “You get out of my school and you get out of here now! And don’t you ever come back!”

I was crushed! I immediately jumped up and started running after my platoon, not knowing what else to do. All I could think of was that I would be the first man in UDT to get kicked out of Jump School. Man, you’ve really done it now! I thought.

The platoon had a big black sergeant running with us. He motioned for me to come over to him. I ran near to him and dropped to the lean and rest, yelling, “Airborne, Sergeant!”

“Go over to OCS (Officers Candidate School) and get a haircut,” he instructed. “When you’re done, come on back and keep your mouth shut.”

I was sure thankful that I had a friend in that sergeant! After I got my haircut and returned to the platoon, I kept my mouth closed for the remainder of the time I was at Fort Benning. I was beginning to understand the wisdom of being slow to speak, slow to anger, quick to listen, and never again to get another Mohawk haircut.

On 22 August 1966, all of UDT-12 departed for Subic Bay, Philippines aboard a Navy C-117, where we relieved UDT-11. We arrived at Naval Air Station (NAS) Cubi Point late on 24 August. Fourth Platoon consisted of the following personnel: ENS John Odusch, Chief Ed Reynolds, Bosn Joe Thrift, “R. E.” Saillant, “Moki” Martin, George Nunez, Ben Azeredo, Lou DiCroce, Alex Verduzco, Jim Girardin, Leroy Ray, and Gary Smith.

Shortly after we arrived, 4th Platoon was notified that we would board the USS
Diachenko
(APD 123) the next morning at 0800 hours and head for Vietnam. Until then, we were granted Cinderella liberty (liberty that was canceled at midnight) and told to muster NLT (no later than) 0600 hours at the team area near the enlisted barracks.

The next day I was riding my first “gray ghost.” The USS
Diachenko
had originally been a DE (Destroyer Escort) during World War II.

PO1 R. E. Saillant (Fourth Platoon) had been aboard the
Diachenko
during the Korean conflict with UDT-12. He commented, “The only thing that has been changed or added is the air conditioning.” The racks were of canvas with aluminum tube rims. They were to be triced up from reveille at 0600 hours till taps at 2200 hours.

Once we reached South Vietnam, we began hydrographic reconnaissance of beaches from the Cambodian border to the Tan Phu Peninsula of Kien Hoa province. Hydrographic reconnaissance was conducted to get an accurate map of the bottom of the ocean along the shore, wherever the possibility of an amphibious landing existed. After the tragedy of Tarawa in World War II, where the landing crafts were grounded on uncharted reefs and where many Marines were shot to pieces and drowned in deep tidal pools, the Navy perfected the procedures of creating hydrographic charts by two methods:
1) combat reconnaissance with UDT swimmers; the UDT reconnaissance of an enemy-held beach was usually completed the night before the amphibious landing with the combat demolition of the obstacles at predawn; and 2) administrative reconnaissance; usually done after the amphibious landing had taken place, or at any time, to gather hydrographic information of any designated beach or area. It was done during the day under secure conditions and was more accurate.

Generally, we were able to perform administrative recons because the U.S. Army Special Forces and their indigenous troops secured the beaches for us. Seldom did we come under fire. Some days we swam for twelve hours or more. Because I was also a cartographer, I had to work on the development of the hydrographic charts after swimming all day. Occasionally, Chief Reynolds would have mercy on me and let me be beach security for a day or so.

On 1 September, we got to go to Singapore for five days’ liberty. I really enjoyed visiting the famous Raffles Hotel, where “Bring ’em Back Alive” Frank Buck used to stay in the thirties and forties.

After our short stay in Singapore, we headed south for the equator. When we reached the magic point, all hands who weren’t Shellbacks were called “Pollywogs” and were hand-delivered a “Subpoena and Summons Extraordinary” from “The Royal High Court of the Raging Main.” It read:

Shortly after the Summons, the humiliation and torture that went with crossing the equator began. The Corpsman and the ship’s head cook got together and concocted a terrible mess of goo that smelled and looked worse than a bucket filled with rotted toads and maggots. The long trail of humiliation and gagging began as we were forced to crawl on our hands and knees and to kiss the belly of the Royal Baby, who just happened to be the head cook, who stood about five foot six and weighed 225 pounds.

I didn’t mind the thought of having to gingerly kiss his revolting stomach; it was the mass of rotted toads and maggots smeared on it that made me gag. Yessir, the Royal Baby was a fine-looking specimen, sitting there in his boxer shorts, crown on his head, and crap on his gut.

I didn’t crawl any closer than I had to. I stretched out my neck and tried for a light kiss—I wasn’t interested in getting that mess smeared all over my face. The smell was absolutely revolting! Suddenly the Royal Baby grabbed my head and forced my face into the pit of hell, rubbing my face around and around in it.

“Shit!” was my immediate response, followed by gagging and trying to get away from that retarded pig. Wait till I get my hands on Doc, I thought. I’m gonna put this evil mess in all of his shoes, fill his toothpaste
tube with it, and smear it all over his pillow. Damn his worthless hide! I might even take their “aqueous and equinoctial regions” and, with a total lack of “submissive ceremony,” shove it up their armpits.

My next travail was to crawl through a passageway where good ole Trusty Shellbacks were standing on both sides waiting with three foot sections of canvas fire hose. This ought to be fun, I thought; all I’ve got on is my UDT swim trunks! Shit!

I lowered my head and charged like a sex-crazed water buffalo, growling and snorting until the blows of the fire hose started taking effect. By the time I got through the gauntlet, I felt more like a neutered warthog.

Continuing to crawl, I was forced to enter into the back end of a thirty-foot beast, made of sheets. It was filled with vile-smelling, decomposed, leftover food, and other unknown ingredients. No doubt Doc and Cookie had something to do with that, too.

I hadn’t gotten more than six feet inside the sheets when I began to feel that I was in the stomach of a large and nasty saltwater crocodile. He began to twist, roll and toss me to and fro. At one point I was totally buried in a mass of slimy ground beef, chicken liver and gizzards, flour, hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, squashed tomatoes, boiled okra, food coloring, et cetera. My nose and ears were filled with the foul mess! It was impossible to breathe. If I only had had my SCUBA gear!

I finally managed to reach the opposite end of the beast, and crawled out its mouth to the fantail (open main deck in the after part of the ship) where I was then considered a Trusty Shellback. A fellow Trusty Shellback started washing me down with a fire hose. By the end of the day, everyone had had enough of Neptunus Rex and his stinking equator.

The USS
Diachenko
and 4th Platoon were then directed to the DMZ to participate in the DECKHOUSE
IV amphibious operation, which would take place about three miles south of the DMZ. Myself and PO2 Azeredo were dropped off one mile from the coast by motorized IBS the night before the Marines assaulted the beach at dawn. Our mission was to swim to the beach and take surf observations. That entailed visually measuring the heights of the waves for the high and low series, the distance from the beach to the first breakers, the time between each wave, condition of the beach, et cetera, information that was very important for the assault boat coxswains, the Seabee Beachmaster Unit, not to mention the Marines and support units involved in the task force.

It was a moonless night with ideal conditions for clandestine swimmers. All went well until we began swimming back to our rendezvous with the IBS. A large dark shadow gradually drifted toward us. As it got closer we recognized it as a Vietnamese junk. When it came within fifty feet of us, we saw that our only options were to wave our K-bar knives at them, dive underwater, or remain very quiet and still. We chose the latter, and the junk drifted by without spotting us.

We continued toward our rendezvous point, where we turned on a strobe light that was covered with an infrared lens. Within a half hour, the motorized IBS crew spotted us with their metascope infrared receiver and picked us up.

The next morning, the Marines, Beach Master Unit, and Seabees hit the beach. Initially, the Marines encountered little resistance on the beach. However, it was a different story as they moved inland while paralleling the Cua Viet River. Eventually, they established a small base at Dong Ha where they could be resupplied by Navy LCU (Landing Craft Utility) boats and aircraft.

In January ’67, while 4th Platoon was based out of the Navy’s Camp Tien Sha just outside Da Nang, Jim
Girardin and I were assigned to go to Don Ha with our diving gear to change a damaged screw on an LCM-8 (Landing Craft Mechanized). We traveled up the Cua Viet by LCU. Surprisingly, we were never fired upon by the NVA.

Once we accomplished our task at Don Ha, we were taken back out to the mouth of the Qua Viet River where we rendezvoused with the Navy Beachmaster LARKs. Jim and I spent several days diving on a broken land-intake fuel line that supplied fuel for the Marine and Navy operations to and from Dong Ha. The intake fuel line was buoyed approximately one mile to sea from the mouth of the Cua Viet River. Apparently the refueling tankers regularly got underway without disconnecting their fuel line from the buoyed land line intake! The weather was stormy, the seas were rough, the underwater surge tossed us to and fro and against the bottom. The visibility was usually less than a foot. With the Beachmasters’ help, we finally got the fuel line intake repaired.

In February of ’67, 4th Platoon was tasked to administratively recon several beaches south of Chu Lai shortly after the Marines had landed nearby during the DECKHOUSE IV amphibious operation. Again the weather was stormy and the seas were very rough. The surf was plunging and about ten feet in height. The inshore winds didn’t help the surf situation, either. Occasionally, the Marines received sniper fire and several men were killed or wounded. Other than our folks on the beach running the recon, the swimmers were in little danger of getting shot. Our worst enemy was the tidal current and rip tides.