Why... 7horses?

Seven is a lucky number. And...

The horse is poetry in motion a beauty to behold.
Every time I see one run I feel a stirring in my soul.
The art of the movement, the noble head held high,
The shaking of the mane can bring moisture to the eye.
The flex of the muscles, the great expanding chest,
Of all of God’s creations, surely the horse is best?

C. R. Binion

Flight into Vietnam

The plane ride became a little bumpy. “Turbulence”, the Pilot said, “nothing to worry about.” I just knew we were going to crash and die before we ever got to Vietnam. The plane took off from Oakland, California, stopped in Hawaii, and then was supposed to fly to Saigon, Vietnam. It was full of fresh soldiers dreading a year’s tour of duty in Nam. Here we where a Braniff airliner full of big, bad U.S. Army soldiers, scared to death, but too brave to admit it. I’m seated next to a guy who keeps saying, ”I’m not supposed to be going to Vietnam. The recruiter promised me that I would be sent to Texas for radar training.” Then we would hear a noise and the plane would take a dip and my stomach would come up into my throat. “God just take me now”, I would think.

After hours of this, the Captain of the plane came on the speaker and told us we where diverting to the Philippines for some routine maintenance. We came in for a landing at the airport in Manila. “The landing may be a little rough”, the pilot said, “We have a flat tire” “Nothing to worry about we still have three good tires left” Yeah, he was a real funny guy.

As the plane came lower to the ground, I made the mistake of looking out the window. There were fire trucks, foam trucks and emergency vehicles all over the runway. Now if you don’t believe in God that’s up to you, but I started praying at that moment, and it would not be the last time I prayed.We landed safely, and were put up at the best hotel in Manila at the airlines expense for a few days. (It really took a long time to fix that flat tire) Nevertheless, we had a short stay before going to Vietnam.

Still, we would be going to Vietnam. Getting back on that plane was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. I had been drafted in May of 1967, and after eight weeks of basic training, and eight weeks of jungle infantry training, and a week of leave, I was a soldier on my way to war.

Back on the plane and resigned to my fate, I was not ready for what was to come. All of my training had prepared me for a jungle country full of enemies, snakes, booby traps, and death at every hand. What I saw as the plane came in for a landing in Saigon, was a beautiful city full of lights. Don’t get me wrong, I would soon find all of those dangers in the jungle, but Saigon was a beautiful city, and I would find that the countryside and the people were just as beautiful. Live and learn; learn and live.

New In Country

No sooner had the plane landed in Saigon in 1967, than we had to start unlearning some of the things we were taught in the States about surviving in Vietnam. I had to stay in a new-in-country unit for about a week. I had to go to classes and pull guard duty at the airport. At the time, we thought the airport was very secure, but we would learn soon (Tet Offensive Jan. 1968) that no place in Vietnam was secure.

One night, I was taken to a guard shack and put in charge of guarding a deserter.The guard shack was just that, a small shack with a desk, and a couple of chairs. I was told that the man I was guarding was a deserter, a coward under fire, and if I let him escape, I would have to serve his time back in the States. I was given a 45-caliber pistol and told to watch the man and shoot him if he tried anything. Now I don’t know if this was some kind of a test or what, but I took it serious. Here I was, just a private in the Army, new in country, and put in this kind of situation. The deserter was much larger than this little nineteen-year-old white boy.

I will call the deserter Simpson (I really can’t remember his name). After a while of looking at each other Simpson stood up and said, “Man what cha gonna do if I walk out that door right now?” I didn’t say a word I just pulled the 45 and cocked the hammer. He sat back down, and didn’t say another word. I kept the gun on him as I looked into the desk drawer, and found a pair of handcuffs. I put one handcuff on him and the other around a pipe that was near one of the walls. He got to stand up the rest of the night. In addition, he didn’t say anything else all night.

I was relieved the next morning and allowed to get some sleep. I had been trained as an infantryman, but when I got my assignment to a unit in Vietnam, it was a Mechanized unit: The 2nd Battalion 47th Mechanized Infantry of the 9th Infantry Division. Mechanized meant we were on Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs), sometimes called Tracks. They really were not armored, a small mine could turn one over, and thus the squad of men rode on top, not down in the APC. Now if you rode on top, then the snipers could pick you off, so we always had to wear flak jackets and steel pot helmets.

The good thing about a Track is that you can carry your gear, drinks, and food in the form of C-rations (that’s can food), plenty of ammo and weapons. We had a 50-caliber machine gun, two 60-caliber-machine guns, an M79 grenade launcher, several rocket propelled grenade launchers, and every man had an M16 rifle. You have to understand that this was the first time I had been on an APC. I had seen one in training one time. It was an awesome vehicle. They are still being used today, thirty-four years later, in Iraq and other parts of the world.

Being mechanized meant that we could cover more ground. With tracks not wheels, the APC could go about anywhere. It didn’t mean that we never had to walk. We would go from one point to another, set up base camp, dig in, and go on foot patrols from there.When I first got in the country of Vietnam, the APCs were gas powered, and they were very vulnerable to mines. The 50-gallon gas tank made them very explosive. They were switching over to diesel powered APCs when I left. The changeover came much too late for many good men.

Live and learn; learn and live. War is hell.

First Taste Of War

I wish I didn’t have to write this story. It is still too real for me. Nevertheless…We were in a rubber tree plantation, traveling in a long line of APCs, one behind the other. Each Armored Personnel Carrier (APC), driver knew to stay in the tracks of the APC in front of him. Just like a foot patrol point man is the first to trip a booby trap, the lead APC, or point APC, was the first to trip a stick mine. A stick mine is an explosive detonated by a natural looking trigger, like a rock or stick, upon contact.

An APC driver is the only man on the vehicle that rides down inside of it. He has to, because the controls are inside the APC. An APC is steered by a couple of levers like a tractor. If the driver pulls back on the right lever, the right track stops moving, and the APC will turn right, and just the opposite, if the left is pulled back. A driver had to be good to stay in the tracks of the APC ion front of him.

Now I had only been in Vietnam a couple of weeks, and was scared out of my mind, when the point APC hit a stick mine, and all hell broke out around us. Just like in training, The APC drivers put us in a defensive position around the blown point APC and we all opened up with the fifty and sixty caliber machine guns. The mine blew the APC up against one of the rubber trees, and then there was a second explosion when the fire hit the fifty-gallon gas tank. There were eight men on that APC. All of them except one were burned over ninety percent of their bodies. The one guy was thrown clear by the first explosion, thus avoiding any serious injuries.

I was so new to the unit that I didn’t know any of their names. This was the first action I had seen in Vietnam. The Medic on our APC, Yelled at me,“Binion come on and help me carry the wounded men back into the center of our position”. We took a stretcher and went to find the wounded. We found one guy and carried him back to the center of the circled APCs, out of the line of fire. Doc said, “Stay with him Binion, while I Go and find the next wounded man”. I stay with the dying young man, who no longer looked like a human. He kept saying, “Man, I am hurt bad", and "Am I going to live?” I guess he thought I was a medic. I didn’t know what to say, and I hope I did the right thing. I told him, “ Man you are going to be okay; the choppers (helicopters) will be here in a few minutes”.

Then I prayed with him. He asked me for two things, for water and a cigarette. I knew enough not to give him water. However, I lit a cigarette and gave it to him. I looked up and a chopper was floating down. The guys in the chopper loaded him and took off. When Doc came back, he knew something was wrong with me, so he sent me back to my APC to help my squad. I heard later that all seven of those guys died. That’s when I knew that “war is hell” is not just a saying.

Gung Ho

A lot of new soldiers in Vietnam went on their first patrol dressed like John Wayne in one of the old movies, and I was no exception. For my first patrol into the jungle, (the boonies) I put on a full Army belt, with grenades, canteen, and medical pack. I wore my steel pot, (helmet), two bandoliers of sixty-caliber ammo, and flak vest. I didn’t get very far in the 110-degree heat. Going through the boonies was a fight under the best conditions. It was almost impossible the way I was dressed.

Let me try to describe the boonies. There was bamboo growing everywhere. The bamboo would reach out and grab you at every step. It got caught on my steel pot and ripped it off my head. We were trying to be as quite as we could, and when the steel pot hit the jungle floor, each of us held his breath. Lucky for us there wasn’t any Viet Cong out there that day. After a couple of hours of trekking through the boonies, we took a break. I started to sit down and the guy next to me said, “Wait, don’t set down rookie.” He then took the grenade off my belt very carefully. I looked at it and saw that the bamboo had ripped off the handle of the grenade. The top was still on it and the pin was still there. I was lucky, and would remain so throughout my tour of duty. Sergeant Cody (just a 20 year old kid, but oh the age in those eyes.) came and took the grenade and threw it into a hole in the jungle floor. Which was another give-away of our position to the enemy.

If the bamboo was bad, the ants were worse. Ever so often, someone would get into a nest of fire ants. Okay, truth is it happened to me that same day. The ants would get all over a person in a couple of seconds and start biting (stinging) and it hurt like hell. Several of the other guys would have to help kill them or, one would never get them off by oneself.

Then there were the wait-a-minute bushes, so named because if you got into one the thorns would make you stop in your tracks and yell, “WAIT A MINUTE”. Somehow, we made it back to our base camp without much more excitement just the same old fight against the jungle. This young boy learned many lessons that day.

The next time I went on patrol I wore my jungle fatigues. The jungle fatigues were made with many pockets on them. Pockets where one could put extra ammo clips, a canteen and a medical pouch. The shirt would hang lose over the pants, which was cooler. I never wore an Army belt or carried a grenade again. I wore a soft camouflaged beret instead of a steel pot, and no flak jacket. I never again carried bandoliers of bullets over my body. One stray bullet could hit them and they might all explode. There were so many ways to be killed.

Live and learn; learn and live.

The Volunteer

The sixty-caliber machine gun (‘60’) weighed about 19 pounds. No one wanted to carry it on patrol. However, it had to be carried by someone. However, I did, I even volunteered. Let me explain.

I was the new guy and the Platoon sergeant had it in for me, probably just because I was the new guy. When we fell out for patrol, the platoon Sarge yelled, “BINION, front and center.” When I stepped to the front, he shoved a twenty-pound backpack radio into my arms and told me I was his new radioman. I put it on my back and the ten-foot whip antenna made me an instant target.

In addition, I had no experience “talking” on a radio. There was a special radio language. Example: You say, “say again” when you did not here something clearly; not “repeat”. Saying, “repeat” could bring a barrage of artillery in on your head. Live and learn, learn and live. I carried the radio that day.

The next morning when we fell out for patrol and the Platoon Sarge, yelled’ “BINION, front and center.” I stepped forward, with the ‘60’ in my hand. The Sarge simply said, “your dismissed, Binion”, with a slight smile on his face. As I was returning back to my squad, I heard him bellow, “LOPEZ, front and center.”

Therefore, because I went to my Squad leader the night before and volunteered to carry the ‘60’, I didn’t have to carry the radio. Hey, you can shoot a ‘60’; you can’t shoot with a radio. Live and learn; learn and live. I carried the ‘60’ for a few days, until I was no longer the ‘new guy.’ There were always new guys every week or so.

Live and learn; learn and live.

Mai Ling

She was a beautiful black-haired little girl with eyes so dark they looked black. She looked like she was about ten. I was only nine years older. She was dead. I never knew her name. I will call her Mai Ling.* “They” said a fifty-caliber machine gun (‘50’) bullet had killed her. Let me start at the beginning.

We were in a firefight in Vietnam. The bullets were flying all around us. We were the 47th. Mechanized Infantry. It was 1967, just north of Saigon. Anyway, the bullets were flying. I had only been in country a little while. McArthur (we called each other by our last names, we didn’t want to get to close to someone who might be killed at any time) was on the ‘50’ and I (My name is Binion) was feeding him ammo. We shot the ‘50’ until the barrel turned red. I told McArthur, “Hey man, we better change the barrel.” McArthur said, Let’s do one more.” I handed him one more belt.

When he open the chamber on the top of the ‘50’, and put the bandolier in the chamber, it exploded. McArthur got a face full of shrapnel and I got a scratch on my knee. McArthur only had a couple of weeks left in country before his tour of duty was up, so he was airlifted out and went home.

After the battle, we received word from a local village leader that a young girl had been killed by one of our bullets. When we got to the village, which was about a mile and a half away from the site of the battle, we found the girl in a hutch lying on a homemade bed. The bullet was just barely in her neck, just hanging there, as if it had been pressed into her neck by someone’s thumb. On closer inspection by our medic, it was determined that the girl died of heart failure. The bullet was not even flattened or scratched, supposedly after going through a metal sign and into the girl’s neck. There was no way that bullet was fired from a gun. The locals had tried to set us up. The whole village could have been Viet Cong; there was no way of knowing. I hate war.

We stayed long enough to build a fence around the village,(To keep the Viet Cong out, ha) disarm an unexploded howitzer shell, and give medical aid to all of those who wanted it. However, we couldn’t bring back Mai Ling.

*In another life, I would buy my little girl, Morgan, an Asian doll and she named it Mai Ling.

Rex

They were the cutest little mixed-breed puppies you ever saw. They were tied up to a stake in the middle of a Viet Cong base camp. A fire was still going and a pot of water was boiling over the fire. We suspect the VC had been about ready to cook the puppies. The VC had just bugged out, and we had almost caught them; missed them by five minutes or less.We rescued the puppies.

There were four of them. Each APC in the company took one as a pet. My squad, 2nd squad of Bravo Company named our puppy Rex. He was white with brown spots and carried himself with nobility. When we moved out on the APC, Rex would stand up on the front of our APC just under the barrel of the fifty-caliber machine gun, just as if he owned the world. Rex looked like a little hood ornament up there on the front of the Armored Personnel Carrier.

Our driver, Mitchell, really got attached to Rex; I guess we all did, but when the squad went out on foot patrol the driver would stay with the APC and do cleaning and maintenance, which gave him more time to play with Rex. We all took turns feeding Rex and taking care of him. I’ll just go ahead and say it; we all loved Rex. We didn’t know how we were going to do it but we were planning to try to sneak Rex out of the country when the next one in the squad was finished with his tour of duty. I can’t remember who was up to get out of Nam next, I just knew it wasn’t me. Yes, we had plans to save Rex.

We had been moving around for a while East of Saigon looking for more VC base camps. We received orders to dig in for a while and set up a perimeter and stay in the area East of Saigon. A long-term perimeter consisted of digging ramps down into the dirt and pulling the APCs in so that the ‘50’ would be level with the ground. The APCs would be positioned in a circle. A foxhole would be dug between each APC and a bunker would be built out of sand bags over each foxhole. Then we would string several rolls of barbed wire, with cans and bells hooked to them, around the outside of our perimeter. Last, we would run wire out from each bunker, and attach a Claymore mine to it.

The Claymore was a plastic curved mine that was command detonated. It was full of C4 explosive and had steel balls packed into the convex side. There were stories of how the VC had learned to sneak in and turn a Claymore around then make a noise. When the Americans would detonate the Claymore, they would take out some of their own.

After we got the camp set up, we had to go out on foot patrol. We all rubbed Rex’s head for luck and started out on the patrol. We were only out for a couple of hours, but upon our return, we heard the sad news. Rex was dead. Mitchell explained through his tears that he was repositioning the APC and didn’t see Rex behind the APCs right track. He showed us where he buried Rex. I am not going to tell you that we all cried for Rex, we could not even cry for the buddies we had lost in battles, but I know I had a tear in my eye, and suspect that every squad member did as well.

Live and learn; learn and live. War is hell.

Water And Bloodsuckers

The water was up to my nose and I couldn’t swim. Made it all the way through Basic Training, Advanced Infantry Training, and Vietnam, and I couldn’t swim. Anyway, the water was up to my nose, and I was holding the Sixty-caliber machine gun (‘60’), over my head. I could drown; just so, I didn’t get the ‘60’ wet. I was wading across a river in Vietnam. I always got behind the tallest person in the unit, when we went across any kind of water. Being only five feet seven inches tall, (short) I knew if the six-foot plus tall guy in front of me went under, I would just turn around and walk out of the water. They could go on without me. This time I made it all the way across the river. I was lucky this time.

One time we had to cross a little pond. Everything went fine, except when we got to the other side; we discovered we were covered with leaches. We had to pull up our pant legs and pick those bloodsuckers off. Good thing that pond was not too deep.

The last time I had to cross a river, I was still carrying the ‘60’. It was night, very dark and we were in the jungle. I refused to cross that river. I told whoever would listen, “Hey, I am not crossing that river at night, period. In addition, I will not cross it in daylight if it is over my head. I’ll just set up the ’60’ here and wait until you guys get back, I’d rather take my chances alone with the Viet Cong than cross that river at night.” The Sarge said, “Binion you will cross that damn river, we will send Meadows (he was over six feet tall) across first and he will tie a rope on the other side and bring it back. All you have to do is hook the ’60 on to the rope and hold your breath and walk across the bottom.” “ Yeah, right!” I said.

I had already made up my mind not to cross the river, “they’ could court-marshal me, I just wasn’t going to cross that river. Well, the issue became moot when Meadows returned from the other side of the river and told the “powers that be” that there were cliffs; straight up, that could not be climbed within a couple of hours. That information saved me, because the only reason the officers wanted to cross the river was to save time. Therefore, we would go around another way, which suited me just fine. I was lucky, again.

Live and learn; learn and live.

Road Run

The night was black, so black you could not see three feet in front of you. The only time you could see any distance was when the dry lighting lit up the sky. It was the strangest sensation, going from complete darkness to that flash of light. I don’t know how the drivers of the Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs, also called Tracks) could see to stay on Highway #1.

We were ordered to keep the roadway clear of traffic and that meant we would make road runs. My unit would drive the Tracks up and down the road as fast as they would go all night long. We would set up a camp on the side of the road, and run at 50 mph in one direction for about five miles, turn around and head back to the roadside camp. This was designed to keep the Viet Cong from traveling, on the highway, which they could only do safely at night. We had lights on the APCs but we dared not use them, for fear of being a target for a Viet Cong RPG (rocket propelled grenade).

Most of the guys gave their Tracks names. “Widow Maker”, and “Death Before Dishonor” was a couple of the names I remember. My squad was the 2nd squad of Bravo Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 47th Mechanized Infantry of the 9th Infantry Division. Therefore, we were the double deuces 2 for Bravo, and 2 for the 2nd squad. My squad also had four of seven (a squad was supposed to be 10 men and a driver, but we could never keep that many) members who were from Ohio. Therefore, we named our Track “The Ohio Express” after a rock group with that name. Now all this was fine until we painted the side of the Track with a pair of Deuces, and the name “Ohio Express’ in white.

One night as we were making road runs, in the dark, with the lightning flashing, all was well, until the Track behind us took an RPG round and one of the guys lost a leg. We could not get back to the roadside camp fast enough. As soon as we did, we got down, found a mud puddle and smeared mud all over the “Ohio Express” and the “Double Deuces”. Live and learn; learn and live.

We soon started back out for another run, and we got no further then a mile or so, when up ahead we heard a great explosion. We pulled up to the sight of the explosion turned on our lights and saw several Viet Cong bodies spread all over the road. It appeared that the mine they were going to plant to blow us up went off prematurely. War is hell for both sides.

Tunnel Rat

We just called him Al, which was short for Aloha. None of us could pronounce his real name. We just knew he was from Hawaii. He was 4’ 2” tall, which made him our tunnel rat. Vietnam was full of tunnels. After all, the Vietnamese had been fighting someone for the last 500 years. The French had been the last to be defeated in 1954. However, we were Americans. Five hundred years of fighting and preparing for war. Five hundred years of tunnel digging. Yes, we had to have a tunnel rat, and that was always the smallest soldier in the unit. That was Al.

You see tunnel rat was not a job that anyone wanted. A tunnel rat would have to go down into a tunnel alone, armed with only a 45-caliber pistol, a flashlight, and wearing a gas mask, looking for the enemy. That tunnel could be full of Viet Cong, booby traps, snakes, spiders and they were always dark. That tunnel could be multilevel. (We found one tunnel that turned out to be seven different levels deep). My unit was the 2nd battalion of the 47th Mechanized Infantry of the 9th Infantry Division.We were somewhat famous for finding weapons cashes, tunnels, and Viet Cong base camps.

Anyway, when we would find a hole in the jungle floor, we would throw a smoke grenade down the hole, then spread out and watch for smoke to come up out of other holes. We would put a man on each hole with an M16 rifle and send the tunnel rat down one of the holes to chase any Viet Cong out into the open. It was a dangerous job. Al had a couple of things going for him. He had been trained just for the job of tunnel rat, and he was Hawaiian, which meant he looked a lot like the Vietnamese. Sometimes that would be all the edge Al needed to get the advantage on the enemy. Which in my opinion made Al the best tunnel rat in Vietnam.

If the tunnel were found to be unoccupied or after we had taken prisoners, Al would pop back up; get some C4 rope explosive, which he would loop back through the tunnel. After he was back on top and we were far enough away, we would detonate the C4 and the tunnels would be destroyed, at least for a while.
It was a hell of a war.

The Kid

He told me he was sixteen. He looked fourteen. Officially, one had to be at least nineteen to be sent by the U. S government to Vietnam. However, the key word there is officially. The kid told me he got in the Army with his older brother’s name and ID. I asked him’ “Why in the hell did you want to come to Vietnam?” He then told me the following story.

He was from Alaska. On the night of the junior prom, he and his girlfriend Holly went to the prom. He borrowed his Dad’s car. He went to Holly’s house went up to the door and rang the bell. Holly’s Dad opened the door and invited him in to wait until Holly was ready. Holly came down the stairs just like in the movies. “God, she was beautiful” the kid said, “She looked just like Audrey Hepburn”.
I knew what was coming, and I thought, “This kid is pulling my leg, his story sounds just like that tear-jerker song from a few years back.”

He continued. Yes, it began to snow, the roads became slippery, and he ran off the highway and wrecked the car. When he woke up, Holly was not in the car. He got out of the car and tried to find her. The car was wrecked, it was snowing faster, and he could not find her. He yelled; he blew the horn until the battery went dead, but he couldn’t find her. He didn’t know what to do (All the time he was telling me this I was waiting for the punch line). I mean, it is late at night, and we were on guard duty in a bunker, in South Vietnam and this kid is telling me this story that sounded too cliché. It was about this time that I realized he was trying not to cry, and not succeeding.

He continued. He went back up to the road, thinking that maybe Holly had done the same thing. A car came along and the driver stopped to help him. After the two of them looked for Holly for 30 minutes, the driver of the car talked the kid into going to the police station. The kid told the police what happened. The police went back to the wrecked car and looked for Holly. They found her body on down the embankment at least 300 hundred feet beyond the car. The car had hit a tree and Holly had been thrown through the windshield. “She was dead” the kid choked, out through his tears. After the funeral, the kid said he had to get out of that town and away from Holly’s friends and family, and from himself and the memories that were eating him alive.

Yes, he was a kid, just sixteen, but he had already lived through a man’s tragedy. He was crying, and I believe he told me the truth. I had had my twentieth birthday a few days before, but the kid made me feel old. I became a father to him on that night. We all tried to look after him. We wanted to make sure he got back home. He was still there when I was wounded and sent home. I lost touch with all of my Army friends. War is hell.

Coconut Jackson

Jackson was the new guy. However, he acted as if he was still back on the block. You could not tell him anything. He was hardheaded. Thus, we called him Coconut. I mean, there was the Army way of doing things, and the Coconut Jackson way of doing things, and Coconut chose to do everything the Coconut Jackson way. The Army has a special name for that kind of soldier. (Fuck Up)

I had been in Vietnam about eight months by the time Coconut came along. I was the temporary squad leader (we had lost a lot of men in a battle). Well, Coconut just would not listen, so I took him on the enemy side of the perimeter and had a talk with him. I told him he was going to get himself killed. That if it came down to his life or one of the other guys, no one would choose him. Some of those guys did not play games and if he disobeyed the wrong person, he may be shot by one of his own. He straightened up some, at least around me.

Jackson was still not ready for primetime. He was always the one to mess up. Now when you messed up, you got to walk point on the jungle patrols. No one wanted to walk point. If there were any booby traps, the point man would set them off. Well, Coconut walked point most of the time. It was as if he enjoyed it. By the time I left Vietnam, Coconut had been wounded about seven times. The wounds were never bad enough to get out of country or to stay in hospital very long, but wounded just the same. I think he had seven purple hearts (Which you get if you are wounded in combat).

The last time he was wounded that I know of, he was walking point and using a machete to cut his way through the jungle. He tripped a booby trap and wound up with shrapnel in his ass. We were in the jungle and the canopy was too thick for a helicopter to land. Therefore, they sent down a rope with a seat attached to it, and the last time I saw Coconut he was seated on his wounded ass and screaming at the top of his lungs, as the crew of the helicopter was pulling him up on the rope. I looked around and every man in the unit was laughing. It was hard not to laugh. I was wounded and sent home* before Coconut came back to the unit. Live and learn; learn and live.

*That’s another story

Rain and C-rations

“Rain, rain, rain; will it ever stop raining?” I asked no one in particular. It was the tail end of the rainy season in Vietnam. It was 1967. Some days it would rain all day and night. Some weeks it would rain all week. Some months it would rain all month. It would be raining when you went to bed, and raining when you woke up. All anyone wanted to do was find a dry place and stay in out of the rain.

However, of course, the Viet Cong loved the rain; they would be doing all of the things we were trying to keep them from doing in the dry season. That is: moving supplies, and materials to new base camps and preparing to take as much of the country as they could. In other words the rain did not stop the war or the Viet Cong, therefore we could not let it stop us.

It is difficult to describe how it feels to line up to get your food (We only had hot meals when we were in a fairly secure base camp) and before you got back to a dry place to eat it would be swimming in rainwater. I guess that is why I developed the habit of only eating can food, known in the Army as C-rations. When it finally quit raining and we were well into the dry season, I was so used to eating C-rations that I never ate hot meals again in Vietnam.

Soon after the rain stopped, Bravo Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 47th Mechanized Infantry was attached to an engineering company to guard while they rebuilt a bridge. It was boring for Bravo Company; mostly we just sat and watched the engineers work. However, at the end of the workday we would return to the engineers base camp for a hot meal. Now that was no ‘biggie’ for me, but the other guys in my company couldn’t wait to get back for the hot chow. I continued to eat my C-rations, ‘spaghetti and meatballs’ was one of my favorites. When I ate C-rations and needed to heat them up, I would set the can on a few small rocks so that there was a hollow under the can. Then I would break off a small piece of C4 plastic explosive, put it under the can and light it. C4 will only burn fast if lit with a flame, so in a small amount it was safe. An electrical charge was needed to trigger a C4 explosion. Therefore, I enjoyed my own hot meal. I even had peanut butter, jelly, and pound cake C-rations for desert.

A few days later Bravo Company was ordered to join our own unit, the 2nd Battalion of the 47th Infantry. By the time we got back to our unit, everyone in Bravo Company was sick with food poisoning, except for me. Thank God for C-rations* and for the rain. I was lucky again. Live and learn; learn and live.

*I understand today, the Army has Meals Ready To Eat (MREs).

Dry Season

During the dry season in Vietnam, it does not rain for about six months. As bad as the rain was, the dry season was full of problems also. The lack of rain meant the Army never had enough water. We had to carry the water with us for drinking purposes only. The water was carried in a tank on wheels called a water buffalo, which was pulled behind one of the Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs).

The bad news was we could not take a shower. The worse news was we really needed to take showers. In the dry season, the roads became very dusty, and the APCs kicked up a lot of dust. When we traveled in a convoy, the only APC that would not be covered in dust would be the lead or point APC. Soldiers would wear goggles to keep the dust out of their eyes, which was great, but when they took them off, they sure looked funny, like negatives of a raccoons.

Which brings me to the time my company had to go on a short foot patrol during the dry season. We got lost! I know it is hard to believe in this day of GPS, and all, but we did not have anything to guide us except maps and compasses. That would not have been a problem, except we had a new Lieutenant, fresh from West Point, who refused to listen to any of the Sergeants, so we wondered in the jungle for about three days. We ran out of water. We where lucky to find a pond of stagnate water. I brushed the scum off the top of the water and filled my canteen and dropped in a couple of iodine pills, as everyone did, and shook it up, waited a few minutes and took a drink. It tasted just like scummy pond water, nevertheless; it was water. No one became ill from the water, so I guess the iodine worked.

Temptation showed its ugly head for all the soldiers during the dry, hot weather. There were villages and towns throughout Vietnam, where one could find cold drinks or fresh fruit, and other goodies. The reason this had to stay only a temptation was that we never knew who the enemy was, or who to trust. The people were very friendly, sometimes too friendly* Nevertheless, it was best not to trust any of the local people. Rumors were abounding about glass in cokes, poison fruit, or some kind of booby trap in anything one might buy from the locals.

I took several chances while in Vietnam by giving into the temptations. I bought a cold coke and drank it, but not before taking off the top very carefully and then putting my thumb over the top of the bottle, and turning it upside down to test for glass. Another time I bought an orange at an open-air market. It was the best orange I ever had. I took the orange and made a little hole in it and sucked on it while we were in a dusty convoy, maybe that is why it was the best. In addition, I tried a few dried meats at an open-air market, but I made the woman selling it take a bite first of each thing I ate. Looking back, I think maybe that rainy season was not so bad. Live and learn; learn and live.

*Some young ladies were very insistent about selling their bodies.

Drawing Cards

Bob Hope was coming to Vietnam, and one person in our squad was going to Bear Cat to see his show. Everyone was so excited! It was almost Christmas of 1967, and I had been in Vietnam for three months. We decided to make it fair, we would draw from a deck of cards, and whoever got the high card would go see Bob Hope. There was about ten of us in the squad at the time, and we each held our breath a picked a card. I know what you are thinking, why get so excited, over Bob Hope.

Let me explain, Bob Hope was great in his own right, but more importantly getting out of the boonies and back to a permanent base camp like Bear Cat was not only great it was desired for its relative safety. (Oh, it received a mortar attack every now and then, but it was unlikely to be overrun by the Viet Cong) Bear Cat had clubs where one could get a cold drink or a hamburger. Bear Cat even had an ice cream shop. In short, it was the closest thing we had to civilization. In my eight months in Vietnam, I guess I sent two weeks in Bear Cat all together. The rest of the time I was in the boonies.

However, I digress, back to the drawing of the high card. We each picked a card out of a deck of fifty-two. Doc drew a three, “Damn”, he said. Then Gunner drew a Queen, with a great big smile. So, it went until it came to my time to draw. I drew a damned deuce, the lowest card in the deck. Gomez won the draw, with an Ace of hearts. After he won the draw, Gomez did the most extraordinary thing, he came back later and offered to let me take his place. He said, “Binion, you have been here the longest in the squad, I want you to go to the show.” I told him, “Thanks, but you need to go, you won the draw, and you never give up a chance to get out of the boonies. How do you think I would feel if I went in your place and something happened to you while I was gone.”

He was forcing me to get too close. We mostly called each other by last names just to avoid getting too close. You just didn’t know how long it would be before a person you knew would get killed in that damned war. Today, after writing some of these stories about Vietnam, I realize that in fact, as hard as we tried we still became close. I mean when you depend on other people for your own survival, you cannot help but feel for them if something happens to them. Here is to all of those guys who were just like me, regardless of skin, ethnicity, politics or religion. We are (were) all just human, trying to stay human in an inhuman war. Live and learn; learn and live.

Tet Offensive 1968

The Communists from North Vietnam and the Viet Cong of South Vietnam combined forces like they had never done before, to launch attacks all over South Vietnam. Those simultaneous attacks became known as the ‘Tet Offensive’, a Vietnamese holiday that last from December 30th through January the 3rd.

Every town, city and U. S. base camp of any size was attacked at the same time. On those days, the enemy showed the citizens back in the United States that no place in Vietnam was safe from attack. Although the U. S. would be mired down in Vietnam until the 1973 withdrawal, the Tet Offensive would mark the beginning of the end for U. S. involvement in Vietnam.

The 9th Infantry was called into Saigon, even though the Unit had been banned from Saigon. This is the story of the part my squad played in the Tet Offensive, as told to me by some of the guys in the squad. I contracted ‘Jungle Rot’ on my feet and was sent to Bear Cat for a few days for my feet to be treated and given time to heal. I was there during the Tet Offensive, thus I guess I was lucky. Bear Cat was so heavily fortified that it was not attacked. The enemy did step up the mortar attacks on Bear Cat.

I was told the story a few days after the Tet Offensive had started. About my third day in Bear Cat, I looked up from my sore feet one day and saw my Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) with my squad coming into the motor pool at Bear Cat. The other squad members gathered around me. They had been in a graveyard somewhere in Saigon, fighting the enemy during the Tet Offensive. The Viet Cong (VC) had hidden in the graveyard behind gravestones. One of the guys said, “Binion it was awful, it was just like a turkey shoot.” I could understand why; going through a graveyard on an APC and shooting down on the enemy, meant they would not have a chance.

All was going fine from the point of view of my squad, when the driver got distracted and drove the APC off the side of an escarpment. Most of the squad members were just shaken up, but a couple were hurt and sent to hospital. The APC had to be brought in for repairs, thus my squad got to spend a few days with me in Bear Cat. By the time, the APC was fixed and ready to roll, so were my feet, and Tet was over.

After about six days for me, and three for the rest of the squad, we were back in the war. Once again, I had been lucky. I never had to point-blank shoot a man in Vietnam. I know they were the enemy, but they were human beings also. Chances are some of my bullets wounded or killed some of the VC, but I do not know that for sure. All the battles I was in; the enemy was in the jungle or so far away that I did not see my bullets hit them. I only saw what their bullets and explosives had done to my Army buddies. I know some men saw much more of the horrors of war than I did, which is why I keep saying I was lucky. Live and learn; learn and live.

May 23, 1968

The explosion lifted the Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) up in the front and turned it over on its top. Hendricks on the fifty-caliber was thrown clear and not hurt. Mitchell was blown out of the drivers-hole, and his mouth hit metal on the way out, shattering his jaw, but he would be okay. The new guy, was thrown clear but twisted his ankle when he landed. I was hurt the worst. My squad was down to just the four of us, after we had lost several men in firefights, and booby trap incidents. It was May 23, 1967, I had been in the Army exactly one year and in South Vietnam for eight months of that year. I’ll never forget that day.

May 23, 1968 was the worst day of my life and the best day of my life. * My Platoon had been out all day long looking for a Viet Cong base camp that was suspected to be in the area. We were traveling on a two-wheel water buffalo-cart trail. We were in a long convoy of about twenty APCs. My APC was third from the end of the convoy. As we were going along and after we had passed a village, someone opened fire on us and we responded. I think the shooting had been a diversion because it stopped almost as soon as it started.

The Captain called back on the walkie-talkie and directed the last three APC's back to the village to set up a blockade, while the rest of the soldiers swept through the jungle on foot. The plan worked, a woman in black came running out of the jungle into the village. I yelled at the woman, “La Dai, which is supposed to mean come here” But she didn’t stop. The new man on my APC, said, “Shoot her man, shoot her!” I knew better, you just didn’t want to shoot an innocent. I thought at the time that she might have been just a local, out taking a crap. We jumped down and chased her into the village, but she had too much of a lead on us, and we lost her.

About that time, we were directed to get back on the trail. As we pulled back into position, I jump down inside the APC to get everyone a coke.(We could carry cokes, beer and water in a cooler. If we were in a secure base camp the helicopters would even bring us blocks of ice,) I came back up on top and passed everyone a coke (We were out of beer). It was about 110 degrees and we were thirsty. I popped the top on my coke, and that’s when the mine exploded under the engine of the APC. I was thrown off, but the APC came over on top of me, trapping me under all of the ammo, C-rations and everything else inside the APC that slammed down on top of my back. I was on my stomach and I felt what I thought was blood pouring out of my head onto my left hand. It turned out to be hot motor oil, and when I realized what it was, I move my face out of the way, before it was burned. I tried to move my arm and hand out of the way also, but I was trapped. My left hand was frying in the oil. The medic crawled up under the APC and gave me a shot of something for the pain. Somehow, they got the APC off me and put me in a helicopter (chopper). I remember the pain in my hand when the wind from the chopper blade hit it. Then I passed out.

When I woke up again I was in hospital in Saigon, with a Purple Heart medal pinned to my pillow and my left hand wrapped in a big bandage. I stayed in the hospital at Saigon for about three days. To my knowledge no one ever changed the bandage on my hand. I was so thirsty (remember I never even got a sip of that coke), but they would not give me a drink of water. They didn’t know if I had internal injuries or not; so no water.

Hendricks and Mitchell came to see me in the hospital. They would be going back to the war. Mitchell ‘s jaw was wired together and he would be in the hospital a while. I was being sent to Tokyo, Japan. I guess they drugged me, because the next time I woke up I was in a helicopter circling over the city of Tokyo. The city was beautiful, but that’s all I would see of it. Then I blanked out again.

I came to, in the hospital on a gurney and was being wheeled into the burn ward. I looked up and there was a sign that read, “WECOME TO THE CRISPY CRITTERS”. Then I looked around and all of the patients were burned, most from head to toe. It was awful. The two hospital attendants wheeled me over to a bed and said, “Okay, hop in”. That’s when I realized, I COULD NOT MOVE FROM THE WAIST DOWN! ”Oh, you got a back injury”, one of the hospital aids said, “we need to get you up to the head and back ward”.

I was happy to be leaving the burn ward, but some of the guys on the neurosurgical ward were pretty messed up also. They got me in a bed and then the pain began. A nurse came and unwrapped my left hand. The bandage came off , but so did some on my skin. I cried. My hand was frozen into a claw. I took one look and told them to cut it off and give me one of those hooks (Yes, I was feeling self-pity). To get to the point, my hand was saved and works well today, and only looks like an old man’s hand. It took weeks of whirlpool, physical therapy and a new drug cream called sulfurmylon to bring my hand back to almost normal.

The real problem, was my back, I was paralyzed from the waist down. The doctor came in and told me that he could operate and I would have a 50/50 chance of walking, or it might make it worse. “Or”, he said, “We could leave it alone and it may come back on its own”. I opted for the “wait and see” choice. After about three weeks, I felt something when the nurse came around for her daily pin stick in the bottom of my feet. From that point on I made slow but steady progress on the road back to walking.

I was then sent home to the U.S. in a cargo plane. I mean the plane was loaded from bottom to top with wounded soldiers on stretchers. There was only a few inches between each man, talk about claustrophobia. That was my return flight home from Vietnam. I was lucky. My hand healed, my back healed, I walk with a limp, but I walk. I had a few nightmares about Vietnam, but I did not lose my humanity. Live and learn; learn and live.

*Yes, May 23, 1968 was the worst day of my life and the best day of my life. It was the worst day, because of the pain, but the best day because I knew I was going home.

Remembrances

Open-Air Market: We went through a large village one time and stopped at an open-air market. They had all kind of fruits, fish, dried meats, and vegetables. I tried some of what the locals told me were dried squid and monkey meat. I did not like either one. The monkey meat was too stringy. Also, I saw some “Care” package goods that had been sent there as charity for the people, being sold for money; black market goods I guess.

Donut Dollies: Brave young women who would visit the troops in the field during the Vietnam War were called donut dollies, because they brought donuts and candy and other little goodies. I saw them once.

The Monks: The Buddhists Monks walked around in bright orange robes. I never had a chance to talk to any of the monks. I wish I had, but I was busy with the war.

Elephants: I knew they were there, I could hear them crashing through the bamboo at night. The closest I ever came to seeing an elephant was the time I saw the skeleton head of one that someone had set up on a post at the entrance of a village.

Tigers: I never saw a tiger in Vietnam; however, I did see some tiger tracks down by a little stream, and from the looks of the tracks, I never wanted to run into the tiger.

Snakes: Vietnam, we were warned in the States, was full of snakes. I never saw one in the eight months I was there. Maybe that was because I didn’t look for them and I wasn’t a foot soldier, although I did my share of jungle patrols on foot. There was supposed to be a small snake, called “Mr. Two Step”, so named, because if you were bitten by one you took two steps and keeled over dead.

Monkeys: I never saw a monkey in the wild in Vietnam. I did see one that some soldier had had as a pet. That monkey was still wild, and caged outside of a hutch in the Ninth Infantry’s base camp known as Bear Cat. One could not get too close to the cage, for that was one mean monkey.

Anthills: I saw anthills that were four and five feet tall in Vietnam.

South China Sea: Beautiful, beautiful sea.

Rest and Relaxation: R & R- I went to Sydney, Australia, beautiful, beautiful Sydney, beautiful country, beautiful people.

R and R

I almost threw her to the ground. We were walking down the street in Sydney, when the automobile backfired. After almost eight months in Vietnam, my reflexes were tuned to react within nano-seconds. I had to apologize to the young lady and assure her that I was not trying to accost her. “I’m so sorry, Mary”, I said, “I thought we were being shot at.” I had met Mary at a church social, and we were on our way to the movies. She knew that I was an American G. I. on “Rest and Relaxation” (RR) from Vietnam, but she wasn’t expecting a crazy man.. I would like to say all was well between us, but after that incident, things just didn’t work out for us.

I was so happy just to be out of the jungles. After my arrival at Perth, Australia airport, I ordered a beer while waiting for my plane to Sydney. One beer almost knocked me on my ass. In Vietnam the beer was like water. It was 3.2 beer, very weak and one could drink it all day without getting drunk. After drinking the beer I went to the restroom. Wow! I must have flushed about ten times, it was an amazing thing to see a toilet flushing. Funny how I remember the little things.

Well… I still had most of my week in Sydney to relax and have some fun. What to do? What to do? The rest of the week I did the tourist thing. I took a ferry across the bay and saw the Sydney Opera House. I had good food and plenty to drink. The last night I decided to try the night life. I went to a club called the Peppermint Twist , where I drank too much, met a girl, and took her back to my hotel room. We were too drunk to do anything but sleep. The next morning she left and I never saw her again. Wow! That was fun.

Before I knew it the time to catch a plane back to Vietnam was upon me. I didn’t want to go back. I was becoming a “short-timer”. There was a thing in Vietnam called “short-time”. The closer a soldier got to putting in his time in Vietnam the more of a “short-timer” he was, and the more he feared something happening to him. I saw a few guys go crazy in the last days of their tour of duty. Oh… guys would go around saying things like, “I’m so short that I have to stand on a ladder to kiss a flea’s knees”, but down deep they were scared. I know, I was becoming a “short-timer”. No… I didn’t want to go back to Vietnam. But I did go back, and sure enough within a week I experienced the explosion that ended my time in Vietnam. Live and learn; learn and live.

Booby Traps

Some booby traps were of simple construction, meant only to disable not kill in some cases. The goal of the Viet Cong was to get the U.S. soldiers out of the war one way or another. Sharpened bamboo sticks with some sort of waste on them would cause an injury and take some unfortunate troop out of the war for a while because of the ensuing infection. The Cong would put these pungy sticks, as they were called, just under the edge of the water of a rice paddy on an angle where they couldn’t be detected until too late. On the dry path, the enemy would put a small tin can tied back to be tripped by the soldier’s foot. When it was tripped the poor soldier, and sometimes some of his buddies, would jump off of the path into the water to avoid the expected explosion and right into the waiting pungy sticks. Too late the soldier would realize that there was no explosion. A cheap and effective way for the Viet Cong to disable the their enemy.

Sometimes the Cong would dig a hole big enough for a foot to fit into, and put a board over the hole. The board would be almost cut in half, so that it wouldn’t take much pressure to break the board when stepped on by a soldier. On each end of the board the enemy would drive rusty nails, again doctored up with waste. The whole thing would be covered up to look just like the rest of the surroundings. When the soldier would step on the hole with the board on it, his weight would pull his leg down in the hole. Then as the board broke and the ends with the nails came up into the leg, the soldier would jerk his leg upward in reflex and the nails would dig into the leg and another U. S soldier would be out of the war. Again a cheap but effective way to disable.

More advanced anti-personnel devices included a mine that when stepped on would click to activate it , but would not explode until the foot was removed. If one would hear the first click, it might be possible for someone else to dig down around the mine and disarm it… Good luck. Another mine was called the “Bouncing Betty” because when stepped on it would bounce up out of the ground and explode at waist high level, in order to do the most damage. Live and learn; learn and live.

The Marine

I didn’t get to talk to him myself. I was in a hospital bed across the ward from him. I was Army, he was a Marine. It really didn’t matter what branch of service we were in, we were all wounded brothers from that Frat-house called Vietnam. The marine, I’ll call him Joe, was strapped to a big wheel that had to be turned every twenty minutes. He was paralyzed from the neck down. The guy in the hospital bed beside of me was a Seabee, who had been shot in the head, and he told me the Marine’s story as follows:

Joe, the Marine’s unit was charging up a hill and taking heavy fire from the Viet Cong position on the high ground. Joe and his two buddies heard the mortars raining down, and jumped into a foxhole for cover. What they didn’t know was that the foxhole had been dug by the Viet Cong, so that they could zero in on that co-ordinance, when and if, U.S. Marines took cover in it. Therefore, when Joe and his buddies jumped in the foxhole, the mortar round followed them right in. Joe’s two comrades were killed instantly, and we know what happened to Joe.

Everyone of those Marines, Sailors, Airmen and Soldiers had a story to tell. I was in no position to gather their stories, and was too self-concerned to think of them. I wish I had. Over the ten year’s of United States involvement in Vietnam, more than fifty-eight thousand Americans lost their lives. Other U. S. allies’ lives were lost in that little undeclared war. Over a million Vietnamese were killed. Each of those human beings had a story to tell. War is hell… when will we learn?

To Sleep; Perchance To Dream

Sleep… sleep… sleep. The ground was rock hard, the nights in some seasons were cold, which was crazy because the days were so damned hot. At other times the nights were just as hot as the days and too hot to sleep. Thus, the ability to sleep under standard conditions in Vietnam, was an enviable talent… that I possessed.

I could sleep, and I loved to sleep. Not only could I sleep , but I could dream. Sleep took me out of the war, and dreams took me home to the arms of any one of the girls I had known in the previous five years. I could sleep through almost anything. The other guys had trouble sleeping because of the cold, the rain, the heat, the mortars, the mosquitoes; but I had no such problems. Even the mosquitoes didn’t bite me. To this day mosquitoes do not bite me. I guess I was lucky.

Once I went to sleep, upon the return of my company to our base camp, after being lost in the jungle for three days. I was so sleepy that I slept through an enemy attack on our base camp. After the attack was over, someone looked around and saw that I was still sleeping. That was really embarrassing, but I was very sleepy. That was the only time I slept through a firefight. I never slept when I was supposed to be awake. For example I never could sleep while on guard duty, it was too dangerous. But I did love to sleep… still do.