Stories of Vietnam Part Four

Al and Don had been writing to their high school friend John, who was in the Air Force. John left a message that he was in Da Nang and said he would be at the movie that night if they wanted to meet him. They caught a deuce and a half (2 ½ ton truck) into town and met John at the movie.

They were watching Planet of the Apes with Charlton Heston when all of a sudden there were incoming rounds, and explosions started going off all around them. Don stood up and lifted up his seat to get under it and John was already there. They decided they had better go. All three of them went to a bunker and sat in there until all the firing stopped. John left and Al and Don decided they'd better head back to the compound and get back to their unit. It was five miles back and they were walking since they had no other mode of transportation. They were in civilian clothing, had military haircuts, had no weapons, and no Vietnamese with them. They were obviously military and without weapons they felt like sitting ducks, but they got back without incident. This was the beginning of the Tet Offensive. When they got back to the compound they set about trying to find out what happened. The following is what they were able to piece together from what others told them.

The sun was starting to come up when they got back to the compound. The compound had been attacked and there were still some Sapper bodies lying there but it was all over.
Sappers didn't really come for a full engagement. Their purpose was to weaken, annoy and disrupt.

This attack is what Don finally got his Combat Infantryman's Badge for and he wasn't even there. There were 17 Special Forces men killed and they were told it was the most Special Forces killed in a single engagement up until that time. Don doesn't know for sure if that is true.

The Sappers must have had a blueprint or map of the compound but they must have had it upside down because they hit the new communications bunker that the soldiers weren't into yet and there was no one occupying the new barracks that got hit. If you reversed the blueprint they would have gotten the communications bunker and the officers' barracks that were both then in use.

When the Sappers realized that no one was in the new commo bunker they pushed in the air conditioners in the old one and got a couple of satchel charges in there but they didn't kill anyone. Most of the damage was done to the new one which was empty and had no commo equipment in it.

There were a couple guys in the new barracks that had gotten drunk and went in there to sleep and one of them was killed. The way they lost most of the guys was that the Sappers set up at the end of each barrack and as the guys came running out the door they would pick them off.

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There was a guy in the unit that they called "Sergeant Rock" because he was always in excellent physical shape. The Sappers didn't have fragmentation grenades, just concussion grenades. Rock came out the door of the old commo bunker and the Sappers threw a concussion grenade which blew him back against the wall and bloodied his nose but didn't kill him. He had held on to his rifle, and he got right back up and just started firing away and got 2 or 3 of the Sappers. When Don and Al got back Sergeant Rock was still standing there over the bodies. They didn't know how long he'd been there. He looked calm on the outside but his wild eyes betrayed the calm exterior. He was coming down from the huge adrenaline rush. You could tell he was shaken because he had to kill someone. Rock didn't think of it as a trophy. He was a good guy. He didn't look at it that way. He said he reacted completely on training, reflex and fear.

Everyone was amazed because the Sappers only had 3 rounds in their rifles. It was basically a suicide mission for them. Some of them had rounds on them that didn't fit the rifles they had and couldn't have used them anyway. It was in stark contrast to the Americans who always carried plenty of rounds when they went on a mission.

For the next several nights they sat up guarding the perimeter.

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Product Information
A great shirt for anyone who has served or is serving in the Army Special Forces. This is a fitted T made of cotton that will get softer with each washing. (Size up for a looser fit).

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