Tanks

Tanks for the memory

Of crap games on the floor,

Nights in Singapore

You might have been a headache,

But you never were a bore

—from Rainger, R. and Robin, L. (1938). Thanks for the Memory [lyrics]

You never know what you're gonna run into when you’re breakin' bush in the middle of a war. One fine morning, March second, I recall, the jungle was jungle. Then, Presto Mundo—a three-acre clearing with a road running through it. There was no bush on the sides of the road and no leaves on the trees. Agent Orange had been here—“Only you can prevent a forest.”

The entire area had been bladed and sprayed extensively. Busybody U.S. engineers had created a wasteland, except for a big pile of logs and brush on the far side of the road, next to a termite mound.

Lt. Martinez shouted, “We're makin' a combat assault on the road!”

Huh? Against a road?

The lead elements of Charlie Company stepped into the clearing. We glanced at each other. No traffic lights. Like obedient Civil War soldiers, we formed a hundred-yard-long line along the road and began the crossing.

“For the love of Pete. Look!”

“Where?”

“There!”

“Where?”

“By the wood pile.”

When you see a turtle on top of a fence post, you know it didn't get there by itself. Neither did a wood-cutter party attaching leafy branches to their bodies by a brush pile.

Light bulbs lit up all along our line. What’s this? A party we weren’t invited to? Before they could finish getting into costume, we emptied the punch bowl with our M16s and frags. Wood chips flew everywhere. The shocked and surprised men jammed their gearshifts into reverse and fled into the jungle. That'll keep ‘em off the streets.

Bobby Parris, a fellow squad member from rural Georgia, had done a peck of bird hunting, was expert with knife work and not afraid of the devil. He packed a special-issue Remington 12-gauge and a supply of double-aught in a sack draped on his belt, opposite a razor-sharp 6-inch buck knife, a gift from his mother. Bobby suspected a rat in the woodpile. He approached on tenterhooks and blasted round after round of buckshot at the logs. After the dust settled, we pulled out a dead dink. His canteen made a sound like a toy rattle—a BB from one of Bobby’s shells was lodged inside. Bobby had a souvenir.

Charlie Company was back in the zone. We had escaped casualties twice—first, while strung out on the road, and then when Bobby got within twenty feet of the logs.

A dead monkey doesn't stop a circus. A squad reconnoitered the area while the rest of us stood arms at the ready. After the squad returned, we gathered at the tree line, formed a column and followed the shadowy figures into the jungle. Later that day, we ran into an over-sized log lying across a path. Instead of pushing deeper into the jungle, we stopped and camped a good thirty yards away (helpful hint: don’t sleep next to a path).

While others set a standard security perimeter and dug foxholes, J. R.'s squad reckoned it was time to make donuts. They had trained with demolition and explosive experts and experimented with ambushes. Like Wily E. Coyote eagerly opening his parcel from ACME Blasting Products, they were gonna lay a trap and beat Charlie at his own game.

A kill chain is creative, sensitive work. Intricate and stressful. A trip wire is strung over a log and connected to a specially designed fuse, some det cord and an array of deadly Claymores set in series along the path, concealed with the utmost pains. The plot was blood simple. The enemy point pauses to climb over the log. His colleagues pause behind him, lining up with the Claymores. The point steps over the log and trips the wire. The fuse breaks, det cord ignites, Claymores blow and the patrol is dead bananas.

The feigned innocence of our clever mouse trap was the main topic of conversation as we fortified our evening nest, posted guards at the perimeter and went to bed on pins and needles.

Dawn arrived along with a rude blast from just beyond the trees. The trap was sprung! Adrenaline was rushing, prepping us for the real deal. Our squad was closer, but J. R.’s boys had set the trap. They knew the score. The honor fell to them. J. R. brandished an M60 machine gun as his squad cautiously approached the path, following a blood trail.

For the moment everything seemed right until a sniper bullet hit one of his men in the head. The squad opened up and dove for cover, except for J. R., who ran along the path like Rambo, walking fire from his cock-high M60. The medic had used the covering fire and was already treating the wounded man, talking to Bien Hoa medical, telling the man to trust in divine providence. Upsetting? Absolutely. A gap in a squad is hard; soldiers are not interchangeable. God wishes to save all men, but war is a guarantee that we would lose comrades.

Now that the pig was out of the python, nobody knew if it was a few stragglers, the clowns at the woodpile or an entire regiment. J. R. guessed two had survived—one in a tree, another in a bush. (A tree? We worshiped the ground.)

Capt. Jackson wanted no more surprises—dinks will wait forever. One seriously injured man was enough. A tank platoon was around the corner, so he ordered up a Big Boy. “If you could swing by, it would be greatly appreciated.”

Before long, the faint sound of a heavy diesel in the distance. Louder. The ground began to shake. A dull, angry roar accompanied by the sound of falling timber echoed through the jungle. Out of the woods came a monster from the deep, clanking to a noisy stop on our doorstep. We gazed up at the Patton M48 battle tank like grasshoppers, dumbstruck by 99,000 lbs. of blast furnace steel in the middle of the jungle.

A man popped out of the beast, shouting over the idling engine, “You rang?” Kelley’s Heroes anyone? Tankers were notorious for tossing grenades from the turret at dinks and running over them. We pointed right, “Shoot there,” and asked for a bit of caution. “Don’t run over J. R.’s squad. They’re out there.”

A spoonful of Patton was just what the doctor ordered. For the plat du jour, the commander selected Beehive 90 mm M377 canister to end the Mexican stand-off with the enemy stragglers.

A Beehive round breaks apart when leaving the gun barrel, propelling 5,600 flechettes (nails with fins) in a dispersal cone, a load of shot like you’ve never seen. Its melliferous name comes from the soothing sound the arrows make flying through the air, exenterating anything in the way with startling ease. Range, 1200 ft.

Flechettes were first used in Vietnam by Landing Zone BIRD in the Kim Son valley. They had been overrun and taken numerous casualties. The officer in charge ordered the last artillery piece to load Beehive ammo and aim at ground level. He took out two hundred NVA with a couple rounds, saving the day. The popularity of flechettes soared, and reports of enemy soldiers nailed to trees en plein air began appearing in the press.

Commander, “Gunner, Beehive, woods.”

Gunner, “Identified.”

Loader, “Up!”

Commander, “Driver move out, gunner take over.”

The armored knight shifted into gear and slowly ambled away, bashing trees and crushing dead bodies with heavy treads.

Gunner, “Driver stop.”

Gunner, “Power.” The tank bowed and turned its turret before lowering its gun barrel. Turrets moving under power have a reputation for cutting off body parts; main guns have a habit of slamming down on those walking under them.

Commander, “Fire.”

Gunner, “On the way!” SWOOSH!!—we had just been insured by the U.S. 11th Cav, funeral arrangements still pending.

Commander, “Target! Ceasefire. Driver back up,” and the queer mechanical shape went on its way.

We waited for the MEDEVAC (God’s lunatics) to rotor in before tracking the tank to its den, where a strange comfort was waiting. Four Pattons and four armored personnel carriers (there to carry supplies), had encircled a disabled M551 Sheridan light tank, like elephants do with their young. Earlier in the day, the Sheridan lost a wheel to a pressure mine. A grunt riding on the rear with his legs dangling down lost them, too.

While a repair crew worked on the disabled tank and the radio kept us updated on our injured comrade, we partied to transistor radios, built bonfires, and pulled guard duty. Bob and I stayed with the Sheridan and sacked out inside for the hell of it. No need for a security perimeter or entrenchments; what fools would dare to bring the massive firepower of our combined arsenals down on their heads? To prove it, a tank riddled the wood line with flechettes, cutting down a cloud of trees in a big WHOOSH!

In the morning, news reached us that our eleven kills set a division record for an ambush and that the injured man hadn’t made it, a blow to our hearts. We shut our eyes against the future and continued on our way, the jungle opening and closing behind us, leaving no trace. No one spoke. Who will know our grief?