A Short Story ....
One Night In The Jungle ...
I heard an eerie prophesy about what would happen to my country in the
next 20-25 years.
"In 20-30 years, you'll be just like Soviet Russia and they'll be
just like you are today, mate." was the prediction of
Captain James Burke, of Her Majesty's Royal Australian
Special Air Service.
The year was 1968 and I was a 21 year old U.S. Army
Artillery Lieutenant assigned as a Forward Observer
to the Pleiku Mobile Strike Force in the Central Highlands
of South Vietnam. I was still a little new in country,
so I listened a lot.
I had just met Captain Burke two days before,
and had already developed a tremendous respect for this man.
Partly in awe of just being in the presence of a real
commando officer of his stature, but mostly from his inspiring
leadership qualities and command presence.
We had air-assaulted into the area earlier that
morning right into the middle of a huge enemy headquarters
with a Montagnard Strike Force company. The raiding party
was led by both American Green Berets and
Captain Burke's SAS team.
I had come in on the second chopper and saw the bad guys scurrying all
over the landing zone as we approached it. They had been hoeing their
cornfield (our landing zone) and we had obviously caught the enemy
with their pants down.
We came in with guns blazing. The door gunners
on both sides of me were hosing down the area with their M-60
machine guns barking in deafening fashion.
I shouted my fire commands over my PRC-25 radio, working the perimeter
of the landing zone with artillery. We were clearly wreaking havoc
and mayhem on the ground.
We hit the ground, and swept across the landing zone into the
treeline, running as fast as we could. As I followed with the lead
element, I passed three empty bunkers ringing the landing zone. Thank
heaven they were empty.
The Special Forces guys had done a good job of keeping this operation a
secret. The bad guys had no idea we were coming.
The plot thickened as we swept into the surrounding
jungle. Bunkers and hootches were
everywhere. Pigs and chickens were scurrying all about adding to
the general mayhem. I noticed the Montagnard Strikers were snagging the
chickens as they went and laying claim to what squads got the pigs.
Firing their weapons in the direction of the fleeing enemy
as they went.
I stopped at what appeared to be the center of the
enemy installation and could see a rather large amphitheater
training area through the trees. The SF and SAS guys were
going through the hootches and bunkers.
They told me to keep firing artillery all around us and cover our advance
and enemy's likely escape routes. Which I did.
I occupied myself keeping two batteries of six 105 mm howitzers
each as busy as I could pumping away while the
Strikers secured the enemy compound. This is when I
saw the POW cages. Obviously recently vacated,
too.
One of the Australians reported that he had found a 200-250 bed
underground hospital. One of the SF guys reported finding a
uniform factory and another reported what appeared to be a
military-academy type training facility.
They directed the Montagnards to cease firing individual
weapons and told me to keep the artillery coming,
which I did. Those cages gave me the heebie-jeebies,
though. As the small arms fire subsided, I knew we had hit something
really big in this remote piece of jungle.
The bad guys had backed off too easily.
They weren't putting up any kind of a fight at all. Something was
wrong here. The SF guys consolidated all items of intelligence
value nearby while I heard my Montagnard radio operator commandeering a
chicken "For the American Artillery officer..."
Captain Burke issued the order for us to move out of the
immediate area. We moved to our objective rally point and
further consolidated what we had seen and
captured. A discussion took place within the command element
where to move next. Everyone agreed that we needed to get out
of here ASAP.
They estimated this to be a regimental or larger headquarters.
More than an even match for the 80 Strikers and 8
'round-eyes' in our party. Everyone wanted to strike
out in hot pursuit of the enemy in hopes of finding
POW's.
Captain Burke reminded us how our sister company had been
chewed-up after being sucked into a reinforced
company-sized ambush just three weeks ago. The
thought of the heavy casualties from that encounter
tempered all the bravado of striking out willy-nilly through the
jungle playing heroes.
In the meantime, the intel sergeants reported we had found an
intelligence goldmine. Cases of documents,
training films and a lot of exposed but
undeveloped 35mm film. The answer to "What to do next"
came by radio.
"Move to the nearest mountain top and extract all items of
intelligence value." It was clearly agreed that we needed to move
to a good high-ground position and better survey what we had stepped
into.
We then moved out to climb one of the steepest
mountains God could have ever put there for us. We literally had
to burrow through the thick jungle foliage all
the way to the top as darkness started to come on us ¾ of
the way to the top. We raced to make the top before
last light.
When we finally made it to the top, the SF guys hurried to get the
perimeter established and I plotted and called in artillery
defensive targets around our position. We had a serious
commanding view of the countryside around us from our new
position. I made the rounds of the perimeter, firing in defensive
concentrations of artillery all around our position and the area we had
just left. I wanted to be prepared for whatever the night would
bring.
The light was really fading fast when Captain Burke informed me
there was an aerial spotter (FAC) in the area with two
Phantom jet fighters on station to help us. He
instructed me where to direct them around the base of our mountain and the
enemy HQ we had just left behind.
The first Phantom roared across the valley below us
raking the area with his gatling cannon. He drew sporadic
fire from the ground. The second Phantom ripped through the valley
below spewing cannon and napalm. He drew a
lot more ground fire than the first. Those jet-jockeys really had
balls.
I heard the SF guys saying how this was the very most dangerous
time of day for these fighters to be doing this as the first
"fast-mover" came around to make his second pass.
This time, instead of sporadic ground fire, the entire
countryside lit up like ten thousand fireflies. As far as we could
see, thousands of distant muzzle flashes twinkled and
erupted into a light-show of tracers skyward as the Phantom blazed
across the valley, cannon roaring and 750 pound
bombs shaking the ground.
As he roared off, somehow amazingly unscathed, I took my eyes from the
valley below. The Americans and Australians all had the same glazed
look on their faces that I must have had, too.
There had been thousands of muzzle flashes all
around us in the valley below! We were deep in Indian
country and clearly surrounded by overwhelming
forces.
FAC came on the radio and announced that it was too dark for the
Phantoms to press their attack. I acknowledged. Moments later,
before we could begin to feel sorry for ourselves, the radio
crackled and FAC told us that Spooky was on station. Where
did we want it?
I almost panicked at this point. I had been through the
finest Artillery Forward Observer school in the world and could put
artillery in your back pocket with my eyes closed.
But I'd never heard a word about how to do the call-for-fire
or subsequent adjust-fire commands for the Air Force's awesome
flying gunship! Not a word.
The gravity of making an error with this baby terrified me more than
anything else that happened that day. Especially in what was
now total pitched darkness.
We quickly discussed what to do. The SF guys said they always used a
'fire-arrow'... cans with burning gasoline arranged in
arrow-shaped fashion pointing at the enemy. But this was
always done from the security of a Special Forces camp perimeter.
All agreed this would be a bad idea here since the
enemy really didn't know our position yet and we needed to
maintain serious light-and-noise discipline this night.
I was left to coordinate with FAC as best I could. Thank God he was
good and knew his job. Spooky worked over the surrounding countryside for
about an hour. At which point, our perimeter was secure and my Montagnard
radio operator insisted that I have dinner with him.
He was so proud of having cooked the chicken and some vegetable matter
he'd collected on the way up the mountain. Regrettably the chicken had
been cooked in my steel canteen cup over a discrete, but blazingly hot C-4
plastic explosive fire. It was the worst-tasting chicken I'd
ever had in my whole life. Even in jungle school. It was
awful, but I smiled and complimented him. We were all totally exhausted
from the day's assault and race to the top of the mountain.
At this point, we were in a serious defensive perimeter
for the night, and knew we were surrounded by
a huge force of bad guys. The imminence
of attack seemed very likely, too. We had all
done our jobs and began to wait and see if anything was going to
start early.
Most of the round-eyes were in the center of the perimeter grabbing a
cup of coffee to fortify ourselves for what was shaping up to be a long
night when the unexpected happened.
A Montagnard platoon sergeant came running to us highly excited.
As best we could understand him, the south side of the perimeter
was under attack. But there was no noise, no
gunfire, grenades, nothing...
He was clearly agitated about something very serious,
though. But we couldn't understand what he was trying to tell us. Three of
us followed him to the perimeter and I came face-to-face with the
biggest wild tiger I'd ever imagined. He was standing some 30-40
feet in front of a Montagnard M-60 machine gun position. I could barely
make him out in the glow of a red flashlight someone turned on him. He was
huge.
It looked as if he could have pounced on any of us in a single leap.
The Montagnard machine gunner kept his piece trained on the beast
but maintained fire-discipline and did not fire. As more
folks started to come around, the tiger bounded off back into the jungle.
We praised the soldier for not firing and giving our position
away and went out and inspected the tracks. They looked to be
about as big around as a basketball. Not comforting at all. Especially as
we all wondered to ourselves what was out there
that had pushed this tiger to us.
We returned to the CP area and started fixing more coffee. The
conversation turned to other subjects. The Australians were
interested about what all the commotion going on in the States was
all about. The civil rights, anti-war,
assassinations, etc.
After a while, the conversations turned to who had the best women
in the world and the group began to break up and some of the guys
began to nod off. We were all pretty exhausted at this
point.
We went to 50% alert and I caught the first watch with
Captain Burke, another Australian, Warrant Officer Tully, and an American
Special Forces Master Sergeant, Bill DeLima whom everyone called "Hawaii"
for his clandestine recon team name.
We took turns making rounds, checking the perimeter defenses
and chatted to stay awake. It had been a long day, and
having had no sleep yet, I was beginning to nod off, too.
Then the topic changed back to some of the tumultuous events going on
back in the U.S. When the subject of civil rights came up,
Captain Burke started to get clearly agitated.
At one point, he became markedly angry and laid a
serious prediction on us. "In 20- 30 years, you'll be just
like Soviet Russia and they'll be just like you are today, mate."
...
He spat it out at us with an aire that it was an obvious,
foregone conclusion. He made us feel that we were being very
small-minded for even wondering about anything else.
He really didn't explain his reasons very much that I can
recall, but he was VERY confident about it. However, the
fact that we seemed to be surrounded by thousands of enemy soldiers
at the moment was enough of a distraction from
getting more details from Burke just then.
I remember thinking more about it on the next day's
movement out of the area. How could that be possible?
I was still fairly fresh out of high school history and
couldn't see how that could possibly happen.
I was fairly familiar with our system of checks-and-balances,
and the splendid system the founding fathers had set in motion to
guarantee that this could never happen. But Burke was so darned sure
of himself ...
He was not the type of chap to be taken lightly,
either. Not at all. I passed many an hour walking through the jungle
during the coming year wondering about what Captain Burke meant by this.
By the nature of special ops units, our paths did not cross much
again. I never got a good opportunity to quiz him more about it.
Obviously, only time would tell. I brushed it off for
years, but the question "Is it possible?" always stuck with me.
More than any of the other events
of that operation.
Since then, I have always tried to view how events and public news
could fit into Captain Burke's scenario of what would happen to
my country. I have never been able to shake that
nagging suspicion that Captain Burke was right.
Twenty five years later, Captain Burke, should you read this, Stiff
Bugle 42 acknowledges that, by God, you were right.
This story is dedicated to all the brave men who
fought for their countries in the Vietnam War. All sides, all countries.
May their souls rest in peace. They earned it.
Bob Golden - 1993 -
Postscript -
Neither Captain Burke nor I had any way of knowing that a
young American college student named Bill Clinton was enroute to Moscow at
the very same time that we spent that memorable night together.
Maybe Burke sensed it, though. He was that type of fellow.
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