What It Was Like To Be There (February/March 1984 | Volume: 35, Issue: 2)

What It Was Like To Be There

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February/March 1984 | Volume 35, Issue 2

Text Complexity Grade Level

9
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WHAT WAS IT like to have been cut off and surrounded like that platoon of Company B? A similar experience was vividly described by then Army Specialist Jack P. Smith, the son of the ABC news commentator Howard K. Smith. Smith was assigned to Company C, 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, part of the relief force that replaced the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, on November 16. The next morning his battalion was moving overland to Landing Zone Albany, some six miles northeast of Landing Zone X-ray, when they ran into an ambush. Like his political and military leaders in Washington and Saigon, who failed to make the critical distinction between the Southern Viet Cong guerrillas and the North Vietnamese regular army, Smith uses the terms Cong and PAVN (i.e., North Vietnamese army) interchangeably. The enemy unit that ambushed his company was, in fact, a battalion of the North Vietnamese 66th Regiment that was retreating from the earlier battle at Landing Zone X-ray. Smith relates:

MEN ALL AROUND me were screaming. The fire was now a continuous roar. We were even being fired at by our own guys. No one knew where the fire was coming from, and so the men were shooting everywhere. Some were in shock and were blazing away at everything they saw or imagined they saw. The XO let out a low moan, and his head sank. I felt a flash of panic. I had been assuming that he would get us out of this. Enlisted men may scoff at officers back in the billets, but when the fighting begins, the men automatically become very dependent upon them. Now I felt terribly alone …

A rifleman named Wilson and I removed his gear as best we could, and I bandaged his wound. It was not bleeding much on the outside, but he was very close to passing out. Just then Wallace let out a “huh!” A bullet had creased his upper arm and entered his side. He was bleeding in spurts. I ripped away his shirt with knife and did him up. Then the XO screamed: A bujlet had gone through his boot, taking all his toes with it. He was in agony and crying. Wallace was swearing and in shock. I was crying and holding on to the XO’s hand to keep from going crazy.

The grass in front of Wallace’s head began to fall as if a lawnmower were passing. It was a machine gun, and I could see the vague outline of the Gong’s head behind the foot or so of elephant grass. The noise of firing from all directions was so great that I couldn’t even hear a machine gun being fired three feet in front of me and one foot above my head. As if in a dream, I picked up my rifle, put it on automatic, pushed the barrel into the Gong’s