Bunker Duty - The Final

This, of course, presented a real problem. I needed to be able to communicate with all the bunkers along our section of the line. I picked up the PRC-25. The jeep was gone on another mission which meant we’d have to walk to his bunker. I told the sergeant where I would be and told the guy to lead the way.

When we got to his bunker, we stopped and he said, “We traced it there, in front but we didn’t want to walk around out there.”

I said, “Seems like a silly place to put the wire.” But then I realized it actually made sense. Just in front of the bunker was a place that the GIs wouldn’t be walking around which meant they couldn’t accidentally cut the line. And if Charlie got that close to the bunker to cut the line, they were already in deep trouble. They should see him long before he could reach that point.

We checked the field phone to be sure that it was working properly. It wasn’t. That finished, the only conclusion we could draw was that the break was in front of the bunker and the sandbag walls that flanked it on both sides. It meant that we were going to have to crawl around out there. I was going to tell the senior sergeant present to deactivate the claymores, but we wouldn’t be in front of them.

Instead, I used the PRC-25 to talk to the sergeant of the guard, telling him that I, with a couple of soldiers, would be out in front of the bunkers. No one was to shoot unless I gave the order. With that order given, I looked at the field in front of us, not sure that I wanted to do it.

It was just flat land with all the bushes and tall grass cut down. There were, at least, six strands of concertina, the last one about a hundred yards away. There was nothing moving, that I could see even though it was now close to twilight, I could see well enough.

Without thinking about it, I drew my pistol and looking at the men coming with me, hopped over the sandbag wall. I crouched there and attempted to not silhouette myself against the lights on the airfield and the final rays of the sun. The others joined me and we just waited for a moment, though I’m not sure what I was looking for.

One of the soldiers, the commo specialist, said, “Come with me.”

As we moved along the edge of the sandbags, first those of the wall and later directly in front of the bunker. We worked our way forward, the specialist running the commo wire through his hand. He stopped, looked over his shoulder and said, “I found the break.”

He knelt and began to spice the wires together. I was watching out, across the countryside and thought I saw a flash of light. I moment later something dropped into the wire about fifty yards away. When it detonated, I knew immediately that it was a mortar round that had fallen short. I knew the sound they made when they exploded.

I said, “You want to hurry up.”

“Done.”

“Then let’s go.”

Now I thought I heard the sound of the mortar firing and knew another round was on the way. I crouched down, leaning against the sandbag wall. The round flew over us and landed about a hundred yards behind the bunker line. It didn’t seem they were targeting us, but were aiming for something deeper, inside the camp.

As soon as the round detonated, I leaped up and jumped over the sandbag wall. The others followed and we scrambled around, diving into the bunker. The bunkers were designed to detonate the mortar rounds over us but not penetrate into the bunker. A 105 artillery round make take out the bunker, but a mortar wouldn’t.

We were relatively safe inside, or that was what I told myself. By this time, I had been through enough mortar attacks to know what to expect. Although the rounds had landed in direct line with our section of the bunker line, they were now walking away from us.

On the airfield, I heard the whine of a Huey turbine and knew that counter mortar was launching. These were gunships with the mission of finding and destroying the mortar tubes. The muzzle flash would give them away, not to mention the line of rounds as they detonated. The gunships flashed overhead, heading out, toward the single clump of trees about a klick away.

I said, “Well, that was fun.”

“We have commo reestablished, sir.”

“Then I’ll head back to the command bunker.”

“Yes, sir.”

When I was sure that there would be no more mortar rounds falling around us, at least for a while, I crawled out of the bunker. I could see the gunships in the distance and the flashes of their rockets as they hit the ground. That was a somewhat comforting thought.

About the time I got back to the command bunker, the operations officer, or his designated representative, had driven up. He asked, rather nastily, “Where have you been?”

I told him about the severed commo wire and that we’d repaired it. He seemed annoyed that we hadn’t cleared this mission with him, especially since I was away from the command bunker during a mortar attack. Made no difference that I was on the line and that we’d fixed the problem. I should have alerted them to what was happening. That was probably true, but then I was a pilot and not an infantry officer.

It was now sometime after midnight, but I wasn’t sleepy even though I’d been awake for about twenty hours, that I had put in a full day with the flight, and hadn’t even had any dinner because of the late hour of our return. I’d offended another officer at battalion (which wouldn’t be the last time I did that during my tour).

The night passed slowly and about three, I felt myself beginning to doze off, so that I climbed out of the bunker, walked around behind it, and stretched. I watched some of the aircraft operating around the airfield, and looked toward the east, hoping that the sun would appear there soon.

About six, after the sun was up and the landscape rather bright, we were relieved. I looked around quickly, saw that everything seemed to be in its place, and the rest of the guards were folding their lawn chairs and climbing into the truck that would take them back to the company area. I called battalion and told them that we had secured the area and I was going back to the company, hoping that I hadn’t been assigned to fly again that day.

I hadn’t been asleep very long before one of the sergeants from the orderly room awakened me. He had a message from battalion. Apparently, one of the officers had been out to our section of the bunker line and wasn’t happy. There were Coke cans and cigarette butts all over the place. I was to round up the soldiers and we were to head out there to police up our mess.

I could see no point in that. Instead, I just climbed into a jeep, after telling the first sergeant I was taking it out to the bunker line. He just nodded sagely, as if he knew what the problem was.

Short final into Cu Chi, flying over the bunker line. Photo copyright by Randle.

Out there, I did find two Coke cans on the ground and one setting on top of a sandbag wall. There were half a dozen cigarette butts that I could find and half of them looked as if they had been there for a while. Satisfied that I had fulfilled that part of my duties, I drove back to the company area, and then went back to sleep.

Now, if this had been fiction, I’m sure that one of the battalion officers would have found some other discrepancy somewhere and summoned me again. But that didn’t happen. No one else bothered me, and although this was Vietnam, and it was hot and humid and we didn’t have air conditioning, I did have a big fan that blew the air over me. I slept to the middle of the afternoon, and awaked in time for the AFVN weather report.