| |
"Strap Hanger"
© 1997
All rights reserved
CHAPTER TWELVE
[This section covers my duty at
the 'Bird Cage' and with the 525th Military Intelligence Group
[Ft Belvoir, MD and
Vietnam Sept 1970-Dec 1971]
Finally, I reported for duty at a real job. My duty area was a compound that contained
several World War Two style barracks that had been converted into offices and enclosed by
eight foot high chain link fence with guards at the gate. It was fondly referred to as the
'Bird Cage.'
They assigned me to a research department located on the second story.
I explained to my supervisor about my mother's heart surgery and my 90-day
deferment. He
assigned me to a desk....the type of job I've always dreaded and up until
then managed to avoid. The department supervisor was a Civil Servant and the other four
guys in the department were all Air Force enlisted men. Everyone in our department was
married — except for me. All our department did was answer questions. When a
politician, general or admiral needed information, that no one else could provide, they
formally requested that we answer their question.
For a week, I did not have any duties, but I visited mom every day. When she was due
for surgery, I spent the day with her and stayed until her surgery was over and she was in
ICU [Intensive Care Unit] and the doctors said that she was doing well. After her
surgery, I visited her each day, but the doctors would only let me stay with her for
fifteen minutes. She was full of tubes. She had tubes so they could feed her, tubes so
they could give her medicine and one in her mouth for oxygen. She couldn’t talk and I
knew that bothered her because mom dearly loved to talk. The last thing that she did as
they had wheeled her off to the operating room was tell her doctor a joke.
Finally, I asked my supervisor, "When am I going to get something to do?" He
said, "Well Val, I didn’t want to give you a job because I knew that you wanted
to have free time to visit your mother?" "Please," I begged, "Give me
something to do that will keep my mind occupied before I go nuts." That afternoon, he
walked up to my desk and dropped a paper on it. "Here’s your assignment."
When I scanned the contents of the paper, I found that it was a list of questions, all of
them about the "Middle East." The inquiry consisted of about a dozen questions.
Some of those questions were:
How many Russians are in the Middle East?
How many are military?
How many are civilians?
How long is their tour of duty there? and
Do they live on Soviet-controlled compounds?
The first thing that I had to do was get security clearances and passes [laminated
badges] to the places where I would have to search for information. So I went around to
several federal agencies and commissions and they issued me a security pass. The guys in
our department had access to the vaults in DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency]; We had
access to the main building at the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency]; We had a pass to the
ASA [Army Security Agency] high-security compound at Fort Meade; and We had a couple of
more security passes to places that I can’t even remember. We always kept all of
those passes on a chain around our neck with the badges stuffed inside our shirt. Counting
the security pass for my compound, I had at least seven badges around my neck all day
Monday through Friday.
It wasn’t long before I discovered that everybody has their own definition of
where the "Middle East" is and which countries are in the Middle East. Finally,
I had to tell my supervisor, "Look I’m having a serious problem defining
‘Middle East’. Everybody has their own opinion where it is and what countries it
includes. I need to know specifically what countries our consumer is interested in."
"Hell Val," he responded, "I didn’t even think that might be a
problem. I guess it is tho. Come to think of it, I’ve heard that general area
referred to as the "Near East" also. Okay, I’ll get on the phone and ask
them exactly which countries they want us to target and have them follow up with another
written request that specifies those countries." He looked at me a little strange
— maybe "quizzical" would be a better description of his look. Maybe I was
the first one of his researchers that had asked our "customers" a question.
During the next few weeks, I learned more about what was inside huge vaults and World
War II barracks in the DC area than I ever wanted to know. Soon I discovered that there
was no file that was categorized under any heading that had anything to do with the
"number of soviets" stationed or living outside the USSR, much less in the
Middle East. Perhaps that’s one reason that our little research department was
needed. Hour after hour, I peeped through scopes at mile-after-mile of microfilm. It was
mostly classified documents that had been put on microfilm for easier storage and
reference.
To save time, I decided to go ahead and collect information on all the countries in
that immediate area that anyone might consider as being in the "Middle East"
while we awaited an answer to my question. That would put me one jump ahead and it would
be a lot simpler to eliminate unwanted information that I had already collected than it
would be to go back through all of the sources and add information that I had not
collected. If I just had a more interesting question to answer, I think that I would have
really enjoyed research work. While I was researching this subject, I ran across several
interesting intelligence reports and old classified documents. Peeping through microfilm
viewers got old fast and spending all day, day-after-day in a dark dusty basement or large
squad bay in one of the old barracks that was full of files with no one to talk to now and
then got a bit lonely after a while.
Mom seemed to be doing well so I started skipping a day now and then so I could have
some kind of social life. My social life consisted mostly of stopping by the NCO Club
en-route home and chit-chatting with the ladies that worked there. Actually, I pestered the
hell out of them and I still love to pester women. In fact, that’s probably my
favorite pastime. Its more fun than any theme park that I ever visited. Of course, I
realize that I have to take a shot in return from time-to-time and I don’t mind. Like
they say, "What goes around, comes around." When the women start on me, I
pretend that it bothers me, it doesn’t, but that’s just part of the fun.
The hospital called me very early one morning and told me to come over right away.
There was comparatively little traffic that early in the day so I made good time. When I
arrived, the doctor told me that mom had a complication, but she was okay now and I could
go see her. After I visited with Mom, I returned to Belvoir. To be totally honest, I never
fully understood the nature of her complication.
I dated one of the waitresses at the NCO Club for quite a
while. She was about ten years older than me and had a slight speech impediment, but she
was a lot of fun. Before that, I dated a woman who lived with an army colonel and his wife
a couple of times. She was his wife’s sister. He was the son of the
officer at Bastogne during World War Two that replied, "Nuts!" to the enemy’s demand that
the 101st Airborne Division surrender. That
was a very short relationship because that lady was an alcoholic and a flake.
During my entire time there, I only dated one other lady and that was only two or three
times. That relationship first began when our supervisor called us all into his office one
day. He explained to us that one of his men had a problem. He said, "His
sister-in-law was visiting from a farm in South Dakota and she was still a virgin and
wanted to be converted. My wife doesn’t know any single men that she can recommend.
The only one that I know is you, Val. She’s eighteen years old and six foot one
inch-tall, but to be that tall, she has a very nice build."
Well, I was taller than the young lady, but I was almost twice her age. All eyes turned
on me and I declined. The brother-in-law begged me to date her, all of the other guys,
including the supervisor hounded me to date her, and I finally agreed to have supper at
his apartment just to meet her. My only reason for agreeing to even have supper with them
was just to appease everyone and get them off of my back. It was a nice meal and I found
the young lady to be very attractive. She was definitely physically attractive, but she
also had a nice personality. To make a long story short, I asked her out on a date and
helped solve her problem.
The morning after our first date, our supervisor gathered everyone in his office so
they could all interrogate me as to what happened. I refused to share any intimate details
with them. They tried and tried to find out what happened on our date without success.
This frustrated them to no end. I thought, "It was none of their business what
happened between us." Only the girl, Mama Warren, and I ever knew any details about
our relationship. If I had known at the time that Mama Warren was going to
tell everyone in his office, he
wouldn’t have known either because I would never have brought her to our apartment.
In October the hospital called me early one morning and told me that I should come
right over. "Mom is having complications again," I thought. This time I
wasn’t worried because I thought that it would be like last time and when I got there
she would be alright again. Boy was I wrong. This time I walked right into her ICU room
before anyone noticed me. Mom’s bed was empty. At first, I thought that she had just
been moved out of ICU to the recovery ward. The nurse that called me hadn’t said
anything was seriously wrong, just that I should come right over. Then I looked in the
recovery rooms. Mom wasn’t there either. The pretty nurse with the big blue eyes
spotted me wandering around in the hall and stuck her head in a door down the hall near
the nurse station. Another nurse came out of that room and motioned for me to come
there. She told me, "Wait in here Mister Valentine. The doctor needs to see
you." By this time, I knew what had happened, but it was such a surprise, I was a
little numb. It just wouldn’t sink in. It seemed like an eternity before the door
finally opened and the doctor entered. He told me, "Mister Valentine, at about Four
O’Clock this morning, your mother suffered complications again. We tried everything
that we could to save her, but we couldn’t. We lost her. She’s gone." I
asked, "What happened Doc? I thought she was doing good. I thought she was
going to make it." "She developed a blood clot and it got into her heart.,"
he replied, " There was nothing we could do. I’m sorry." Blue eyes handed
me a paper bag. She said, "Your mother’s things are in here. She had already
made arrangements in case she died. Her body will be shipped to the funeral home in
Knoxville. I’m so sorry."
It still hadn’t sunk in yet because. On my way out of the hospital, I stopped in
the vending machine room and got a cup of coffee. After I sat there sipping on that coffee
and staring at that paper bag for several minutes, I still couldn’t quite grasp what
had just happened so I walked back out to my car. The street that I had parked on had
strange parking laws. When I had parked there on the way to see mom, you were allowed to park on that side of
the street, but not the opposite side. When I came out of the hospital, I had a parking
ticket on my windshield because then parking was only allowed on the opposite side of the
street. "Some New York Yankee must have dreamed up that parking law," was
my first thought. I stopped by my headquarters and told them what had happened. The
Detachment First Sergeant told me, "Pack up and go home, Val. I will sign you out and
mail your orders to you at your sister’s home address." So I headed for my
office and told my supervisor what happened, gave him the draft copy of the report that I
had been working on, and bid everyone farewell. I still hadn’t finished answering all
of those questions.
Enroute home, I stopped off at the NCO Club to say goodbye to the girls that I had
pestered so much. After I had a couple of drinks, the numbness left me and that’s
when it finally sunk in that my mom was gone. The tears began pouring down both cheeks.
The waitress that I was dating had taken a break and was sitting with me and she started
crying also. The hostess passed by, saw us crying and inquired what was wrong. When the
lady sitting with me told her, she joined us and we all three sat there crying. Mushy
stuff must be very contagious. Before long, two waitresses, the hostess, and the hat-check
lady were sitting there with me, all crying their pretty little eyes out. Who was running
the club during their absence, I don’t have the foggiest notion. Sometime during all of this, I managed
to telephone other family members and notify them that mom’s body was heading home.
After five or six hours and about a fifth of bourbon, I called Mama Warren and asked him
to come get me because by then I definitely was in no shape to drive.
The next morning, I packed my gear into my car and headed for home. That long drive
gave me too much time to think. Feelings of guilt came over me because I hadn’t spent
more time with my mother when I had been on leave and while she was in the hospital.
Memories of my mother dominated my mind for
the entire trip.
My mother had not been like most mothers. My aunts, neighbors, and grandmothers had
raised me more than my mother had. After mom married Harry, sometimes I would stay with
them and sometimes I would stay with a relative. Usually, I stayed with mom and Harry
during the school term. From the time I was about eight years old until I was about
fifteen years old, whenever I stayed with her and Harry I only saw mom at breakfast and
again when she and Harry came home late at night and that was about six days a week. In
between, I fended for myself.
When mom and Harry came home, which was usually after the taverns closed, they were
usually plastered. Sometimes they would argue and once when I was about ten years old and
mom was about six or seven months pregnant with my sister Sue, Harry beat her. He knocked
her down and then kicked her in the stomach. When I pulled him off, he lost his balance
and fell. When he jumped up from the floor, he grabbed his pump shotgun and I ran out the
door in my underwear with him right behind me. He tried and tried to jack a shell into the
chamber of that shotgun, but it was empty and I out ran him. For the rest of the night, I
hid in the brush near the trailer and was thankful that it was summer instead of winter.
That was the day that I began hating Harry Lett. Life with Harry was pure hell even before
this incident because of his heavy drinking and I had never been able to understand why my
mother stayed with him all those years. Nor had I ever forgiven her for that. At least, I
had never told her that I had.
Just before they came to take her away for surgery, I remember what she had told me.
She said, "Don, your father was the only man that I have ever loved. You did a good
job of raising yourself." When I remembered that, I became so upset, I had to stop
two or three times to clear my mind and my eyes so I could stay on the road. That was the
longest drive of my life. The family received friends at the funeral home that night and
we buried mom the next day.
Can’t tell very much about the thirty day furlough that followed because I pretty
much spent it plastered. But then, I guess I just did what a lot of guys do when
they’re on furlough before they ship out to a war, especially if its their fourth
trip: I got drunk and met a woman. Actually, I met two women.
One was, Susan, a very nice attractive young lady who was in her mid-twenties and
worked at St Mary’s Hospital where I had met her when I first returned from Fort Holabird and visited mom. The other was Barbara who was about my age or maybe a couple of
years older. Barbara I met while she was waiting tables at a Knoxville nightclub a few
miles outside town on the old Asheville Highway.
The instant that I met Susan, I knew that she would do to ride the river with.
Don’t ask me how I knew it, because I don’t know, I just did. But I was
en-route
to that stupid war for the fourth time. Should I return from that hell hole in one piece,
I still had at least four more years of army life before I could retire and settle down.
Susan meant a lot to me and I think that she liked me also, but I also think that I scared
her a little. At any rate, I did a lot of thinking about Susan.
Now Barbara, she was a
wild party girl with a heart of gold. She was a divorcee who had been married several times.
While I was on this furlough Aunt Gona’s husband, Bernard Edgmon, died so I had
another funeral to attend. Finally, the day came for me to head for Travis Air Force Base,
California to catch my flight for Vietnam. The night before I left, while
sitting at a table
in the Indian Rock Cafe on Rutledge Pike, I wrote out my will. As I recall, it was a
three-beer job. Then I spent the night with my half-sister, Sue Lett Staley, and her
husband Roger. They had taken in my half-brother Joe Lett, who was only about five or six
years old at the time. My other half-sister, Sandy Lett was only fifteen years old, but
she had already eloped and married. Her husband was a juvenile criminal who was awaiting
sentencing for his latest screw-up. I can’t even remember his name. I remember
thinking, "She really has something to look forward to." I left my car with Sue
with the understanding that, if I didn’t return, she could have that big-ass Ford
free and clear, if she wanted it.
As soon as I checked in at Travis, I headed for the nearby NCO Club with another
sergeant where we chowed-down and had a few cold beers. Almost immediately, one of the
bartenders and I struck up a conversation. About an hour later, she said, "Honey, I
get off in thirty minutes. Why don’t you come home with me?"
"Sorry gal, I have to catch a flight in a couple of hours," I replied. She
came back with, "Hell, I can have you back by then, Honey."
"I better take a rain check. We might get carried away and I would end up in the
stockade. This here now army frowns on sergeants that miss a flight, especially if the
plane happens to be headed towards Vietnam. Sorry, gal," I replied.
So two hours later, I — and a couple of hundred other GIs — loaded aboard a
huge commercial airliner and headed west across the Pacific Ocean towards the big
Disneyland where the "Mickey Mouse" kills. The term "Mickey Mouse" was
a general GI slang at that time. It was used in a wide variety of meanings. It meant
"little, nit-picking things" and it was used in lieu of "excessive,
unwarranted discipline or restrictions" which was also referred to as
"chicken-s--t." Chicken s--t seemed to be the preferred definition
at that time.
Heretofore, I had always flown to war on a military cargo airplane, the same kind that
we used for our parachute operations. Now they were flying guys to and from Vietnam in a
jumbo jetliner. When jet airline transportation was combined with individual replacement
system, it created a situation that seemed "unreal," which helped give rise to
the term "Disneyland" for Vietnam.
This system gave the rookie soldier headed into war no time to change mentally and
emotionally from peacetime soldiering to war soldiering. It was just as bad for those
headed home. Because of the difference in time between California and Vietnam, when the
guys stepped off that airliner onto California soil, they were home before they
left Vietnam. That too was a weird feeling. The actual time that had lapsed from take-off
to landing was about 17 hours as I recall. Many a GI found themselves in the stateside
environment only 24 hours after being in a fire fight in Vietnam where they had maybe just
killed someone or lost a another buddy. That kind of situation leaves that GI with
absolutely no time to adapt to his new environment [civilian life or
stateside duty]. When that was combined
with a population that not only did not appreciate the sacrifices the soldiers had made,
but were hostile towards them, even violent towards them, the ex-GI had one
heck of a time
being re-assimilated into the civilian population.
The ladies that worked the airlines that took GIs to and from Vietnam really went out
of their way to make the GIs feel at home and they did a great job. They were really first
class. If it was on that plane, they would get it for the GI. All the GI had to do
was ask and sometimes they didn't have to ask.
That was my first trip to war via the individual replacement system. Heretofore, I had
always went to war as a member of a "team." The team method is far superior and
much less expensive in human life than the individual replacement system. To put it
bluntly, the individual replacement system, sucks. The individual
replacement system is simple from a command and staff point of view, but it is
inefficient and wastes money training soldiers, especially infantry
soldiers, because those replacements are not accepted as a member of that
unit. Even if they survive several combat operations and perform adequately
under fire, their peers still treat them different from the original members
of the unit. One could only imagine what was going
on in the minds of the young soldiers as they waited to be individually processed through
that stupid system.
525th Military Intelligence Group [Vietnam]
As soon as we landed in Saigon, we were trucked to Long Binh where we signed into the
repple depple. We spent the next several days carrying our records while we walked around
in circles. During this time, I kept wondering what all of those kids were thinking while
they waited for their duty assignment in Vietnam.
They finally assigned me to the 525th Military Intelligence Group and
delivered me to its headquarters in Saigon. At least I believe it was the "525th."
I may be wrong. I was given a room in what originally was a French hotel that looked just
like the one in the movie, Apocalypse Now. Here I spent another two or three days
waiting for the 525th to assign me a job. Finally, the personnel officer,
called me to his office.
"Sergeant Valentine, we need a replacement for the NCOIC of our Technical Section.
The job’s yours, if you want it," he said. "How long do I have to decide,
Sir," I asked. "How long do you want," he replied. "How about until
0800 hours tomorrow, Sir," I responded. "No sweat. See you tomorrow,
Sarge," he answered.
Several times that night, I went over his offer in my mind. For a while I would be for
taking the job and then I would be against it.
I thought, "That section is right here in Saigon, across the street from the 525th
Personnel Office. That’s about as safe a job as you can find in this hell hole, Val.
Maybe you better take it. Why the hell did I even hesitate? I don’t know anything
about the ‘specifics’ that go on in a technical shop, but I could sure learn it
in a year and I’ll betcha the CIA would love to get their hands on an experienced
intelligence ‘technician,’ that is trained and experienced as an Agent Handler
and also Special Forces-qualified and experienced.
"All of those young rookie troops will be out in the field with their units by
now. Some of the ones going to infantry units have probably already been wounded, maybe
even killed. I have more training and experience in my little finger than any of those
kids have in their whole body. If I take this piece-of-cake duty assignment, I wonder
how I will feel about it a few years down the road?"
"That’s assuming you survive you
dumb ass. Take it for God’s sake!"
"Aw s--t, I wish my conscience would take a break at times like this. Of all
of the troops assigned to this outfit, I am probably the only one that is qualified to be
out wandering around in these boonies with a loaded rifle. What the heck, I can’t
live forever. Besides, the army always piles the chicken s--t the deepest around the
flag pole anyway and I hate chicken s--t. Out in the field I just might be the difference
between one of those young kids living or dying. I guess I better pass on that soft
job."
"I wonder how much Big Brother pays their technicians?
"Aw to heck with it, with my luck either the CIA wouldn’t even talk to me or
if they did hire me, they would stick me in one of those vaults in DC and forget
about me. I better try for a field team, one that’s as far from Saigon and the army
chicken sh--t as I can get."
The next morning I reported back to the captain, "I have decided to turn down the
job in the Technical Shop, sir. I have plenty of experience as a soldier, but none as an
Agent Handler because I’m fresh out of Fort Holabird. I would like to be
assigned to a field team so I can get experience as an Agent Handler. I would like the
team that is as far from Saigon as I can get." Once again, I got exactly what I asked
for — of course when you make dumb requests, you usually do get what
you asked for. They shipped me out
the next day to Nha Trang where their 2d Battalion was located. Actually, it was the 572d
MI Battalion and its headquarters was in downtown Nha Trang, only about two blocks off the
beach and there I remained for two or three days. Actually, I was there just long enough
for them to give me a slightly altered identity. They promoted me "on paper" to
a Chief Warrant Officer, CW2 and gave me an ID card to support it. The rank was primarily
to reduce possible interference from any chicken s--t who out-ranked me. They gave me my
cover story, "You’re collecting information on the native village life for
computer analysis back in Saigon and the US." "That’ll fly like a
rock," was my first thought.
About two days later I flew out of there for their detachment at Ban Me Thout in the
Central Highlands. That detachment lived in a house that was directly across the street
from a very large building that was occupied by the local CIA field operative. They had
one very old one-eyed Chinese who was armed with an M-2 Carbine and two extra magazines of
ammunition that guarded their house. About two days later, they flew me by chopper out to
my final destination a collection team located at a place called Duc Lap.
The Duc Lap team was billeted with the MACV-Advisory Team at the ARVN District
Headquarters Camp. Lieutenant Scott B. Tolman, whom I was relieving, was being promoted to
Detachment Commander in Ban Me Thout. The Duc Lap team was supposed to have three US
personnel assigned to it, a lieutenant as team leader, a sergeant as agent handler and a
specialist fourth class as a clerk-typist. They were also supposed to have a civilian
interpreter. Most of the other field teams were at full strength. The US Personnel on the
Duc Lap team actually consisted of me, myself and I. That was just fine by me because
working alone suited me just fine. If I screwed up, it would be my own fault and I would be the only one to
suffer for it. My interpreter was a Mnong tribesman.
Major McCoy, a missile command officer, was the Adviser to the District Chief. His team
also included a weapons man and I think that I will call Sergeant King; a radio operator
named Specialist Koch; a medic by the name of Staff Sergeant Rowden; and a team sergeant,
Sergeant First Class Wagner. A young male Vietnamese cooked for the team, but I can’t
remember his name. Never did I make any great effort to learn any Vietnamese’s name
because they might turn out to be the enemy and I might have to kill them before they
killed one of us. To me, naming them and truly becoming friends with them, would have been
like hand-feeding, petting and naming a calf that you intend to slaughter. That is a very
big no-no. To me, they were potential targets that walked and talked. At most, I just
nicknamed them as I did our cook who was simply "Cookie" to me.
The camp was very small and poorly defended. We had a tiny compound inside the
Vietnamese Camp. Our compound was only about a hundred feet long by seventy five feet
wide. Our latrine, showers, storage areas, and messhall were above ground. We slept in a
very large bunker that reminded me of the main bunker on the SOG Camp at Khesanh. We were
lucky. Major McCoy turned out to be a good officer, Cookie was a good cook and
all but one of the other guys were easy to get along with. The weapons man struck me as
being an obnoxious, back-stabbing ass, but what the heck six out of seven is doing
good and besides, there was no chicken s--t out where we were.
Only about a year earlier, the enemy had overrun this District Headquarters camp and
also the Special Forces camp that was located just a few miles east of us. In fact my old
Team Leader from the 46th SF Company, Captain Roland Greenwood, had been
assigned to the SF Camp at Duc Lap at the time and had lost a leg in that battle. It had
only taken Sir Charles about thirty minutes to wipe out the District Chief’s camp and
our MACV compound. The battle for the SF camp had lasted a couple of days and the enemy
had only managed to take part of their camp before the Special Forces Mike Force
fought their way into camp and ran them off. Sergeant William Knutilla, who also served with me
on the same team in the 46th Company, had been a member of that Mike Force at
the time. The camp and the men stationed there had since been
converted to a Ranger camp...in name only.
Not including my interpreter, I inherited seven native agents, one main agent and
three two-man teams of field agents. The main agent, a local native school teacher,
was the only one that I ever met face-to-face. He met with the other six agents. At each
meeting, I first de-briefed my main agent and then briefed him on the next mission for his
agents, who were all natives. The field agents worked in two-man teams because their
job required them to travel long distances by foot through the mountains and jungle,
almost all of which was controlled by the Viet Cong, Pathet Lao or NVA. No one, not even
the natives, traveled afoot through that area alone.
Mostly, I targeted my agents against Cambodia which was only a couple of miles from our
camp and an infamous haven for enemy troops. Because I had never actually been into
Cambodia, I was assigning target areas from my topo-map [topographical map]. If I had
actually seen the land for myself, I would have felt a lot better, but I had orders
directly from my Group Commander that I would not participate in any activity that might
put me in direct contact with the enemy, such as field operations or recon-flights. They
did not want any agent handler to be captured and interrogated. Well, I couldn’t
disagree with that, I certainly did not want this agent handler captured, that was for
sure, but I did want to become more intimately familiar with the terrain in my area of
operations. What I wanted to find most of all was three different
permanent terrain features each with another permanent terrain feature
within sight of it. This way I could send each of my teams to one of
those locations and tell them I wanted to know what they could see from that
point. If their story didn't jive with what I knew for a fact was
there, I would know they had not actually gone there.
I learned that MACV-SOG used the air strip at the Ranger camp at Duc Lap
as a launch site for operations
into Cambodia when their teams were operating from our area. And that their operations were almost
always preceded by recon-flights and those flights were conducted by army pilots who flew
two-seater, one-engine planes that resembled Piper Cubs. I can not recall
who told me this. SOG at that
particular time might not have been known as SOG, I really do not recall
what their unit at Ban Me Thout called itself then. SOG went under a
variety of names and each of their launch sites and camps must have changed
names three times. It would take a platoon of Philadelphia lawyers to
unravel it all.
The next time those pilots showed
up I headed for that airstrip to talk to them. They agreed to take
me on their next flight the following morning. I honestly do not
remember whether I told them why I needed to see the topography on that side
of the border, but if I didn't, I should have. If I didn't, they may
have thought I was just a joy-riding strap hanger. I'm almost certain
that I told them who I was and why I needed to fly over that terrain.
Bright and early the next morning, I showed
up with my map and binoculars. One
said, "Well one plane is going to fly high and one low. Since you want to get a good
look at the terrain, you will ride with the pilot that flies low." "That’s
fine by me." I responded, "Let’s go." I really did not fully
understand what he meant when he said I would fly with the "low" man.
As it turned out, their idea of 'low' and my idea of 'low' were quite
different.
After I squeezed into the rear seat of my appointed plane, away we went. About ten
minutes later, I folded up my map and put it back in my pocket. We were flying so
low, the map and binoculars were useless because we were traveling so fast
the passing terrain features were just a blur and all I could see was what was in my immediate vicinity.
We flew so low along the trails we could see foot prints and tire tracks from bicycles.
I said "we", but the pilot was the one that saw it and told me. I only
saw a blur.
The pilot continuously flipped the plane from side to
side. Because we were so low and directly over the trail, the only way we could see the trail was to look out the side of the cockpit, but we
had to be flying on our side to do that. You can’t stay in the air very long if you
fly only on your side at that speed so my pilot constantly flipped our tiny plane from one
side to the other. Where the trees were farther from the trail, and we flew lower than the tree tops. Many of
the trees in those mountains were 60-100 feet tall.
I remember flying
above a trail in the mountainous jungle that passed by a beautiful waterfall
and I remember flying over some treeless plains, but I had no idea where we
were except over Cambodia west of Duc Lap. I got the
distinct impression that my pilot was trying to
get me air sick and/or scare the s--t out of me. This flight lasted for
about four hours.
When we finally landed back at the air strip and I wasn’t sick, they
seemed disappointed and looked sheepishly at each other. I told them, "I couldn’t see
enough of the terrain to satisfy my needs so I would like to fly in the high plane on your
next mission over that area. Okay guys?" "Yeah chief. Okay," they chimed.
Shortly after that, I heard that the
pilot that I flew with flew that general area again and a commie fifty
caliber machine gun put a bullet right through his head. There’s a saying amongst
pilots that I now understand much better. It goes something like this, "There are old
pilots and there are bold pilots. But there are no old, bold pilots." I
suspect whoever coined the phrase was serious, but I also suspect that a lot
of the younger pilots thought that it was just a joke-at first. I
don't recall whether those pilots worked out of that air strip again during my tour,
but I do know I never flew with them again.
[I do not know how accurate the information in the last paragraph
above is. I just know that is what I was told, but I can't remember who told
me that. How anyone other than me and those two pilots knew who I had
ridden with is beyond me. I do not remember those two pilot's
names. If that aviation unit had more than two pilots
flying in support of the Ban me Thout FOB, the pilot that was later killed may not have been
one of the men that I flew with out of Duc Lap.]
From seven agents, I built my agent network up to 21 agents total. There were three
Main Agents working out of Duc Lap and each of them supervised three two-man teams. By
then I was working 18-20 hours a day, seven days a week. Being a one-man team, I did
everything except translate. One day, I received a letter from my Detachment Commander
that read something like this, "As the team leader, you must attach a
critique sheet
to each of your agent handler’s report." When I mentioned this to Scott, he said
that he would remind our Detachment Commander, Captain Douglas C. Shelton, that I was
working alone. Shortly after forwarding another report, I received another notice from
Captain Shelton that was identical to the first. I ignored it because I figured that this
had been prepared before Scott had contacted Captain Shelton. After I submitted my next
report, I received a notice that "ordered" me to include a critique sheet as a
cover letter.
So when I submitted my next report, I did as instructed and attached a
critique sheet to
it that read something like this:
"Team Leader/Agent Handler/Clerk-typist Valentine has performed his duties in an
outstanding manner and under extremely hazardous conditions. Team Leader/Agent
Handler/Clerk-typist Valentine is extremely courageous, dedicated, and intelligent. This
Team Leader/Agent Handler/Clerk-typist’s report, like all of his previous reports, is
perfect and no less than brilliant.
I, Team Leader/Agent Handler/Clerk-typist Valentine, without reservation, strongly
recommend Team Leader/Agent Handler/Clerk-typist Valentine for immediate promotion to the
next higher grade. I, Team Leader/Agent Handler/Clerk-typist Valentine, believe that Team
Leader/Agent Handler/Clerk-typist Valentine should be seriously considered for a direct
commission to the rank of General."
Naturally the signature block read, "Donald E. Valentine, Team Leader/Agent
Handler/Clerk-typist."
I can be a wise ass sometimes. Shortly after I forwarded that report [with my critique sheet
attached] via the next milk run chopper to my superiors, I received a formal letter from
my Detachment Commander that exempted me from the requirement of including a critique
sheet as a cover letter to my reports. Lieutenant Tolman would critique my work and
provide me with a copy. Which was the way it should have been in the first place.
There were only two major roads in the immediate vicinity. One ran in front of our camp
and if you took it north, you would eventually end up in Ban Me Thout. The other branched
off of this road and ran along the north side of our wire to the village of Duc Lap where,
if you turned left, it would eventually lead you to the SF camp. To my way of thinking,
there were only three decent locations outside our camp to meet with my main agent so I
that’s where I always met them. Each time we met, I randomly rotated the meeting
sites so no pattern could be established. After I submitted a few reports, I received a
critique letter that admonished me for always meeting in these three locations. It
suggested that I should always meet in a different location and always travel different
routes to these meeting places. Any idiot knows that, but sometimes we just
don’t have those luxuries available to us.
I responded and explained the
situation again. They never complained about where I met with my
agents after that. Almost all of their other Agent Handlers were based in at least a small
town.
In April 1971, I received word over the radio that my half-sister was dead. That
totally surprised me because Sandy was barely sixteen years old. The 525th had
already arranged for me to ride on a small jet from Nha Trang to Saigon and had reserved a
seat for me on an airliner out of Saigon. They sent a special chopper to our camp to take
me to Nha Trang. That was most efficient thing that I knew of that any MI unit ever did.
While I was standing on the runway waiting for the jet to land and pick me up, Staff Sergeant Tony Williams
walked up to me. Tony and I had served in the 46th Special
Forces Company and he had been a student in the Pro Course. He was stationed with Project
Delta at Nha Trang at the time. Tony asked me, "Val, what the hell are you doing?
When did you get a warrancy?" When I told him my cover story, Tony replied, "Aw
Val, get off that s--t. What the f--k are you really doing?" "Tony,
please keep your big f--king mouth shut before my CO standing over there hears you,"
I whispered. Which Tony did, but not with out several winks and snickers. So much for that
stupid cover story.
My baby sister’s death really upset me. I suspected foul play because she was married
to that juvenile delinquent. If he had caused her death and was still running loose, his
soul may belong to God, but his ass belonged to me. Shortly after I arrived in Knoxville,
I discovered from the doctors that wasn’t the case. Sandy had diabetes and she had
not taken good care of herself. She had died from pneumonia.
Barbara
came to the funeral home when the family was receiving friends. She was
accompanied by her brand new husband, Bob Smythe [not his real name]. Bob and I had attended
high school
together. He had played first string center and linebacker on the football team for
several years. Barbara went to St Mary’s for some type of female surgery shortly
afterwards. I went there to see her and naturally, Bob was there and so was Barney Giddens, who was his best buddy from our high school football team. Barney and I had
been in the same class all through elementary and high
school. I wasn't really friends with them, we just knew each other.
Shortly after I returned to Duc Lap, the weapons man was suddenly transferred out. He
was a grump whose negative attitude constantly caused friction within the
team. Later, I discovered why he was shipped out: he had forced a housemaid to have sex
with him by threatening to have her fired if she refused. Apparently, the Major had seen
her crying afterwards and asked about it and she had told him what had happened. His
absence didn’t seem to adversely affect a thing. Just one less target for the enemy
to shoot at.
My superiors decided to send me some help because I was so busy. In fact, I was out
producing every other collection team in the country and I was working alone. That shows
you how lazy MI guys can be. Lieutenant Tolman told me that he had tried to get a young
second looie at Ban Me Thout to come to Duc Lap and work with me, but he had refused. The
young second looie had even threatened to resign his commission before he would go to Duc
Lap. Thinking that I could persuade the second looie to try Duc Lap before
he screwed up his military record, I caught the next chopper to Ban Me Thout.
During our conversation which lasted about an hour, I pointed out, "Look at where
you live here in Ban Me Thout. You only have one half-blind, old Chinaman with a rusty
carbine to defend you here. Anytime the VC want you, they can get you—no sweat.
At least we are surrounded by barbed wire, we have a couple of hundred armed soldiers
around us and we have a very deep bunker. If attacked, you would be safer at Duc Lap than
you are here. Actually, neither place was safe. Besides we also have better chow there than you have here. You should at
least try it before you ruin your career." He finally agreed to try Duc Lap and
returned with me to camp. Maybe I should have been a used car salesman.
The young second looie was from a well-to-do family in Atlanta and it was apparent that
he had been a spoiled brat. Heck, he still was. The day after we arrived back at camp, I
decided to take my young officer out in the jeep and familiarize him with the local area.
"Lieutenant, grab your weapon and hop in the jeep. I’ll show you around our
area," I said as I jumped in our raggedy-ass jeep and that little
dipstick hopped in
beside me. "Lieutenant, where’s your weapon," I asked. He replied, "I
left it in the bunker, Val." "Go get your harness and weapon, sir," I said.
"What’s the difference? I couldn’t kill anybody with it anyway," he
responded. "Well, at least the VC don’t know that so get it," I said.
"Oh alright," he said as he crawled back out of the jeep. I thought, "If it accomplishes nothing else, at least now they will shoot at both of us.
If I was the only one armed, they would all probably shoot at me first.
The more targets for the enemy, the better."
After we returned from the short tour, I gave the lieutenant my best main agent, the
one that was a school teacher in the nearby village, and I continued to work with my other
agents. He and his teams were our most experienced agents.
The lieutenant spent the majority of every day sitting in a metal folding chair atop
our bunker—he just sat there and stared. One day I climbed up there and asked him
what he was doing. He shook his head and said, "Val, we’re in East Jesus,"
and continued to stare out across the old coffee plantation.
At the first noon meal, the young second looie didn’t like the way something was
cooked so he just walked around behind the serving counter and started to re-cook it
himself. Cookie first glared in disbelief and then he asked, "What you do?"
"I’m going to cook this food the way I like it cooked." With that, Cookie
reached for the meat cleaver and went after the lieutenant all the while screaming
obscenities in Vietnamese. The second looie beat a hasty retreat and never again ventured
into Cookie’s territory. Nor did he register any more complaints about the food.
About two days after he arrived, my new lieutenant took our interpreter and went out to
meet his main agent. Three hours later they had not returned and I became worried so I got
Major McCoy to accompany me to check up on them. We parked on the road and the major
stayed with the jeep while I crept through the brush to the meeting site. When I was
within twenty feet of the jeep, I heard them talking and after satisfying myself that they
were safe, I returned to camp. Two hours later, they finally returned. Our interpreter was
sullen and stamped through the clay dust directly to me. "Mister Valentine, that man
is dumb ass. He use words long as my arm. I don’t understand half what he say.
Me no
work with him again. He drive me crazy. Maybe I kill him." After I calmed our
interpreter down a little, I talked with the second looie and asked him to tone down his
vocabulary a little. But the lieutenant never made another meeting. He took an entire week
preparing the reports from that meeting and as soon as Lieutenant Tolman had time to read
them, here he came in the next chopper. He jerked that second looie out of that camp and
took him back to Ban Me Thout that day. While the second looie was happily packing, Tolman
told me, "Sorry, Val but I can’t leave him here and let him screw up the best
operation that we have going." So once again, I was working alone and I did for the
rest of my tour.
It is standard army policy that all agents must
pass a polygraph at least once every
year. Not the US Agent Handlers mind you, just the agents. That always seemed foolish to
me because nobody ever required a polygraph of the agent handlers.
Lieutenant Tolman scheduled all of my agents for polygraph tests in Ban Me Thout. All
of my agents were mountain natives. My best agent had a fair education but the rest were
mostly illiterates. The polygraph operator was Warrant Officer Mary Smith and she came
from Saigon for the purpose. After one day trying to test the first group of my agents,
she gave up. Again here came my sullen interpreter tramping towards me like he was
stamping snakes. He had the same expression on his face as when he had worked with the
second looie and he registered the same complaint about the polygraph operator. I asked
her, "Hey chief, how did the polygraphs go?" She signed and said, "I can
not polygraph them. No one can. The machine simply will not work on them because I can not
make them understand how it works." "In other words, you’re telling me that
my natives are too ignorant for a polygraph to work. Is that right?" "That’s
right. If they don’t understand how that machine works and believe that it will work,
it won’t work."
So much for polygraphs. Maybe she might have had
better luck if she simply had told them, "We have a truth spirit trapped inside this box.
The spirit moves that needle and the spirit will make that needle make big marks on the
paper every time you tell me anything that is not true." They believed that
everything had a spirit, even rocks. Anyway, back to Duc Lap we went.
A short time later, my interpreter gave me a sob story and asked me to loan him twenty
bucks until pay day, which I did. That was the last time that any of us ever saw him. That
little dipstick flat disappeared. A couple of days later, I learned that he had been keeping
company with another native’s wife. The husband found out and was going to kill him.
It took about a week for them to send me a replacement.
Also during this year, I finally completed the US Army Infantry School’s Senior
Noncommissioned Officer’s Correspondence Course. Eventually, it came my time to take
Rape and Ravage [Rest & Recreation] and I picked Sidney, Australia. Almost all of my entire three
days of R&R was spent inside the Texas Hotel just a few blocks from the famous Sidney
Opera House in the King’s Cross area. At least that’s what I think that area was
called. The Texas Hotel had three bars and a restaurant. The guest rooms were very tiny
with no private bath but the restaurant was open around the clock and at least one of the
bars was always open. For three days, I stayed crocked. Once I found my way into the
Australian equivalent of our VFW where I was made to feel right at home. I also discovered
a neighborhood tavern and tried some very tasty dishes that they served. All in all I
liked the Aussies, but I just could not get used to the women talking like drunken
British
sailors in some Victor McLaglen movie, for example: "G’day mate."
Shortly after returning to my camp, our group commander rotated back to the states and
our new group commander took over. He immediately began visiting all of his units and for
some strange reason, he included a stop at my dinky little camp. Lieutenant Tolman radioed
ahead and warned me that he expected a briefing when he arrived. My briefing was short,
but it gave him a good idea of our situation and the enemy situation as we believed it to
be. After I had completed my briefing, I asked the colonel if he had any questions. He
said, "Mister Valentine, how many natives cross the Cambodian border in your area
every day?" I answered, "I don’t know Sir. There are several trails in the
jungle that cross the border. There’s no way of getting an accurate count of people
that use all of those trails."
Again he asked, "Mister Valentine, how many natives cross the Cambodian border in
your area each day?" Again I truthfully replied, "Sir, there are no fences and
no gates with guards controlling their access to the border. There is simply no way of
knowing exactly how many people cross that border out in the mountains on any given day."
He repeated his question, "Mister Valentine, how many natives cross the Cambodian
border in your area each day?" I thought, "You dumb SOB. You
don’t want to hear the truth. You’re one of those West Point
dipsticks that wants
to hear the canned reply, ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out Sir’
aren’t you? Well screw you jerk. I’m not playing that stupid game." But I
gritted my teeth and replied, "One hundred and thirty two, Sir!"
The colonel’s face turned a deep red, almost as red as mine was by this time. Both
Tolman and Shelton went bug-eyed and near into shock. The colonel got up and strode
out of our bunker with out saying another word to anyone. Lieutenant Tolman and our
Detachment Commander, Captain Shelton, trotted along right behind him. Captain Shelton had
recovered and was struggling not to laugh. That was the last that I heard from that idiot
colonel about people crossing the border. No one ever tasked me to find out how many
of those dip sticks crossed the border each day either. Apparently, that
dipstick really
didn’t want to know the answer to his question.
Shortly afterwards, one team of my agents began reporting on a POW camp inside Cambodia
that held US prisoners. One of the prisoners was reportedly a female. When I relayed this
information to my headquarters, it created quite a stir — at least in the local area.
The SF guys at the SOG [I don't think they were called SOG anymore] camp in Ban Me Thout wanted more information and they tried to get
permission to try a rescue operation. My mountain native agent offered to go in a chopper
and point out the spot. He even made two more trips back into that general area for
additional information. The days since I had first reported the camp stretched into weeks.
Apparently, they didn’t believe my agent because to the best of my knowledge no one
ever followed up on the information.
[Caucasian females were captured by the VC. One
French lady had been captured in Ban Me Thout which was only about sixty or seventy miles
from where the POW camp was reported to be.]
About that time I had not heard one shot fired in anger and that tour was almost over.
A couple of more months and I could return to the "Land of the Big PX." It was
so quiet, the major told us one night, "I’ve been asked to stop pulling guard at
nights and I’m considering doing it." That’s when I raised my hand and
stood up. I said, "Sir, with all due respect, I think that could be a serious
mistake. If we stop pulling guard tonight, by tomorrow night the enemy will know of it.
You can bet your life they have agents right here inside this camp." I went on to
relate to them all what had happened to the MACV-SOG camp on Danang Beach in 1968 because
of a lack of security by the Americans. Then I added, "You can stop pulling guard,
but I won't. I’ll stand guard by myself, if necessary until I rotate out of here."
The major changed his mind and continued the guard duty until I left for the states.
That was a relief because I really didn’t want to pull guard every night for the last
two months. Finally my fourth tour in that stinking war was over and I caught a jumbo jet
home. It took seventeen hours of actual flying time to reach California, but, if my memory
doesn’t fail me, according to the clock and calendar I arrived in California only a
few minutes after I left Vietnam. That was the first war that we fought in our living
rooms via the TV and it was the first war that we used jets to move troops to and from the
war. Neither the families who watched the horrors of war that the television thrust into
their face during their dinner nor the troops that fought that stinking war were
emotionally prepared for the experience. All in all, it just created an unreal situation.
And I never heard one shot fired in anger during that entire one-year tour.
While I was home on leave, I drove up to Newport and Cosby to see my grandparents,
Aunt Deanie, and Uncle Glenn. Deanie was at work so I dropped by Stokely Van Camp’s canning
office to see her. That’s the first time that I saw Doris Eileen Ponder. Dorey worked
at the desk next to my Aunt Deanie. Honestly, I would have married that woman right there
on the spot and I don’t know exactly why. It wouldn’t have made me the least bit
nervous either. The instant that I looked into her eyes, I would have bet my life that she
would make a good partner to ride the river with. Unfortunately, I didn’t affect her
the same way.
Dorey and I dated until I left for Fort Bragg and I thought we got along great, but
that’s all she wanted. Later, I learned that she had just had a bad experience with
some other guy and was still hurting. So I went to Fort Bragg and hung out with my SF
buddies until it was time to report for duty. Meanwhile, I heard a rumor that the army was
going to eliminate my MOS and turn all intelligence collection work over to the CIA. Once
again, I figured it was time to adjust my career pattern by picking my future instead of
letting some jerk in the Puzzle Palace do it for me. So I called our personnel department
in the Pentagon and requested that to be assigned to the Counterintelligence Special Agent
course. Much to my surprise, my request was approved.
They assigned me to the very next class and after completing that course, I was to
report to my new unit, the 801st MI Detachment, which was attached to the 5th
SF Group at Fort Bragg. So I headed for Fort Huachuca, Arizona where the army had just
relocated their intelligence school.
En-route to Arizona, I stopped to see Dorey again before I left. Much to my dismay, I
discovered that my tremendous native charm had still not overwhelmed her senses. On the
second stretch, I drove from Knoxville to Arlington, Texas which is between Dallas and
Fort Worth. I remember Dallas as a maze of elevated interstate highways that swirled and looped and
rose into the sky like a bowl of concrete spaghetti.
The next day, I drove the rest of the way into Fort Huachuca. All the way across Texas,
I never saw a single cow. In fact, I didn’t see much of anything after I left
Houston except wide open spaces. If you’re traveling west on I-20 through the Lone
Star State, I highly advise you to have a full tank of gas for that long stretch of
highway east of El Paso because there are no gas stations at any of the off ramps and
those side roads just disappear across the horizon. About a hundred miles west of Houston,
I spotted a mountain to my left front. It took me all day driving 65 to 80 miles per hour
to pass that mountain. By sometime in the afternoon, I decided that I was tired of
looking at that pile of rocks and speeded up. In the late afternoon, I finally passed
the mountain. Well, come to think of it, I actually turned northwest,
away from it. It was dark when I took the Sierra Vista/Fort Huachuca exit off I-10 and as
soon as I topped the first rise, I saw the lights of the town and post. Nearly two hours
later, I finally reached those lights. Right then I knew that it was going to take quite
some time for me to adjust to the wide open spaces of our Great Southwest.
The first place that I stopped at was a restaurant
in Huachuca City and I discovered that it also
included a motel. There was a country western bar with dance floor on one side of it and a
tiny neighborhood bar in a small shopping strip on the other side. It seemed like a good
place to hang my hat. It had a restaurant, a place to flop my bones, and a choice of two
bars. So I decided to get a room for the night and check it out.
continued |