Battle Ready (2004) Read online

  On one occasion, Zinni watched his Marines bring a captured VC before the Saigon police chief, where he was summarily executed. Zinni had accompanied one of the Marines he saw there, a platoon commander from the 4th Battalion, on many operations.

  Other Marines went on to fight in the desperate battle for Hue City, distinguishing themselves in the hard fighting to take the city and its citadel.

  EVENTUALLY, he was brought home to a hospital near Philadelphia, and was soon well enough to be made an outpatient--meaning that he only had to report in every day; otherwise, he could stay at home with his parents (where Debbie, his wife, joined him).

  It took a while to decompress. On the drive home, on his first night out of the hospital, he gave his brother a scare. "Why are we going down a road at night unarmed and with no security?" he asked him.

  IN FEBRUARY 1968, he received orders to Quantico as an instructor at the Basic School, where the Marine Corps trains its new officers. He spent the next two years teaching scouting, patrolling, and counterinsurgency tactics at the Basic School, then attended the career-level school for captains, graduating in the summer of 1970. During that time, he also worked hard (running, lifting weights) to recover the strength he had lost. By 1970, he had fully recovered, and was ready to return to Vietnam.

  He received orders for the 1st Marine Division based in Danang, and once again prepared to go to war, assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, known as "the Pacifiers."

  THE PACIFIERS

  During the process of Vietnamization, it was expected that the NVA would try to press the withdrawing American forces and cause serious harm. To counter that threat, the division wanted a quick reaction force--a powerful unit that could act as a "fire brigade," troubleshooter (something like the Vietnamese Marines, but with a far more localized area of operations), and rescue unit (that could bail out anybody who needed rescuing).

  That job went to "the Pacifiers" (the code name for their special mission). The Pacifiers, as their official description put it, provided "a swift striking, highly mobile heliborne task force which is able to react to any situation on short notice."

  The battalion was under direct control of the 1st Marine Division and had a dedicated air package that consisted of command and control helos, troop transports, helo gunships, observer aircraft, and attack aircraft. Its four companies rotated through four levels of alert. The highest was Pacifier 1--requiring a company to be ready to lift out on ten minutes' notice. The second level was one hour, the third twelve hours, and the fourth twenty-four hours.

  A company usually stayed on Pacifier 1 for a couple of weeks, and it was tough. Pacifier 2 was tough, too. Pacifier 3 was a little easier, and you provided security for the division headquarters. And if you were on Pacifier 4, you provided security for the base camp.

  The battalion's rifle companies were very large and specially organized. Unlike most other units, they were kept at Table of Organization strength, with the full complement of officers and NCOs--over 260 Marines and sailors. This was probably two to three times the size of other rifle companies during the Vietnam War.

  In addition, they had extra machine-gun and mortar squads, as well as some experimental weapons, such as an automatic grenade launcher (the XM-174, called "the Super-Blooper" by the troops) and a flamethrower (the XM-202).20 And each company had its own engineer unit, scouts, Kit Carson Scouts,21 and scout dog units.

  Pacifier units were only committed on hot intelligence of enemy contact, or to rescue crews from downed aircraft, with the mobility of the helos being the key to their movements. They did not pursue the enemy on foot unless in direct contact. And in order to facilitate identification from the air, each platoon had their own color patches sewn on their helmets.

  Tony Zinni continues:

  The battalion's commanding officer was Lieutenant Colonel Bernard E. "Mick" Trainor (later a lieutenant general and noted journalist), one of the smartest officers the Corps has ever produced. Trainor would demonstrate his tactical skill and genius many times while I was with the battalion.

  When we met, he jumped on the fact that I had been to school and had a previous tour as an adviser. He wanted me to be his assistant operations officer. I begged and pleaded for a company; I did not want a staff job. I wanted to be out in the field doing real work. He agreed to think about it.

  After I went through the check-in procedure, I moved into the captains' tent where the battalion staff officers lived--a great bunch who quickly brought me up to speed; the battalion operations officer, a big, smart, calm major named W. M. Anderson, really knew his stuff. We quickly hit it off.

  When I blurted out how badly I wanted a company, he told me not to worry about it. "I'll see what I can do. Relax for a couple days and get your feet on the ground. I think you'll be more valuable to the battalion in a company. And I'm sure I can convince the CO of this."

  I loved the guy.

  After two days of anxious waiting, I was called to Lieutenant Colonel Trainor's hut, where I was informed I would be the commanding officer of Company A, 1st battalion, 5th Marines.

  I was ecstatic.

  When I took command, the company was on Pacifier 3 on Division Ridge, providing security for the division base area. If we were alerted and moved, other non-Pacifier units took over its security mission. The mission was relatively easy and allowed the troops to get a break after their stretches on the more demanding Pacifiers 1 and 2.

  Danang is on the seacoast, with a massive mountainous ridge area just to its west. Since the division headquarters was on the eastern side of the ridge, protecting that--as well as the division rear, the logistics area, and the air base--meant occupying Division Ridge.

  That job was given to the Pacifiers on lowest levels of alert, and it was pretty good duty. During the day, we only had to keep a platoon up there, which allowed us to get our troops down into some of the base areas for rest and cleanup--impossible to do when they were out in the field.

  The change of command took place on the ridgeline on September 8 (we remained on Pacifier 3 status until the twenty-first). It was a bright sunny day, and my first act after walking through the ranks to shake hands with every Marine and sailor was to meritoriously promote several deserving Marines.

  "What a day!" I thought.

  I SPENT the two weeks we had left on the security mission getting the company in good shape. Because there'd been no enemy contact for months at that position, the permanent support units and the South Vietnamese militia units on the flanks had gotten sloppy. We dealt with that problem.

  On September 21, we moved to Pacifier 4. And from October 1 to November 3, we were on Pacifier 1--ten-minute alerts: A siren went off, and the Marines grabbed their gear and formed up, double-timed past the ammo bunkers in a predetermined order to get their prestaged and sorted ammo load, ran in formation to the pickup zone, and embarked into the helos in the preplanned order. Securing of the landing zone at the other end also went according to a drill, as did the actions in a "hot" zone.

  Life in the base camp during Pacifier 1 was relaxed when we weren't training or on alert. Each squad had its own SEA hut; the lieutenants' hut, called "the Silver Bar," was where we officers spent most of our time planning . . . but also playing cards. I wanted the company to fight and train hard and well, but I also wanted them to know there was a right time to take a break. We tried to find one day during the week to barbecue the noon meal and play team sports between units. Though these days were rare, they were appreciated.

  Since the Pacifier alert could come out of the blue, we had to be constantly prepared. Though it could begin with an immediate launch (as in the case of a downed aircraft), more often I'd get a call to come to the battalion combat operations center for a brief. I liked the op center briefs; they gave us time to plan. If I was to be the guy going in, I wanted to know what I was facing, and what I had to do. I never wanted to have to wondered what the hell it was like out there or whether I could do it. That meant, for inst
ance, that I tried to stay abreast of ongoing operations nearby, since they were the most likely triggers for our commitment. The morning ops and intel briefs were also obviously important for us.

  THOUGH I didn't know it then, my last and most dramatic operation in Vietnam had already started. Over a month earlier, one of the companies on Pacifier 1 had reacted to an intelligence report of a VC cadre meeting in a small village. Soon after landing nearby, the company had engaged fleeing enemy. During the short firefight, one of the Marines took matters in his own hands and ran out to tackle one of the VC. He ended up capturing Nguyen Dac Loi, the VC intelligence chief for the Quang Da Special Zone, and reputedly the highest-ranking enemy intelligence officer captured during the war.

  The significance of our catch was not evident to anybody in our battalion until the first days in November, when we were notified to prepare for a very special mission. Loi had agreed to lead us to his headquarters in the Que Son Mountains.

  While I was at the op center for a brief on the mission, my company got ready to move. According to the briefer, Loi had offered our intel guys a wealth of information, much of it implicating senior South Vietnamese government officials in the region as VC collaborators.22 This made things difficult: Though the South Vietnamese had gotten wind of a major capture, they didn't yet know who we had or how important he was. The U.S. command wanted to keep them in the dark as long as they could, so we could fully take advantage of Loi's cooperation before the South Vietnamese became involved. Once that happened, they'd almost certainly compromise any further operations.

  The plan was for Loi (escorted by a Marine Interrogator-Translator Team--ITT) to lead my company to his headquarters--a massive cave complex in a deep draw. Because he was unclear about its exact location, Marine Recon teams would cordon the general area, while Company B, along with our battalion command post, took and occupied a dominating piece of high ground.

  When all this was briefed, the number of "heavies" there was a pretty good indication of the importance they were giving to this operation.

  I met Loi in the landing zone before the birds arrived. He was studying a map. He was obviously intelligent and educated, but also nervous. "Can you point out your headquarters on it?" I asked him.

  "I can't be sure," he told me, pointing to a general location. "Our maps differ from yours. But I'm sure I can spot it if I fly around the area."

  I didn't like flying around without a definite, preplanned landing zone; but it was obvious we had to go along with Loi.

  When all units for the assault were ready, we took off. Loi, sitting next to me, tried to orient the map to the ground below; but got even more confused and uncertain when we reached the area he identified. We circled--a bad idea; it gave away surprise.

  I kept pressing him, but that didn't do much good.

  "I've never been in a helicopter," he said. "It's hard to pick out landmarks from above."

  At last, he seemed to recognize something. "There," he pointed down. "I know that place."

  We radioed the other helos and set up for an assault into the zone he'd indicated. The landing was uneventful. We set down into a large muddy, grassy area. Though Loi assured us that he could pick up the trail into his headquarters from there, the terrain didn't look right to me: We were some distance from any deep draws.

  As Loi and his ITT went off to look for his trail, I directed my platoons to spread out and search the area.

  A short while later, a platoon commander called me to his position. When I got there, he showed me a wide muddy patch of ground covered with fresh boot prints--lots of sneaker-tread NVA boots. A big NVA unit had recently moved through.

  I immediately reported our discovery to the battalion and then called my other platoon commanders and organized the company into a hasty defense. It was a good but unnecessary precaution; there was no enemy contact.

  Meanwhile, another platoon had found a dud five-hundred-pound bomb. After my engineer officer, Lieutenant Bill Ward, looked at it, we debated what to do with it. After some discussion, we figured we had already lost any tactical surprise; and no one wanted to leave this potential booby trap behind. So Bill's engineers rigged up the explosive charges and we blew the bomb.

  Loi returned during this diversion--empty-handed. He hadn't found anything recognizable. All we could do was bring in the helos and start the search again.

  After a few minutes in the air, he gave a shout and pointed toward trails at the base of a large hill. "Those trails lead to my headquarters," he announced.

  This was more like it. The trails led up a huge mountain combed with deep draws. One draw in particular looked capable of holding the vast cave complexes Loi had described.

  When we set down, the zone was again quiet; but the trail network nearby looked well used. "There haven't been U.S. or South Vietnamese troops in this area for years," Loi told us. "The VC and NVA use it freely."

  "That's great," I thought, remembering my experience with the Vietnamese Marines. "That means they'll be ready for us." I badly wanted to attack Loi's headquarters, but I didn't want to try to get there on those trails.

  I then formed the company in a column, with the first platoon in the lead, and my scouts and our Kit Carson Scouts moving out ahead. I had Loi with me at the head of the first platoon. Because of the possibility of booby traps, I told my scouts to take it slow and careful.

  Loi still could not make up his mind where he was. He'd start us up one trail, back up, and off we'd go on another. This tended to make my company bunch up like an accordion; it was hard to keep the troops properly spaced. My scouts were meanwhile reporting hasty booby traps strung across the trails, as well as recently abandoned outposts in the rocks, with cooking fires still burning. After I'd gone forward to check them out, I made an appeal to get off the trails; but I knew the answer before I asked: Loi's confusion had already wasted half a day; and the VC were well aware of our presence by now. We needed to get on them before they could destroy what we were after and slip out. Moving off the trail would be safer, but take more time. We stayed on the track. I knew that was a difficult call for my boss; but I had to agree that it was correct.

  In order to keep a handle on Loi's direction changes, I moved him up to the head of the company, with only the scouts and the point team in front of us. I was determined to get on his ass and stop his confusion. And, in fact, things started to move more smoothly as soon as I started pressing him hard.

  My scouts (led by Corporal James, a black Marine from Washington, D.C., with an uncanny ability to read tracks and detect booby traps) were doing a magnificent job. This was very rough terrain--high mountains with flanking ridges.

  In time, we approached a prominent ridge. On its other side, I was certain, lay the draw containing Loi's headquarters. It was clear we were pushing against security forces for something important. We could see little cuts down in the rocks, which were obviously listening posts and sentinel posts. In one case, we found a little cup of rice, still warm, left there when they ran out ahead of us. My scouts were also coming across hastily strung booby traps--wires with grenades and the like.

  I wanted to get to that high ground as quickly as possible, since it was only a matter of time before we made contact with the enemy. I expected first contact would come from some security outpost firing at us to hold us up or perhaps from one we'd overrun before the enemy troops could fall back.

  I was wrong. About two hundred meters from the top of the ridge, Loi stopped and looked at me, "They won't let you go any farther," he said, then shifted his gaze again toward the trail to the top.

  "What are you talking about?" I asked him.

  "A VC and an NVA company are defending this ridge," he said. "They will not let you get within 150 meters of the crest."

  That was information we had to check out. I called up a pair of scout Cobra helos we had up above the ridge to get their view. I was talking to them when the enemy opened up.

  I had turned sideways to give the hands
et back to my radio operator, Lance Corporal Franky, when I was hit. Three AK-47 rounds at fairly close range, close enough to easily pass through my flak jacket. It felt like I'd been whipped across the side and back with a burning hot, wet towel. I went down. As I rolled into a shallow erosion ditch, I tried to get a sense of what was happening. Moments later, Lieutenant Bob Myers, my 1st Platoon commander, and Lieutenant Pete Metzger, our battalion intelligence officer, who was with our company, both rushed over to me.

  I was still conscious. . . . I never actually lost consciousness until I was medevaced out. Neither did I feel overwhelming pain. But I could feel the energy draining out of me, and I could tell I'd been badly hurt.

  This couldn't have come at a worse time. My company was under heavy fire. I knew they'd need me as long as I could stay lucid.

  "Get the platoon spread out and return fire," I told Bob Myers. The enemy was well hidden; the Marines were having a hard time picking out targets, but I just wanted to get the enemy's heads down as we moved troops around. A Marine with a multishot flamethrower was nearby. When I told him to fire, he asked, "At what?"

  "I don't give a damn," I told him. "Just fire."

  He did, and it slowed down the enemy's shooting.

  Bob then helped me get my flak jacket off. I hated these heavy things; but it was the policy to wear them. The Vietnamese Marines never wore them, nor did our advisers with them; and I was convinced the added weight and discomfort worked to wear down the troops and make them less alert.

  "Great," I thought, "now that I'm shot." The flak jacket had been useless in stopping the rounds.

  As he peeled off the jacket, a bloody piece of flesh fell out. Not encouraging. Bob then started to apply a battle dressing; the look on his face told me the wound was bad. While he was doing that, I called Colonel Trainor to give him a situation report. By then, one of our corpsmen, Doc Miller, was working on me. I was now feeling so weak I was afraid I would pass out.