We arrived at Alpha 3 in the early afternoon to relieve the 6 soldiers who had been there for last two months. None of us were sure of what, exactly, our mission was.
As they transferred their gear into the Jeeps and we tossed and dragged ours into the bunker we exchanged news and information. We were to provide observation and interdiction information to the artillery batteries to the south, as well as to naval gunfire and air support in our area.
Standing in the doorway of the bunker watching them leave and looking around the desolate compound was like dieing, only worse. We were alone. Six men who wanted nothing more than to survive. We knew, however, that our survival would depend on how well we did our jobs.
The bunker, a leftover from the French-Indo China war, was about 30 feet long and 15 feet wide. Along the Northwest wall was a "table" about 8 feet long. On the East wall were some shelves with with an M-60 and ammo, several boxes of grenades, cases of spaghetti noodles (how strange) and two boxes of canned ketchup.
The floor was planks set a foot above the dirt for drainage.
Our extravagance was six wooden cots, above which we hung our mosquitoe nets.
The Tower, 75 feet from the entrance to the bunker, was 35 feet high with a platform on top. The ladder to get to the top was 2x4's with one nail in each end. Upon our arrival it was sandbagged only to about 2 feet. As our first project we filled sandbags and hauled them up to the platform to raise the wall to 4 feet. We built a roof over it and placed sandbags on that, as well. This was done under sniper and mortar fire. The monsoons were coming and we needed protection as well as shelter.
We had a small electrical generator to power the fan we had brought with us as well as the multi-band radio I had picked up in Da Nang on my in-country R&R.
The six of us took 4 hour shifts 24 hours a day. In the beginning it was just hot and humid, but when the monsoons hit it was a wet Hell. The bunker was flooded shin high and everything was wet. The rain never stopped and you couldn't get dry. We washed our clothes in rainwater and they never dried.
On the tower the rain blew through the platform and kept us soaked. Day and night we kept our vigil, calling in gunfire on VC and NVA.
We had a Starlight scope that allowed us to see at night before the monsoons, but that soon became useless. At times, during the day, you couldn't see more than 100 meters and at night we had no visibility at all.
Six GI's, hunkered down on the DMZ, wanting to be anyplace other than there.
As they transferred their gear into the Jeeps and we tossed and dragged ours into the bunker we exchanged news and information. We were to provide observation and interdiction information to the artillery batteries to the south, as well as to naval gunfire and air support in our area.
Standing in the doorway of the bunker watching them leave and looking around the desolate compound was like dieing, only worse. We were alone. Six men who wanted nothing more than to survive. We knew, however, that our survival would depend on how well we did our jobs.
The bunker, a leftover from the French-Indo China war, was about 30 feet long and 15 feet wide. Along the Northwest wall was a "table" about 8 feet long. On the East wall were some shelves with with an M-60 and ammo, several boxes of grenades, cases of spaghetti noodles (how strange) and two boxes of canned ketchup.
The floor was planks set a foot above the dirt for drainage.
Our extravagance was six wooden cots, above which we hung our mosquitoe nets.
The Tower, 75 feet from the entrance to the bunker, was 35 feet high with a platform on top. The ladder to get to the top was 2x4's with one nail in each end. Upon our arrival it was sandbagged only to about 2 feet. As our first project we filled sandbags and hauled them up to the platform to raise the wall to 4 feet. We built a roof over it and placed sandbags on that, as well. This was done under sniper and mortar fire. The monsoons were coming and we needed protection as well as shelter.
We had a small electrical generator to power the fan we had brought with us as well as the multi-band radio I had picked up in Da Nang on my in-country R&R.
The six of us took 4 hour shifts 24 hours a day. In the beginning it was just hot and humid, but when the monsoons hit it was a wet Hell. The bunker was flooded shin high and everything was wet. The rain never stopped and you couldn't get dry. We washed our clothes in rainwater and they never dried.
On the tower the rain blew through the platform and kept us soaked. Day and night we kept our vigil, calling in gunfire on VC and NVA.
We had a Starlight scope that allowed us to see at night before the monsoons, but that soon became useless. At times, during the day, you couldn't see more than 100 meters and at night we had no visibility at all.
Six GI's, hunkered down on the DMZ, wanting to be anyplace other than there.
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