Astronomical Event Sends Crawdaddy Reeling …
Solar Eclipse Triggers A Flashback to the Jungle War.
My nightmares subsided decades ago. Loud noises and bizarre smells finally stopped putting me into a funky spin. As a social worker, I had a fool for a client but I finally dragged myself out of the Jungle War once and for all. But the recent solar eclipse served as an unexpected trigger and for a few instants I was right back to 1968.
Everyone was endeavoring to protect their eyes during the eclipse. In rural Vietnam, the preferred method was to submerge a mirror in bucket of clear water. Then the vessel was turned skyward at an angle and anyone could safely view the eclipse reflected in the bucket. Cool!! Trouble was Col. Tran then of the NVA had used that same primitive set up to blow the hell out of our company CP in December,1968.
So when a Vietnamese friend mentioned the peasants safety ploy yesterday, I could only grab my head and recoil in terror. We lost Dancy and my best friend, Mike Bach,in Antenna Valley at the base of Nui Chom Moiutain. We happened on a withdrawing NVA regiment and a big firefight broke out. But the bad guys disengaged and they finally headed northwest toward the Ho Chi Minh Trail. We called in choppers to extract our KIA’s and we settled in to our night time position.
We set up our perimeter, enjoyed some C-RATS, and generally licked our wounds.
About 0300 somebody set off a trip flare just outside our position. We sprang awake in an instant and the gooks started to pepper us with small arms fire from the darkness. Then came the hissing arrival of the rocket propelled grenades. One missile clanked off the helmet of my squad leader, Sgt. Wilder. He was dazed, and concussed but the grenade mysteriously did not explode. Lt. Dolan called in the helicopter gunships from Chu Lai. They laid down a withering base of deadly fire around our perimeter and our visitors finally retreated.
Decades later, through my good friend Ken Herman, I came to know Col. Tran who led the NVA element that attacked us that December night. Ken was a wonderful social worker who spent a lifetime trying to atone for American atrocities in the Nam. He adopted a Vietnamese orphan and later established several charities over there to help victims of Agent Orange. He also made contact with several VC and NVA solders that our unit had battled. Eventually, I began to email Col. Tran and then speak to him a little by telephone. Finally, I asked him about his late night raid that was undertaken in zero moonlight. He informed me that he had employed a peasants tool, a helmet full of water with a submerged mirror to focus just enough fleeting moonlight to accurately fire those deadly RPG’s in to our company CP
Being in the infantry In the Nam never really leaves you. You just hope to control the memories and the accompanying horror. The eclipse was a big hoot for a lot of people but for me it suddenly became a terrifying memory better left permanently forgotten from the Jungle War.
(Sgt. Wilder died several months after this incident from a lone sniper’s round as he was standing in his company CP in their night position. RIP.)
