Nui Ba Ra Mountain

In February 1970 I flew from Bien Hoa to FSB Buttons for the first time.  As we approached Buttons, there was this mountain just standing there off to the side.  I was told it was Nui Ba Ra Mountain.

What made it odd looking was it was not part of a range of mountains.  It looked all alone, standing there like a pimple that did not belong.

In early April I spent time on top of Nui Ba Ra.  It was cooler up there.  The cooler temperature was an unexpected surprise.  It felt good when compared with the hotter more humid temperatures below.  There was a great view of the countryside  in every direction.

Our platoon had flown up in the afternoon and then spent the night pulling guard on a small outpost at the summit called LZ Thomas.  LZ Thomas was packed with Army communications equipment.  Our night up there was uneventful.

It was not until I was long out of the Army when I learned that Nui Ba Ra was an ancient volcano that was formed millions of year ago.  It is 2,300 feet high.  There are similar volcanoes in other parts of Vietnam.  A sister mountain, Nui Ba Den, is sixty miles away.  I never had to the chance to go there.

Today, Nui Ba Ra is a destination for the Vietnamese people.  They have a tram that takes visitors to the top from Song Be to enjoy the mountain in the same way I did so long ago.  I wonder if there any remnants of LZ Thomas still up there?  Maybe someday I will get the chance to find out.    

Bomb Craters from a B-52 Run

During the Cambodian Incursion in May 1970, I passed over an area in the jungle where there had been a recent bombing.  You can see a series of bomb craters, some filled with water from monsoon rains.  The craters were closely packed together so could only be made by B-52 Stratofortresses.

B-52's were originally designed to carry nuclear weapons.  In 1964 the United States decided to use B-52's to drop conventional bombs on Vietnam as part of what was referred to as Operation Arc Light.  The bombers flew from Guam and Thailand, dropped there bomb load then returned.  They provided air support to grunts in Vietnam.

 Each plane, depending on its configuration, carried up to 100 bombs in a mix of 500 and 750 pounders.  I heard they even  dropped 1000 lb. bombs.  Missions normally consisted of a three-plane formation called a cell.  They dropped there bombs at such a high elevation, the enemy below didn't see them or hear them coming until it was too late.

I can remember being in the jungle and hearing off in the distance this low rumble of a noise that continued for about ten seconds then abruptly ended.  I was told it was an arc light.  They say that enemy soldiers that lived through an arc light were found with their ears bleeding, no hearing and mentally lost.  I'm sure they were never the same person again.    

Rainy Season Mud on a Fire Base

Vietnam during the rainy season could become a mud pit dependent on where you were.

Both snapshots were taken on a firebase in July, about midway through the rainy season.  You can see how thick and heavy the mud was.  It had the consistency of wet cement.  When I walked through it, my boots would become coated with a layer of mud.  If I wasn't careful when stepping forward, especially if the laces on my boots were not tightly tied, I risked stepping right out of my boot and leaving it behind.  The ooze was like a magnet.  It was so bad, we built crude roads from logs as you can see in the picture below so small vehicles would not get stuck in the mud.

During the rainy season, mud was always a problem on a fire base.  Fire bases were built by pushing all vegetation from the center outward exposing the earth below the grasses.  I don't know what it was about that earth that made it so different.  It had a lot of clay in I think.  During the transition between the dry and rainy seasons the earth was at its best.  Not to wet and not to dry.  When overly dry it was like talcum powder.  But when overly wet on a firebase, it was a viscous, sticky mess.

Walking through the jungle, by the way, was fine during the rainy season.  Mud was not an issue out there.  Sure we were soaked a lot and had trouble drying our clothes when in the jungle.  But the grasses that made up the jungle floor was so thick and dense that even though water passed readily through it, our jungle boots did not.

Not having to deal with mud in the jungle may be the only good thing I ever said about being out there.







It was nasty stuff.

Dust Cloud over Candy

This is another snapshot from Fire Support Base Candy in April 1970.  In the background and rising into the sky is another dust cloud.

I said earlier that when we were on Candy pulling guard, the Army was pounding away on Cambodia with large howitzers.  Well those howitzers were fed powder bags and explosive projectiles that were delivered in a steady stream by Chinook helicopters coming in from Bien Hoa.

Chinooks were these large, two bladed helicopters that did most of the heavy lifting in Vietnam. Artillery supplies were loaded in cargo nets and slung from a hook that was tucked up close to the bottom of the helicopter.  Every time a Chinook arrived during the day, it would come in fast, slow to a hover, settle the load to the ground, and then release the cargo net from the hook.  Once the load had been dropped, the Chinook would very quickly lift upward while accelerating forward and within thirty seconds would disappear from sight.

Left behind however was a dust cloud that a grunt at least could not escape from.  As the cloud rolled over us, the sweat on out bodies attracted it like a magnet.  A day of that and we were coated red from head to foot.  Candy was the only firebase I remember where I would have preferred living in the jungle.  

Bird's Eye View of a Small Firebase

This is a birds-eye view of one of the small fire bases we worked from as an infantry soldier.  I took this snapshot while flying above the fire base in a Huey helicopter at around 700 feet.  Those are my knees and another guy's knee at the bottom of the picture.  We were sitting in the open door with our legs swinging in the breeze.  None of us had seat-belts on.  One good push and I never would have been able to provide a description of this picture.

I was member of an infantry battalion called 2nd of the 12th Cavalry.  A battalion was made up of four infantry companies.  Three of those infantry companies patrolled the area around the fire base looking for enemy soldiers to destroy.  The remaining company protected the fire base by guarding from the outside perimeter.

The outside perimeter consisted of a berm or embankment with fighting bunkers spaced evenly around the circle.  The berm was formed by a bulldozer.  Even from 700 feet you can clearly see the berm.  The circle shape was common in there design.  It was easier to defend from a circle.  Settlers moving west in the 1800's learned that lesson when they would circle the wagons.  

Just inside the berm were metal culverts that infantry soldiers slept under.  More toward the center was a supply tent, a cook tent and a 105mm howitzer battery consisting of about six guns.  The howitzers were there to back up the infantry if they were caught in a firefight and needed help.  The maximum range of a 105mm howitzer is seven miles.  So when working the jungle, we always stayed within range of those guns.

Home Grown Booze for Sale

In September 1970 we were near Phuoc Vinh Village waiting for helicopters to take us back to the jungle.  Villagers swarmed out to meet us with stuff for sale.  In the nine months that I had been in Vietnam, I had never experienced anything quite like it.

Any time I had been near a village close to the jungle before, we never saw civilians.  One reason for that I guess is the war was more intense then.  Civilians found themselves caught between the Americans that were trying to help them and the Vietcong who lived in those same villages and were trying to destroy us.  If villagers had shown any interest in us, they could have been shot.

But that was then.  Now we were on the other side of the Cambodian Incursion.  The North Vietnamese and Vietcong soldiers had been badly beaten.  Now villagers were bold enough to meet with us and sell things without fear of being killed themselves.

It was a lot of fun.  They would sell us the beads and other trinkets that we wore around our necks to make us feel like a rebel.  Villagers also sold us bottles of booze for a buck.  I never did buy a bottle.  I remember looking at those bottles and wondering what kind of rot gut it contained.  If we drank it would it kill us?

Later that month, a friend opened a bottle and it didn't seem to be hurting him so I tried it.  Back them I would try anything.  I remember it was thin tasting and didn't seem to have much alcohol content.  I was expecting a burning sensation as it passed down my throat like you get from whisky.  I had no idea what it was back then.  Now I know that it was a very likely a locally made rice wine.  

Resupplying for a Combat Assault

This snapshot of infantry soldiers milling around on a fire base looks chaotic but it was not.  We were loading up with supplies before heading back to the jungle.  Food, water and munitions were there for the picking.  We usually carried enough food and water for three days.

Food available to us was boxes of C-rations and long range patrol packets or LRP's.  C-rations were mostly canned goods that I would eat for breakfast and lunch.  I would grab canned fruit, coffee cakes, ham & eggs, beans and franks, and ham slices.  For snacks there were crackers and cheese and cookies that came in cans.  C-Ration boxes also contained powdered cocoa, coffee, salt and pepper and even cigarettes.

Long range patrol packets were eaten  at supper time.  The food was freeze dried.  There was spaghetti and meat sauce, Chicken and rice, beef and rice and chili con carne.  Open the packet of food, add hot water, let it steep and you had a hot meal.

The water we received was heavily chlorinated.  We drank it, cooked with it and washed with it.  We laced the water we drank with a little kool-aid to help make it more palatable.  We each carried eight to ten quarts of water for three days.

Munitions were those things we ran out of when fighting a war.  There was M-16 ammunition, M-60 ammunition, claymore mines, fragmentation grenades, smoke grenades.  A firefight was no place to find out that you did not have enough ammunition with you.

Altogether, our pack would weigh around eighty pounds when fully loaded for three days and ready to go.