SAIGON NOTES: Talking Grunt Blues

The Saigon Post, Dec. 25, 1970

 

SAIGON NOTES

 

     Talking Grunt Blues

 

(Time: About a year ago during a lull in Red offensive. Place: A Special Forces camp, full of  shrapnel holes, near the Cambodian border. The young gunners of Charley Battery were a separate unit from SF, and sometimes at odds with them. They pointed out, for example, that SF  could stay inside its bunkers during rocket and mortar attacks. Charley Battery had to be out in the open, manning the guns, returning fire.) 

        

                   *

The medic wears Montagnard bracelets. "The 'Yards say if you remove your bracelets you may remove your luck."

                   *

Hot dinners were flown in. "Not so hot, but better than we expected."

 

                   *

"We used to have fun with the Montagnard kids. Then the little girl took shrapnel in the stomach one day. The kids are all evacuated now."

                    *

The pregnant Vietnamese woman in white pajamas follows her soldier mate down into their bunker near the barbed wire.

                     *

The old Montagnard 'Pop' wears jungle fatigues and enjoys his pipe. He points at the tobacco and smiles intelligently.

 

"Tabac Ban Me Thuot. C'est bien."

                     *

"Captain Coleman, our XO, came out with our paychecks one  afternoon when he had two weeks left in-country. He said he wouldn't ever do a crazy thing like that again. We took a mortar attack that same afternoon. The Captain died in my lap, right over there."

                      *

Colonel Sam, who used to teach literature at Saigon University, now commands the Vietnamese Rangers. He is paunchy and polite, but tough.  A Vietcong rocket once tore into his home where his wife and seven children lived.

 

"But I already build bunker for them. I teach them what to do. Rocket no harm them."

                   *

Special Forces Captain Palmer, who used to work in a Memphis bank, "One night a rocket would have finished off all seven of us in the Team if it came just three feet closer. That must be luck."

                     *

With a book, the young gunner is sitting off by himself under a howitzer facing Cambodia. The book is Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf.

 

"Hard to get good books around here, so I have some sent to me."

                    *

Cilenti makes a succulent pot of spaghettis in the SF bunker, adds clams to the sauce. "Man, smell that prevolone."

 

"We're adopting you, Wop."

 

"Hold on, Babe. Don't you mean I'm adopting you?"

                    *

Sergeant Brock says he knew the Green Berets when they were elite. He wants to put .105 rounds out there in the highland dusk.

 

"Ceasefire, hell!  Everybody knows they use it to get themselves re-supplied and re-grouped."

 

He plans to go to Saigon one day next week and see a woman.

                    *

"My grandaddy carried this flag as an Army dentist, WW I.  My Daddy carried it 36 months in the Pacific as a Navy pilot, WW II. I'm the last of the Potter line. Either I bring this flag home or the line ends with me."

                    *

In the SF bunker Lt. Turney's dark mustache droops. Oddly, he looks like a Middle East money changer in need of sleep. He sits down, eyelids drooping. Rat traps are set in the kitchen. A girl-famished Private jokes about sheep. Lt. Turney cracks a walnut and sips coffee. He mumbles something sleepily.

 

"All right, Merry Christmas, guys."

 

 

 

Comments

[Jack Piucciolo]

Excellent and interesting story. I served with C Battery in 1965 and know several redlegs who served at the firebase in your articles. Captain Colgan's sister is a member of our 17th Association. The Sgt. in the article is Sgt. Brown and his brother is a member of our Association. Have you posted any other articles on the 17th?
Jack Picciolo Vietnam 1965-66

[gringoman]

I dont recall doing more articles on the 17th. But who knows? Maybe Ill come up with something in my files. Ive been digitizing my work sporadically for legacypurposes, and also posting it concurrently at the SeanHannity forum (under AMERICA AT WAR) Will have to get back to that project, as Ive been away from it for a while while traveling.

Regards,

dan cameron rodill
Fall of Saigon CBS Bureau May 1975 (after the staffers all left)

www.gringoman.com

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