Page 104 - Stand Down Vietnam

After I was in country for a while; during the Tet
Offensive, they attacked our air force base. It was
right across the river from us. We were almost
shooting distance from the airport.

I went over to the airbase and there were two hundred
North Vietnamese soldiers that had been killed; they
were tangled up in the barbed wire. We cut them out of

the wire and put them in a dump truck and took them out
to dig a big mass hole, dumped them in the sand and
covered them up. The Navy Seabees dug the holes.

I was stationed with the MACV Advisors. When we went
in country, there was a bounty put on our heads. The
bounty was paid if we were captured or killed.

I just taught the Vietnamese how to work on their boat
engines – diesel mechanics. I’d also teach them how to
patrol and set up ambushes. They were just kids, more
or less just kids. That’s what their military was made
up of; young kids and women. It was the same way with
the North Vietnamese, but you didn’t know who was who.

When you went in-country, everybody looked the same; it
would be like trying to pick out someone from the north
or the south. You had to go by the way they speak;
that’s the only way you can determine. I had to go
through six weeks of Vietnamese language training, so I
could communicate with them. Of course, I forgot a lot
of it; I remember a few phrases, like “Please don’t
shoot me.” “Xin đừng bắn tôi”. And, I learned how to
cuss in Vietnamese, but I won’t do that part.