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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781449030261 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 03/19/2010 |
| Pages: | 212 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.48(d) |
About the Author
Richard Wright (1908-1962) was an acclaimed short story writer, poet, and novelist, whose work most often concerned the plight of African Americans in late 19th century to mid-20th century America. His best known books are Native Son, chosen by the Book of the Month Club as their first book by an African-American author, and his memoir Black Boy, a vivid portrayal of one black man's search for self-actualization in a racist society.
Date of Birth:
September 4, 1908Date of Death:
November 28, 1960Place of Birth:
Near Natchez, MississippiPlace of Death:
Paris, FranceEducation:
Smith-Robertson Junior High in Jackson, Mississippi (1925)Read an Excerpt
Angels on our Shoulders
How I Earned My College Tuition MoneyBy RICHARD WRIGHT
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Richard WrightAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-3026-1
Chapter One
Prelude to war
As the civilian airplane that I traveled to Viet Nam in touched down on the runway at the Bein Hoa airport (near Saigon), I remember feeling the sense of dread that swept over me. I had just recently completed training at Fort Polk, Louisiana's famous 'Tiger Land" school of infantry. It was expressly designed to prepare soldiers for combat duty in Viet Nam. There had been little doubt for the past few months as to where I was going to end up and what I was going to be doing when I got there. I had ended up in the Army's "bottom of the barrel", so to speak. I had been trained as a combat soldier and was about to experience a special kind of Hell that only combat infantry soldiers can be "sentenced" to.
I remember very distinctly the blast of heat that swept over us when the stewardess opened the rear door of the airplane. It felt like someone had opened the door on a blast furnace! God, it was hot in Viet Nam. I had landed about eleven degrees from the Equator and it was hotter and more humid than anything I had ever experienced before.
After debarking and "queuing" up into the usual military type formation we were loaded into green colored school buses. The buses took us to the replacement center at the huge Long Ben military complex. There was no glass in the windows of the buses. The openings were covered by a strong metal "chicken-wire" type fencing. We were told that it was there to keep people from throwing hand grenades in through the windows.
I don't remember how long the bus ride was but I do remember spending about two days at the replacement center before getting my orders assigning me to the 9th Infantry Division in Viet Nam's Mekong Delta region.
We didn't do much those two days that I remember. I got grabbed once and put on a detail to clean the rifles that belonged to the cadre at the replacement center. They were the old M-14 rifles like the ones I had trained with at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri during basic training. Otherwise, I think we just pretty much loafed about, only being required to stand in formations two or three times a day. At each formation, the names of those who's orders had arrived were called. Those called then "fell out" of the formation, retrieved their duffle bags and marched off, never to be seen again.
I knew a lot of the guys around me, as our entire infantry training company from Fort Polk, Louisiana had been sent to Viet Nam as replacements for the combat units already fighting there. At the replacement center we were divided up and sent to various units. A group of about forty of us were assigned to the 9th division and were loaded into a two engine Army airplane for the ride to the 9th's base camp at Dong Tam.
We spent about three or four days at Dong Tam, doing a little last minute training while trying to acclimate ourselves to the ninety-five degree heat and ninety plus degree humidity. It felt like it was one hundred-ten in the shade! We were issued slightly used M-16's, given a brief chance to "zero" them in, and practiced war by going on some short night patrols. The patrol's were done in a "practice" area near the base camp that was relatively secure. Plenty of cadre with combat experience went with us to ensure our relative safety.
Soon enough our orders came down and we were assigned to various infantry company's within the division. Ten of us from my old training company were assigned to the same company down in the 2nd Brigade's Mobile Riverene Force. Four weeks later, when the 2nd Brigade was disbanded and we were reassigned to the 3rd Brigade, only four of us were still there to transfer. The others had all been wounded!
Very late May or early June
The first "Eagle Flight" (combat insertion into enemy territory by helicopter) I ever went on was the day I arrived at my new unit. They were preparing to go on a combat operation when I got there. I barely had time to get my field equipment issued before we left for the operation.
The supply sergeant issued me an extra canteen, grenades, ammunition, etc. Then my squad leader came over and hung a couple of one hundred round belts of machine gun ammo over my shoulders as well as a Claymore mine. He also attached a one hundred foot long rope to the back of my web gear. I felt like I could hardly stand up under the weight!
Then my squad leader informed me that I was to be the new "point man" for the platoon!
We were then shuttled via boat from my new "home" which, by the way, was a Navy troop ship. I was in the Mekong Delta and it was so inundated along the Mekong River that, in some places, base camps couldn't be built. Troops were quartered on these ships and got to return to them every three to five days for an overnight "drying out" period to help fight against the severe skin diseases like Tropical Immersion Foot (Trench Foot). Diseases like Trench Foot and Ringworms were a plague for the troops in the delta. While serving in the Mobile Riverine Force, I basically stayed wringing wet twenty-four hours a day.
Anyway, we were ferried right back to the base camp at Dong Tam, which I had just come from, and loaded into helicopters. The choppers lifted up and headed out. No one had told me anything about what to expect or about what was going to happen. I didn't know how many men were in my squad and I didn't even know my squad leader's name. I felt like I was a lamb being led to the slaughter, completely ignorant of my fate. I don't think anyone had even asked me my name.
After about a five or ten minute ride the choppers started to descend. I was setting at the open door of the "slick" with my feet hanging out and could see open fields ahead of us that were ringed by jungle.
As we were about to land a helicopter gun ship on the left of our chopper formation suddenly started to fire rockets into the jungle on the left. As the rockets started exploding, my heart started pounding from fear. Another gunship was above us and was also firing rockets into the jungle just ahead of our landing zone. A third gun ship on the right side of our formation was flying low right near the jungle fringe on that side and was pouring black smoke out of it's jet engine, apparently trying to provide a smoke screen on that side. All of the door gunners on the "slicks" we were riding in were also shooting their machine guns into the jungle as the choppers touched down. The noise from all the choppers, the exploding rockets and the machine guns going off all around me was incredible!
The choppers touched down and everyone got off quick, bending over low and running toward the nearest rice patty dike as the "slicks" roared away. All the door gunners on the "slicks" were hammering away at the wood line with their machine guns as they pulled up and away. The gun ships were making a second pass over the jungle and firing more rocket's into it as they passed by.
I looked to my squad leader and he motioned for me to get down and head for the paddy dike just in front of me. I guess I was probably overwhelmed by it all and was probably still standing upright and not moving very fast. I did as was told and got down behind the dike. Everyone around me was laying behind the dike in the water-filled rice paddy and they all looked really scared and nervous.
In a few moments the "slicks" were out of "earshot" and the gun ships had ceased to fire rockets into the jungle. All of the shooting had stopped! Not one enemy soldier was shooting at us! The LZ was "cold". I had just had the living daylights scared out of me and not one enemy soldier could be found! I thought that I had suddenly arrived at the real shooting war. As it turned out, this was just the "S.O.P." (standard operating procedure) used by this unit when inserting combat troops into hostile territory.
My squad leader had a brief conversation with the company commander over the radio, pointed toward the jungle in front of us and told me to head into it. I headed off toward the jungle, walking point. He told me to watch for booby-traps. That was the extent of my training to become a point man. Everything else that I was to learn about war I would learn as I went along.
I don't remember encountering any enemy soldiers that day.
June, 1669
The first time I was ever in a major "firefight", which is what G.I.'s refer to when speaking of an actual battle, was about ten days or so after I was first assigned to the 2nd Brigade's Mobile Riverene Force.
My company was being transported down a canal on three "Tango" boats. I don't know what the Navy's official designation for them is, but if you've ever watched a World War II movie, you've probably seen one. They're about forty feet or so long, have a relatively flat bottom and have a big ramp on the front that can be lowered to discharge the troops or a tank or whatever. John Wayne types always got out of them in movies like "The Longest Day" or "Saving Private Ryan" when they assaulted the beach. They were rectangular in shape, made from metal about one-eighth of an inch thick, and the front part of it had no top over the troop compartment unless the Navy guy's had rigged up a plastic tarp or something like that to keep the sun off our heads.
"Tango" boats were used extensively in the Mekong Delta to ferry troops up and down the thousands of canals that criss-crossed the flooded delta. There were no real roads in the delta as it was too muddy and inundated with water to build them. Rivers and canals were the road system in the Mekong Delta. Many of the smaller rivers and canals were effected by the ocean tides and actually raised and fell with the changing tide, leaving large "mud-flats" on either side of the rivers at low tide. The mud along the edges of the rivers was usually about three feet deep and was about the consistency of peanut butter. The canals had steep sides so they didn't have mud-flats. The heavy lowland type jungle just grew right up to the edges of the canals. Slogging through knee-deep mud was a daily occurrence in the Mekong Delta.
Anyway, my company was moving down one of the countless canals in three of these "Tango" boats. We had a couple of "Mike" boats along to give us protective fire if needed, but more about them later.
As we were moving slowly down this canal that couldn't have been more than forty yards wide, the VC/NVA suddenly ambushed us. They opened up on us from the left side of the bank with multiple automatic weapons and a couple of RPG launchers.
All of the guys in my platoon immediately dived for the "well" of the boat. The "well" was at the rear of the troop compartment and was the farthest below the water line of the boat, which still wasn't very far below the water line. Being new to combat, I followed their lead and dived into the pile of G.I.'s in the "well".
AK-47 rounds were punching little holes in the left side of the craft. Sometimes the bullets went all the way through it and out the other side, sometimes they glanced off the side of the boat and careened away. Sometimes they just went through the left side of the boat and ricocheted around the inside of the boat.
The Navy guy driving the boat full-throttled it quickly to try and get out of the "kill zone" of the ambush. Another Navy guy got up on the side of the boat to man the mounted twin fifty caliber machine guns. As the boat picked up speed the Navy guy on the twin fifty's began to pour fire into the left side of the canal where the enemy lay in ambush. He only managed to fire a few bursts from the machine gun's before being hit by an enemy bullet and falling down into the "well" of the boat amongst us Army guys already piled up there.
Our boat was up to full throttle and began to move out of the "kill zone" pretty rapidly. Bullets were still striking our craft, but we were getting away. The other two boats didn't fare quite as well. I was in the lead boat and we, therefore, didn't have quite as far to go to get out of the ambush "kill zone" as the other two boats did. We were pretty well clear of enemy fire within about thirty seconds or a minute at most. But, it sure seemed like it was a lot longer at the time! A lot of bullets had struck the little craft. I bet the "Tango" was hit at least fifty times.
The column of boats continued up the canal for a little way and then "beached" as well as possible on the bank opposite the one we were ambushed from. They picked a spot that had an open area nearby to aid in getting casualties evacuated by choppers. As the "Tango" boat that had been directly behind us began to off-load it's wounded, the real extent of the damage became apparent.
The boat I was in had only suffered from automatic weapons fire and, as I remember, the Navy guy was the only one on our boat that was wounded. The boat that was directly behind us had fared much worse. They had not only suffered from the automatic weapons fire but had taken a hit from an RPG rocket in the troop compartment as well. Shrapnel had ricocheted around the inside of the troop compartment and wounded several people. I don't remember how many were wounded, but I think it was about four or five. I know that a couple of badly wounded guys were put in the first "medivac" chopper and some others had to wait for a second chopper.
The third boat had apparently turned around or backed out of the ambush site as it was no longer with us, so I didn't know anything about it at the time. I heard later on that the platoon in it had suffered some casualties as well.
After evacuating our wounded, we were all loaded back on the "Tango" and it turned around in the canal to let us out on the enemy side of the river. As we off-loaded we could hear explosions coming from the area back down around the ambush site. Artillery was pounding that area.
The two platoons we had available formed into a column and headed out toward the ambush site. As a new man in the platoon, I had been assigned to walk point. I had little experience and knew next to nothing about the task at hand. I headed off into the jungle, praying that I wouldn't get myself killed. I have always thought since that making new guys walk point was one of the stupidest things that my unit ever did.
As we closed in on the general area of the ambush site, I could smell the distinctive odor of burning napalm. The "Mike" boats that I referred to earlier had been working over the jungle ambush site after the artillery barrage. "Mike" boats were a traditionally shaped boat about thirty feet or so long. They usually had a couple of machine guns mounted on the rear deck and one of any of several different kinds of weaponry mounted on the front deck. Sometimes the weapon mounted on the front was a large flame thrower that, if I remember correctly, had two nozzles on it that enabled it to shoot on both sides of a river bank at once, if necessary.
Well, one of these "Mike" boats that had been escorting us had one of these flamethrowers mounted on it. We called them "Zippo's", named after the famous cigarette lighter. The "Mike" boat had been squirting flaming napalm all along the canal bank at the ambush site.
When we got up to a point near the ambush site, my platoon formed into a skirmish line and went closer, "reconning" by fire, that is, shooting up everything in front of you as you advance. "Reconning" by fire is a very common method to use when approaching a known or suspected enemy location.
After moving toward our immediate front for about fifty yards or so, everybody spraying full automatic weapons fire ahead of them, we ceased fire. Directly in front of us lay the former ambush site. The area was quite chewed up by artillery fire and the first fifty yards or so up from the canal bank was pretty well burnt up from the "Zippo's".
Both platoon's then commenced securing the area, which basically meant looking over the little battlefield to see what kinds of interesting things we could find. Of course, we had to be wary of booby-traps and there was always the possibility that a live enemy soldier or two might be around. But, it was an interesting sight indeed for an eighteen year old from Illinois farm country. This was my first glimpse of major carnage.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Angels on our Shoulders by RICHARD WRIGHT Copyright © 2010 by Richard Wright. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Angels on our Shoulders....................iiirichard wright....................iii
Prelude to war....................1
Very late May or early June....................5
June, 1969....................9
Comments about being sniped at....................25
Daily life in the Mobile Riverene Force....................29
June, 1969....................33
June 28,1969....................45
Daily life in the 3rd Brigade....................47
July, 1969....................57
On being a sniper....................69
August, 1969....................73
An unusual afternoon....................77
Sept 16, 1969....................81
Night ambush patrols....................87
Late September '69....................93
Twenty-six "gooks"....................97
October, 1969 battalion newspaper article....................103
Sometimes they shot back when we ambushed them....................105
Friendly artillery fire - date unknown....................113
"Bushing" the sampans - artillery interruptus....................119
December 27, 1969....................123
January 1970 - Plain Of Reeds....................127
February 1970....................131
March 12, 1970....................141
Date unknown -1970....................145
April 24, 1970....................149
April 26, 1970....................153
A few words about booby-traps....................159
Mortars and rockets....................163
Equipment....................167
Uniforms....................177
Snakes....................181
Glossary Of Terminology....................191