No No Not The Briar Patch

We pulled quite a few “County Fairs” Some with the entire Company and some with a reinforced platoon. Since most of these operations were conducted within range of our mortars and artillery. Targets were pre planned and the bigger guns stayed back within their perimeters. I made every one of them either as the Exec’s radio operator or attached to the platoon leader to operate on the Company net.

We would leave our lines about dusk, spend the night moving to our objective usually a village. By morning, we would have the village surrounded. A team would go through the village and round up all the locals into the village center. Other teams would fan out looking for caches of weapons, tunnels or specific contraband. Often, the Navy Corpsmen would set up an impromptu clinic and try to treat as many patients as they could as well as they were able, especially the children. On one occasion, the ARVN (Vietnamese Army) showed up with a big PA system for some Psychological Operation to convince the locals to turn in the bad guys. As for the locals, once they were gathered in the village center, we would sort through them and round up the usual suspects for the Intel guys.

This particular night, we had passed through our perimeter’s kill zone, an area cleared of obstacles and vegetation, a veritable no man’s land working our way north. There was either no moon or one horrendous cloud cover. The only way to move forward was to hold on to the flak jacket or pistol belt of the Marine in front of you. Ask any combat veteran, life on the edge, especially at night, sharpens your senses of hearing, smelling and even that sixth sense that could tell you something just wasn’t right.

The whole column came to a halt. Word was whispered back. “Creek bed.” India Company had experience with creek beds and they weren’t very good. It was the last damn thing anyone of us wanted to encounter, cross or get caught up in.

There were several procedures in place for crossing such an obstacle. We could gather enmasse and rush to the other side. We could go over in groups, or we could cross one at a time and marry up on the other side. Since we were in a column, the only real way to do this was the last option.

In order to do this, you had to check who was in front of you and who was behind you. If the guy ahead of you didn’t recognize who the hell you were by your voice or a password or some other signal when you got across to the other side, your ass could be grass. The same for the guy behind you.

I checked with the Marine in front of me. He was a grunt from the 3rd Platoon. When I reached back and touched the shoulder of the guy behind me, I asked, “Who’s this?”

The answer came back, “Doc.”

“Doc? Who’s behind you?”

“Nobody.”

“Aw, shit! You gotta be kiddin’ me!” I thought, what the hell was a Corpsman doing being “Tail-end Charlie”?

I had to think fast. Here was a guy who was armed only with a .45 caliber pistol, not trained as an Infantryman and he was supposed to be covering my ass. I had an M-14 with a selector switch, I could fire full automatic. I had to change spots with him.

When it was my turn to cross the creek bed, I whispered to the Corpsman to go ahead and that I’d take over covering the rear. He left, and I waited a while. I was listening for some sort of signal to make my crossing. Several minutes passed without hearing a sound.

Looking back, sending the Doc across by himself was my biggest, dumbest mistake. Though Corpsmen assigned to Marine units do receive infantry training, it’s usually on how we generally operate, how to stay out of the way, and how to survive. Detailed patrolling techniques aren’t usually included. Don’t get me wrong. You want the Doc there. He is the Number One guy you want to keep alive. That’s why I should have crossed with him. We would have had a better chance of marrying up with the patrol.

That thought crossed my mind as I made my decision to move out. I stayed low, moved slow. Then, I reached a hedgerow on the other side. That creek bed could not have been more than ten to fifteen yards across. I nestled into the far side of the bush and whispered as softly as I could, “Doc”.

There was no reply, only silence. Again, I whispered, “Doc”. I knew I was in trouble because catching up to the Company and rejoining the patrol was just as dangerous as being out there on my lonesome. If they stopped, the squad leaders would have probably put out rear security with some fire teams in some sort of ambush to prevent any enemy from sneaking up behind them. I didn’t want to run into that.

The only thing left for me to do was to move in the direction that I thought the Company was headed. I knew we had been heading east because that was the direction which the gate in our perimeter faced. I figured they would be heading north. The only thing to the south was the encampment of the 12th Marines Field Artillery. So, I turned left, found a trail and inched my way along it. It was so damned dark I had to move in a crouch and feel my way along. As it was, I was moving at a pretty good pace.

After a few hours of this, maybe three or four, I stopped and took stock of my situation. I was separated from my Company; I was lost; I was in enemy territory; I couldn’t see a damned thing; I couldn’t break radio silence, and the Company probably didn’t know that I was missing. I decided to find a place to hole up until daylight. It had to be a place where no one would want to look for me. I thought about Brer Rabbit telling Brer Fox “Oh! Please! Not the briar patch! Don’t throw me in the briar patch!” Funny, but when you’re in a world of shit, childhood stories come back to you.

I found a batch of under growth which seemed to be rife with some vines. I nestled into it, pulling as much vegetation over me to hide myself really good. God! I wanted to go to sleep. I was so damned tired. But, I forced myself to stay awake. My hearing perked up. I had already turned off the radio for two reasons: one, nobody would be on the net until daylight and, two, I didn’t want some random transmission to come across which might possibly be heard by somebody who might not like me.

It was a while, maybe an hour or so after I had snuggled into my hiding place when I first heard the noises. It sounded like a bunch of people carrying pots and pans with all of them clinking and clanking together. Then, I heard them speak. If they were a patrol, they were pretty lousy at it. There were loud shouts in Vietnamese, almost cursing, I suppose. Apparently, some of the locals had been pressed into service as “mules” by the Viet Cong.

Well, I sure picked one hell of a spot to try to hide out. Their patrol, about fifteen to twenty people passed right over my head. I mean, within inches of my helmet. I had to think if I had shaved the day before because I was afraid one of them might get a scent of after shave.

I had two M 26 fragmentation grenades, two smoke grenades (one of which was always red) and one white phosphorous illumination grenade. After this bunch passed me by, I thought about throwing the WP and following it up with the M 26’s and my M 16. The only problem was that the WP grenade took a couple of seconds to pop open and ignite. If I allowed that, these clowns could find cover, and I’d be in deeper than I was. And, I didn’t know if any more of them were coming along to join the party.

After about twenty to thirty minutes, I felt confident enough to go find a better spot to hide in. I worked my way to some high ground, a little knoll where I found myself bumping into tombstones. I was in a cemetery. I knew the Vietnamese considered these places sacred, so I felt pretty safe. I found a good hiding spot between a tree and a grave marker and settled in until daylight.

At first light, I fired up my radio, an AN/PRC 25. It was pre-set to the Company frequency and I tried to raise Sergeant Zaidinski. The radio had two antennas, one called a “brush” antenna and the other called a “whip”. The brush antenna looked like a swamp reed and didn’t attract much attention. Using the whip was like raising Old Glory. The trade off was that the whip extended the range of the radio about four times. I used the brush.

I didn’t get a response, so I knew that the Company was more than just a few clicks away. I clicked on to the Battalion net and put out a “Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.”

Still, no response. The damn radio was useless. I even went to the crisis “freak”, 48 Kilos and put out another “Mayday”. Nothing happened. I took the antenna off. The way I figured it was that if a gook saw me with a box on my back, he might think it was something other than a radio.

I took inventory of my situation. Off to my left was a village at the base of some hills. To my right, about a mile away, I could make out Highway 1 and the South China Sea. o my front and rear were rice paddies, each one broken apart about every fifty yards with a paddy dike.

It was like being home. If Lake Michigan is on your left, you gotta be heading south. Well, the ocean was my lake, and Highway 1 was my Lake Shore Drive.

I thought about going over to Highway 1 and just walking on back to the Artillery Road. But, I didn’t know how far north I was. There were little hooches interspersed all along the road and if I did walk down it, maybe some VC would pop out and shoot me in the back as I passed by. So, the road was ruled out.

Then, I thought about working my way up into the jungle behind the village. That was easy to say no to. Either their guys or ours might be hiding up there, and navigating through it would have taken a long time. Also, I knew we always left behind mechanical ambushes that could be tripped at any time.

So, I decided to work my way south through the rice paddies. I could use the dikes for cover and look back to check if I had any company. I would keep in the center, between Highway 1 and the road below the hills which also ran north and south and which connected all the villages. The way I figured it, this way would give me some reaction time from any direction. Also, I switched the radio back on and tried a few “Maydays” on several frequencies without a response. I kept doing that about every half hour.

The more I moved, the more tired I got. It had been one hell of a night. Moving fifty yards at a time, then stopping behind a paddy dike to survey my rear end was starting to wear on me. After about four hours, the little road south of a village looked really inviting.

That road was pretty well elevated, and it was, in a lot of places, graded higher than the paddy dikes as it blended into hillsides. Where the road was in open areas, it stood well above the rice paddies, maybe five to ten feet. The shoulders of the roads were covered with stones which provided for excellent drainage. The damn stones made climbing up the slope really hard, like climbing up a hill covered in marbles. After one try, I gave up and then found a place where the road was even with a trail, and I moved on to it.

I moved south for a while keeping sight of Highway 1. Occasionally, I could see the ocean, or maybe it was a bay. But, I knew I was headed in the right direction. I stopped quite often and found cover, waited a few minutes and checked behind me to see if I had anyone following me.

Time passed, and I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. Damn, I don’t remember ever being so tired. My head was down, and all I was doing was shuffling my feet.

Ho Chi Minh sandals! Jesus Christ! That’s what I saw. A pair of Ho Chi Minh sandals a few yards in front of me. I dropped to one knee, aimed my M14 and started to pull the trigger. When I looked at my target, it was a little, old, frail Vietnamese man in black pajamas. I mean, I almost wasted the guy.

He smiled at me and pointed to a village off to my right. Hell, I didn’t even notice it; I was walking like a complete drone, an idiot, not checking things out for maybe the last half hour. I tried communicating, but the two of us were not going very far with that effort. I made a motion with my hand for the old man to turn around. I gave him a little push in the back and waved with the back of my hand as if to say, “Go. Go.” He led me around the village, and when we got well south of it, I pointed to the village and said, “Go.” I think he understood, “Go.”

I watched the old guy go back to the “ville” just to make sure he didn’t meet with anyone to tell them about me. I headed south again.

A person gets weird thoughts when one is out in a world of shit like this. I don’t exactly remember what the hell I was thinking about. Always thought about home, broads, cold beer. But, at that moment, all I was thinking about was to keep on moving, checking around me and looking for cover if I needed it.

The road had narrowed to the point that it would have been barely passable by a “Mighty Mite”, a small Jeep. But, then I looked up and saw something beautiful, a big pile of dirt called “Red Hill”. I was almost home. I still wasn’t going to go through those woods. I kept my distance from them, moving east, then south again.

Those woods were like a little finger that came down from the hills toward the east. They were pretty rough to traverse through, and our guys would often set up ambushes in them to protect our perimeter. Heck! I’m talking as if those trees were alive. And, they were. Alive with ambushes and booby-traps. I had to work my way around them.

I kept a good a hundred fifty, maybe two hundred yards off the tree line. I worked my way into an open area where I could finally see the bunkers along Artillery Road. I went straight for them. I knew there were a couple of more obstacles left, like the Claymores the guys were supposed to take back in each morning. One thing I didn’t need was for some idiot to grab his “clicker” and light me up with a bunch of BB’s.

My rifle was slung over my shoulder as I crossed the open area. I kept my hands out where they could be seen. Finally, I got about twenty feet away from the bunker in the middle of the road when the Marine on top of it asked, “You Czarnowski?”

“Yeah.” I replied.

“Five more minutes and you’re MIA.” I looked at my watch. It was five minutes until noon.

Wait a minute. The Marine Corps had to wait until noon to make me an MIA? What the hell, I was missing in action the whole goddam night! Wasn’t anybody looking for me? And, what would have happened if I got there ten minutes later? The Corps send out a message to my folks? Would an Officer and NCO show up at my house? “Jesus,” I thought, that would throw my Mom into the extreme Rosary mode, from four to maybe ten a day. And the Old Man had a bad heart. He didn’t need any bad news.

I made my way past my bunker to the gate in the barbed wire fence. I got to the CP and found my bunk, actually just a folding cot, stowed my rifle and my gear, took off my boots and went to sleep. Nobody said a word to me, and no one woke me up for any kind of duty. I slept in until the next afternoon, even after the Company came back. I was not debriefed or interrogated about anything that happened. So, I didn’t say anything. Maybe India Company had invented “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” thirty years before its time, but in a different area. I do know one thing, everyone looked at me as if I was some kind of nut, someone who was a little whacko. Maybe I was a little jumpy, or I had a real goofy look on my face or one hell of a bad attitude.

About a week later, Stan Zaidinski told me that there was going to be a Company formation, and that I was getting some kind of an award. Hell, that was rare. The Company never formed up. We hadn’t had a formation since we were regrouping while on the beach in Chu Lai.

There were a bunch of us called out in front of the rest of the Company. Some Battalion brass was there to pin on medals and hand out certificates. Then, the Company Commander got to me. The First Sergeant stepped forward to read my award.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. More or less, it said that my job didn’t normally require combat. Hell! Did they miss me being thrown over the side of a Mike boat on Deckhouse I, being chased down the road by a machine gun on Nathan Hale, or what we all went through on Operation Hastings? What about all the County Fairs and bunker watch? What the hell was going on?

I don’t remember hearing Top read the rest of the citation. I read it later when I got back to the CP. I had been awarded “The Marine Corps Plastic Stomach Window” (a “plastic stomach window” is what a real asshole was issued to ensure he could see where the hell he was going because he had his head stuck up so far his ass) for finding my way back after that patrol, the “Vietnamese Cross of Laundry” for the largest laundry bag in the Company, and the “Boy Scout Little Help Award” for assisting a fellow Marine by carrying him to and from a mess hall after he had broken his leg. Three awards in one day. That would have made me the most decorated Marine in the Battalion. There was a mention of my Polish ancestry to explain why I was so dumb. Well, whoever wrote it didn’t know that I’m half Irish.

A lot of guys came up to me and told me to pitch a bitch. What I had done had just been demeaned in an effort to make a joke in a lame effort to raise morale. It didn’t take long to find out whose big idea this was. It wasn’t anyone from India.

I thought about it for a while. Hell, I was a Short Timer and all I wanted was to go home. I didn’t want to stir up any shit. Was I bitter about the way I was treated? No. Just disappointed. I don’t hold grudges.

Thirty years later, I ran into the guy whose bright idea was to promote this farce. I told him I still had my “Plastic Stomach Window” and that it had served me well over the years. As he smiled back, we shook hands.

Maybe you could say it’s all in the family.

Author/Jerry Czarnowski