WET BAMBOO

BY TROOPER JERRY MCLAIN

B COMPANY 2/12

VIETNAM

JUNE 1967

                Our platoon made an air assault into a dry rice paddy on the east side of the town of Bong Song and on the south side of the Bong Song Bridge.  We needed to link up with the rest of B Company so we crossed the river on a floating pontoon bridge that had been constructed by the U.S. Army Engineers.  The VC or NVA sappers had destroyed the main highway bridge by dropping the center span into the river.  It was really hot here in the Bong Song Plains.  We had been clearing LZ's on the high ridge tops in the Central Highlands, where it had been hot, but not quite this hot and humid.

We linked up with the rest of our company on the north end of the old railroad bridge.  The old iron railroad bridge had been converted to highway traffic with the addition of heavy wooden planks placed on the bridge deck.  It was just wide enough for one lane of traffic.

Our platoon began building several new bunkers near where Highway One turned to go onto the converted railroad bridge.  By the second day we had the bunkers nearly finished.  Our bunkers were located near a little bamboo shanty used by the villagers during the day to sell cold beer and cold Coke to us GI’s.  They had a variety of other junk for sale under the shade of the shanty.  At night the villagers would all disappear into either the village to the north, or across the bridge to the town of Bong Song.

I noticed an old Vietnamese man with long white chin whiskers sitting on the ground in the shade of the shanty.  He was busily working, sharpening a knife on a big smooth sandstone.  He looked a lot like the pictures of Ho Chi Minh that I had seen during training.  He was sharpening some of our fellow troopers bayonets and knives.  I had just gotten a brand new machete a few days earlier off the log ship.  I walked back to my pack and got my new machete.  It still had the factory edge on it, which meant you couldn’t cut much with it.  I gave the old man my machete to sharpen.  He nodded and smiled when I handed him the machete.  His broad smile showed off his one remaining tooth.  He worked on my machete the rest of the day, in the shade of the shanty, while we worked nearby filling sandbags in the hot broiling sun.  In the late afternoon I went back to see how the old man was doing and to make sure he didn't run off with my machete.  He was just about finished working.  I gave him two cans of ham and lima beans for working on my machete all day.  He was happy and smiled again.  When I checked the blade for sharpness I found that I could shave the hair off my arm with it!  I carefully put it back into its canvas sheath in my backpack.

A few days later we received word that we would be flying to a place called Dak-To.  The NVA were hitting the airborne troops at  Dak-To really hard.  We were sent up there to help them out.  We flew to Dak-To on C-130's out of the airstrip at LZ English.

After spending one day near the airstrip at Dak-To, our battalion made a combat air assault into the big hills to the west of Dak-To, near the Cambodian boarder.  It was rainy and cool here in Dak-To.  The 2/12 Battalion split into two groups as we pushed into the wooded hills.  Almost immediately we began to see signs of enemy activity.  Well-worn trails with neatly made steps on the steep slopes.  The main trails ran up and down along the ridge tops.  Smaller intersecting trails went down the steep hillsides toward the valleys below.  We found bamboo bridges had been constructed across the streams.   We also found resting areas with cooking fire pits, which were usually located, near the streams.  Soon we stumbled across a large cache of enemy weapons.  We found a number of AK-47 and SKS rifles along with thousands of rounds of ammo.  A large number of RPG launchers along with the rockets, were in the same pit.  In another pit nearby we found a large number of mortar rounds.  The pits had been hastily covered with some brush.  It took a while to get all the enemy weapons removed from the hiding places and ready to load into the log ship.  The company commander told us to form a perimeter around this hilltop and to dig in for the night.

We formed a large two-company perimeter on the hilltop.  Our squad started digging our foxholes while two men from our squad started clearing a field of fire in front of our positions.  There was a natural clearing on one side of the hilltop, which would serve as a LZ.  A light rain was falling as we prepared to spend the night on this hilltop.  Brush and bamboo grew thick in the area where we needed to clear our fields of fire.  One of the guys in our squad was out there hacking on the bamboo and brush with his machete.  The other guy was trying to use an entrenching tool to cut the bamboo.  I could see he wasn't making much progress clearing the brush.  As I continued to work on our foxhole I asked him if he would like to use my machete, which was still in my backpack.   He gladly accepted my offer.  I warned him that I had just had it sharpened and that it was really sharp.  He went back to work clearing the bamboo.  A few minutes later as he was chopping into the slick wet bamboo the razor sharp machete glanced off and hit him in the palm of the hand.  He dropped the machete and came back to the hooch we had just built holding his hand.  I took one look at his hand and called the medic.  Our platoon medic treated his wound with what equipment he had and told the man that he would have to be sent back to the field hospital for stitches.  The problem was that the last log ship, loaded with enemy weapons, had already left the LZ.  That was the last out going flight for the night and the rain and fog were closing in fast.  The captain said he didn't want to risk bringing in another helicopter for a cut hand.  There was no way for us to get our buddy the real medical treatment he needed.  We took his field dressing from his web gear and tied it as tightly as we could around his hand to try to stop the bleeding.  Nothing we did would slow the flow of blood.  In a mater of minutes the field dressing was soaked with blood.  He was really scared since he thought he was going to bleed to death.

I went out in front of our position and found my machete where he had dropped it.  Using the machete I cut a piece of bamboo about three feet long and sharpened one end.  Using an entrenching tool we drove the bamboo stake into the ground inside our hooch next to where our fellow trooper was laying.  He was shaking partly from being scared and partly from being wet and cold.  After we got the stake driven into the dirt we took a cord from a poncho and used it to tie his hand and arm to the top of the bamboo stake.  We were trying to keep the bleeding hand as high as possible.  It was dark by now and we didn't have any light so we couldn't see how badly his hand was bleeding.  I went to the medic's hooch and borrowed his flashlight, which only had a red lens.  We tried to see how much blood he was loosing but it was impossible to see the red blood with a red light.  We told our injured fellow trooper that the blood was slowing down and that he would be fine.  We covered him up with a spare poncho to try to keep him warm and gave him some water to drink.  We were trying to keep him from going into shock.

We kept watch from our position near a muddy foxhole through the long rainy night.  Our injured squad member was moaning with pain and fear in the darkness inside our hooch.  By morning, when the darkness began to fade, we could see the blood soaked field dressing.  We untied his arm and hand when we heard the approaching medivac helicopter.   Our fellow trooper was shivering and cold when we loaded him into the hovering helicopter.  Seconds later he was gone.