Day 24, Operation Pegasus, Hill 471
April 1968
Rick Rockholt
Company D, 2/12th Cavalry

 

April 6th …  we moved by helicopter to Hill 471 just 1500 meters south of the Marine base at Khe Sanh.  The Marines had been fighting back and forth with the NVA for several days for the hill.  Dead NVA bodies lay scattered about and as we climbed to the summit the smell of death was everywhere. 

 

After setting up a defensive perimeter our platoon scouted the hillside policing up several weapons and burying NVA soldiers.  There was call on the radio to come to a location about half way down the hill.  The guys had found something.  I packed up my radio and picked my way down to a small group standing over a body.  “Look at this guy’” one of them said.  “This is no NVA”!  The dead soldier was dressed in a khaki uniform, kaki cap and had on what looked like canvas tennis shoes.  There was a red star on the front his hat and he wore a leather belt with pistol holster with a red star on it too.  His face was shaped different than any other NVA any of us had ever seen and he was much larger.  “I think this guy is Chinese,” someone said. Everyone agreed that this was not an NVA regular.  I called the company commander and told him of the situation.  He instructed us to check the body for booby-traps, bag him up and carry him to the CP.  We did and that was the last we ever heard about the kaki-uniformed soldier.  We even asked battalion about him after operation Pegasus but no one seemed to know anything.  I believe the man was a Chinese advisor fighting with the NVA.

April 7th …  D company was sent to patrol the area in and around the village of Khe Sanh.  We headed out in a single file line with 3rd platoon walking point.  The area around Khe Sanh had been pummeled with artillery and air strikes for months.  The ground was completely denuded of all vegetation.  I remember a cloud of dust rising to our knees as we walked.  

Along the way I saw a half crushed human skull lying on the ground.  There were no other bones, just the skull.  If it had been an enemy soldier he was likely blown into pieces by a B-52 strike.   “What a terrible way to die”, I thought to myself.  An icy shiver ran down my spine. I nearly had the same thing happen to me with the artillery shell a couple of days earlier. 

My naive conception of death in war was far from the reality I was experiencing.  There was nothing heroic or glamorous about it.  Death was sudden and violent; certainly not the epic hero’s death depicted in John Wayne movies or the Sgt. Rock comics I idolized. 

Several hundred meters from perimeter of the firebase at Khe Sanh village Lipsie stopped the column and he and I scouted ahead alone.  There was absolutely no cover of any kind between the perimeter and us.  A chilling feeling of apprehension mixed with adrenalin surged through me as I followed Lipsie.  “What were we getting ourselves into?”  As we entered the perimeter evidence of a horrific firefight was everywhere.  Hundreds of scattered brass cartridge casings glittered in the sun.  The ground was pot-holed with giant bomb craters and destroyed bunkers.

“You check out the bunkers that way and I will check out the one’s to the left”, Lipsie said.  I cautiously walked towards the first bunker about 25 meters away.   Between the bunker and myself was a single snag of a tree, its leaves and limbs blown off.  All that was left was a scared and burnt trunk that branched into a fork about 10 to 12 feet off the ground.  I had gotten within 20 feet of the snag when I noticed a wire hanging down.  Stopping, my eyes followed the wire up the snag.  If I could have pissed I would have, the wire led to a claymore mine wedged in the forks facing directly at me. I felt the blood rush from my head.  My first instinct was to dive to the ground but I realized that would not get me out of danger.  My mind raced.  No matter what I did there was no way I could get out of the claymore’s kill zone before an enemy could squeeze the trigger.  I was scared so badly I was frozen in place!  “I’m dead, I thought.  “Any second now that mine is going off and I’m dead.”  I followed the wire down the snag to the ground moving only my eyes.  It ran across the dirt towards the bunker I was headed for.  My imagination ran wild.  I knew there had to be an enemy soldier in that bunker and he was pressing the trigger of the claymore.   My teeth clinched and my head flinched down and away from the anticipated blast.  But none came.  I opened my eyes and started following the wire again with them.  There, just 2 feet from the bunker’s window the wire lay in a frayed coil with the bare end clearly sticking up into the air.  The whole incident had taken but a few seconds.  I gasped for breath as if I had been holding it for minutes.  It seemed an eternity before I could move again.

I quickly ducked away from the snag and out of the claymore’s kill zone.  I turned to warn Lipsie 50 meters away checking out another bunker.  “Watch it”, I yelled.  “I just found a claymore in that tree!”  Lipsie looked up, nodded acknowledgement, but his attention was focused on the bunker he was advancing on.

Between the next two bunkers I noticed deep gouges in the ground.  As I looked I could see there were two sets of these gouge marks.  (I’m from Oregon and have seen bulldozer tracks from logging operations while deer hunting)  “A bulldozer, why would anyone have a bulldozer here?” I half said out loud to myself.  The tracks were all around.  Again I yelled over to Lipsie, “Hey Lipsie, there are bulldozer tracks all over the place!”  He looked around and answered back, “I don’t think those are bulldozer tracks, they may be tank tracks.”  “What!” I yelled back, “Tanks?”  “Tanks,” Lipsie repeated, “the NVA could have used tanks to over run this firebase.”

Webmaster Note: Although PT-76 tanks were used to overrun the Laotian outpost at Ban Houei Sane in January 1968 and in the battle of the Lang Vei Special Forces camp in February 1968 there is no recorded evidence that NVA tanks were used in the January battle for Khe Sanh village.

Here we were, Lipsie had a CAR-15 and a couple of frags and I had a M-16 and a prick 25 radio, the rest of the unit was several hundred meters away and could offer no help if the tanks decided to show up again. I was shaking again and wanted to get the Hell out of this place now.  Two lone soldiers playing Recon was beyond scary. 

It wasn’t long before Lipsie called in a situation report to the CO and he and I returned to the rest of the unit.  

Our company went on to check out the area around the village of Khe Sanh for the next several days.  We found some NVA weapons, gear and food but did not make contact with any enemy forces. 

April 11th …  The battalion was pulled out of Khe Sanh and sent to LZ Stud again.  As darkness approached we broke into a food storage container and took gallon cans of fruit cocktail and diced pineapple.  We sat around that night stuffing ourselves with the canned fruit.  I ate until I was nearly sick.  I don’t remember if I had the shits the next day or not, but I do know that to this day I do not like fruit cocktail or pineapple.

April 12th …  From LZ Stud we went to Camp Evans and then on to LZ Jane to do LZ perimeter security and do patrols.

After returning from Khe Sanh I came to the realization that when and if my time comes, it comes.  There is nothing I can do about it. 

I was no longer “scared.”  There was still “fear”. I know I am playing with words but to me there is a great difference.  Being scared leads to irrational actions and can get you and everyone around you killed. 

Fear is different.  Fear is the everyday function of a soldier.  Fear makes a soldier calculating and decisive.

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