There the side of the mountain fell away at about a 45 degree angle, and we had maybe 60 or 70 yards cleared out for a clean “field of fire.”  A ravine was on past our cleared area.  There were, if I recall properly, about three strands of coiled French concertina, “razor wire.”  Plus several other strands of just plain old barbed wire.  The whole area was booby trapped with numerous cans in the wire, to detect any movement, plus there were illumination flares, Foo Gas barrels, and Claymore Mines.  Foo Gas was nasty stuff, a mixture of napalm, diesel fuel, and some kind of detergent to help it stick to what ever it landed on, rather that just run off like a liquid.  The Foo Gas was mixed and poured into some kind of container, (usually a drum, or artillery round tube container) and they were usually at least half buried and sandbagged behind it (towards us) so that when it was detonated, it would blow out towards the bad guys.  Most of the time the Foo Gas was blown with a charge of C4, using a electrical blasting cap and a squeeze detonator.

My first “Mad Minute” brought a slight amount of trepidation, as I didn't know quite what to expect.  I kind of had images of “little people” coming at us in mass through the coils of concertina, razor wire.  Actually, the OIC (Officer In Charge) would call for the Mad Minute if there was something suspect happening outside our perimeter.  The word was passed and everyone would go on the firing line in their defensive positions.  So the whole mountain top perimeter was heavily manned within just a couple minutes.  Everyone had their “overlapping fields of fire” covered.  All or a sudden a Pop UP hand flare would go “woosh, pop” and the brightness of the flare would burn for about 40 to 45 seconds.  During that time everyone would open up with everything they had.  It was actually just short of a minute of “Final Protective Fire.”

The noise and din of a Mad Minute was unbelievable.  I could usually empty four full magazines of 18 rounds, and be ready to go with one more by the time the flare flickered and extinguished.  Personally, I didn't like to put tracers in my rifle magazines, but some of the guys did which only added to the spectacle.  It was always an extremely exciting time with a huge adrenaline rush.  I understand that the 105mm howitzers had flechette (little nails with fins) canisters ready to be loaded and fired over the edge by lifting up the back of the gun, although I never witnessed that event.  Seems to me that the gun would have gone flying off the other side of the mountain - they weren't recoil-less rifles - you know!

A few times, rather than my M-16, I’d take my M-79 (Blooper) on the line and pop as many HE (High Explosive) rounds as I could in that short minute, but most of the time I’d just use the Blooper for “H & I” because we could do that at any time after dark.  It broke open just like a single shot, shotgun by using a little lever on the back of the gun.  When a 40mm round was inserted into the chamber, you'd just close it and fire.  Most anyone could fire three before the first one exploded by firing up at a 50 or 60 degree angle and letting the round fall into the ravine to our front. But, by being very familiar with the operation a person could usually get four rounds out before the first one exploded.  On two occasions, after setting the rounds along in a line on the sandbagged wall, and working the mechanism really fast there in the dark, I was able to get the last of five just squeezed off before the first detonation.  The Blooper wasn't really suitable for Mad Minutes though, because the object was to cover your own designated “field of fire” as thoroughly as possible in that short time span.

As soon as the flare extinguished, there was total silence on the whole FSB (Fire Support Base), as everyone listened intently.  Periodically, after an instant of listening someone would open up on a perceived sound, but almost always there was nothing but dead silence.  Any enemy probes or reconnoitering had been quashed.

Once a Mad Minute was called because of some noise in the trash pile a couple hundred feet down on the left of our position, near the salient that extended over towards the other ridge.  That was where the bend in the mountain top formed an elbow, and where the trash chute was located.  Woosh, Pop went the flare, and everyone opened up in their own field of fire, but then we immediately saw movement down to our left.  It was a big cat of some kind or other, that went bounding in huge leaps, towards the protection of the ravine.  Immediately, a couple score of guns shifted fire towards the cat, and the ground erupted behind it, but I never saw any indication of anybody actually hitting the thing.  The next day a patrol that covered that section of the perimeter and beyond happened to find the body and brought it back up.  Then the carcass was displayed for all to see there by the LZ.  I have no idea what kind of “cat” it was, though it was pretty big, seems like maybe 60 or 70 pounds.  He sure had been a pretty thing before carelessly making noise in his reconnoiter of our trash area.  I guess it was an NVA cat.
Di Dah, Di Da Dit - Chuck Truitt sends top

Chuck Truitt - Take This, You Rat! - October, 1969
On top of Dong Ha mountain, FSB Fuller in the fall of 1969 I think that some of those guys from the "Grunt" Company of 2/4 were cheating! I don't know how, but they just had to be cheating because their rat body-count was growing rapidly, faster than mine. I'm sure some of them must have been pooling their kills. I had shot two with my 45 (man that makes a mess, but not as much as the story I'm about to relate) but I had missed a couple times. Unfortunately, I had put a bit of a ding in the leg of one of the cots. It's hard to aim well enough to hit a rat in subdued light, and we had to have the light low to get those NVA rats to come out far enough to see them, usually. I say usually, because sometimes they'd appear right there - nearby - when you least expect it, and weren't ready. By the time you get your 45, and chamber a round - well - "no workie" if you know what I mean. Well, we had been fooling around with an M-26 grenade, I had field stripped the thing, and popped the cap on it, which "twanged my twanger" into thinking about increasing my NVA rat body-count (now Joe Armstrong, don't go getting ballistic on me here, again!).

I got a bunch of electrical blasting caps, the kind that we used with the claymore mines, and a little hand squeeze detonator. After pulling the cots away from the dirt wall, I proceeded to put a cap in each rat hole, and run a wire to my rack. After completing that part of the FireEx, I donned my flack jacket and helmet, lit an 81mm mortar, twisted wax candle, then sat quietly waiting. My idea was to insert the proper wire into the detonator when a rat appeared, and squeeze that thing. The problem was, those NVA rats were slick. They didn't appear and look out of the hole to check if it was all clear, then come on out. That's what I was hoping for, and expecting. Nope! It was woosh, those rats were already moving by the time I could see them. Over a period of a couple days, the only thing I was doing was scaring little rat poopies out of them, enlarging the holes in the dirt wall, and getting dirt all over the guys cots. I did manage to make a real mess of one rat who must have had a brain seizure when he saw me, because he made the fatal mistake of going back into his hole, just as I gave "The Squeeze." Whammo, and then a big gob of rat guts, fur, and a leg went splut on top of the guys cot next to me. (Did you ever stop to consider how long rat intestines are?) I quickly got rid of the mess and I'm sure that Marine (I'll not tell you who it was) never had any idea what happened for several reasons. First off, every thing was filthy (the only water we ever had up there was heli-lifted to us in water blivets, or once in a water buffalo (there's a great story here) so we never washed our gear, and very rarely ourselves (I got a shower two and a half times (another story) in the over three months that I was at Fuller, and both of those time was on re-supply runs to Dong Ha. One of those times the water heater caught fire while I was in the shower (I'll let one of you other guys from Dong Ha, who remembers it better than I, relate that story). Secondly, it was just a blood stain on the poncho liner which quickly dried, and it was dark in there anyhow. Those grunts wouldn't count my rat in the body count because it wasn't all there. They said "someone else might turn in the rest of the rat and it'd get counted twice." Oh, yea! - thirdly, the other guys were over in the Ops bunker doing the SigInt thing, or playing "Back Ally," or "Spades" or something; I was the only one who saw the results/mess. Well I did get another rat never-the-less. But, I stopped trying to blow-up the rats because it wasn't all that productive, and it was really messy. Plus, they didn't count the rat, and I didn't want to waste a good kill for nothing. top

Chuck Truit - An Eerie Sucking Sound - November, 1969
By mid November 1969, atop Dong Ha Mountain there in the Republic of Vietnam, things had changed greatly from just a few weeks earlier. As time moved on, the weather became cooler, and there was beau coup (a lot) more cloud cover. I had mixed emotions about the whole situation. I loved being there and especially working DF. Yet, on an immediate and local level it seemed that the wind quit making the usual woooing sounds, but rather, it seemed to make an uncanny sucking sound as it blew down across Mutter's Ridge and the DMZ from the communist north or from Leatherneck Square to the east. All of a sudden we were the only Marines there on the mountain. The army had arrived in the next step of our president's plan of Vietnamization. My mixed emotions, or ambivalence was that I loved my job, but at the same time the situation sucked. It was kinda like playing sports such as football, and motocross. I loved the sports, both in high school and later years. I played hard too but you gotta pay the price. For instance, I've managed to have sixteen broken bones in thirteen separate incidents. I love the activities, but sometimes the situation sucked. And, that's how it was in Vietnam.

It really was an important job; after all, we were fighting to keep the aggressor communists of the north from taking over the country. Looking back upon it now from a different perspective, or point of view I can also see that America's expenditure of blood and bucks ended up helping to stop the advance of communism on a world-wide level. We drained them and even the giant Soviet Union was defunct in twenty years.

During the day of November 17th, our own 1st Radio Battalion's SigInt efforts produced an incident very reminiscent of the one that greatly influenced the American victory at the Battle of Midway in WWII. In this particular event we found that a NVA regiment (my memory seems to tell me it was the 246th of the 304th Division) was in comms with an NVA arty unit. A combination that always spelled t-r-o-u-b-l-e for someone. Whenever any part of the 304th was on the move, somebody was going to die. And, amazingly it was them that always got hit way harder than us, but they'd just didi mau back across the DMZ, or into Laos. There they just regrouped, resupplied, rebuilt, and retrained with immunity their devastated elements, while awaiting for another time to create hate and discontent. We couldn't touch them there thanks to our all wise congress, who were greatly influenced by maggots like Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, and their blind and self centered followers. People like that were responsible for much American blood.

So the big question was, who would that lucky somebody be? Well, we had a tri-nome indicator that signaled who the somebody was that would have the honors. It's just that we weren't exactly sure who the three number indicator indicated. Possibly the tri-nome was C2, a fire support base that was just a little to our east, or possibly the Khe Gio bridge near the southern base of our mountain. It could also be Camp Elliot at the Rockpile, but then again, it could be us as well. Not knowing who caused us all to spin the dials on our radios more intently and I was purposed to locate them with my Pig (PRD-1 direction finder) atop our bunker in the Pig Pen.

Every American unit in the whole northern “I” Corps area was alerted that something was up. Everyone was on standby to assist the “chosen somebodies.” Every arty unit that could push out a round far enough with maximum charge was ready to participate. Every air unit was standing by to render assistance even though the cloud cover was heavy and no aircraft could drop bombs without possibly hitting the good guys.

Early in the evening, up in my Pig Pen, the speaker crackled, “All Stations, All Stations this is Florida Vacation Alpha with a message on Bravo Zulu; standby to receive traffic.” Net control at Dong Ha had a target for us. In just a short minute's time, I was sending my own traffic back which was a really good shot/bearing on the enemy transmission whom I believe was the 81st Artillery Battalion. It seems that they were to provide artillery support for the 246th as that infantry regiment made it's assault on the chosen somebody. But, who was chosen? We'd all find out soon enough.

I recall hearing the bru ha ha from the big boys (155mm and 175mm howitzers) at Dong Ha, Alpha 4, Charlie 2, and Camp Carroll as their big guns were firing on the enemy's 81st arty, at least on their radio operator. Seems like everybody was getting in on the action. So we thought we knew where their arty support was coming from, but we still had no location on the 246th, nor did we know who they were about to play “Patty Cake” with. For some reason I recall going back down into our operations bunker. Possibly because those big guns were impacting not too far from us, (danger close) and the rounds, especially the 175s from Camp Carroll were doing their “freight train impressions” as they passed just over our heads; just a slight mis-calc. or a short round would create beau coup “hate and discontent” right in our own perimeter. Some days I’d hear our 1st RagBag DF guy at Camp Carroll talking on our net radio frequency when the 175's, right near him, would start shooting in our direction, then he'd say something like “hey, Foxtrot (that's us at Fuller) you've got some ’Big Boys’ heading your way,” and sure enough, those 175 rounds would go roaring by. On this occasion, I recall being told across the radio that they were firing some kind of pattern to saturate the suspected target area with steel. Not being an artilleryman, was the term “shooting Iron Crosses” or something like that?

Regardless, for whatever reason, we were all in the bunker as Camp Carroll’s 175's were doing their fly-by. Those of us who were not actually on the radio (seems like our Dancers were the ones spinning the dials) were playing Back Alley. I distinctly remember that at 2130 hours we were all actively discussing who was going to get hit. All of a sudden I remembered that all my “deuce gear” was in our sleeping bunker next door. That required my leaving the entrance to our bunker, traversing the ledge and going into the other bunker to retrieve my flack jacket and junk. I recall standing at the entrance and saying “who's it gonna be.” “Not us” came the consensus, though the Dancers weren't saying much, but seemed rather shook up. One step along towards the other bunker, just one step and all of a sudden a great big KA-WAAAM . A B-41 (RPG) impacted right on the other side of the bunker entrance where I was headed. I felt the concussion, but continued into the other bunker, after just a slight pause, during which time I yelled back into the Ops. bunker, “It's Us! As if they hadn't already figured that out. Those RPGs were not accurate at all past fifty to a hundred yards, but they could be used as an indirect fire weapon for distances out to nine hundred yards or so. After the retrieval of my combat gear, to include my M-79, I went back to the Operations bunker where my rifle was, and all the other guys. Then NVA 82 mm mortars started dropping in on us, but kind of spread out, not nearly as heavy as I expected.

My memory is sketchy here, because I remember at sometime being along our sandbagged wall awaiting an enemy assault, as well as being in the Operations bunker. I also remember that we could hear the wonderful sound of the flares as they'd pop overhead, but we just couldn't tell exactly where they were at because of the thick cloud cover. We were definitely “socked-in.” In the bunker with our radios we could tune in to any frequency, one of which I recall was the “basketball ship.” It was a large aircraft that kept orbiting overhead and dropping those large drum sized flares. He stayed there for hours always keeping a flare in the air, and when one would leave another would take his place. Sometimes when a flare would be dropped a little too far away, or it'd drift too far, one of our 81mm mortars would pop a flare and there would be more light. It was always really eerie though as the parachutes would float down through the clouds. Sometimes they'd be real close and we'd hear the sizzle, feel the heat, and smell the fumes as it'd float by, then sputter and extinguish, sometimes just right there. I remember getting the call to return to my Pig Pen to get some RDF shots. The Pig was the very highest point on the mountain, and I could see a full 360 degrees all around - for a few feet that is - because of the clouds, that's really eerie you know, people trying to kill you and not being able to see anything.

It was just a little after the NVA mortars started coming in on us that we got the word from Dong Ha that the enemy 246th regiment would no longer be supported in their assault by the assigned artillery unit. Seems that they had been decimated by American Artillery. Ha! That means that we had saved our own butts! Our own Radio Direction Finding had located and caused our own big guns and howitzers to deliver steel on the enemy so that they could not support the ground assault. Evidently the 82's that were falling on us were indigenous to the NVA 246th regiment, because the artillery unit that we had destroyed probably would have used rockets and howitzers.

Although the mortars fell throughout the night, and an occasional RPG came slamming into something, the expected ground assault never materialized into anything that caused major concern, because as soon as we realized that we were the lucky somebodies, every arty unit within range started pumping steel in patterns all around our perimeter. The crescendo was intense at first but abated after awhile. I was told that there were more than a hundred dud 82mm NVA mortar rounds with their fins sticking up the next day, that had been dropped into our perimeter by the enemy. Possibly they were defective, maybe they just weren't detonating in the rain, and moisture softened earth. I know there a lot that weren't duds.

The next morning, the 18th of November 1969 as the light stabbed through the heavy clouds, all enemy activity had been completely non-existent for a few hours. There were no KIAs of ours and the WIAs were staged by the LZ to be medevaced as soon as a bird could get in. We could hear them overhead, above the cloud cover just watching for a hole. There were several of them, just orbiting around.

Ah, a hole appeared and zoom, in no time at all a bird appeared and set down right on that little LZ. It was unlike any bird that I had seen yet in Vietnam.

There were still several birds up above us but out of sight as it was a very fleeting hole. The pilot disembarked as well as the one, possibly two passengers. Ha! I couldn't believe my eyes. It was some civilian pilot and a Donut Dollie in her pretty blue dress. Must have come up from Quang Tri, where the nearest Red Cross folks were. Now possibly there were two of them, but it doesn't seem like that “whirleybird” was big enough to carry a pilot and two people. Regardless, they were there for a very short time before an army officer ran up screaming “get out of here, get out of here!” We had WIAs staged by the LZ awaiting a medevac to find a hole in the clouds. One of the WIAs was a lieutenant with a piece of steel shrapnel in his forehead; we needed BBs and stuff as well. Finally a hole broke and that's what we got, a sightseeing Donut Dollie? My memory mainly sees the blue dress and the soldier running up with his arms waving; if she'd a stuck around, probably she would have seen several Harvest Moons. Di Dah, Di Da Dit Chuck Truitt sends top