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It
was mid to late August 1967 and my track gets its first taste of "fresh
meat", a new guy is rotating in. His
name was Evenrude and his duty was to be a replacement cannoneer on A-141. The Good News: his arrival meant that some of us were getting short, and
close to be going home. The Bad News: We find out that we are on your way to
make yet another trip to Gio Linh for another 2 week tour of the DMZ. Back to the same old grind of ducking and dodging incoming enemy fire.
After a couple days up there we get a call in the afternoon to assist the
Marines just inside the DMZ. The
patrol had found itself some trouble and they needed help. With our sister track (A-142) we hooked up with two M-48 tanks loaded
with Marine infantry and headed north.
There
we were cutting and blazing our own trail through the woods when Evenrude, the
F.N.G. (F'ing New Guy), taps me on the shoulder and says, "Paul, there's a
gook with a gun out there in the woods, what should I do?"
I look up from the gunner's position and say "Shoot the
Mother F'er". Just then that he
tells me that the gook vanished. Several
minutes later we turned left out of the brush and broke into a clearing where
there was a just enough to get the tanks in front of us to stop,
identify the targets and make sure that each unit knew what was happening.
Ahead of us the land was mostly cleared. To the left of our track, there was a 5-foot deep valley and just beyond
that was a grass hut. Just then, out of the corner of my eye I see some rapid
movement coming out of the valley. What
do I see? A gook charging the tank
in front of us with his rifle at port arms. I grab my M-16 with one hand and with my other hand I grab the sight bar
from the gunner's position and I stand up. I begin to raise my M-16 to shoot the gook when a Marine with an M-60
machine gun jumped off the threatened tank and just opened up on him sending his
bloody body back into the depths of the ditch.
Just then our tack commander, Sgt. Hought, instructed us to destroy the
grass hut in the field with our twin 40's. Within seconds the hut was mulch. By that time the Marine tanks had spread out and there was a clear field
of fire in front of us. Sgt. Hought
called up to us again and directed us to sweep with our guns the far edge of the
clearing that was about a quarter mile from where we were sitting. As we were peeling off the rounds, we can see body parts flying into the
air as our shells exploded. It only
took a short quick sweep with the guns and the party was over. The North Vietnamese Army (NVA) slithered back into the woods and was
gone as usual. So we dutifully
headed back again to Gio Linh for another day of the usual, ducking and
dodging.
- Paul Gronski
Next: AWESOME SIGHT
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