Vietnam War Timeline

391
9 February 1968
Charlie 1/35th
Submitted by: Terry Lance

In the days leading up to Feb 9, it almost seemed like vacation. Since the Tet Offensive of \'68 was in full progress and C Co. 1/35 was sitting on a small mountain top a couple klicks outside LZ Baldy not doing much at all. All the major cities were getting hit hard by Viet Cong.

Finally, taking the short ride back to LZ Baldy and getting resupplied, word comes down we are to move into an area called Hoi An that is supposed to be a really bad area that the marines were supposed to be taking care of, but haven\'t touched in two years.

From the start of the Hoi An operation we new we were in a bad area. Seems like every morning and evening we would get snipered at. It got to the point that every evening Bill Rieman and I would be sitting taking a break after digging our fox holes for the night betting each other who could get to the foxhole first when the sniper shot, and it seems like he always shot a minute or two after we had made our bet.

Every day searching village after village. Finding only women and small children, not even any old men to speak of. Finding lots of rice and rice caches even a few pigs. Seems like we covering a lot of country but were a step behind all the time. Had a bad feeling about this place the whole time. Just knew they were there (NVA) but couldn\'t seem to catch them.

February 8th was another day of burning quite a few hootches and covering lots of ground. A couple hours before dark we set up a night location in a dry rice paddy. About 150 feet on the other side of the bamboo was a well worn path that was wide and well traveled. Soon after dark trip flares went off on the well worn path. As we had figured the NVA were right outside our night location. Having been discovered, the NVA started yelling at us in English, \"GI you die tomorrow!\" and laughing. A little unnerving but not that big of a deal. The rest of the night was pretty quiet if I remember correctly.

Hanging around the night location in the morning everything seemed pretty laid back. Waiting on resupply and orders for the day, it was just more relaxed than it had been in quite a few days.

Resupply came in with mail, the first in a week, and a new kind of C-rations which put everyone in a good mood. Word came down from battalion that we only had to move a couple of klicks today. We could take our time and check everything extra close.

Saddling up and moving out of the night location, 4th platoon was last out. About 50 yards out of the night location we started getting fire from a patch of bamboo and mortar rounds from god knows where pushing us a little deeper into the ambush. Picking Paul Aubin up after he badly twisted his knee, the platoon moved against a rice paddy dyke and into a small pagoda under heavy fire. Later standing in the pagoda a radio message came over that ARVN\'s were coming in behind 2nd platoons position. Actually they were yelling that they were ARVN\'s don\'t shoot when they were really NVA. I\'m sure most all of them were killed but not before they tore up 2nd platoon pretty good.

Later one of the 4th platoon machine guns malfunctioned so I ran the spare ammo for it down the line. On my way back to the platoon I stopped a few feet away from the CP group. Captain Collins and the 1st Sgt. were discussing getting up on line and charging the enemy (Every Infantryman\'s nightmare) things were that desperate. I had heard more than I wanted to hear so moved back to my old position. As soon as I got there I looked back to where I had been laying. A rocket from a gunship had hit right there. Cpt Collins, 1st Sgt. and a few more were wounded.

The battle went on till the evening when another company with some APCs got to us to help. Hundreds to maybe thousands of artillery rounds of 155 from LZ Baldy and 105 from the little firebase we went to on Feb 10 fired for us. I hear tell that even the USS New Jersey fired for us. That night on guard all night we watched the Vietnamese in pajamas police the battlefield for weapons, wounded or dead. I\'m sure these were civilians made to do this.

That night when Cpt. Collins walked the perimeter checking on everyone, thanking all the men, knowing we probably would not see him again, he made us feel like good soldiers even though we felt like we had had our ass kicked. In truth we had kicked some serious NVA ass.