Guest Opinion: Remembering my Fourth of July in Tam Kỳ, Vietnam
There is daily news of threats to our country and its Constitution. The word “patriot” is bantered about and usually in a negative light. This daily barrage on the nightly news and cable TV makes me reflect on true patriots that I served with in Vietnam from 10/1967 to 10/1968. It also brings to mind one very memorable Fourth of July that I spent with some of those patriots. It was July 4, 1968 in Tam Kỳ, Vietnam.
Fifty-four years ago, at the age of 21, I found myself, a Buck Sgt., E-5, assigned to a 155-millimeter Howitzer Battalion, perched atop a ridge somewhere in the foothills west of the Vietnamese town of Tam Kỳ on LZ (Landing Zone) O’Conner.
My MOS (military occupational specialty) was artillery surveyor. My job at that time was to get coordinates and a true line of direction, a bearing, established for firing battery before the guns arrived via a flying crane. This was not an easy task: not only did we have to establish our exact location via a “sun shot”, we also needed cooperation from the weather, the units on the LZ and, of course, the Viet Cong, to get the job done. We got the shot done! We waited for our work to be verified via one of the guns firing based on our data and an aerial observer verifying the air burst exactly where he wanted to see one — on time and on target. The round registered, we were free to go.
It’s a funny thing about the Army, they would go head over heals to make sure you got to the fight but never cared much about how you got back. Being a “Division Artillery Unit”, we were sent just about everywhere they needed our services. That day, choppers were coming and going all day off the LZ so we started to look for a ride back to Chu Lai, our Battalion HQ. This was standard operating procedure — SOP — for us after those surveys. We knew full well, after seven months “in country” that this newly minted LZ was going to get hit around 2 a.m. This was almost a given with new LZs at that time in the war.
We snatched a ride with the mail chopper, a Huey Slick. Almost immediately, I noticed that this chopper was a little off. The door gunners looked a little rough — t-shirts, shortened fatigue pants, and even the pilots looked a little loose. But in Nam, a ride was a ride.
We climbed aboard — tripods, theodolite, records, satchel, weapons, ammo, etc.
The chopper took off as normal but not long into the flight the pilot dropped to treetop level “nap of the earth” I believe they call it. This was not SOP. We always flew at 3,200 feet and stayed over the LZ until reaching altitude in an effort to avoid ground fire. But these guys were doing something different. About this time, I noticed the door gunner closest to me pop a red smoke grenade and drop it into the basket aside his M60 — there was no bent link ammo in the basket — thank God. Then he popped a white smoke grenade, then a blue smoke grenade. The other door gunner was doing the same.
We were now flying at dangerous treetop level, streaming red, white and blue smoke down the fuselage. That’s when I realized they were celebrating the Fourth of July — in country — chopper style.
I think of these guys every Fourth of July. Surely some other unit or other choppers saw us coming out of the foothills streaming red, white and blue smoke. They may figured we were crashing or crazy or both.
I’m 75 and still alive. The father of five and the grandfather of six. Like veterans of every war I have memories that only those who served can share. I do so with pride in all of our true patriots and especially that chopper crew from 54 years ago.
Southampton resident Robert J Moffatt served in the 3rd Battalion, 16th Artillery, 23rd Infantry Division of the United States Army in Vietnam.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Guest Opinion: Remembering my Fourth of July in Tam Kỳ, Vietnam
