Kim Martin – Fire Direction Control – Part Three
Waiting for the Next One To Land
When we got mortared there were usually three, one after another, then it would be over.
Sherry was so quick to return fire on mortar sites that the enemy just had time to pop off a quick round of mortars, and then had to clear out. Usually.
We got mortared one night and they all hit near a radar installation right across from FDC. After the third one hit and things got quiet, I went to go check to see if they were Okay. Everybody was fine, no damage, so I started heading back to FDC and another volley started coming in. The first one hit in front of me maybe sixty feet away. Then the second one hit closer. I hit the ground thinking the third one is going to hit right on top of me. I figured, okay, this is it. When it hits what’s it going to do to me, am I going to survive? Maimed, injured? All those things go quickly through your mind. I don’t remember being particularly scared. Just when’s it going to hit? I’m lying there listening and nothing happened. The third one never came.
Last Fatality at LZ Sherry
Jeffrey Lynn Davis was killed in a mortar attack on April 16, 1970 while manning Gun 2 next to the FDC bunker.
I was on duty in FDC at the time. The mortar just missed the FDC shack and went into the top of the ammo bunker. The explosion was really loud, and I remember sand falling onto the roof of the FDC bunker. It came really close to blowing up everything. It lodged between the inner frame of the bunker and the sandbags, so it didn’t get to the ammo inside. However the shrapnel from it caught him.
The mortar round that killed Jeffrey Davis
Picture courtesy Lt. Bob Christenson
Bob Christenson took this picture to send home. On the back he wrote, “This is the outside of Gun 2’s ammo bunker. In the middle is a mortar fin which hit and stuck during a mortar attack. One guy in the bunker was killed and the other one hurt badly. The section decided to leave the mortar fin there.”
I remember Lieutenant Christenson, more of a down to earth, affable guy that was really easy to talk to. He’d come into our hooch to visit, almost like he had little regard for rank. He was a good guy and well respected.
The Last Scare
Due to the reduction of troops I got an early out of 30 days. So my tour lasted eleven months rather than the full year as I had expected. I had my Snoopy puzzle calendar almost completely filled in, feeling good about my world, and definitely very short.
Typical Snoopy short-timer calendar
(Arkansas Vietnam War Project)
One week before my tour ended this happened. It was after dark, probably about 10:00 in the evening, when the battery was abruptly alerted to a potential charge through its perimeter near one of the guard towers. A red star cluster flare had been fired from the tower signaling that a Viet Cong sneak attack was under way.
I was off duty, being on the twelve hour day shift in FDC, and so was abruptly awakened by the battery siren alerting everyone to their protective battle positions preparing for an attack. I immediately grabbed my M-16 and flack jacket and proceeded to our assigned bunker just outside the FDC bunker with a fellow FDC buddy who was also on my shift. I think he was Lynn (Curley) Holzer, but it has been so long ago that I cannot be sure. As I settled into the bunker, illumination rounds were being fired all over, lighting the night sky like a Fourth of July celebration. Men were running everywhere to take their positions. As we settled in with our M-16s pointed to shoot anything that moved, my thoughts momentarily reflected on the sudden feeling of the futility of it all for me. Here I am with only one week to go until finally getting back to the world of friends, girls and hot showers. Instead, we are going to be overrun and killed or taken captives for who knows how long under unimaginable conditions.
Suddenly the melee stopped and all was incredibly quiet. I was puzzled and prepared for the worst when soon we were all told by the battery commander to stand down and to go back to our regular assignments. It had all been a false alarm.
As it turned out, a new officer had arrived in the battery that week and was checking the flare guns at each of the guard towers. This process involved firing an illumination flare to insure the flare gun would work properly in the event of a need for its use. Unfortunately, the officer had inadvertently taken a cartridge from the red star cluster box rather than the white round. In so doing, he had signaled an attack, consequently sending the entire battery into an emergency battle mode and scaring the hell out of most of us.
I went back to my hootch very exhausted, but extremely relieved. In just one week, I would be “Back Home Again in Indiana.”
The song Back Home Again In Indiana was published in 1917, and while it is not the official state song, it may as well be. Since 1946 it has been a pre-race tradition at the Indianapolis 500.
Lieutenant Bill Cooper maintained that he picked up the wrong flare by mistake that night. Today he explains that he purposely shot off the flare signaling a ground attack to test the readiness of the battery. He had not told anyone of this exercise, and on reflection did not want to get court-martialed.
Going Home
When I processed out of the Army at Ft. Lewis, Washington they gave us counseling sessions, and in one of them this fellow told us the best states to live in because they paid the highest state benefits like unemployment. I thought that was interesting. I remember getting a new uniform and an overcoat. You’d never wear them again unless you were in the reserves. I wore the uniform home to Indianapolis, and never put it on again. I still have it, although I’d never get into it.
I got all the way back to Chicago without a hitch. I called my father to meet me at the Indianapolis airport. It was an evening flight, around 9:30. I had about an hour and went into this bar for a drink. I had just one drink and got to talking to this guy, and oh my gosh I got to get to my plane. I got to my gate and they had just closed it, so I missed the flight. I just sat in a chair until the next flight left in the morning. The irony of it all, I’m almost home after a year in a combat zone and I miss my last connecting flight.
