Mike Jordan – Duster Platoon Leader – Part Four
Early Warning System
At Betty it was routine for me every evening to take a shower and put on a clean uniform and go to supper. After supper I would go to the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) and sit in on the 3/506 Infantry briefing where they outlined the plans for the next day. They also covered in that briefing the free fire areas, and that was most important to me, so that I could let the Dusters know what azimuth sectors they had free fire in. Whatever unit we were with we would fire H&I, harassing and interdiction fire, randomly throughout the night.
The final part of my routine for the night on my way back to the platoon I ‘d drive along the top of the bluff overlooking the Phan Thiet bay. Usually the bay was black, with just a few scatterings of lights out over the water, a late fisherman maybe or somebody running contraband. But sometimes it would look like Times Square, there would be so many lights on the water. Everybody who had a boat or sampan was on the water and away from town because word had gotten around that there would likely be an attack that night against the city or LZ Betty. And that was our first indication we were going to get hit that night. Those were the nights you went back and kept a flack jacket next to your bunk. It was right seventy-five percent of the time.
Not Feelin’ The Love
With the battalion headquarters for the 4/60 four hundred and fifty miles away up at An Khe, I became the battalion senior officer for the Phan Thiet area, and I operated very independently of my battalion headquarters. In the six months I was at Phan Thiet I got just a single visit from two different battalion commanders who stopped in just to say hi, to look and see how we were doing. I’ll never forget one of those visits.
I had just attended the evening 3/506 briefing and gotten our free fire zones for the night. There was this infantry captain who was in a slot they called the Assistant S3 Air, the guy who was responsible for all of the 3/506 airborne assault operations. This guy came up to me after the briefing and said, “You’re the Duster guy, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Well your goddamn Dusters – his words – they give away our position every night. The VC know exactly where our perimeter is because all they got to do is look at where you’re firing from.”
I said, “Hey, sir, (I was a first lieutenant) I’ve got my mission.”
He said, “Well, you don’t tonight. I’m not going to give you any clearance to fire.”
“Okay, if that’s the way you want it.”
I knew my battalion commander was coming in the next morning. I had the two Duster tracks at Betty pack up everything, load their trailers, hook the trailers up to the back of the Dusters, and waiting at the chopper pad when the battalion commander arrived. He said, “Jordan, what the hell’s going on?”
“I was told by the infantry last night they don’t want us here. You and I both know there’s a great demand for Dusters all over South Vietnam. I’m just waiting for orders for someplace to move to.”
“Stand pat. Don’t go anywhere.”
Come to find out that my battalion commander and the battalion commander of the 3/506 went to the Command and General Staff College together. He borrowed my jeep, went straight over to the 3/506 battalion headquarters, walked straight through their S1 section with not so much as a “Hey captain, I’m here to see your battalion commander,” and walked in there and said to his old classmate, “What the hell are you doing telling my officers they’re not wanted down here?”
The infantry colonel was just in shock. “Of course we want your Dusters here.”
“Well apparently your staff doesn’t see it that way.”
I had it on good report later that day that my captain was on his way out to one of the line companies in the field, no longer at his cushy TOC job (Tactical Operations Center).
Only three battalions of Dusters went to Vietnam, for a total of no more than two hundred Dusters in the entire country, and that’s counting the ones down for maintenance. Having the protection of a Duster on an operation was a luxury.
It’s A Good Deal When Everybody’s Happy
The only person I worked with on fire missions was a Marine Corps gunnery liaison lieutenant at the LZ Betty TOC. He found out I could shoot indirect fire with the Dusters (lobbing rounds vs. shooting directly at a target), and I found out he could talk to the battleship New Jersey and any other ships on station near Phan Thiet. So we exchanged fire missions. There were some places he called me to put fire in, and I routinely called him and asked for help, but of a different nature.
The 40 mm guns that we had on the tracks were also the Navy anti aircraft guns they had on the ships from WWII – like you’d see on Victory At Sea. These were 40 mm BOFORS guns (Swedish manufacture and first used by the U.S. in WWII). The Navy still had the full stock of repair parts for those guns. Whenever I came up with a part that was hard to get I’d call up my Marine Corp buddy and I’d say, “Hey, who you got on station?”
He’d tell me and I’d ask, “Do they still have the 40s mounted?”
He’d say, “Yeah.”
And I’d say, “Can you call out there and see if they have such-and-such a part?”
He’d say, “Sure.”
But the Navy would always come back with, “What have you got to trade?”
The guys out on the firebases loved to make phony VC flags and stain them with ketchup to make them look like blood. So my Marine pal would tell the Navy, “How about a genuine, authentic VC battle flag?”
“Oh Yeah,” they’d say, “Yeah!”
Then on chopper trips out to these ships to coordinate with the gunnery officer my Marine would bring back a box of gun parts for me. For sure those flags are hanging all over the Navy.
During the war there was a white-hot market for VC battle flags, most of them fakes produced by U.S. soldiers, South Vietnamese military and enterprising civilians – anyone with a needle and thread and a jar of pig’s blood, or in Jordan’s experience, a bottle of ketchup. The demand for VC flags intensified after the war and continues today. According to one expert there are a miniscule number of genuine VC battle flags in existence, and for every genuine one there are ten thousand fakes.
VC battle flag complete with bullet holes and blood
Is it genuine or fake?
