Chuck Heindrichs – Battery Commander – Part Two
Like A Photograph
Coming out of my first Vietnam tour in May of 1967 I went to Europe for two years with my new bride. I was first in an Honest John rocket unit, then commanding officer of the 210th Artillery Group headquarters battery (generally a thankless job), and finally special staff to the US Army Europe Headquarters for six or seven months.
The most poignant story of my entire military career, including my two tours in Vietnam, happened while I was in Germany. The experience has left an image I cannot get out of my mind.
There was a massive training area in Germany called Grafenwoehr. Units from all over Europe went there to train. I was a mess hall officer with two mess units reporting to me. As such I had to attend a mandatory one-week mess officers course in Grafenwoehr.
The week before the course started there was a fire in one of the mess halls there and a young man had died. In the middle of the course they took us on a tour of that mess hall, and how they think the fire started. It had not yet been cleaned up because the investigation was still underway. I remember, like a photograph in my mind, the exit door of that kitchen. I saw handprints from this young soldier caught in the smoke feeling his way around the wall trying to find that door. The handprints ended just four feet from the door. He died of smoke inhalation. That image haunts me even today, that but for four feet he would be somewhere else today.
The Road To Sherry
After two years in Germany it was right back to Vietnam in September of 1969 for my second tour. I remember flying into Nha Trang to the airbase there. Once on the ground we were supposed to call to First Field Force Headquarters and they would send somebody to get you. I’m on the tarmac looking around and I see a truck with IFF on the bumper and with some young kid driving it. I say to him, “Are you going to First Field Force Headquarters?”
He says, “Yeah I am.”
I say, “Well, take me over there.” There were also two Armor officers trying to get to IFF HQ for reassignment, but I hop into the truck by myself.
I get to First Field Force Artillery and this guy says, “Oh yeah, here you are. We’ve got you sorted to be an advisor to a Vietnamese battalion.”
I remember looking at this major and saying, “No, that’s not going to happen.” I gave him all kinds of reasons why that was not a good idea. Then I said, “You’ve got two Armor officers sitting back at the airbase trying to figure out how to get here for reassignment. I came over here to command an artillery battery and that is what I am going to do.”
He looked at me and said, “You say there’s two captains there from Armor? They’re not supposed to be here for a week, but if they are, Okay.” And he assigned me to First Field Force Artillery. I thought, Jeez that was close.
Over at First Field Force Artillery they tell me, “We’ll try to find you a battery, but right now there are no command slots available. But our S1 (Personnel) officer, a lieutenant colonel, was injured in a helicopter crash on his way to this assignment and has been sent back to the US. We don’t have an S1, and we don’t have a colonel available, so you’re it.”
I used to be so humble because on Saturdays I would go as a representative of IFF Artillery to the weekly IFF Headquarters briefings where there were a couple brigadier generals and high ranking civilians. I walked in as this beautiful little captain with my notepad, and they’d look at me like I was the secretary. I did that for about four months. Finally they called me in and said a command slot had opened up at B Btry 5/27 and I would be leaving for Phan Thiet within the next two weeks.
Phan Thiet was the Nuc Mom capital of Vietnam. I am very fond of Asian food, especially Vietnamese, and always order the fish sauce Nuc Mom, which is the mark of a good Vietnamese restaurant. This sauce is typically made by building a flat frame some three feet square and covering it with lattice and palm tree branches. These are stacked until you get to some eight feet high. This structure is filled with raw fish on the various layers and placed in the hot sun. The fish oils drip down through each layer to a catchment container at the bottom. This oily residue is then refined into a delightful sauce, really great with rice paper rolls filled with vegetables and meat. To make this long story short, when I flew into Phan Thiet I could smell that stuff for miles on my way in.
The Road Out of Sherry
I have a lot of memories of that base. As a young second lieutenant on my first Vietnam tour it always amazed me when I talked to the old sergeants, that some of these guys could remember their World War Two experiences, they could remember Captain Brown, his wife’s name, that Captain Brown had three kids, the kids names. They couldn’t remember the names of their grandkids, but they could remember old Captain Brown from World War Two. I have that same feeling now, that I can almost close my eyes on a daily basis and picture every gun at Sherry; I can picture that marvelous mess sergeant that we had, and our Chief of Smoke who was named Duke.
I was young and naïve when I first came to the firebase. I was there about two days when the First Sergeant (Richard Durant) said to me, “We don’t go very often but we have a scheduled convoy into Phan Thiet, and let me tell you how this works. We line up the trucks and then we get these mine detectors and we do a mine sweep along the access road.” That was a dirt road leading east out of the battery to the main highway about two miles away.
Road east out of Sherry
I, being rather naïve, said, “I would never expect any soldier to do anything I couldn’t do. So I’ll join the mine sweeping operation.” I remember leaving the base at that southeast corner.
At zero-dark-thirty of the day (between midnight and sunrise) two teams with mine detectors started down the east road. The teams were three or four people. There needed to be a rotation about every 10 minutes or so because the high pitched whine of the detector would dull your ear such that you might not hear a serious change in pitch. The other team members walking along had a bayonet and a strong sharp wooden stick. When the detector sounded you froze, placed the detector over the spot, and one of the others would begin probing for the mine. Usually you used the stick because the bayonet might just go in between the contacts and complete the circuit. Ninety-nine percent of the time the item was a piece of shrapnel or metal.
In any case, I worked from the east gate to the creek, just to somehow prove that I would not expect a soldier to do something I would not do. I remember we had about a hundred yards to go before we hit the creek, and I’ll be damned if we didn’t find one. Most of all I remember being scared shitless.
