Bob Selig – Part Three

The Boys of Battery B

Bob Selig

Commo Sergeant

PART THREE

  

The Throne

I can remember at B battery the officers and NCOs being awarded medals, but never any of the enlisted guys. When I was back in Vietnam in ’69 – ’70 with the infantry, you went above and beyond you got a medal. They watched out and made sure that if you were on a career track, you got your medal. We were on a first name basis with the captains and commanding officers. We were family. I cared about them just as much as they cared about me. After Nam I was invited to one of my CO’s homes, Captain Franz, for dinner with his family at Fort Benning.

B battery was a totally, totally different environment. The officers had their clique, the NCOs had their clique, and the enlisted guys were left to themselves. At the time I did not know who the battery commander was, we reported to the Commo Chief and did not get past him. There was a distance, as far as meeting any of the company officers or talking with them, never!

Officers even had their own latrine, which we enlisted guys built for them. Normally we built them an ordinary latrine. We’d put the piss tubes out and then build a seat out of ammo boxes and slide the bottom part of a 55 gallon drum underneath. On one occasion we decided that we would build the officers something special. Before anyone knew what was going on, we had built a commode that was five feet high and had steps to get up to it. It was a throne! They had to go up four or five steps to sit on it. And it was out in the open in a position that we were being sniped at. The brass was good about it and used it, doing their duty high up and in the open looking down on the troops. A couple officers would only use it at night, guess they wanted privacy.

 

Ka-Boom

In the field we would burn the latrine drums out with diesel fuel and powder bags left over from fire missions. We were near the Laotian border, or maybe over it. One day a soldier was sitting on the latrine smoking a cigarette, and he threw the lit butt into the can.  Apparently there was a left over powder bag down below and it went off.  I never knew the soldier but I watched as they carted him off on the stretcher face down to a medevac helicopter. God knows I think of that poor guy to this day and hope he recovered, as he never came back to the battery.

 

Lucky

 Of the ten boys of battery B who died, three were killed by mines while on truck convoy.

I remember going into headquarters at Tuy Hoa for supplies. It’s eight o’clock in the morning. We get out on the dirt road and we’re in a deuce-and-a-half truck. I’m standing just behind the two exhaust pipes sticking up behind the cab. We’re riding along this road about two miles from B battery and for some strange reason the road was deserted. That should have been a big tipoff. Typically this road was busy with farmers hauling their rice and walking their buffalo. All of a sudden there was an explosion with black smoke and I saw a rear tire go flying. The truck must have bounced in the air about four feet, because it threw me from the back end up towards the front and I burned my forearm on the exhaust pipe. We had hit a mine. We took cover and called for help. About 30 minutes later a minesweeping team made their way to us and took us back to the battery.

I think that we were extremely lucky. When we laid commo line or to get supplies we went out in jeeps all the time. Later on they started doing mine sweeping, but in the beginning we just didn’t think about it.

 

Mojo

B battery was my first experience of racism. Growing up in Arlington, Ohio you didn’t experience racism. This incident was toward the end of my tour with B battery, within the last three months. Up until then I had not experienced any racism in the battery. We didn’t have it. We had three different black guys in Commo. This one guy – a wonderful guy – we called him Mojo. Everybody had a nickname. They called me Tree, for tree-so-sin, Vietnamese for baby-san, because I was the youngest in the group.

It occurred in the mess hall. A particular gun sergeant was an alcoholic and he had been drinking. When Mojo came into the mess tent he went to sit down at the same table and this sergeant called him the N word. And of course a person is going to get upset. Oh boy, Mojo was big and was going to kill him. The sergeant was bigger than Mojo, but he was drunk. We manhandled Mojo out of the tent, got him back to our Commo section to cool him off, and got it under control. I went to First Sergeant Shepherd, and I let loose and told him, “You need to fuckin’ control your NCOs. This is bullshit.” I was pretty pissed off about that. That was my first experience of racism and it kind of shocked me.

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Washington “Mojo” Lewis
Courtesy Leonard Laster

The second time I went to Vietnam in 69-70, my god was there a problem with racism, not in the field, but in headquarters. A black guy came out at lunch with his M16 and he was going to wipe out everyone in the mess tent. I was over at a nearby tent looking at all the chaos going on at the mess tent. A major was standing there and said to me, “Go down there and take that gun away from him.” I didn’t want to, but I was a staff sergeant at the time. I had to go down and talk this guy out of his gun …with the gun pointing at me. I thought, Son of a bitch, I don’t need this.

 

War Is Hell

Another time we were in the field – a silly statement, we were always in the field – medics along with Captain Greene, the battalion doctor, came to administer GG (gam globulin) shots.  At that time we got them every six months, one in each cheek, with a needle that had to be unusually thick for some reason. We would line up, drop ’em, and medics on each side would deliver simultaneous shots. Well, poor PFC Danus was afraid of needles and tried to talk his way out of it. The medics finally coaxed him to drop his drawers, and quick hit both cheeks. Danus takes off like a rocket running with his pants down and the needles still sticking in his buttocks like two darts. They were bouncing up and down like in a cartoon. The medics took out after him to get their needles back and tackled him before he got to Hanoi.

 

Sneak Attack

One day we were on recon choosing a site for the battery. There was this area the commanding officer found, but there were a couple straw huts that would be close to our perimeter. They’re made out of grass or straw. Everybody is gone. I remember going in to this one larger than normal hooch to clear it and in one corner there was a ladder going up to a makeshift open attic.  Whenever I look up my tendency is to drop my lower jaw. As I gazed up the ladder to the attic a lizard jumped down from the attic and into my open mouth. You can imagine the spectacle that took place next, spitting, heart pounding, screaming, cursing, blood pressure through the roof, and probably a stain in the shorts.

“Maybe it was a Viet Cong lizard.”

The story ends well. I was fortunate to find a crossbow and quiver in the attic that I  was allowed to bring home as a souvenir.

Booster Engines

On a mission to either Bong Son or Song Cau we were stopped on a road while convoying to our position.  Everybody is sitting on the top of the gear and ammo on  the vehicles, like a bunch of gypsies.  We are chatting away as usual and all of a sudden a jet fighter without any warning flew overhead the length of our convoy – some swore it was only ten feet above us.  As it reached the front of the convoy it darted up and threw on its after burners. It was the loudest, most awe-inspiring sound I had ever experienced. The guys shot up from where they were sitting and cheered and waved. Now that was a morale booster.

 

A Brief Crossroad

Many of us talked about our aspirations after Vietnam: going to school, buying muscle cars or sports cars, getting married, or just getting home safely. I fulfilled my dream with a 1967 Austin-Healey 3000 MKIII. PFC Torres from Los Angles was going to have many babies so they could work and support him when he decided to retire. But we had one big thing in common. We were all brothers and stood by each other through thick and thin.  Even though you knew you would probably never see them again after leaving, you loved, respected, and supported them during this brief crossroad in life.

After the military Bob earned a place in modern history when he helped to develop centralized ad serving technology that displays advertising banners that pop-up on computer screens. He says in his own defense with a small laugh, “If I hadn’t, someone else would have.”