Bob Selig – Part Two

The Boys of Battery B

Robert Selig

Commo Sergeant

PART TWO

Ten boys of battery B would die in Vietnam. The first was 19 year-old Bobby Joe Marsh, in Vietnam less than a month. I ask Bob if he knew Marsh.

Yes I did. He wasn’t with the battery long. I had talked to him and welcomed him to the battery. There was not enough time to really get to know the guy.

I remember the night we got hit. The way the battery was set up, everybody was in tents. Except for the Commo section. We had a very good section leader, because we were set up in little two-man hooches with sandbag walls. The sandbags were four or five high and came up to where your bunk was, and then you stretched your poncho liner over the top. And you could still roll off your bunk and have minimal cover.

It was just after midnight. I was in a hooch with Larry Orson, a cook. I’m sleeping and I’m hearing explosions. Well, the guns fired at various times during the night, they had fire missions, or they’d be shooting H&I. So you’re laying there and you hear an explosion go off, and you think OK, another fire mission or whatever. But it wasn’t the whole battery firing. It was like one explosion at a time. But you’re not awake enough to realize that.

All of a sudden an explosion went off right outside our little hooch, and Orson and I were thrown on the ground between our cots. I hear this sprinkling in the trees, like it’s raining. Orson yelled “I’m hit, we’re being mortared.” The Viet Cong were walking the mortars over us.

At that point I was deafened. The two of us kind of grabbed each other and made it out to a fox hole that we had dug earlier. As my hearing came back I’m hearing screams, I’m hearing moaning, not from one person but from several people. I’m thinking we’re fucked, we’re gonna be overrun. We’re sitting in this foxhole and trying to get as low to the ground as we possibly can. The fox hole was probably four feet deep, so we were able to sit down in it. But you don’t know when the next one’s going to hit, because they are still going off. I’m just sitting there. Jesus Christ, when’s one going to come right in this hole and kill us? Yet we kept our cool and watched for VC to jump up from nowhere to attack us. We heard several more explosions from the incoming. Soldiers were yelling, we heard more screaming and moaning from the wounded.

I don’t know how many mortars came in. Because of gun noise and being half asleep, it was a terrifying situation. I helped get Larry to a medevac helicopter. They took out 12 wounded guys that night. I don’t believe they evacuated Bobby Marsh’s body that night. I vaguely remember it was the next day before they got his body out.

After I had gotten Larry onto the chopper I went back to one of the gun sections and – I’m still dazed, and I knew nothing about guns – I believe it was at gun 2 -  they were firing and I just started helping them. They’re calling out different rounds and different charges. I’m a Commo guy, I don’t know one round from another and I’m trying to help them. Then they saw I didn’t know what I’m doing and said, “Whoa, wait, you can’t do that.”

Of course we were sweating from all the excitement, but my head felt wetter than normal. I touched it and it hurt. It was dark and I didn’t see anything. I asked the gunnery sergeant to look at my head. He turned his flashlight on me and the first thing out of his mouth was, “Medic!” I had blood all over. They got me over to the medic and Doc pulled a small piece of shrapnel from my head.

The next day they evacuated me by jeep back to headquarters at Tuy Hoa. The medical officer there was a captain, Afro-American; his name was Captain Greene. Nice fellow, gave me a tetanus shot, butterflied the wound, and bandaged the entire top of my head. Man, did I ever get stares from all the HQ folks. They let me spend two days at Tuy Hoa, and sent me back to the unit. I found out later that the guys that got medevaced out went to Nha Trang, and because the hospital there was full of casualties everyone got shipped off to Japan for a minimum of 30 days. Only about six came back to the unit. Because I didn’t know I was wounded, I missed out on a free 30 day R&R.

Later we were in the field and General Westmoreland flew out. He started pinning the Purple Hearts on everybody. I’ll never forget, he came up, he pinned it on, he shook my hand and he said, “Congratulations.” I walked away after the ceremony thinking what the fuck was that all about? Congratulations for what? Being alive? What the hell’s he talking about? Congratulations. I just could not understand that. Now I know what he meant, but as a kid I had to think about it. I’ve never forgotten that moment.

And I think back to people sleeping in tents, and people walking around in white tee shirts. What the hell was the brass thinking? West Pointers – they were there looking out for their careers, not looking out for the troops. We all learned from mistakes; no one really knew how to engage an enemy in the jungles of Vietnam. Too bad we didn’t learn sooner that we would not liberate the South Vietnamese.

Picture Taken Shortly Before March 6, 1966 Attack
Courtesy John Santini

I had worse experiences on my second tour. What happened that night in battery B got me set up for the future. The main thing I remember from that night is sitting in that fox hole, listening to all the agony, the choppers that were coming in and picking up wounded soldiers. I’ll tell you, the agony, the pain that you heard in the air, it was blood curdling. It made the hair on your head stand up. Terrible, terrible experience. That screwed me up … that screwed me up. After that I became numb to it. It got easier, unfortunately it got easier, But it really helped me in ’69 and ’70 on my second tour.

Fifteen months after Bobby Joe Marsh died, the base camp at Tuy Hoa was named Camp Marsh in his memory, Lt. Col. John Munnelly presiding.

Just Nod

I always enjoyed the chaplain coming to the field. I attended parochial school for eight years, and like my ancestors before me, once the eight years were up I no longer practiced. After I was wounded I visited the chaplain. Of course he twisted my arm and coerced me into going to confession.  Well right after saying, “Bless me father it has been several years since my last confession”, he said, “Hold it right their, son, and let me help you”.  He said “I’m going to say the Ten Commandments one at a time and you tell me if you have broken it. Just nod your head” I nodded my head a helluva lot more times than I’d like to admit. This guy was great. He let me off light with three Hail Mary’s, and he always looked me up before service when he visited the battery. Guess his blessings helped, I’m here to tell you about it today.