Under Fire Read online

  UNDER FIRE

  SET DURING OPERATION CEDAR FALLS, THIS NOVEL TAKES PLACE DURING THE 1967 VIETNAM OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE IRON TRIANGLE AND THE CU CHI TUNNELS.

  By Eric Meyer

  Copyright 2020 by Eric Meyer

  Published by Swordworks Books

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  MY NEWSLETTER

  If you’d like to receive my latest news, special offers, and free books then please sign up for my newsletter. It’s a great way of keeping up to date with my latest projects, as well as getting samples and free books throughout the year. Click on the link and join up today. You can also visit my official website and Facebook page, links below:

  My official newsletter: subscribepage.com/EricMeyer

  My official website: ericmeyer.co.uk

  My Facebook Page: facebook.com/ericmeyerfiction/

  Preface

  Operation Cedar Falls took place in the so-called Iron Triangle in South Vietnam during early 1967. This fictional story is set during that epic operation and a tribute to the men who fought so valiantly and against the odds. A story of soldiers who fought multiple enemies. The Vietcong and the People’s Army of Vietnam, the PAVN. The ARVN, notional allies, and some fought well. Many did not, and the stories of their betrayals and cowardice are part of the historical record. There was the government of South Vietnam, avaricious, corrupt and as dishonest as the Communists they opposed. Then there were the American generals. Again, their dishonesty is a matter of historical record.

  The men who America sent to Vietnam had to face all these enemies. Yet they carried on fighting, and in some cases dying. Their bravery was an inspiration to us all. They must never be forgotten.

  Eric Meyer

  Foreword

  MACV After Action Report – Lessons Learned

  Dangers inherent in the above operations fall generally into the following categories and should be taken into account by all personnel connected with these operations:

  a. Mines and booby traps in the entrance or exit area.

  b. Punji pits inside an entrance.

  c. Possible shortage of oxygen as in any confined or poorly ventilated space.

  d. VC still in the tunnel - these VC pose a danger to friendly personnel both above and below ground (in some instances, dogs have successfully detected VC hiding in tunnels).

  I arrived in Vietnam in late 66. Like tens of thousands of other wide-eyed rookies, I was scared but not prepared to admit it. Disembarking the aircraft at Tan Son Nhut was an experience never to be forgotten. The scars of long-range shellfire and mortars were everywhere, signaling this was to be an experience I was unlikely to forget, not in a hundred lifetimes. Although right then I’d have been happy to look forward to a single lifetime. I soon found out the chances weren’t great.

  Like most young men, I’d no idea what I was about to face. Up until my call up papers dropped through the mailbox I’d been planning on something very different from the military; fast cars, and a decent job, any job where I could earn plenty of money. I had a few assets on the plus side, like the way Mother Nature had left me a decent looking guy. On one notable occasion a girl told me I looked a bit like a young Robert Redford. It wasn’t so much a compliment when she removed her glasses, and I realized the lenses were as thick as the bottom of milk bottles.

  At six feet one inch in my socks, with dark brown hair and contrasting blue eyes, I’d managed to keep myself pretty fit. The plan was to finish my tour, which meant spending a year in some exotic tropical clime, and go home to my pretty wife who would be waiting for me. I’d sure have some interesting experiences to tell her. We spent our vacations hiking and climbing in the Rockies, so my skin was tanned and acclimatized to the great outdoors, which I assumed would be a bonus for a soldier. Later I discovered the real bonus in ‘Nam was Lady Luck. If she were on your side, you’d finish your tour and go home in the cabin of an airliner. If she deserted you, you’d return in the hold.

  Some guys would say being married was a drawback. Not for me, my wife Gracie was everything a man could want in this life. Although it meant the biggest attraction of Saigon, the girls, tiny and beautiful in their ao dais, weren’t on the menu. Even if some of them were beautiful enough to die for. In fact, some men did die for them. Not all the dark-haired, sloe-eyed beauties were fans of Americans. A few worked for the Northern Devil, Ho Chi Minh.

  My first assignment was to 1st Infantry, and it was an eye opener. Patrolling the roads alongside the rice paddies close to Saigon, jolting and bumping along in an armored tracked M113 Bradley. Overhead, Huey gunships prowled at low level. Always watching for the enemy. Seeking out Charlie, the Vietcong, and it was reassuring to know they were there. I had a brother-in-law in Vietnam, Mickey Ellis who flew a UH-1C, a version of the Bell UH-1 Iroquois, designed to carry troops as well as a door gun on either side of the fuselage. The guns were M-60s, and it was kind of reassuring to know Mickey and others like him were up there.

  After two weeks in Vietnam I had yet to see the enemy. Seated inside the Bradley armored hull I felt reasonably safe. Until that day when the patter of small arms fire took us by surprise. Someone shouted, “Incoming, turn this fucking thing around.”

  The enemy fire didn’t come close to penetrating the armor, and we assumed we were safe. Until Lieutenant Cox, the platoon lieutenant, decided otherwise, shouted at the driver to stop, and ordered us out from our protective steel carapace.

  “I want those bastards who fired on us. Let’s go get ‘em, men.”

  He was an eager beaver, like his platoon sergeant, but the rest of the men didn’t all share his enthusiasm. We soon found whoever had fired the shots had disappeared, and Corporal Ericsson, huddled behind the M2 Browning .50 caliber in the turret, grunted with disappointment when the enemy failed to oblige him by sticking around to wait for him to gun them down.

  “Sneaky bastards, I could have had them. Another minute and they’d be toast.”

  Lieutenant Cox commiserated. “You’ll get your chance, Corporal. We’ll move in close and flush them out. Sergeant Carson, form two squads. Take one squad two hundred meters up the track and work your way across the paddy field and into the jungle. See if you can get behind them. I’ll take the rest of the men and head straight toward them. There’s been a lot of hostile activity in this region, and our Intelligence guys are asking for prisoners to interrogate, so try to bring someone back alive.”

  “Copy that, Lt. Okay men, on the double. Let’s go.”

  Carson had been an instructor at Fort Bragg, newly assigned to Vietnam and like Cox he’d never fired a shot in anger. He couldn’t wait to come face-to-face with the enemy and start racking up a high score. That was all the brass talked about, body count. The Vietcong, Victor Charlie, VCs, Communists, had staged a number of attacks lately, including daylight bombings in the center of Saigon. Throwing satchel charges into crowded restaurants, presumably on the assumption it would make the soldiers of South Vietnam and the U.S.A. uneasy about the progress of the war. So far that tactic hadn’t been
successful, although they’d killed plenty of civilians and a few off-duty service personnel.

  The war was going well, according to General William Westmoreland, in overall command of Military Assistance Command Vietnam, or MACV. We were winning, and there was no reason to doubt his word. I guess Sergeant Carson was thinking about promotion and glory as he jogged across the narrow causeway between the paddy fields. His men followed close behind him, ignoring the toiling peasants, men and women wearing black or white pajamas and those peculiar conical hats like lampshades. They seemed innocent, going about their business stooped over and tending to their rice crop. At least, that’s what they were doing when his squad went past.

  Lieutenant Frank Cox led our squad a few meters south, and we crossed another causeway that pointed like an arrow toward the patch of jungle from where the shots had materialized. I was right behind him, clutching my M-14 in the certain knowledge the enemy was about to appear in front of us. A moment later they did just that. My first sighting of the VC, and they stood out in the open, inviting us to knock them down like paper targets in a shooting gallery. That was my thinking.

  Stand still, and let us kill you, Mr. Charles. Don’t do anything stupid like run away. We’ve got you bang to rights.

  We reached the far side of the paddy field, and the enemy had melted inside. The Lieutenant took a step inside the thick foliage that could have hidden a battalion of VC. They didn’t hide a battalion of VC, but they hid what appeared to be almost as many, and I afterward calculated we’d run into at least two platoons. They were waiting for us. I took a swift glance back at the Bradley and did a double take. Most of the peasants tending the rice paddy had vanished. Except for four men nearest to Carson’s squad, and they’d suddenly produced assault rifles out of thin air, like stage conjurers. The AK-47s fired on full auto, a deep chattering roar of 7.62mm rounds once heard and never forgotten. Carson swung around in astonishment as two of his fifteen-man squad went down, riddled with bullets made in the far away Soviet Union, or maybe China. They were both Communist, and the Commies tended to stick together like shit to a blanket.

  Cox was shouting, “Take cover, return fire!” The order was unnecessary. We’d all thrown ourselves down to the muddy ground at the edge of the jungle, and Ericsson had reacted fast. The M2 Browning thundered a stream of .50 caliber bullets that he walked in toward the enemy, and it was all over in seconds. A .50 caliber bullet is a powerful cartridge. When it hit a man it knocked him down, and he stayed down.

  Ericsson must’ve fired fifty rounds, and he managed to hit each target several times. Carson shouted an order to his men to withdraw, and they picked up the casualties and started retreating to the safety of the Bradley. Halfway back I saw the Sergeant stagger and fall, and his men carried him the rest of the way. More gunfire chased them all the way back, and two more men failed to make it when they buckled as bullets slammed into them.

  We were still out there, crouched next to the paddy field, and I was certain it was our turn next. The Lieutenant looked uncertain, but without any doubt if we stayed where we were, we would start taking fire. Besides, we hadn’t come here to sit like targets in a carnival booth, waiting to start taking hits.

  “Lt, we can’t stay here. We should get into the trees and root them out. Kill the bastards.”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess you’re right. Follow me and stay sharp. If you see anything, shoot.”

  “No shit,” someone mumbled.

  Cox entered the dark, forbidding jungle, pushing past the first of the tangle of vines and trees, his eyes swiveling left and right. Searching for danger. Searching for a target, and it was so dark, the foliage so thick it was hard to see more than a few meters in any direction. One thing was for sure, they’d chosen the ground well, and they’d see us long before we saw them.

  I followed him in, and now I was nervous. More than nervous, my body tensed ready for bullets to smash out from the dense foliage, and I wasn’t thinking about my platoon lieutenant. I wasn’t thinking about locating Charlie. I was thinking about Gracie, my new wife, waiting back home in the States.

  Formerly Grace Ellis, a native of New York descended from nineteenth century Irish ancestry. When I first met her, she swept me off my feet, a pretty, gutsy girl with a petite body and a pixie face, which tested to her ancestor’s origins in the Emerald Isle. Her brother was Mickey Ellis, who flew a Huey, a troop carrier they called a slick. We’d managed to meet up since my arrival in country, and he was as energized and engaging as his sister.

  A fearless pilot, CW2 Mickey Ellis had offered to take me with him on a mission. I remembered his careless grin. He was a good-looking guy, short and slight with pale skin and watery blue eyes, but it was that grin that always scored with the girls. Adventurous, up for anything, and women fell at his feet.

  “You’ll enjoy it, Carl. See the countryside and it’d be something to tell the kids.”

  “Your sister will never forgive you if I got killed.”

  His smile had widened. “Sure, and she would. She’d be a widow, and she can find someone richer and better looking. Begorrah, Charlie doesn’t shoot at us. Well, not very often.”

  Born and bred in New York City, he liked to affect a thick Irish brogue, which was as fake as lucky horseshoes. Sometimes he even fooled senior officers into believing he was nothing more than a humble, semi-literate peasant from County Donegal before they discovered the truth and found he’d been about to study for a master’s degree in astrophysics. They trained him to fly a slick, which meant he didn’t have to ferry the brass around too much.

  I thought back to Gracie, and I’d promised I’d be back. I intended to keep that promise, but the way things were going I might not be riding a seat in coach. Instead, I’d be occupying an aluminum box in the cargo hold. With an effort I brought my focus back to the present.

  Get a grip, Yeager, or they’ll be measuring you for that aluminum box.

  There was no noise, no shooting, and no voices bellowing commands to attack and kill the Imperialists. Just silence. And the ever present, rank stink of rotting foliage, and there was also the rank stink of my body, the stench of sweat, the stench of fear. I wiped my hand on the sleeve of my shirt and took a firm hold of my rifle.

  “Where are they?”

  I nearly jumped. A guy who’d arrived with me on the first draft was standing almost at my shoulder. PFC Eddie Keith, and I suspected he was staying close behind. When the shooting started, he’d have a man between him and the enemy. Me.

  Shit.

  “No idea,” I replied, “One thing’s for sure, they’re here somewhere.”

  “Carl, do you reckon they have tunnels?” His voice was hoarse with fear. Those tunnels worried every man who served in Vietnam. You never knew when an enemy could appear like a genie from a bottle and start blasting.

  “Who knows, but this close to the paddies I’m betting they’d likely flood, so probably not right here. If there are any tunnels, they’ll be deeper inside the jungle.”

  “Maybe they’ve gone. When they saw Ericsson let loose with the Browning M2, they may have decided to run. That thing’s one big, mean ugly mother.”

  The Browning was definitely bad news if you were staring into the wrong end of the barrel. But I didn’t think they’d gone. Something about the whole set up suggested they had a plan, a plan that involved killing as many of the round eyes as possible before they went away. A sobering thought, and I focused on the job. Search and destroy, find the enemy and kill the bastards. Some said it was the only way to stay alive. It sounded like good advice.

  “Eddie, I think they’re still here. Maybe deeper in the jungle, but they’re not too far away.” I felt something inside, my guts churning with fear, but there was another feeling deep inside. Excitement, this was my first real encounter with the enemy. Although when I thought of the guys in the other squad who fell to enemy bullets, the excitement kind of softened.

  Eddie grabbed my arm. “Whadda we do? Where’s Cox?”


  “He went on ahead. I’ll catch up with him and see what he wants. See how far he wants us to go.”

  Cox was thirty paces ahead, and in reply to my question, he said, “We’ll go as far as it takes. Tell them to close up and follow me. We’re gonna ace these bastards.”

  Great. If we’re bunched up, they could take us down with a single burst of machine gun fire.

  “I’ll tell them, Lt. Say, we’re a long way from the Bradley, so the Browning won’t help us.”

  “We don’t need the Browning. We have enough men. Move it, Private, we’re wasting time.”

  I passed on the order, and the rest of them straggled along behind, spaced several meters apart after I’d modified Cox’s order.

  “He says to keep at least ten paces between each man, just in case. “

  “How far in do we go?”

  “He said we’re to keep going until we find them.”

  “Stupid bastard,” Keith mumbled, “We should go back to the Bradley.”

  I agreed with him. That armored hull with the Browning M2 mounted on top was reassuring, but orders were orders, and I pushed through the tangle of vines heading deeper into the jungle. I heard music from behind, and I stopped and looked back. Eddie had clipped a portable transistor radio to his webbing and was listening to tinny rock music. I could hear the Monkees singing ‘I’m a Believer.’ Giving away our position made me think more about gravestones, and I ran back to him.

  “For Christ’s sake, turn it off. They’ll hear us.”

  “Nah, the jungle is too dense. They won’t hear nothing.”

  I could feel the bullets hammering into me, and picture the Communists grinning with glee at the stupid Americans for doing their job for them by locating the enemy.

  I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him to within inches of my furious expression. “Turn the fucking thing off, or I’ll smash it on a rock.”