By the end of the sixties, just after my 20th birthday, I arrived in Vietnam in December of 1969. I was assigned to an infantry unit in the First Cav Division operating in Three Corps area near the Cambodian border. I was soon transferred to Echo Recon 1/5th. It was our job to walk jungle trails and report enemy activity and troop strength moving into our area. Theoretically we were to report and not engage. I guess on paper that plan looks plausible. In fact, we engaged the enemy much more often than we planned.
In the spring of 1970, we were part of the invading force into Cambodia. President Richard Nixon announced on national television in late April that the invasion had begun. He and his advisors had come up with the term “Incursion”, to make it sound less like an armed invasion of a neutral country. For those of us involved, it was a full-fledged invasion and the NVA fought back with great tenacity.
The following account is the description of my final week in the jungle and subsequent medivac to the hospital in Osaka, Japan. Ultimately, I ended up at Ft Gordon, Georgia US Army hospital where I convalesced for the next month.
It was late in the day, around 4:30 on June 11, 1970, and we had just been delivered ice cream by helicopter. Echo Recon had been pulled back to the LZ to pull security for the engineers. It was to be their task to blow up a huge arms cache that we had found, and they were busy wiring it for explosives. Our task, in pulling security, spread us out in 10-to-15-yard intervals along a path, up a slight incline that led to the cache. Within a few minutes hundreds of enemy rounds and ammunition that were collected in a 20 x 20 pit would be blown and the final wires were being checked. A re-supply chopper had just left, dropping the usual supplies of, food, ammo, water, and beer. But today was special, we were rewarded with ice cream for a job well done. One of my jobs was to pass out supplies, and today I was moving up the trail, from buddy to buddy with small buckets of ice cream and spoons. As each guy received his ice cream, he leaned his weapon against a tree to eat the rapidly melting treat.
As I moved up the trail, also without my weapon, I was in effect, disarming the security team. As I reached the top of the incline and was dispatching my last ice cream to some engineers, all hell broke loose. We began to take small arms fire and B-40 rocket hits in the vicinity of the cache. The last recipient of ice cream, an engineer, hit the ground dead. In a split second more B-40 rockets and another engineer and I were wounded. I fell in the cache pit that was wired to be exploded.
Without a weapon, survival instincts kicked in, I crawled to the top of the pit to try retrieve a weapon, but the only one in sight was now covered with the body of the second engineer who lay dying. I attempted to apply first aid to a sucking chest wound to no avail. It was then that everything grew eerily quiet, and I heard the voices, Vietnamese voices. The enemy had apparently been watching us from the thick undergrowth in what was probably a plan to try to recover the captured weapons and ammo before we blew them up. Now they were moving toward the cache in an effort to recapture it and I had no weapon.
It was then I heard the second of the voices, American, it was Bird. He was crawling in the direction of the small arms fire because he knew I was there. He did not know if I was dead or alive. “Mother “came the faint whisper, again a little louder, “Mother, where are you?” I was afraid to answer, the NVA voices were much closer than his. Still, he crawled in my direction whispering “Mother”. Recon began to return fire in the direction of the voices and more rocket fire erupted, they were not going to just run away.
Suddenly, in the pit next to me was my buddy “Bird”, seeing that I was wounded he pulled me out of the pit and in the direction from which he had just crawled. Back through the woods over sticks and rocks he dragged me to the safety of the rear. “Mother’s been hit, we need a medic” are the next words I remember from him and shortly after that everything became a blur of medivac choppers and hospitals. David Bird Adams had risked his own life to save mine and to him I am eternally grateful.
As each of my five children were old enough to understand, I recounted this story to them. Bird Adams remains today a close part of my extended family, and never a day goes by that I don’t remember this gentle sole from Missouri.
Sharing your experience in One of our countries worst decisions in sending our troops overseas, takes a lot to describe. I never asked nor did I know you were injured. Remembering in so much detail all these years explains your future and all you do now to help others . We are so fortunate to still have you and somehow thanking you just isn’t enough . When your finished writing I would like you to get it printed for others who haven’t come full circle yet ! 🇱🇷
Thank you dear.
My friend… I also will be eternally grateful to David Bird Adams.
This makes my heart hurt.
Many prayers of thankfulness being sent to the friend of My Friend.
Thank you sweetheart!
I joined the Navy to avoid going to Viet Nam. At the time I felt it was a reasonable alternative. I thought I could serve my country without fighting in a war I didn’t believe in. I ended up stationed with training squadron. I was in a squadron that trained pilots to fight a war I was trying to avoid. The irony of it has not escaped me. I think about it often.
Welcome Home Brother
Terry, thanks for sharing your experience for the generation that doesn’t know what happened. And a BIG thanks to “Bird”. I’m glad he was a true hero. And cared enough about you to risk his own life!
Me too!