“A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon." - Napoleon Bonaparte

Around twenty years after the war in Viet Nam was just a memory, my father asked me a question that surprised me. He had heard all of the stories that I had to tell, read quite a few books about the war, and generally tried to keep an open mind about the war and the politics that surrounded it. He started off by reminding me about all that he had heard or read, and wanted to know if I or my platoon had ever done something that deserved recognition and didn’t get it. It didn’t take me long to settle on the fight in the alley on the ninth of May in ‘68.

I guess all of you guys have seen the photo, the one that was on the cover of Time Magazine showing the whole Troop lined up in the beginning of May of ‘68. I remember the fight that started earlier that day. A Troop was spread out along that road, maybe fifty to seventy five meters between the vehicles. The Lieutenant was moving up and down the line, making sure the tracks and tanks were close enough that we could see the ones on each side. We were facing the opposite of what the picture shows, we were to be a blocking force while another unit was sweeping toward us. We were the anvil, they were the hammer.

I think it was late morning, the Lieutenant was stopped at my track, Saber Alpha Two-Eight. I forget now what we were talking about, probably just the usual, keep sharp, keep alert. Since Tet, we had only been back to Cu Chi once for a couple of days. We fought almost every day since Tet, so it was tough to keep alert and sharp when we weren’t receiving any fire.

Ollie Sauls’ voice came screaming over the radio. We couldn’t understand what was wrong, but the Lieutenant ordered his track to move out. I told Paul Gritten to take over and jumped onto two-zero. We hauled ass up to two-four, some two hundred meters from my track.

Two-four was empty, except for Sauls. He was fairly new and very excitable. He told us that one of the other three guys went down the alley to the rear of the track, and started to holler for help after they heard some AK-47 fire. The two other guys went down the alley to find out what was wrong, and promptly got pinned down with the first guy who had been wounded. We had no idea how many of the NVA were down there, so the Lieutenant and I started to creep down the alley.

The Lieutenant, Rod Nishimuri, had just received a scope for his rifle from someone back home. You couldn’t use it to hit something, it was just fixed to the top handle. It was good enough to look through with the rifle pointed in the same general direction. We got far enough down the alley that we could see the three guys who were pinned down. One more step and the bullets started to crack past us. Whoever had them pinned down, was smart enough to use them as bait. The Lieutenant and I exchanged his rifle several times as we tried to pick out the positions where the fire was coming from.

We moved back to the two tracks trying to figure a way to pull the men out. Two-zero called Captain Coomer to let him know what was going on, then we talked over the dumbest idea that either one of us had ever heard. I don’t know if it was his idea or mine, but I took Sauls aside and after asking if he knew how to drive a track, told him that we would race down the alley, passing the three guys and then stop. I told him that he would be dropping the back ramp while we were going down the alley and when we stopped, the other two guys would toss the wounded man into the back of the track. I then explained that when I hollered, he should just back up as fast as he could.

I guess the idea was to surprise them. When you think about it, something that stupid would surprise anyone. Sauls and I mounted two-four and found the intercom wasn’t working. No sweat, I told Sauls that I would use the platoon frequency. This had the effect of making a dumb idea even dumber. We cranked up and flew down that alley. There was a curve to it, and as soon as I spotted the three guys, I opened up with the big fifty. I turned once and hollered for Sauls to stop, saw the wounded guy get tossed onto the ramp, and then turned and screamed for Sauls to back up. I kept up with firing the fifty and turned again to see the two un-wounded running for dear life as it seemed the track was about to run over them.

There was an explosion at the front of the track, and we stopped just beyond the opening of the alley. Sauls and I jumped down, neither of us could speak as our mouths were too dry to do anything but grab canteens and empty them we were so thirsty. How we didn’t hit those two guys must have something to do with the fear of God. They were okay, a dust-off was called in for the wounded man, and the Captain came rolling up in Saber Alpha 6.

When I could talk again, I filled in both the Lieutenant and Captain. I told them that I couldn’t see any of the firing points, told them I just kept spraying and praying. The Captain went back to his track to pass the word up the line, and the Lieutenant ordered my track and several others, including our tanks to close on his position. After resting, we put together a plan to go back into the alley and figure out just what we were facing. I got the dis-mounts briefed and told the TC of two-six to place his gun tube into every hooch on the right side of the alley and blow a canister round through it. I climbed up on the back deck of the tank and the dismounts were strung out behind us on each side of the alley. Almost everyone but the tankers, drivers, and the TCs had grabbed a rifle and were moving with the infantrymen. Gun fire was sporadic and just as I was jumping off the back deck of the tank, it got hit with a small RPG just as the main gun fired. The tank got a small hole under the front slope on the right side, barely a scratch. I moved to the right and entered a hooch that the tank had missed. As I entered the front, a kid wearing standard NVA uniform and looked like he was only fifteen or so, entered the back caring an AK-47. We both froze until he turned to run away. I opened up and he fell to the outside of the rear wall. I’ve always wondered about that. If his first movement was to bring his rifle up, he probably would be writing a far different story.

Before I could un-clog my brain, Mario Gabrielle was in the hooch yelling, “What happened”? I told Mario about the kid and he went skipping out the back door to get the AK. I was standing there, still trying to get myself back together, when automatic weapons started hammering from where Mario had just left. My heart leaped into my throat and Mario came running back into the hooch. His eyes were wide and shinny with fright as he hollered, “They shot at me, they shot at me”. It was all I could do to keep from laughing, and it settled me down. Mario and I went out of the front opening in the hooch, and we started tossing grenades over that hooch and the next several ones. I caught a small piece of shrapnel from one of the grenades, and felt the hot stinging of my first wound. I hollered for Whitey to take over and limped back out of the alley to where Doc Lick, the platoon medic, had set up.

Doc asked me where I was hit and I told him it hit me in the butt. He had me turn around and drop my pants and bend over. Doc’s verdict forced me back into the alley. He said, “I could put a band aid on it”. Nothing like a medical opinion to let you know you were going to live.

The next hour or so was a jumble in my head. Later Bird and Whitey laughed about one enemy soldier who tried to roll a grenade out of his bunker at them. The damned thing rolled back into the bunker and killed him. Our Platoon Sergeant, a man named Flowers, had went two alleys passed where we were fighting and was trying to outflank the enemy. He later claimed that fighting on the ground was a little too much for him. He said he went about five hooch’s down and kicked in a door. He told us that there seemed like a dozen North Vietnamese regulars in there just laying around. He emptied his magazine into the hooch and ran out of that alley as fast as he could. He vowed never, never again to fight dismounted.

It wasn’t long after Sergeant Flowers’ adventure that we were ordered back. That was probably when that picture of the Troop was taken. Centaur ships appeared as we pulled back, working over the whole area with their mini-guns, rockets, and grenade fire. I remember looking back from the hatch on two-eight and watching Centaur pouring in the fire. Several buildings were aflame and I was quite content to be getting away from that alley.

All these years later, I still marvel at Rod Nishimuri’s coolness as those rounds snapped past his head, still chuckle over Mario’s close call, Still remember Ollie Sauls and his role in rescuing his three crewmates. Ollie was killed about three weeks later, Bird disappeared after the war, Whitey died more than ten years ago. Mario lived to return, marry, and raise a family. He’s doing well and lives near Newark, NJ. Doc Lick, Lieutenant Nishimuri, and I get together at the reunions. Doc’s still slim, Nishimuri and I are fat, and we still fight the war over and over again in our minds and in our shared memories.

My father died a few years ago, he lived a full life of more than eighty seven years. I first bumped into Rod Nishimuri in Kansas City. I introduced him to Joe Cowthran from the first platoon, and I slipped outside to smoke a small cigar. Later, as Joe and I went back to his house, he told me that Nishimuri told him I was a good soldier. When I got back to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, I went to visit my dad and told him that the alley was no longer one of those that deserved recognition. I told him my Lieutenant gave me a medal in Kansas City.

John G. Jerdon
Earleville, Maryland.

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