A Troop, 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry 25th ID - Vietnam

Personal Experience Narratives (War Stories)

"Miller Time" - John G. Jerdon
A Troop 1967/1968


     Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, a Sergeant in the Red Army in the early 1940s, picked up an old German design of an assault rifle, tweaked it here, nudged it there, and viola, the AK-47 was born.  Mikhail wasn’t just a gunsmith kicking around his shop, he was severely wounded in action against the Nazis and after his recovery was directed to the Main Ordinance Directory of the Red Army.  This was where Mikhail spent the rest of WWII, and this was where the first production runs of the AK-47 were planned in the early ‘50s.

     The weapon itself, long praised by newspaper reporters that never did seem to get it, and two bit terrorists who couldn’t afford better, had its major sub-components stamped from metal bar stock.  This better fit into the manufacturing processes of the Soviet Bloc nations, which were crude by western standards.  The result was a heavy weapon whose accuracy in a single shot mode was poor at best.  The weapons loose tolerances and poor land and groove design gave its ballistic flight path a curious ‘humped back’ shape in its first 300 yards of flight. Those poor tolerances also made the damn thing hard to keep clean, occasionally caused the receiver and magazine to get jammed up, and gave the weapon its curiously flat, loud report.  I’d  bet that even today, after 35 years and only one working ear, I could pick one out of any dozen other weapons firing at the same time.  I hated that sound.

     The Troop was on line at around 0700.  The village was named Pho To Wau, not far from the race track in Cho Lon.  As usual when we were sure we’d be fighting, the village seemed deserted.  It was late April or early May, and the memories are getting fuzzy now.  We pulled onto line on the west side of the village, it looked from our point of view that two corners of the village pulled together and pointed toward an ARVN compound that the Troop was centered on.  Several small trees obscured the front gate, but there was no mistaking the general destruction and NVA flag that fluttered from one of the walls.  Our mission briefing the night before described it as having been over run in the last week.

     After the troop came on line, say about 100 meters from the ARVN compound we sat down and waited.  Same old story, hurry up and wait.  The platoon commander, Lt. Rod Nishimuri, told us that the US 196 Light Infantry were maneuvering into a blocking position about a half mile on the other side of the village.  While we waited some of the men got down and visited with the tracks and tanks to either side.  Radios crackled with squelch as the various TCs checked in with two zero.  There we sat for damn near an hour before anything happened.

     Johnny Johnson, maybe not the thirstiest man alive but certainly in the top ten, was reaching down into his cooler for a can of beer when the first shot was fired.  It came from our direct front and there was no doubt that it was an AK-47 on single shot mode.  At the sound of the shot every eyeball started swiveling about.  Only because I was a bit to the rear of the front line did I get a glimpse of Johnny’s reaction.  Almost simultaneously with the gunshot, Johnny dropped straight down into his hatch and a silvery streak painted the side of his turret near where he sat in the hatch.  Dead silence as everyone tried to track the sound of the bullet’s flight path. 

     Johnny was okay, he called in immediately to the Lieutenant saying he was all right, but seemed a little shy about poking his head out of the turret.  As the silence started to fade with radio calls and mens voices, things slowly got back to normal.  Johnny Johnson’s head reappeared, round eyed, and ever so slowly his torso emerged.  Some of the guys started to pick through C rations, light cigarettes, and recheck their weapons.  It must have been a full half an hour before the next shot.

     In later years I would compare it to ‘instant replay’.  The same flat crack; a second silvery streak painted just below Johnny’s quickly disappearing torso.  This time though, the noise didn’t fade to the dead silence of before.  The false bravado inherent in all young men exposed to modern warfare began picking away at the soul of Johnny Johnson.  Radio calls from vehicle to vehicle started wondering what Johnny was going to do about his new playmate.  Every eye searched just as frantically for the sniper, every rifle was tracking back and forth across the ruins of the ARVN compound.  But its kind of curious, what young men do under stress.  There’s almost a sense of relief when someone else gets shot.  It calls to something deep inside of us, some kind of relief that it’s the other guy’s turn.  Something that tells us that I’m safe, I’m alive.

     It took forever for Johnny to peek back out of the turret, even longer for him to get back into his position behind the fifty.  His eyes were shining with fright even as he cursed and bitched back at those of us teasing him.  One particularly inventive thought suggested Johnny leave some C rations for his new buddy.  Always better to have a well fed, inaccurate sniper than a skinny one who can shoot.  We carried on like this for some time.  Long enough anyway for that third shot.

     Again the same loud, flat crack, again Johnny’s falling body, again the silvery streak painted on the turret, but also something new.  A horrible wet, snacking sound that chilled us all.  Every eye turned and saw the terrible destruction the bullets wake left behind.

     Nobody really knew how it happened.  My own guess was that there was some small imperfection to the base metal of the turret.  A sand pocket too tiny to have been noticed at the foundry where they pour the molten metal into sand forms.  Whatever it was, the bullet’s flight path was altered just enough after striking the turret.  The round ricocheted and entered the top of the large mess hall cooler that Johnny had lashed to the bustle rack of his tank.  Continuing through the cooler, the bullet exited from the bottom and on its way its ballistic characteristics exploded every can of beer that Johnny had to his name.  The passing of Johnny’s beer was marked by a thick, foamy stream of yellow that splashed across the engine covers of Saber Alpha 27. 

     Johnny’s head appeared as if in slow motion, he turned slowly and beheld the carnage of the cooler and with an animal like cry leaped behind the fifty.  Apparently, the appearance of the third stripe was enough to give Johnny a pretty good idea just where they were coming from.  The stream of fifty rounds started tearing through a point where two trees grew together and sure enough, the bodies of a former NVA sniper team tumbled to the ground.

     I can’t tell after more than thirty five years if there’s a moral to this story, just one of the goofy things that happen in war.  Hell, the beers probably weren’t even Miller.  Probably some of that foul Crown or OB we used to get when they were out of the better stuff.  But from the first time I ever heard the expression ‘Miller Time’ I’ve thought about Johnny Johnson.  I even sneak one from time to time if the wife lets me.


  John G. Jerdon
  Ocean City, Md.
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