THE MIRACLE ON HILL 52

There are dozens of clichés about war; you see them in all the war movies, read them in every book. They are so common that people, who don't know, will scoff at and dismiss them. But there is one little problem with these combat clichés. They just happen to be true

This story I am about to tell is simply full of these truisms. No need to point them all out, you'll see them for yourself. However there is one item I need to address, what Veterans call 'snapshots'. Vets don't usually remember details, just an image of this or that. Our minds worked like throwaway cameras taking these quick snapshots

So bear with me, please, as I try linking together, in this worn out, tired, old mind, these single images of that time, and of a miracle I once witnessed; as I try to show how survival in war is just chance, although some may call it fate, of how you can love some men as brothers and not want to know other men at all

It was early in 1971, January or February, I really don't remember which. My sniper teammate and I caught a ride on a chopper out to the middle of nowhere, to a pile of dirt designated as Hill 52. We had been assigned to a Marine Grunt unit who were providing security for an ARVN artillery battery on the hill.

I was the 'shooter' on the team, that is, I carried a Remington 700 sniper rifle. My teammate, Barney, was my spotter or 'back up man'; he carried an M-16. We had been told that this place was 'hot' - Charlie was thick in the area, kicking up his heels, having his fun. We were also warned that it was not going to be a nice place to be.

As the chopper circled, banked and started to descend, I could see the river valley where we were landing. A few hills scattered about, the landscape running off flat to the north; a small ribbon of water to the south with our hill on one side, rock cliffs on the other. Everywhere were varying shades of green, except for two important places.

The first was Hill 52 itself, it was brown - mud brown, every inch of the knoll and for yards around. Not a single strand of vegetation was on that hill - just one big lump of sickening, irritating, grimy dirt like God had thrown a handful of mud at his good green Earth, and here it had stuck.

The darkish flow traveled down all sides and out a hundred yards or more. Everything around the hill had been cleared for 'killing zones'. Around the hill's perimeter were fighting holes encircled with rows of razor wire. Scattered about the hill were numerous black boxes, the bunkers; roofs of steel covered with black, plastic sand bags, now baking in the hot sun.

Across the river was the second unsightly scar. A high cliff jutted up from the valley floor with the side facing the hill gouged away, ragged and defaced, the rubble sliding downward and collecting in a jagged pile at its base. Here the earth was scorched and chewed up, blackened by fire. I wondered why.

This was to be our home for at least the next month. As we landed the chopper had taken fire from across the river; nothing intense, a couple of burst from a AK-47, just enough to scare the hell out of us, to get the adrenaline going and remind us that our time in the rear was over, that it was time to go back to work and just the first sign of an ominous stay.

There are some who say snipers had it easy. Three, four weeks in the bush, then back to the rear for a few days; a place of hot food and showers, a rack to sleep on with a roof over our heads; a little nightly guard duty, but it was usually quiet. And for that reason I would have to say that it was better than being a Grunt.

Grunts with their Corpsmen were stuck out in no man's land, at some God forsaken spot and left there until HQ ordered them to some other hell hole; C-Rats for meals, with no showers for weeks on end, sleeping on the ground or in some rat and bug infected bunker. Snipers only shared this life while we were with them.

But there were also disadvantages caused by our comings and goings.The biggest was that we were always the FNGs. NG stands for 'New Guy', you can figure out for yourselves what the F stands for. Snipers usually don't know anybody in the outfit they have been assigned to and since you are only there for a short time, nobody really wants to get to know you

We humans are social creatures, so the first few times out you try to make friends. After all you are all in the same terrible fix, and you are all Marines. Now, it is not like we treat each other badly, we don't, but over time you learn that sometimes it is better not to get to know someone... at least until you know they are going to be around for a while.

In Viet Nam it always seemed that once you made a friend they didn't hang around for long. If they were not wounded or became a KIA, then they rotated home. It is painful to lose a friend in such a manner, sometimes even devastating. So it was not personal - in war you just learn to pick your friends with care... and sparingly.

But the friends you do make are special and are for life, even if you never see them again. With them you share memories of home, your plans for the future, that last cigarette. You tell each other your secrets and fears. There is an unspoken oath between friends, "You watch my back, and I'll watch yours." And you both know that your backs are covered.

The friends you do make are in many ways closer than family, they are your Brothers. They are the men you have suffered with and faced death with. You have eaten the same rotten food, drank the same putrid water, slept on the same muddy ground in three inches of water, or sat quietly with all night on ambush, hot, frightened, fighting off sleep and mosquitoes.

Even with the Grunts you do not know there is a certain bond of a kinship but with the ones you get to know, like your Sniper teammates, in those few you allow to get close to you, and they let you get close to them there forms a friendship like no other between two men. Only in combat can you experience this kind of love for your fellow man.

Barney was such a friend, maybe the last I made while I was there because I was getting short, that is my rotation date was not far off. Most of the men who were in Snipers when I arrived had already gone home one way or another, I had already lost a number of good friends and the pain of their departures had made me leery of making too many more.

Another disadvantage of being a sniper assigned to a Grunt unit, at least during my time in this long Viet Nam conflict, was that the Grunt company commanders hardly used us as Snipers. Grunt companies were always short handed so when 'New Meat' arrived they simply saw us more as replacements.

I spent most of my time in Viet Nam performing the duties of a Grunt; going out on patrols, search and destroy missions, ambushes, and for some reason the company commanders loved to put us out on LPs. LP stands for 'Listening Post', they are usually run at night out in front of the base perimeters. Maybe they thought that as Snipers, we had better hearing.

Not that I am complaining. We were Marines and I saw it as just part of the job. In truth there were never many targets of opportunity anyway and the more men to do what had to be done, the more rest everybody got. On Hill 52 we spent most of our time standing guard. Barney and I were assigned a fighting hole on the far side away from the river.

During the day we would bake in the hot sun, taking turns watching the valley floor. At night, again we would take our turns scanning the area, peering into a dark void. I do not recall ever going outside the perimeter while I was on the hill. Others were running nightly ambushes, daylight patrols, but as far as I remember Barney and I stayed put inside our perimeter.

As I have said I had been in country for some time by now and I did not mingle with many of the others so I stayed close to my position most of the time. It was Barney, with his engaging personality, who would make his rounds everyday, coming back excited and out of breath with all the new scuttlebutt.

And there was plenty to tell. The patrols and ambushes were making contact, getting results. Raising the enemy death counts which was what this war had become all about - but we were also taking casualties, with our patrols getting ambushed themselves on the way out or back in.

It was Barney who first told me that this was the 'hottest' place in Viet Nam right then. Seems some report in Newsweek or some paper had made its way out to us on the hill. It surely was the busiest place I had ever seen; we were taking incoming almost every night and the casualties were mounting.

But the days were mostly quiet, men sleeping or getting ready for the night's activities. There was the one day when a re-supply chopper received some small arms fire. Hovering over the re-supply point with the long, loaded cargo net swaying under its belly while still thirty to forty feet above the ground when the rounds hit that chopper, unbelievably, they let go of that net allowing it to come crashing to the ground

I sat on the edge of my hole watching this misadventure taking place at the top of the hill. The chopper swiftly banking away and upward, soon to be out of sight. The net loaded with crates, now loose and falling like a ton of bricks. Men who had been waiting on the ground for the net, now scattering in every direction and the company CO sprinting like an Olympian to the company radio.

Grunts on the riverside of the hill opened up on where they thought the fire had come from; men who had moments before fled before the falling net slowly made their way back and the Company CO stood by his radioman screaming into the 'mike'. As the dust settled you could hear him even above the automatic rifle fire demanding action against that chopper crew.

First he wanted them grounded, his face glowing bright red even at my distant view. Then he wanted them court marshaled, finally he wanted the "sons a bitches" shot! "They could have blown away the entire Goddamn hill!" Seems we were being re-supplied with arty shells at the time.

And of course there were the nights. In Viet Nam, at least when I was there, most of action occurred at night. The Marines ran their ambushes; and it was when we most expected to be hit by Charlie. The ARVN batteries ran most of their fire missions at night. But after a while you didn't even wake up to the noise of their guns.

It was the incoming that woke you up! And the bad part was that you didn't know it was incoming until that first round hit. I do not remember if it was every night, I have been told by others that it was, but I do remember that it was often and that it took its toll, physically and emotionally. And when it came, it was always three rounds from those scarred cliffs across the river.

Of course we never knew what time of night it would happen, but it was always after dark. The first round either hit the front of the hill closest to the river, or they would lob the first round to the backside of the hill, close to Barney and me. The second round always hit somewhere in the middle or crest of the hill - three rounds raking across the hill either front to back or back to front.

It was always three rounds, because that was all the time the little bastards had. By the time the second round had hit, the company CO had called in the air strikes and our 105s were already answering, slamming shells into the cliffs across the river. The gooks were well dug in on those cliffs and after firing that third round their gun was pulled back into its cave even before that third round had hit its target.

Men shouting and running about, our Corpsmen running to tend the wounded, as always our flares would be shot up into the dark night sky bathing the hill, the river and the cliffs with that eerie yellow light drifting beneath the chutes casting moving shadows across the perimeter with its swaying motions. Tracers raced out at the unseen on the cliffs and at the phantom shadows in our kill zones.

Then just as suddenly all fire from our hill would stop as that first jet fighter came in for its strike, streaking by so low you would swear that you could reach up and run your fingers across its belly. Navy, Air Force, Marine, whoever was closest on any given night, they all showed up making pass after pass on that ragged cliff face to unmercifully punish it some more. America's might focused on that one gook gun hidden in a small dark cave.

And boy did they blast away at that cliff, bombs, rockets, napalm, and machineguns - the best fireworks I have ever seen, like a deadly Fourth Of July every night. Jets screaming in almost on top of one another, chipping away those cliffs foot by foot. We would sit there and watch and wonder how anyone or anything could survive such a punishment. And the very next night, out would come Charlie and hit us with three more shells... simply amazing!

That's the way it went, night after night, Charlie's three rounds, followed by our air strikes, and then everything was quiet for the rest of the night, until the next sunset. As it grew dark, the strain and tension would begin to grow anew waiting for those rounds - knowing they were coming but not knowing when, then finally that dreaded 'whoosh' of incoming followed by the three explosions. Funny how the tension was lifted after those rounds had hit.

Not so funny, more a mystery, was how few times those round found human flesh. The hill was not that big and was covered with Marines and ARVNs yet so few of us were hit, not that there were not some casualties, there were but not as many as one might imagine for the number of times they fired. I guess we were just lucky.

But what those nightly rounds were doing was keeping us on edge, even on those odd nights when they didn't fire them. We all knew that our luck was running out, and I began to believe that my time had come. Sooner or later we were going to able to quiet that gun with the air strikes, but then, sooner or later I knew that Charlie was going to find his mark.

And so it went on. I don't recall how long Barney and I were there before that one fateful night. It must have been at least two or three weeks and after this one night I hardly remember anything about the hill or my time there. Near our position, about six feet to its rear, was a bunker Barney used to sleep in. I did not like bunkers and only used them when I was forced in by the rain or incoming.

Next to the bunker I had sent up an old canvas, foldout cot to sleep on. Where it came from and how I got hold of it I do not recall but it was on this cot that I slept every night while Barney preferred his bunker. Barney would take first watch as I slept under the starlit skies on my cot until my watch. When it was my turn he would awaken me and disappear into the bunker as I sank into the hole.

On this night I was only at my position for a few minutes when I heard the first of Charlie's rounds and, not knowing if it was going to hit the front of the hill or on the back by us, I dove to the bottom of the hole covering my head with my arms.The first round hit the front of the hill, yet still violently shaking the ground under me, and I waited for that second round that I knew was coming - that I knew would be even closer to me.

It has been thirty-two years since I was lying in that hole waiting for that second round to hit, yet I still remember with clarity what went through my terrified mind. I am still amazed at the speed in which my mind raced in those few agonizing minutes; the images that my closed eyes revealed to my sight, allowing my mind to escape the terror; the utter helplessness and horror of the thought of the third round repeating the pattern of front to back.

"This is it, my time is up! That last round is going to hit right in this hole! I better get into the bunker. Dear God! I don't want to die here! Not now, not here! Please Lord; get me through this......" The second round exploded loud and close, closer than I thought it would, making the prophecy of my impending death seem even more certain; shaking the ground more violently than the first, knocking dirt down onto my back.

I was now in a fetal position, squeezing my eyes so tightly closed that they hurt as if by doing so, and not being able to see, I could make this all go away; my arms still stretched up over my head, fingers interlocked, every muscles straining, pulling my body into a tight ball as if I could get small enough to just disappear, and at the same time it seemed every muscle was trying to push my body farther into the earth.

I was trembling, sweating, almost crying waiting for that third and, I knew, fatal shell. I knew I was going to die, tonight, "Funny you aren't gonna make it to twenty-one after all. I have to get out of here, if I don't buy it tonight then I will tomorrow. Lord, dear Lord, please help me get out of here. Maybe if I get wounded I will get out of here. Maybe just a wound in the arm, the leg but Lord please don't let me die here, not like this."

"I can't die like this! Back home my family is watching TV, what am I doing here?" And then I saw an image of my home, as crystal clear as if I was sitting there watching my family. There was my Father in his old brown recliner, in a white T-shirt and his gray work trousers, feet up with white socks, a newspaper across his lap, arms resting on the arms of the chair, my Mother on the sofa, working at something in her lap, tiny Sherri leaning against Mom's side.

My brothers, Ralph and little Scottie lying on the carpet floor, in front of Dad's chair, legs bent up and dangling in the air, their heads resting in their cupped hands, watching TV. And my sister Pat, sweet loving Pat, sitting next to my Father's chair, all younger than they were now. But where was Linda? I searched this imaginary room for her, feeling distress at her absence. "Ah, Linda is married now, she isn't home........."

The third shell hit! Almost instantly I felt a blast of hot air move over me It hit so violently that it tossed the human ball I had become from one side of the hole to the other. It hit so hard that it rattled my teeth twice, first when the shell hit and when I hit the other wall. I sat there limp and stunned unable to move, coughing from the acrid smoke. Dirt from the hole's sides was falling in on me and for a second I thought I would be buried alive.

Slowly my mind began to clear, the dirt had stopped falling but the smoke still hung heavy in the air. When I looked up I could see that the flares were already at work casting that strange yellow pall. Slowly I stood up and looked towards the bunker, the smoke was pouring out of its doorway and roof; the last shell of the night had missed my hole but hit my friend's bunker. I pulled myself out of the hole and walked unsteadily towards the bunker's smoking entrance.

Although knowing that Barney must be dead inside I started yelling his name, "Barney! Barney! Oh God no!" my voice sounding strange, muffled and faraway. "Corpsman Up! Corpsman Up!" I yelled with all the strength I could muster. Starting into the bunker door, horrified at what I would find of my teammate, my friend and then, when I was almost in tears over the certainty of his loss, I witnessed a miracle.

With smoke pouring out of a four-foot round, jagged hole smack dab in the middle of the bunker's roof and the cot on which I had been sleeping on next to the bunker ripped to shreds by the flying shrapnel, Barney walked out of the doorway through the smoke and stood there staring at me in a daze. And there wasn't a scratch on him. I reached out and grabbed his shoulders with both hands and yelled his name again, "Barney, are you okay?"

Dazed and bewildered he looked at me blankly and shook his head. I yelled again, over the noise of our 105s and automatic rifle fire that was strafing the cliffs, "Are you okay?" just as two Corpsmen arrived. Barney raised both hands up and pressed his ears and yelled, "I can't hear anything!" And that was the last words we have ever spoken to each other.

The Corpsmen each grabbed one of Barney's arms, turned him around and started up the hill. I watched by the sick yellow glow of the flares as the Corpsmen lead him away. As the only friend I had in this world, the only man on this hill that I knew by name, the man I depended on to back me up in our team, to watch my back, as I watched his, disappeared over the top of Hill 52.

All the time knowing that a Med-a-Vac chopper would be coming to take him back and leave without me; tThankful that God had spared my life tonight, had answered my prayers, and that He had performed a miracle in saving Barney's life. Yet I have never before or have ever since felt that immense physical ache of the total emptiness and helplessness at being so utterly alone in the world.

Morning came and my watch was over. I was exhausted and sore, every muscle and bone in my body ached from the pounding I had received. Barney was gone; I had seen the chopper come in to take him away after the usual air strikes. I was told that they would be sending another man out as my back-up. He came two days later, a young man I had never met before, new in country, named Martin.

That night was the last time that I saw Barney. He was gone from Snipers when I returned at the end of the month. Martin and I did one more month together as a Sniper Team; I rotated home before I was to go out again, Martin and I never got close and that was my decision, my fault; I pray that Martin made it home.

I went into that bunker that next morning wondering just were Barney could have been when it was hit, looking for some place where he could have been hiding and which might explain why he had not been killed or wounded. As far as I could see it did not matter.

The interior of the bunker was just as shredded as my useless cot. I will never understand how Lance Corporal Byron 'Barney' Eguchi lived through that night, but then miracles are not to be understood, they are only to be witnessed, accepted and given thanks for. I thank God for not only sparing my life, when I was so sure that it was soon to be over, but of working his wonders with Barney, and allowing me to witness His miracle on Hill 52.

Epilogue:

There is one more snapshot that I would like to share with you.

When Barney and I were waiting for the chopper to take us to Hill 52, the chopper that was ferrying people back and forth to the Hill came into our LZ and when it landed, off stepped a childhood friend from Illinois. George Porter was a Marine with H&S Company returning from Hill 52.

George and I had known each other from kindergarten through high school. We had seen each other a couple of times in Nam. As George stepped off the chopper and I was ready to get on, we had just enough time to shake hands and say hello. He was headed back to his base on Hill 37 and I was off to Hill 52.

Thirty years later my brother, Ralph and I went to visit George while I was home in Illinois. I had not seen George in all that time. Standing on George's front lawn in Hampton, the little town where I had once lived, on a muggy August afternoon, watching the Mississippi River slowly flow by, George reminded me of that day in Viet Nam on that hot, dusty LZ.

Ralph stood by silently and watched as two old Marines fought back the tears as George told us of how badly he felt that day so many years ago at watching me, his friend, his brother step onto a chopper that was taking me into the hell that he had just left; of how helpless he felt in the knowledge that he could not help me.

And of the guilt he felt as he thought that he was abandoning me. I stood there with my two brothers, all of us now with tears in our eyes. What a sight we must have been, standing on that green lawn in the afternoon sun - my brother from my family, my brother from my Corps and I. How much more lucky can a guy like me get, than to have such men as my brothers?

©Copyright July 14, 2003 by Michael E. Tank