The War: The Bitterest Battlefield

“You feel like an ant on a dart board,” says a young U.S. Marine at Gio Linh, the American artillery base carved out of the top of a hill overlooking North Viet Nam (see color opposite). The camp’s main gate bids a black-humor welcome to “the Alamo of Viet Nam.” Like neighboring Con Thien to the west, Gio Linh is the merest outstretched fingertip of the U.S. presence in Viet Nam, an isolated and vulnerable outpost less than two miles from the Demilitarized Zone. It lies in a no man’s land that has become the bitterest battleground of the war, an arena of combat unique in Viet Nam for its rigors and relentlessness.

Along the DMZ there is no need to hunt for the enemy; he is all around, waiting for an opportunity to strike an unwary patrol, a lumbering convoy or one of the camps itself. The Marines mostly sit and wait, cramped in muddy bunkers and trenches. Day and night their 105-and 155-mm. howitzers shake the hilltops as they fire into the DMZ and into North Viet Nam beyond to interdict the Communist buildup and southward movement; day and night the dread cry of “Incoming!” rings through the camps as the Communists return the shells. It is a deadly duel of giant cannon more akin to World War I or Korea than to the rest of the war in Viet Nam, and it has long since potholed the rolling scrub hills and emerald paddies for miles around.

Rain of Shells. Con Thien’s lifeline is a four-mile-long road connecting the camp with Landing Zone C2, where its supplies are brought in by air. Last week a Marine battalion providing security for the road was attacked by two battalions of North Viet Nam’s 324-B Division—part of some 30,000 Red regulars operating in an area defended by 6,000 Marines. Nearly 100 mortar and rocket shells rained down on the leathernecks. Then, recalls Platoon Sergeant John E. Lewis, 22, “the enemy came across the paddies in waves like a herd of turtles.” The battle raged for five hours. While the Marines on the ground fought at times hand to hand, F-4 Phantoms dropped napalm on the attackers. When the North Vietnamese finally broke off the battle and crept across the DMZ into the darkness, they left 140 dead behind. The Marines took 34 killed and 185 wounded.

Three days later the Communists attacked Con Thien itself, and a North Vietnamese company followed a heavy artillery and mortar barrage right up to the camp’s wire. Repulsed, the Communists withdrew after half an hour, but four Marines were killed and 15 wounded defending the camp perimeter. And all week long, the shells rained down as usual on the Marines. One attack of 80 rounds of 82-mm. mortar fire killed four and wounded 93. Another of rocket and artillery fire killed nine Marines and wounded 31.

When Hardcore Whines. The rhythm of life in the Marine camps is controlled by the constant threat of the

Red artillery. “We usually get a few rounds in the early morning as a sort of reveille,” says Gio Linh Camp Commander Major Richard Froncek. “Then we will get a few rounds at noon and then more at sunset.” The North Vietnamese seldom shell at night, presumably because they do not want to give away their positions with muzzle flashes. Much of the life of the 480 men manning Gio Linh is lived below ground in heavily sandbagged bunkers supported by thick wooden beams that can take all but a direct hit. In summer, when the temperature reaches 120°, the camp is a swirl of choking ocher dust. In the fall, the monsoons fill the bunkers with two feet of water and mud, turn the trenches into running red rivers of sludge.

Meals are served three times a day in an underground bunker, but only to five men at a time—so that there will never be too many men in the same place in the event of a direct hit. No one ventures above ground without his flak jacket and helmet, although most Marines carry their helmets and go bareheaded in order to hear incoming shells better. The first warning is the boom of the gun across the Ben Hai River separating the two Viet Nams. Then comes the quavering whistle of the shell tearing through the air, followed quickly by the final sharp bang of its explosion on impact. The whole process takes about eight seconds, giving the Marines time to dive for cover, though the North Vietnamese have an ominous new gun of unknown make that gives only a one-second warning. The men of Gio Linh have developed acute ears for descending shells, but the alert is usually given first by Hardcore, their pet Vietnamese mongrel dog. When Hardcore starts whining and heading for cover, the entire camp follows.

Next to the shells, the Marines’ biggest complaint is the company they must keep in their bunkers: rats, mosquitoes and flies. “The rats jump right on top of you when you are asleep,” says Pfc. Robert Smith, 19. One particularly large rat is named Rockefeller, “because he always gets the best of everything.” The standard tour of duty in one of the DMZ camps is 30 days, a brevity that helps make possible the grim humor with which the Marines accept their defensive watch. Atop Major Froncek’s bunker stands a six-foot-high handmade catapult, which he smilingly explains is “a last-ditch weapon in case we are overrun.” Not far away stands a siren that is no joke. Should the base ever be overrun, it will scream a signal to everyone to burrow deep down inside their bunkers. Then all the other U.S. artillery bases within range will wheel their guns around to fire on Gio Linh itself in an attempt to blast the North Vietnamese right off the backs of the defenders.