Here is another story of B Company 1/8th from Charles
(Mother Gook) Michaeli.
THE FIRST PATROL
July 29 1967
We are about five or six miles southeast of Jackson Hole Viet Nam. We set up for
the night with a defensive perimeter. The next day Staff Sergeant Brooks picked
me to lead a five man patrol 500 meters to the northwest, 700
meters to the north and then return to the company defensive perimeter. Who
could mess that up. Going with me is SP/4 Leniox from York Pa., PFC Artamuss from
N.J., Pfc Gardner from Kentucky, PFC Muntz, and PFC Porter from New York city, with
his lucky T-shirt.
I did not know it at the time, but I would become the Company Jinx. Every
patrol, every ambush, every recon patrol, every water patrol, and most
LPs, I would come in contact with NVA soldiers or once in a while a V.C. It would get to the point that no one in our company would volunteer for
any event I was assigned to. The CO would have to assign men to go
with me. I would not half step when it came to patrols or ambushes. I always
went to the spot that I was told to go to and cover.
July 30th. 1967.
My 20th. Birthday. We departed the Company perimeter with Gardner carrying the prick 25
(radio). I believe it was called
this because it weighed 25 pounds. PFC Muntz was our pace man. He counted the
steps we made as we moved through the jungle. We went the 500 meters to the
northeast without any problems, then took a ten minute break.
THE GRASS HOOCH ON STILTS
We had moved about 100 meters to the north with me leading the patrol and
going slow, when I heard what sounded like someone running away from us. I let everyone
know that someone had just snapped brush and was leaving the area. We moved real
slow for about 10 meters. That is when I saw it.
In the thick jungle was a hooch on stilts. It was made with different colors of
grass to make it camouflaged. It was 10 feet by 12 feet square with a bamboo
floor. It had 8 foot sides and a peaked roof. We moved to a area where we could
cover the hooch with supporting fire. This hooch was in big heavy trees and
would be hard to see from the air. There were no windows and only one door. A
ladder led up to a small porch.
I got on the radio and called Captain Crunch (Captain
Christie). I let him know what we found. I told him that we had not entered the hooch to see what was
inside of it. Captain Crunch told us to enter the hooch and check it out and
call him back. I eased up the ladder and using my M16, I opened up the door.
What a surprise, the hooch was full of woven baskets and sand bags. There were
stacks of Khaki uniforms and rolls of black cloth. The rolls of cloth were 3
feet wide. There were ledgers and maps, two wooden cases of ammo, 7.62 x
39 mm. I called the captain and let him know what we found in the hooch. He told me to get a good inventory of just what was inside the
hooch. Captain Crunch said, he would send another squad to help remove the
contraband and help cover any problems that might arise. He wanted
to know where we were on the map. I told him that we had moved 500 meters to the
northeast as required, but I forgot to tell him that we had moved 100 meters to the
north. That was my first mistake as a squad leader or patrol leader.
The patrol sent from our second platoon missed us. They went 1000
meters to the north and did not find us. We heard them go by, but we could not
call out to them because, we were not sure they were American soldiers. They
called Captain Crunch and told him that they could not find us. They
returned to the company perimeter and
Captain Crunch sent out another patrol. This patrol was lead by Sergeant Herandaz.
Sergeant Herandaz had a pet monkey that he brought from some Vietnamese. He
named the monkey Georgie Girl. ( This is the second Georgie Girl, the one Chad
Magnuson speaks about. The first Georgie Girl died after eating a mint
cookie wrapped in aluminum foil from a C-ration pack.) Sergeant Herandaz sometimes shaved his head bald and
other times he would have a Mohawk hair cut. If Captain Crunch had seen him in the
Mohawk, he would have made Sergeant Herandaz shave it off. Sergeant Herandaz started
his patrol 100 meters to the north before he departed the company perimeter.
SP/4 Boznetti and SP/4 Hurst were with him on this patrol. I don't recall the
names of the other soldiers on his patrol
Sergeant Herandazs patrol arrived right at the hooch. Sergeant Herandaz called
me over and showed me, his topography map. He showed me right where the hooch
was located on the map. I told him, I had forgotten to account for the 100 meters
we had moved to the north. Sergeant Herandaz called Captain Crunch on the prick
25 and informed him that we were all together at the hooch. Captain Crunch told
Sergeant Herandaz to get a total count of everything that is in the hooch.
I got inside the hooch and PFC Artamuss (who is Greek) got on the porch. We
formed a line and I started handing down the contraband out of the hooch. There
were ten sand bags of rice that I passed down the line. They were stacked by
what they were so we could get a accurate count of what we had found. This was
the first junk of the NVA that I had found and I was excited.
I handed eight woven reed baskets of ocean salt down the line. This salt had
dirt and sea weed in it. I handed out four rolls of black cloth. I
handed out 200 khaki uniforms. There were 150 pairs of eyeglasses in two wicker
baskets. There were 100 false teeth, tops and bottoms.
At this point, PFC Artamuss spotted it hanging from the rafters of the
hooch in a little black bag. It was a bag of
opium the size of a softball. PFC Artamuss wanted to keep it. I said no, the bag of
opium was going to be accounted for along with everything else. I thought that I was going to have to shoot
PFC Artamuss over the bag, he got upset. He told me, that I did not know what
that bag was worth. I told him that I did not care, what it was worth. Sergeant Herandaz took the bag of opium. He said, he would give it to Captain Christie
and in that way there would not be any problems over it.
We kept removing the stuff from the hooch. We removed two wooden cases of 7.62 x
39 mm ammo. We removed 36 pairs of surgical scissors and two large stainless
steel clamps. We removed 12 ledgers that were in a wicker basket. In a cigar
box, we found several topography maps. They showed gun placements at a place
called Dak To. The ledgers showed how much rice the NVA were getting each week
from each village in the area. There were several beautifully colored hankies. I
kept two blue and red ones. SP/4 Leniox also kept two hankies. There were several
cooking knives of different sizes. PFC Artamuss kept two of these. Sergeant Herandaz
passed the rest of the knives out to his men. There were two new pit helmets that
someone from Herandazs patrol kept. There were several sewing kits.
The really good stuff was around $350 to $450 dollars in
MPC and
Vietnamese Piasters and two green American $20 dollar bills. All this
money was given to Captain Crunch, who told all of us that the money
would be put in the company safe and that on every re-supply we would
get one warm can of Ballentines Beer. We did get one warm can of beer after that
on each re-supply. PFC Artamuss found a belt made out of snake skin with a large brass buckle with a red star on it.
PFC Artamuss kept this item.
When Sergeant Herandazs told Captain Christie the total amount of stuff we
had found, he sent the first patrol back out to our location and we
carried it all back to to the Company perimeter. We set the hooch on fire when we
left. With all the contraband piled up inside the Company perimeter, Captain Crunch called in a helicopter with another Captain who was from G-2 or S-2, I can't
remember which. This Captain made a list of everything and took the maps and
ledgers. He had everything that he wanted put in on the helicopter
that he arrived on and departed our perimeter. Everything
else we kept, including those items we did not show him.
GREAT! Now we could have a can of warm beer every three days.
I learned a good lesson: to keep a log of each step made and record any compass
point changes I made after that. Sergeant Herandaz took me aside and showed me
how to properly read a topo map. He showed me the mistakes I made on this patrol. Primo
was a big help and it made all my other patrols go by without any map problems.
Charles Michaeli
(Mother Gook)
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