Captain, Infantry: A Vietnam War Memoir

© 2015 Leo V. Kanawada, Jr. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint copyrighted material:

• Excerpts from VILLAGE AT WAR: AN ACCOUNT OF REVOLUTION IN VIETNAM, by James Trullinger, copyright © 1980, 1994 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. All rights reserved. Used with permission of Stanford University Press, www.sup.org.

• RATTLERS AND FIREBIRDS: COMBAT ACTION WITH AN ASSUALT HELICOPTER COMPANY IN VIETNAM, by Chuck Carlock and Ron Seabolt, N. Richland Hills, Texas: Smithfield Press, copyright © 2004. Excerpts reproduced by permission of the authors.

• Copyright © 1992, from DRAGONS ENTANGLED: INDOCHINA AND THE CHINA VIETNAM WAR, by Steven J. Hood. Reproduced by permission of Taylor and Francis Group, LLC, a division of Informa pic.

• Prados, John. THE BLOOD ROAD: THE HO CHI MINH TRAIL AND THE VIETNAM WAR. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1999. Excerpts reproduced by permission of the author and John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

• Sheehan, Neil. A BRIGHT SHINING LIE: JOHN PAUL VANN AND AMERICA IN VIETNAM. New York: Random House, 1988. Excerpt reproduced by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/01/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1519-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1520-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1518-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015909325

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Contents

Prologue

Part I

Early Years

1 1959 – 1963 Bucknell University

21963 - 1965 Syracuse University

3 October – December 1965 Infantry Officers Basic Course Fort Benning, Georgia

Part II

South Korea

4 January 1966 Camp Ross, 2Nd Infantry Division South Korea

5 February 1966 Assistant S-4, Support Command

6 March 1966 S-1, Personnel Officer

7 April 1966

8 May 1966 Liaison Officer, Korean Service Corps

9 June 1966

10 July 1966 Company Commander, Headquarters Company Support Command

11 August 1966

12 September 1966

13 October 1966

14 November 1966 Depart South Korea Kimpo International Airport

Part III

Tokyo, Japan

15 November 1966 Tokyo, Japan

Part IV

South Vietnam

16 November 1966 Bien Hoa, South Vietnam 71St Assault Helicopter Company Administration Officer

17 December 1966 Operation Attleboro

18 January 1967 Operation Cedar Falls

19 February 1967 Operation Junction City

20 March 1967

21 April 1967 Departure Of 71St Ahc To Chu Lai

22 May 1967 Bangkok, Thailand

23 June 1967 Chu Lai, South Vietnam 196Th Light Infantry Brigade Task Force Oregon

24 June 1967 3/21St Infantry Battalion Platoon Leader

25 August 1967 Assistant S-3, 3/21St Infantry Battalion Americal Division

26 September 1967 Headquarters, 3/21St Infantry Battalion Tokyo, Japan

27 October 1967 Depart Vietnam Cam Rahn Bay Fort Lewis, Washington

Part V

Post-Vietnam

28 November 1967 Battle Of Hill 63

29 January 1968 Prelude To Tet Offensive

30 March 1968 My Lai Massacre

31 May 1968 Battles Of Nhi Ha And Kham Duc

32 July 1968 Fort Stewart, Georgia

Part VI

Post-Vietnam

33 1969 Battles Of Tien Phuoc, Tam Ky, And Hiep Duc

34 1971 Battle Of Fire Support Base Mary Ann And Defense Of Da Nang Departure Of 71St Assault Helicopter Company From Vietnam

35 1972 Defense Of Phu Bai And Tan My Departure Of The 3/21St Infantry Battalion And The 196Th Light Infantry Brigade From Vietnam

36 1974 A Vietnam War Insight

37 1975 Fall Of Saigon Evaluation Of The 196Th Light Infantry Brigade

38 Retrospective On Vietnam War Memorial Day Speech, 1987 Medals And Citations

Acknowledgments

Source Notes

Bibliography

About The Author

In Memorium

NOTE: To view the scenes and photos cited in each chapter, go to FACEBOOK at Leo Kanawada, and click on PHOTOS and then ALBUMS, VIETNAM-1967.

For my wife, Carol

my daughter, Kristina, and her husband, Rob

my son, Sean, and his wife, Christine

and my cherished and precious grandchildren,

Alexandria, Kailee, Sean, Jr.,

Lily and Scott

For all of the men and women

who served our country during the War in Vietnam

and to their families and loved ones back home

who also served and prayed for them

For my family and loved ones back home

and for all of those friends and acquaintances

who shared their lives with me

in Korea, in Japan, in Thailand, and in Vietnam

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes

us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden,

meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to

assure the survival and the success of liberty."

—President John F. Kennedy

Inaugural Address, January 1961

"It is imperative that we hold in our hands South East Asia,

including South Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia,

Singapore … This part of South East Asia is very rich; it has a

great many mineral resources and it is well worth the expense to

get hold of it … After we take over South East Asia, we can increase

our forces in this region."

—Mao Tse-tung

Speaking at a session of the

Politbureau of the Central Committee of the

Chinese Communist Party, August 1965

PROLOGUE

CHRISTMAS 2012

LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

Over the years, it had become a tradition for our son, Sean, and his family to drive down from upstate New York to spend Christmas with my wife and me. This year, Sean’s wife, Christine, and three anxious grandchildren scurried through our front door even more excited than ever to deposit the presents that Santa had deposited for us and them at their home.

After dinner, when it came to my time to hand out my present to my son’s family, I confessed that my present to them this year was one that was an unfinished gift.

I’m writing a book that I’d like to give to all of you. It’s a memoir of my two years in Asia. The days and times that I served in the Army in Korea and during the war in Vietnam.

I remember the photos and the slides you showed me many years ago, my son said.

Right. You remember. Well, that half of my present is the part that’s finished. I placed almost 300 of those slides on a DVD for all to see. The unfinished part is the book, the memoir. I always wanted all of you, all of our family and others, to know what it was like to serve in the Army and to live and serve in combat in the Vietnam War. Many soldiers never talk about their experiences. However, I think that they should be discussed and described. You should know what your father and your grandfather did during those days and years.

I agree, Dad, Sean said.

Me, too, Granddad, Sean Junior, now a precocious second-grader, added. I want to know, too. And I can read real good now.

Great, I smiled. I’m happy about that because –

I never met my grandfather, Josef Kanawada. He died in 1941, the year in which I was born.

He was born on December 8, 1868, the last child in a family of eleven children, and was raised in the city of Lodz, Poland. At that time, Poland as a nation did not exist. Lodz was in the Russian zone and under the domination of Russia.

Apparently opposed to serving the czar and fighting in the Russian army, my grandfather emigrated to the United States in 1886. He was eighteen years old. I know nothing else of these early years of his life. I wish I did. I do, however, have a picture of him as a soldier, dressed in a military uniform, presumably drafted in the army of the czar of Russia.

This lack of knowledge about my grandfather – as a young man, a soldier, and as a citizen of our country – is one of the underlining reasons for writing this memoir. The same can be said of my other grandfather, Joseph Knizak. My father, Leo V. Kanawada, Sr, was too young to be drafted into World War One and too old to serve in World War Two. Consequently, I wanted my family and my grandchildren to know about the life of their father and their grandfather, about one member of their family’s ancestry, and about this one particular aspect of my life when I served my country as an infantry officer in our armed forces.

I was proud to have served. At the time, I felt obligated to serve and to devote my life and my time in that service, and hope that those who follow in the future will have that same desire should a similar need arise.

Needless, to say, then, in those early years of the Cold War, such a need did arise, did engage our nation in the area of Southeast Asia, and is portrayed here in my memoir. Therefore to assist the reader throughout the narrative, various insights entitled A VIETNAM WAR INSIGHT will appear occasionally. They will highlight a precarious action or activity, specifically highlighting the involvement of China and the Soviet Union and the assistance they rendered and provided to North Vietnam during the War in Vietnam from 1949 to 1975. These insights should also provide the reader with a general overall view of the conflict and what was at stake for our nation and the people of South Vietnam in that part of the world. Here, now, begins our story.

* * * * * * *

A VIETNAM WAR INSIGHT

1949-1954

‘In the years following 1949, aid from China increased. In 1951, the Chinese had five thousand military advisors in Vietnam, which grew to around eight thousand in 1952. Many of these advisors were officers, including four generals. By 1952, the Chinese had sent in eighty-two thousand tons of military equipment to assist the Vietminh. The Vietminh were enjoying great military and political successes in the areas they held when the Geneva talks got underway in 1954. The French knew they were defeated and expressed the desire common to all western nations – that Vietnam be divided so that the Vietminh could not unify the country.

By 1954, the United States had spent $ 2.5 billion against the Vietnamese, in the form of assistance to the French – more than France received in Marshall Aid funds.’

* * * * * * *

PART I

Early Years

Chapter One

1959 – 1963

BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY

— Pop, Leo V. Kanawada, Sr.

Rot-see? I replied naively, not even bothering to turn around at my desk. Never heard of it. No such word."

I politely ignored Frank Edwards, my new freshman roommate of the past three days at Bucknell University. Kept my nose in one of the books in the stack that I had just purchased at the bookstore for English 101. Hell, I was having trouble just dissecting what a metaphor was and what political science meant.

R-O-T-C. Every guy is taking it. Military Science. Should be right up your alley, you being an Eagle Scout and all.

True, I was undoubtedly the only freshman male on campus whose closet contained a knapsack filled with camping gear – sleeping bag, mess kit, long-handled ax, sheath knife, hiking boots. I had planned on devoting some of my free time at Bucknell to working with the nearest Boy Scout troop in Lewisburg.

I sighed, closed my book, and spun around in my chair. Must be a bevy of beautiful freshmen women involved in this rot-see for you to be interested, I chuckled through my hastily constructed shit-eating grin.

No women. Just us men. Rot-see. R-O-T-C. Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. The army. Everybody is signing up. With the draft out there after we graduate, wouldn’t you rather serve in the Armed Forces, go into the army, as an officer rather than as a private? Wouldn’t you rather be called ‘mister’ than ‘hey, you’?

Sounded like Pop. He used the same pearl of wisdom when referring to those with a college degree compared to those without one.

Okay, I said. Explain, why don’t you.

Here. Frank gave me last year’s yearbook. Bucknell Class of 1958. Flip to page 62. Read all about it.

Surrounded by several pictures of college men in uniform – some marching, others firing rifles at basic training sites, many in the student officers club encircled by the full-time military faculty on campus – the black, block-lettered caption, MILITARY SCIENCE, caught my eye and highlighted, front and center, the two-page entry. It was a more than accurate description of my next four years in the rot-see program at Bucknell University.

‘Since Congress passed the Reserve Forces Act of 1955, every capable young man faces a military obligation. The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program helps college men prepare for this duty.

The military atmosphere which pervades Bucknell’s campus every Friday morning at eleven o’clock is more resplendent than ever this year. The ROTC men now march to common hour in new army green uniforms. These students of military science form on the soccer field to drill and march triumphantly through the campus to the accompaniment of the ROTC band.

Since the Department of Military Science was established at Bucknell in 1951, men have been required to enroll for two years of basic army instruction. During their freshman year, after they have become familiar with the organization of the army and ROTC, they concentrate on acquiring skill with individual weapons, developing marksmanship, and gaining a knowledge of American military history. The second year is spent in the study of map reading, crew-served weapons and gunnery, leadership and exercise of command.

Qualified junior and senior men may continue in the advanced ROTC course, and become eligible for a commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Army or the Reserves. During the summer preceding their senior year, those men participating in the advanced course are required to attend six weeks of summer camp. At camp, the principles of leadership, discipline, and strategy learned at Bucknell are expanded and applied.

Every winter, the Cadet Regiment sponsors the Military Ball and selects a co-ed to reign over the festivities. The Officers Club promoted the Bloodmobile Program in Lewisburg this year. The organization also aids the Pershing Rifle Team and ROTC Band which are additional divisions of the ROTC Department.’

* * * * * * *

A VIETNAM WAR INSIGHT

EARLY 1960s

‘By the early 1960s, it became obvious to all interested in the fate of Indochina that Washington had more than just a passing interest in the affairs of that region. The United States sent more advisors and more material into Vietnam in an attempt to bolster the South Vietnamese government. When Moscow, Beijing, and Hanoi saw Washington’s unwavering support for the South, even with the ever-changing nature of South Vietnam’s political hierarchy, all doubt was removed as to whether or not the Americans were committed to the South.’

* * * * * * *

Needless to say, I jumped in with both feet and participated in ROTC for the next four years. In each of the eight semesters, one of our courses of study was always Military Science. I received either an A or a B grade for each semester course.

In the summer of 1962 during my junior and senior year, all ROTC cadets – as we future Army officers were called – attended six weeks of Army Basic Training at the Indiantown Gap Military Reservation located several miles northeast of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. We lived in World War II wooden barracks, which housed about forty men per floor.

Perfectly-aligned metal bunk beds, footlockers, and wall closets greeted us and stood at attention throughout our crowded sleeping quarters. Besides the daily regimen of basic training from early-morning PT, marching, five-mile hikes, classroom study, and marksmanship, we also shared in KP duty, barracks clean-up, and the ever-dreaded latrine assignment.

Near the final weeks of our training, we received our only three-day, weekend pass. It was a fortuitous weekend for me for, during those few hours and moments away from our Army base, I met a very wonderful family and several people who eventually played a very important role later on in my life.

The weekend materialized because I had become friends with a fellow in our barracks named Bob Klein, who had a girlfriend in Washington, D.C., named Gail, who lived nearby Bob’s grandparents in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside of Washington, who were more than grand to us and more than anxious and happily-willing to welcome Bob and me to stay with them for that weekend. We were all invited by Gail’s girlfriends, Diane and Marie Lattin, to attend a pool party at their home in Bethesda and to a day or two of sightseeing in D.C. and a drive over to Ocean City, Maryland, to swim and frolic in the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Naturally, Bob and I didn’t think twice. In my 1951 Chevy, we surpassed the legal speed limit and covered the ground between Harrisburg and Washington in record time.

Since that weekend, the Lattin family – Diane, a paraplegic since birth and a member of the President’s Commission for the Physically Handicapped; Marie, a nurse; and their father, Ward, a corporation lawyer – became my dear friends. Without them and their unselfish hospitality shown to me throughout the years and for almost an entire year while I completed my research in Washington on my doctoral dissertation in 1976-1977, I never would have been able to obtain my Ph.D. I am forever grateful to each of them and for each of them to have been in my life.

As our days at Indiantown Gap drew to a close, two votes were taken for the record by our Detachment of ROTC officers, approximately 200 of us. One, to select the most outstanding soldier – our vote went to a cadet from VMI, Virginia Military Institute – and the other, if I remember correctly, to select one of us who we thought should be the leader of our Detachment. To my surprise, they chose me. Throughout my life, these leadership roles never seemed to fall very far from my shoulders.

Upon those same shoulders, on the day of my graduation from Bucknell on June 2, 1963, my college sweetheart, Ginger Doolittle, pinned on them my two gold, second lieutenant bars. At graduation, all ROTC officers wore their uniforms under their gowns. However, we removed our caps and gowns during the ceremonies when we were sworn in as second lieutenants. I was one of four graduates to choose the Infantry as his branch of service.

For the next six years, our lives were in the hands of Uncle Sam, at his beck and call, obligated to serve and protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic. Two of those six years consisted of Inactive Reserve, two devoted to Active Duty, and two to Active Reserve.

My two years of Inactive Reserve commenced immediately from 1963 to 1965, simultaneously devoting that time to obtaining a Masters Degree in American History at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. And it was there, I might add, that the word Vietnam became the new common phrase, part of our daily vocabulary, a word that came to occupy my thoughts and my life, cascading often from my lips to the not-always-receptive ears of my very close friends.

For all intents and purposes, Vietnam had emerged and quickly began its nascent march, not only at Syracuse but throughout the country, to provoke and evoke nationwide derision and division. But for me personally, it took a year of serving among the people of South Korea for my views and my opinions of our nation’s role in Asia to eventually coalesce, reach fulfillment, and then become rock solid.

* * * * * * *

A VIETNAM WAR INSIGHT

1963

In the months following my graduation, Mao Tse-tung publicly espoused China’s firm support of the actions of the Viet Cong and the Buddhist minority in South Vietnam. Inviting over one hundred Buddhist monks from eleven countries in Asia, Beijing sponsored a conference to portray their plight in the South and to denounce the atrocities perpetrated against Buddhists by the Diem regime. Later in the year when Diem was overthrown, Beijing stepped up its military aid to the Viet Cong. In addition, China also openly upheld the tactics of the VC and forcefully recommended that they continue with their strategy of pursuing a protracted or a guerrilla form of warfare in their struggle to dominate the South.

Encouraged by China, Hanoi urged the United States to refrain from ever contemplating any aggressive action toward North Vietnam. Even Ho Chi Minh boasted in public about having powerful allies and that Washington should think twice about waging war against his country. It was also at this time that Ho Chi Minh was informed by the Secretary General of China’s communist party, Deng Xiaoping, that China intended to grant Vietnam one billion Chinese Yuan. North Vietnam’s pro-China affiliation was now paying dividends.

* * * * * * *

Chapter Two

1963 - 1965

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

Our goals in Vietnam are the same as they were in the Korean War …

A repeat performance, similar to Japanese World War Two imperialist activity, will not be tolerated by our country or our allies.

—State Department Briefing,

Syracuse University Washington Seminar, 1965

Lee’s Bar, the neon sign blazed, flickering on and off just above the plain-old, storefront façade. An oasis amid the strip of all the stores and shops necessary for one’s survival in a college town, the only island of pleasure planted along the street known as Westcott.

Almost every evening at about eleven o’clock, my housemates or later on my roommates and I and our friends and classmates congregated at Lee’s Bar to solve the world’s problems – by now, Vietnam occupied first place on our list – while drinking a bottle or two or more of Bud. At the time, twenty-five cents, a mere quarter, covered the cost of a bottle. Of course, if necessary, other quarters could be made to magically appear or be discovered in some corner of a pant or jacket pocket for just that one-more-additional brew.

Invariably, by midnight or more often closer to one A.M., all of our questions found satisfactory answers and our trek back to our apartment began. Fortunately, we lived just across the street from Lee’s.

Before I arrived in Syracuse, I had arranged to rent one of three rooms at the home of Mom Darrone – Mrs. Ethel Darrone, a wonderful seventy-year-old grandmother and friend whom I had met the previous year. The price was right for the three of us graduate students – forty dollars a month – and, for that first year year at Syracuse, proved ideally located only a few short blocks from Westcott Street and Lee’s Bar.

I worked for my meals. Luckily, before