Number of combat incidents
U.S. Army; Co. C, 3/12, 4th Div.
Vietnam
From mid 1968 to mid 1969.

It was brought to my attention someone thought I might have exaggerated the number of firefights our company was involved in during my year of Vietnam Service. While I can't imagine what would possess someone to assault my integrity without knowledge, it did make me realize: The statement I had made was; "we probably had about one firefight a month during my tour," and, I also realized in reflection my statement was sort of "off the cuff" and without a lot of forethought. The issue thus made me wonder; could I have exaggerated that number in my mind over so many years since? So... Please follow as I consider it in more detail. To start, simply checking the list of men killed from our unit produces seven distinct dates on which men from our company were killed in action. There were other firefights in which only NVA soldiers were killed, as well as those where men from our unit were wounded without any U.S. soldier killed. As long as no U.S. troops were killed, those combat incidents wouldn't show up on the enclosed government list of casualties with firefight dates. There is no list of men wounded in action in Vietnam to my knowledge. To the best of my memory, then, and I probably do remember most of them, listed below are the individual incidents of combat for the men of Company C that "are not" on the KIA list [that list is also displayed, further down the page].

1). In my year in the military before Vietnam, the Army provided basic and advanced infantry training for about the first 5 months. Then, they sent some of us for additional training in what they called an NCO academy. I heard from one source it was a de-tuned Army Ranger school, and from another it was an abbreviated OCS academy. What ever it was, it was created for one purpose, to produce squad leaders for the Nam; because they used em up fast. After completion of that first year of training, then, they award me the rank of Sergeant E-5 and sent me off to function as a squad leader in an infantry combat unit. That left me with just my second year of my 2 year drafted service, to complete my 1 year tour of duty overseas. When I arrived in the Nam, I was sent to the field [Company C's field forward firebase] and put in the second squad of the second platoon. They placed me as sort of an observer in the squad, working with the existing squad leader [he had the same Sergeant E-5 rank] so I could watch and learn from him before he rotated home a few days after my arrival. I am very thankful they did that, as in my mind, they did it to acclimate me [I guess "acclimate me" would be the phrase, I don't really know what it could sensibly be called] to my new job and its duties. There I was, then, about two weeks after arriving in country, and much surprised to find myself in my first firefight. It had rained nearly constantly since I arrived and the ground was soaked until it couldn't hold any more water. On that day I speak of, a gentle rain fell and it was quiet as our company moved through the jungle in one long line. Our pointman came face to face with two NVA regular soldiers and ended the quiet as he sprayed the trail with his M-16 on automatic, striking one soldier in the forehead and stitching the other two or three times across his chest. The C.O. cautiously pushed the company forward about a hundred yards and then out to both sides of the trail, setting a perimeter around the two downed NVA soldiers. While the radio operator oriented himself with the map and accurately zeroed artillery in case of need, the C.O. had the medic trying to save one of the downed NVA soldiers. There was a mild slope and I was down the grade from where the medic worked. With my squad in place on the perimeter and having carefully observed our surroundings, I walked up to where the medic was working to see if I could help; and what I was in... As I moved away, the Sergeant I was replacing whispered, "you better get down young Sergeant." There was no aid for me to offer the medic. The two men were just a few feet apart and as I approached up the slope, it seemed the blood of both men had drained out nearly instantly. The whole hillside ran red under my feet with their blood mixed in the cool rain sheeting the soaked hillside. The ghostly white face of one of the men was toward me as I approached. As I got closer, I could see he had what looked like a tiny blemish above and at the edge one eyebrow. Then, standing above him, I could see the back half of his head was gone and his skull empty. The second man struggled to breath as the medic worked on him. He was obviously terrified and he sort of squealed softly and died while fighting to get the air that bubbled out through the blood filled holes in his chest. My introduction to Vietnam seemed complete. In that few moments in time, the life I had known was shattered, leaving me with little knowledge of how it could ever be made right. In just those few days, I was graduated from being what those who had been in country for a while referred to as FNG's [fucking new guys]. That ghostly pale face still comes to me in my dreams sometimes. If the 2 men we killed were the point element for a larger unit, they withdrew; and the altercation was over with that 1 second deafening roar from our pointman emptying one magazine from his M-16. No other shots were fired... As I stood there, above the two dead soldiers, I quivered a little. I remember wondering if it was because I was cold and soaked to the bone, or because I was afraid. Then I realized, it didn't really matter; the job would not stop. I was in country in Vietnam and we would live or die by our own hand! (Well, by our own effort and God's will, of course; as I tried to hope in what little I knew scripturally of God and his will in those days.) If my speech is a little graphic or verbose, it is my attempt to convey how bad it really was; how bad war really is. I do know, of course, I can't possibly do that. No matter how much someone talks about it, a person can't understand what he hasn't experienced. In looking back, I wouldn't believe the things I experienced myself, if I hadn't lived it. It has softened over the years so I don't feel it so harshly any more.

2). On another occasion, and I don't know how these following events stack up chronologically, our pointman rounded a bend in the trail and found an NVA soldier leaning against a tree taking a break. By his own account, our pointman pointed his weapon and heard it click on a dead round. He said the enemy soldier actually smiled as he reached for his AK-47. Our pointman dove over the side of the hill as his ruck sack and canteen were riddled with bullets while still on his back. The NVA soldier ran off and neither man was hurt. During my tour, that is the only time I ever heard of a round misfiring, assuming, of course, our pointman's account was accurate and he didn't forget to chamber a round. Walking point in NVA territory in Vietnam, it does seem unlikely he would have done that.

3). One night in the jungle on a squad size ambush patrol only about one hundred yards outside our company perimeter, we were set up for the night about fifty feet toward the company from a tree on a fork in the trail. I put out two claymore antipersonnel mines behind the trunk of the tree, one pointing down each the forks. After dark, an NVA soldier found one of our claymores and cut the detonator wire and pulled out the blasting cap. He took off his sandals and tied them to his rucksack, and then looped the detonation wire that ran back to my position over his fingers on the forearm of his weapon. He then spent about four hours sliding barefoot down that wire about fifty feet toward our position. (We first heard movement about 11:00 PM but then it went silent. That's likely when he found our claymore and cut the wire. He was probably hoping we would make noise and give away our position. There were lots of critters in the jungle that could have made the noise we heard. Hearing noise at night usually didn't mean enemy troops were present. That night, however, it did! The first we "knew" the enemy was present, was when he appeared standing over us in the black of night [at about 3:00 or 4:00 AM]). What likely saved us was his expectation we were much further away from him than we were. We put out the two Claymores, but since we were set up only about fifty feet back up the trail and protected from the back-blast of the mines, we only used about half of the detonation cable. [I had put the mines on the back side of the tree using the trunk to absorb and/or protect us from their back-blast]. For those reasons, I used out only about half the detonation wire. The rest was coiled at my position. The enemy soldier was likely measuring the wire as he approached, and thought he still had another fifty feet to get to our position. He was clearly intent on being on us at first light. I was awakened by several very loud cracks and by the muzzle flashes as each shot lit up the area around us. The man on guard right next to me had seen the silhouette of the enemy soldier standing over us in the starlight filtering through the jungle canopy. He fired one shot through his heart. The enemy soldier then fired eight or ten rounds into the ground beside me as he sort of wilted down into a little ball right where he stood. Mike Lomar, as we lay in a little group on the ground, was hit twice. Mike started screaming my name to help him, but I had to just lean over and whisper if he didn't shut up and be quiet, they were going to come and kill us all. [Mike never made another sound until we were loading him on the medivac.] At that moment, I knew we needed to get Mike back inside the company perimeter and onto a helicopter. That said, we had to stay alive ourselves to be able to do that. I tried to detonate our claymores to clear anything that might be out in front of us. When I clicked the first detonator, however, nothing happened. The enemy had cut that wire when he found the mine. Fortunately, I had daisy chained the two claymores together with a piece of plastic detonation cord. That meant, when I clicked the detonator to the second claymore, I was most pleased by the roar and flash as they both went off, firing 1400 lethal projectiles away from us in each of the two directions down the trails in front of our position. I next called for the mortar squad to put up flares and asked them to keep it light until we said stop. Mike was sill quiet. Everyone laying there with me in the black heard me on the radio and knew it was about to get light. When the light comes up, I told them, they should have a second magazine ready for quick reload so they could spend the 20 rounds in their weapon on anything that didn't look like it belonged to the jungle. We all knew, as soon as the flares lit up our position so we could see them, they would be able to see us. If there were any other combatants with the one we killed, they had pulled back. Possibly, some of them were hurt or killed by the detonating claymores. Thinking he had deactivated the mines, they would have been very surprised when the claymores went off. In the light provided by the flares, then, we moved Mike back inside the company perimeter and onto a medivac, which was just arriving in the dawning of the day as we got him inside the perimeter. In the early light, as soon as Mike was away, the company commander had my squad carry him down to the site. He was particularly interested in examining the corpse of the NVA soldier for documents, and in seeing how the enemy attempted to deactivate our claymores. There on the ground at the blast site was the blasting cap he had pulled out of the one, with the electric wire to it cut.
Top: Claymore Mine with Detonator and Detonation Wire!
Below: Map of location where the NVA Soldier found
our claymore and followed its wires back to our location;
to be killed standing over us... Scale: 150 yards tall.
[Someone raised the question of how wise it was on my part to have some of the squad sleeping on an ambush patrol. Very astute, but... We had some activity going on every night. Pulling ambush patrols was very common; and, most always yielded no results. Sometimes we ran squad size ambush patrols for 3 or 4 nights in a row, 10 to 15 men set up and staying some kilometers outside the company perimeter. We had to sleep sometime! So, as usual, on this night I broke the squad into two parts and had one man in each group on guard at all times.]

I traveled to see Mike [the man wounded in this firefight] in Atlanta, Georgia, after I got home. He was up and about and said that while he wouldn't be playing any football, he felt pretty good. When we were loading him on the medivac, I still have a vivid memory of one of his wounds. I got a good look where a round had passed through his thigh about an inch deep making a wound 3 or 4 inches long. It had cut out a V about as wide as it was deep. The flesh was just gone. As a movie about warfare once said, except for being documented on this website, Mike Lomar's combat experiences and sacrifices are being "lost into time like teardrops into rain" [along with those of the other men we served with]. If you served with us and know the man who shot the NVA soldier standing over me, say hey and give him my thanks. [They tell me World Wars 1 and 2 had men who were snipers and flying aces who would run up a string of kills to become heroes among their fellow soldiers. I'm guessing the man who came to kill us that night was a hardened combat soldier with similar tales. It was most certainly not the first time he done what he tried to do to us. Prior to that night, I suspect he had stood over the bodies of a lot of dead GI's. I wish I could say I was better than those other soldiers he may have killed, or that I was better than him; that my squad was better than he was. Truth is, I imagine we were fortunate; and/or blessed. Probably nine out of ten times he would have killed us all, and scurried off into the jungle unharmed. I was there to do my year and come home. He was there to kill "us." If I had to kill him to survive, I would do my best. I did my best. For my part, though, I would just as soon he went right on when he discovered or location. Not him. He was a zealot and true believer and was there to kill me. Most nights he probably would have won. Not that night, however. And that's the thing abourt war, "that night" is the only one that matters. I believe that night was God's blessing or our good fortune... I won't presume to judge which. {I do want to add and make clear that my droning on about his imagined skill set is just my opinion; and, that I speak for myself alone. It is my concern some of those brave men I served with might feel slighted or even offended by my statement about what I imagined the skills of that enemy soldier to be. As far as I could know, the men I served with were the very best at their job. They might say we were better trained and equipped and supported (by artillery and air support and resupply) than the enemy. They might feel the men I served with were better than he! Who am I to disagree? Who am I that I should speak for those men I was honored to serve with? On that night, they had passed the very most austere test of soldiering; and when the darkness lifted, they were alive while their enemy was dead!}]

4). In another encounter, we were on a hilltop that was the high point of the ridge we were on. Another ridge ran parallel about a kilometer away with a valley between. Since I have no memory of orientation, lets just say our ridge ran east and west [to our right and left] and that parallel ridge was "in front" [north of us] as we faced it. There was a very large valley "behind" [to the south of] the ridge we were on. We started taking sniper fire from a soldier or soldiers dug into the face of that ridge in front, about a kilometer across the valley between that ridge and ours. The two men who just happened to be the two shortest men in the company (short meaning least time remaining until their rotation home date) were wounded. From memory, I don't think either of them was critically wounded. Hopefully, just some minor scars to show the folks back home. The sniper was a kilometer or more away, after all. A round looses a lot of energy over that distance; and, center mass becomes pretty hard to hit. The sacrifice of those two short-timers is likely not documented anywhere except here. I am very sad and I apologize that I can't remember their names [and the names of some others mentioned on the website - please supply them if you know (mail: support@justbibletruth.com)]. The shooter being dug in and shooting from inside his hole kept artillery from stopping him. After artillery failed, the C.O. called in an air strike. Two jets showed up with a spotter plane. The spotter identified the shooter's hole by putting marking smoke or white phosphorous on the target. As the jets then used the smoke to spot and work the target, they would come up out of the valley behind us, using the ridge we were on as cover from the sniper, and then fire on the target as they cleared our ridge and crossed the valley between us and the shooter. One of them, each time he approached, came up out of the valley behind flying upside down. I am not making this up, although I must confess, I don't know if I would believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I'm guessing he was a rare combat pilot. I was lying on my back just below crest of the ridge (and thus being protected from the sniper by the ridge top). My position of cover allowed me to relax and watch the jets coming up out of the valley. They must have been using some part of the terrain near where I was laying to orient on the target during their approach; while the target was blocked from their view by the ridge top I was lying on. For what ever reason, they each time passed right over where I was lying as they flew at near treetop level on every run. Each pass, I could see the masked face of the pilot flying upside down right above. I assume he was upside down because it was harder [or more importantly slower] to sight the target while having the nose of his aircraft sticking up in the air when he came up out of the valley and crested the ridge. He would start firing while rolling to upright as he passed me on the crest of the ridge. I had assumed they came from low behind the ridge because that sniper rifle could shoot down a fighter jet from a long way off while it was flying straight toward him. Passing our ridge and firing on the target, they would then pull the nose up and use afterburners to blast up and out of line of fire of the sniper. They made three of four runs each. They ended our problem.

5). During another altercation, we were in a firefight with a group of enemy soldiers taking cover in a line of trees (again, let's say "in front" of us). There were some huge bomb craters we were using for cover. (Each "crater" was a circular V about 12-15 feet across and 8-12 feet deep.) There was about a hundred yard grassy but bomb crater pocked clearing between us and the enemy. Rather than cross the clearing as easy targets, we called in air support and a couple of Huey Cobras came making passes strafing the wood line where the enemy soldiers were taking cover. John Markman was lying in the same crater as me. I was just laying there watching the Cobras run when I noticed one had veered off the path they had been running and was diving right into our hole. I got up on my knees in the crater, took of my helmet so he could get a good look, and started giving the signs our helipad operators gave the pilots in order to direct them to one side. Finally, he pulled to his left toward the target just a little before releasing a rocked. I dove and covered my head as the rocked detonated just outside our hole. We were covered with debris. I called to John and the men in nearby holes to see they were alright. No U.S. soldier was hurt. I guess because I called to check if he was alright, or maybe because he was watching as I redirected the pilot, John wrote his mother about the incident and she wrote me a wonderful letter after I got home a short time later; thanking me for saving her son's life. I didn't, of course, but it was nice to get her letter all the same. Then again, maybe I did... It was war! To this day I don't know, but do sometimes wonder, why that Cobra pilot fired so close to our position. Maybe there was an enemy soldier I didn't see... John Markman was one of those who volunteered to walk point for us. Then, when he finished his tour [or I think maybe during], he volunteered to go back for a second tour as a door gunner on a Huey. I liked John and he was a good friend to me, but I never quite understood his seeming caviler attitude toward the danger. He was alert with quick reflexes and I suppose he felt safer taking that pointman responsibility to himself, than to trust it to someone else. I contacted John a few years ago but I was too late. He spent his life as a policeman, but had just died a few weeks before I tried to contact him of cancer. Hoorah for your life John Markman!

6). We had a second firefight where our pointman exchanged fire with enemy troops with no U.S. casualties, and no enemy casualties we knew about. We often had no way of knowing about wounded or even killed NVA soldiers, since they tried to carry away their dead and certainly their wounded, just as we did. When we had contact we would stop and asses our situation including zeroing artillery or lining up support aircraft. That did leave time for the enemy to withdraw, which they would usually do in the daytime. With mini-gun fire-ships overhead or on call, [Code-named Spooky by the military, but nicknamed Puff (the magic dragon) by the troops they supported. They were aircraft fixed with mini-guns firing 6000 rounds per minute. A target the size of a football field would receive one round in every square foot from a 30 second burst. The tracer rounds they fired looked like a column of fire coming down; like a fire breathing dragon. ] along with artillery and other aircraft, they didn't want a conventional firefight if they could avoid it.

7). While the company was dug in on one hilltop, we had just had an incoming Huey bring mail; so, I was sitting on my bunker reading a letter from home. There was the thump of a mortar from the valley below. I yelled "incoming" across the hill as I slid down into the fighting position. Looking out, I saw the flash from a motor tube and soon heard the second thump. It was 1200 or 1500 meters down and out into the valley. Picking up the radio, I started calling in a fire mission on the mortar flash. We had an older [he was probably mid to late 30's, which seemed old to me at 21] gnarly and raw boned combat experienced Company Commander (Captain) at that time. [I am sorry I can't remember his name.] He came running across the hill and jumped into the hole with me. "Can you see him Sergeant Cummings, he asked?" "Yes sir," I replied, as I pointed toward where I had seen the flash. There was an M-60 machine gun set up in front of the hole we were in and he swung it in the direction I was pointing just in time to see a third flash. Immediately starting to fire on the distant target, he watched and "walked" the tracer rounds [every sixth or so round is a tracer in the M-60 machine gun ammunition] onto the spot where we saw the mortar flashes and spent a belt [100 rounds I think] of ammunition on it once he got on target. Even though the target was out of range for normal sighting and shooting with the M-60, he made it very effective by simply watching where the tracer rounds were going and sort of lobbing them on target. He stopped the mortar attack. We ran a patrol down to check the area and found a fire site our tracer rounds had started. If anyone was seriously wounded or killed, however, they were carried away. The chronology of these events is mostly lost in time for me, but I do hope this one was early in my tour. I should have known to use the M-60 in that way myself. Artillery was more effective, but that machine gun proved a very quick and in hand solution. We only had 3 incoming mortar rounds and they didn't even get one targeted inside our perimeter. [A mortar is a weapon that must be fired and then adjusted based on impact. It usually took a few rounds to get on target with the mortars the enemy had out in the field.]

8). On March 11, 1969, Company C saw an ambush that killed 9 men. My good friends Jean Martin, Wayne Bratz and Milford Dingman were among those killed; while Max Worthington and several others were wounded. Please click this link for a first hand account by Sgt. Max Worthington. Max was wounded but survived that ambush. Max's letter. Max finished out his Vietnam tour as mail clerk in basecamp.

9). This is already mentioned briefly on page 1 but on Aug 30, 1968, Company C made a combat assault on an abandoned firebase onto Hill 1258. It proved disastrous! The enemy was hiding in ambush and sprung it when the fifth bird was unloading - about 25-30 men on the hill. As the rest of the company ferried in, it was an intense firefight that went on sporadically for most of 3 days and required danger close artillery support. After off-loading the chopper onto the hill, I found Lt. William Wolfe lying as I made my way to a perimeter and cover. I dropped beside him to see if I could help but he was dead. I moved with some others into a trench and we cleared nearby fighting positions. Later, we had gas on the hill but when I reached for it I found I had lost my gas mask rolling out of the Huey. I went back up on the hill and borrowed Lt. Wolfe's. We had 8 men killed on that hill along with 12 or 15 wounded. A medivac was shot down when we were taking out our dead and wounded. Bad weather set in and the choppers couldn't fly [or that was the story we got]. A C-130 flew over and dropped out a load of food and water and munitions by parachute. The chute drifted off the hill by a hundred or two yards and we formed a daisy chain down the steep slope to ferry up the cargo. We stacked up the dead NVA soldiers like a pile of cord-wood. When the weather wouldn't clear, on day 3 we stacked motors and munitions in a pile and set a timer on it. We dropped an incendiary grenade into the downed medivac as we carried our remaining dead off the hill in body bags. I guess the body bags must have come on the C-130. They were prepared, eh! The munitions timer detonated when we were a few hundred yards away. We humped a few clicks to a grassy area that was lower down in elevation, where the Hueys could pick us up. Bad day in the neighborhood! What was there really to do but keep going toward my DEROS date [Date Estimated Return From Overseas]? This incident was slightly less than 2 months into my year long tour...

These listed firefights are ones that I distinctly remember, and, except for the eighth and ninth, none of them coincide with the men on the KIA list below; because no US soldier was killed in any of those seven firefights. Along with the seven dates associated with the names that are on the KIA list, it brings the total to at least fourteen. There may have been others that I don't remember. I had thought it couldn't be the case that I would forget any of the firefights we were in, but, I only remembered the last mentioned incident [number seven] several weeks after I wrote this webpage. Someone shooting at you is not a thing you tend to forget. Still, it was a long time ago. Also, I am probably more likely to remember if I was more personally involved. One night we had movement down below our perimeter and heard men speaking [in Vietnamese]. We threw a couple of grenades over the hill and it went quiet. After a few minutes, since it wasn't my guard, I went up above to go to sleep. One of the newer guys [Wayne recently reminded me we referred to them as FNGs - Fucking New Guys] came up and asked if I shouldn't be down there with them. I asked, "you're on guard aren't you?" He said he was and I told him if the Gooks [a slang word we used to describe Vietnamese enemy soldiers] started coming up the hill, I'd be down before they could get up. [The hill was very steep below our perimeter location.] Maybe this incident could have counted as a firefight but no one fired at us so I didn't list it. There may be other incidents that happened sort of "on the other side of the hill," and didn't directly involve me. Anyway, that's at least fourteen firefights. Fourteen is a little more than the one per month number I earlier suggested; "off the cuff." Make no mistake: If you know one of the men who served in Company C, 3rd of the 12th, 4th Infantry Division, in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969, they were combat soldiers.

Another incident that just came to mind [Oct 31, 2024]. I was new in country and on night guard when my replacement was coming on to relieve me. We saw a light down in front. He fired his M-79 grenade launcher down at the light. At first light the next morning, the company commander sent my squad down to check it out. I found the leaves covering the ground disturbed and what looked like it could be blood drops around on the ground. When I reported what I found, the C.O. had Jean Martin's squad run him down to our location to see for himself. [I think he was the same Captain who jumped in the hole with me when we had incoming mortar rounds in #7 above.] He examined the red drops and looked until he found the tree or brush limbs above where the grenade exploded, and were hit with shrapnel, were dripping red sap that actually did look a bit like blood. Jean and I had become good friends by then. From that incident, Jean tried later that day to label me with a nickname that I must confess to being really glad didn't stick: "Old blood trails and drag marks." My dear friend Jean was KIA just a few weeks after this incident.

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