The Boys of '67 by Andrew Wiest

Author:Andrew Wiest
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Boys of ’67: Charlie Company’s War in Vietnam
ISBN: 9781780962023
Publisher: Osprey Publishing

Captain Lind was at a loss. His men had been locked in battle with the Viet Cong for four hours. Artillery and air strikes had not silenced the enemy positions. He could not maneuver his troops to flank the bunkers, two choppers had been lost, and there was no way to evacuate his wounded. At 4pm, though, a call came in from US Navy Commander Dusty Rhodes, aboard one of the monitor gunboats in the river. Rhodes was an experienced hand at navigating the rivers and streams of Vietnam, having served in the Brown Water Navy in Vietnam for nearly a year. He told Lind that, since the tide was high, he thought he could navigate his monitor up the stream between Charlie Company and the enemy positions. The move was very risky – the monitor, which at 60 feet long and nearly 18 feet wide was almost as wide as the stream itself, could run aground at any point. Even if it remained afloat, the ship would not be able to turn around and could only back down the stream if it got into real trouble. Rhodes and his men would be sitting ducks no matter what. Lind called back that it might be a suicide mission, but Rhodes told him that he thought the monitor’s armor would withstand most of the enemy fire. And even if it didn’t, he was coming anyway – so Lind had better tell him what he wanted him to do while he had his boat in that damned little stream.

True to his word Rhodes fired his engines and nosed into the stream, the commotion catching the attention of almost all the embattled survivors of Charlie Company. To their amazement the men watched as Captain Lind jumped to his feet and, ignoring the enemy fire, walked along the paddy dike with the radio to his ear directing the movements of the monitor. Although Lind was careful to keep the monitor between himself and the worst of the enemy fire, that’s not how his men saw it. There he was, every inch John Wayne, walking along calmly amid the crackling fire pointing out targets to the monitor. After that performance, Lind would never again have to worry about winning the respect of his men.

With rounds continually pinging off its armored sides, the monitor made its way around the bend in the stream where the PABs had been shot up earlier in the day. The 40-millimeter cannon in the bow turret and the 81-millimeter mortar amidships opened devastating fire on the bunker complex housing the 50-caliber machine guns that had been ripping away at 2nd Platoon. Jimmie Salazar, whose wife Aurora was approaching the due date to deliver the couple’s first child, watched in awe as the monitor blazed away at the Viet Cong and explosions threw bodies, trees, and mud several yards into the air all around. Despite being so tired and frightened, Salazar couldn’t help thinking, “That’s the prettiest sight I have ever seen.”

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