“Just A Bunch Of Boonie Rats, Trying To Survive”: Service In Vietnam With The “Five-Oh-Deuce”

Carl Bennett was born in 1945 and grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. He spent a little time in Wharton, West Virginia, when his father worked as a coal miner, but returned to Cincinnati to attend Withrow High School. His father was a truck driver and his mother was a waitress and beautician. Both parents were alcoholics, and Carl did not have a lot of friends because he did not want to bring them over to the house. Mostly, Carl’s dog was his primary companion. In high school he “kept a low profile,” and joined the Army before graduating to get out of the house. Later, “older guys” in his unit helped him get a GED. Carl joined the Army in 1963 at Ft. Thomas, Kentucky, and completed Basic Training at Ft. Knox. Carl enjoyed Basic because he finally felt like he was part of a team, noting the Army was “my first real feeling of family.” He enjoyed shooting the M-1, M-14, and M-16. He also liked the LAW (Light Anti-Tank Weapon) and the recoilless rifle. After Basic and AIT (Advanced Infantry Training), he earned his wings at Airborne School. He remembers one young National Guard Lieutenant was struggling on the run, but the group did not want to let him fall out, so the Soldier on either side of the Lieutenant grabbed an arm and carried him along. After they completed the run, they let the Lieutenant go, only to discover that he had died. Carl also describes getting an updraft after being dropped from the 250-foot tower, and landing in the fountain in the OCS compound. When he arrived at Ft. Campbell, he was the new “cherry jumper” in the unit, much to the delight of a “big Tennessee kid,” who had been the previous cherry, and one night, the paratroopers hung Carl out the barracks window stuffed in a laundry bag. He completed several jumps at Campbell out of C-119s, including a “daisy-chain” jump, where he was the lowest jumper with his chute opening just before he had to do a PLF (Parachute Landing Fall). By this time, there were rumors of deploying to Vietnam, and Carl remembers training in the Natchez Trace and at Oxnard, California, to get used to the heat (although they were not well trained for the humidity or the jungle environment of Vietnam). He describes Vietnam as “an OJT sort of thing.” They deployed onboard USNS General LeRoy Eltinge, a ship designed for 2000 troops but crammed with over 3600. He describes the berthing arrangements, sleeping in shifts, eating chow, getting seasick, and the bathrooms not working. In warmer climes, they slept on deck, and in rough seas 26 Soldiers were washed overboard (they recovered 25 of them). In the Philippines, they were allowed ashore for one hour (“You wouldn’t believe how drunk a guy can get in an hour”) and one Soldier from Tennessee got drunk, got into a fight, punched an officer, and was not allowed back on the ship. They were issued live ammunition before going ashore at Cam Ranh Bay. He describes field stripping C-Rations and supplementing the canned meals with rice cooked in a helmet. They carried extra ammunition and socks. He describes soaping up his uniform in the rain to wash both his body and fatigues. He liked carrying a shotgun and the M-79 grenade launcher (aka the Thumper). He explains preparing for a patrol and indicators of enemy operating in the area. Once, he stepped on a punji stake and was evacuated to Da Nang. Medics and nurses were “battlefield angels,” and he felt that he was being constantly checked on. He describes his first ambush at An Khe, when they shot up an elephant who had wandered into the ambush site. Fortunately, the elephant was being ridden by a Viet Cong leader who was carrying messages. Unfortunately, the documents were shot up so badly that they were useless. In another instance, they were approaching a village and received machine gun fire. Carl returned fire with his shotgun, silencing the machine gun. When they went to investigate, they discovered that the Viet Cong had chained a young girl to the machine gun, making her fire at the Americans. Carl realized that, unknowingly, he had killed a child. He describes the Viet Cong as detestable due to their hit-and-run tactics, but he acknowledged, “You’re playing ball on their field,” and before they were Viet Cong, they were Viet Minh and had a long history of fighting the French. Every mission in Vietnam was different, but the bond between the Soldiers was so strong that sometimes they did not even have to talk. He describes his experiences during Operation Gibraltar, where his unit was surrounded and “we lost a lot of guys.” At one point during his tour, he was wounded by a grenade and had a concussion. He was evacuated to Japan, where he spent several months in the hospital. After recovering, he played fast-pitch softball on the personnel team. In June 1967, he “married a girl from Hawaii” and reenlisted. In 1968 he was assigned to West Point as the Protocol NCO working for Superintendent Bennett. His duties included sending out invitations to various events, arranging seating for different events, and coordinating visits for Heads of State. He describes a visit from the President of Afghanistan. After his assignment to West Point ended, he deployed to Thailand, where he was responsible for training the Queen’s Cobras, the Royal Thai Volunteer Regiment. His trainees ran operations in Cambodia and Laos, seeking to avoid contact while gathering good intelligence. On one operation, he “ran into some trouble” after 38 hours with no sleep. While they were moving to an extraction point, he bent down to splash water on his face from a stream and blacked out. He woke up in a hospital in U-Tapao, his Cobras having carried him for 8 miles. He was in the hospital for over two months and lost 4 years of memory, including that he was married and had a child (he eventually regained most of his memory). He later had to get a special clearance to return to Vietnam for his second tour. After leaving the Army, he worked briefly at EDS for Ross Perot. He states that people tell him he has Post Traumatic Stress, but he says, “I did what I was asked to do,” and he notes, “Life happens and you move on.” He attends reunions to maintain the bond he shares with other Soldiers because “it’s a family that means a lot to me.” His service means everything to him because it made him who he is.