LZ SWINGER - A BATTLE ABOVE THE PLEI TRAP VALLEY BY LEE THOMPSON

Note: LZ Swinger was on top of Chu Hing Mountain. A 729-meter (2187 ft.) perch overlooking the Plei Trap Valley approximately 10 kilometers from the Cambodian border.


Moving In

They told us it was a "cold LZ"...right!

It was a cold, drizzly morning...late February 69 when we huddled on the chopper pad at LZ Bass, waiting to head out for LZ Swinger. Six Huey's full of "hard-fisters" were set to fly into Swinger and clean up the deserted NVA FSB and get it ready for Charlie Battery, 1/92. We were moving out near the Cambodian border to help prevent NVA infiltration into Vietnam. The initial plan called for elements of the 4th Infantry Division to meet us there and supply perimeter support. Our mission was to provide support to the 4th Infantry while they swept the valley looking for spooks.

I was scheduled to board the 3rd or 4th bird. All of the six were to take off at 5min intervals. I don't remember why. So, 10 minutes after the first bird left, I was preparing to head out. It was then that the plan went south in a hurry. The pilot from the first chopper called back and said the guys on Swinger were under heavy fire. The first bird had landed and off-loaded. As it was on its way back...and the 2nd bird hovered to land...the hill came alive with small arms fire.

Many of you will recall that Swinger is a long narrow hilltop, shaped like an hourglass. The hilltop sloped softly to the south so the chopper pad was on the high end to the north. That end fell off steeply into the jungle on the north and west, and sloped off in a narrow trail into the jungle to the east. The Redlegs on the first bird had decided to wait on the pad and smoke until more birds arrived. Obviously, no adult leadership! Well, as the 2nd bird approached they got up to make way, moving southward down the gentle slope of the hilltop. As the 2nd bird off-loaded, NVA regulars opened up with ferocious fire. One KIA for the good guys immediately. The rest of the birds were held at LZ Bass until somebody could figure out what to do.

For about an hour, our brave cannoneers acted like grunts, and stood their ground. I wish I could recall the names of those heroes. After intense, close quarter fighting, they achieved victory, and the initial fighting was over.

32 NVA bodies were recovered. As my bird landed, the dust was finally settling. Talk about adrenaline! Some guys were still pumped when I arrived. I discovered a 51mm anti-aircraft gun off the edge of the hill in a bunker. It was aimed in the direction our birds had flown, but had jammed and was useless. What an act of God!

The Ivy Division moved in to provide security, and we settled into a routine. Hulus Key, Sugar Bear and Woody Anderson were my closest friends on that hill. Lou Monaco used to come by frequently to shoot the breeze and talk about home. Captain Gill was CO, Lt. Allin was XO, and some cherry 2nd Lt. had just moved into FDC. Lt. Livingston I presume. We called him "Sheila," which infuriated him.




Settling Down

A couple of days after we arrived, we began getting sniper fire from the tree line off the east side of the north end off the hill. The grunts sent a four-man team down to smoke him out. I was sitting on a pile of sandbags...fascinated. About 3 minutes after they entered the tree line I heard "POP, POP, POP!" I assumed we fired up the bad guy until a minute later two grunts came tearing out of the tree line yelling. TWO DOWN!

The Infantry NCOIC was standing next to me when the two guys came running up to him in a panic. He settled them down, grabbed another couple of grunts and sent them down to extract the downed soldiers. Four went in...it seemed like and eternity. I hear another couple of "POP, POP, POPs" and soon saw the four grunts dragging two wounded guys out of the tree line. As they dragged them up to where I was sitting, the NCOIC yelled at another four men to gear up and go down after that sniper. Meanwhile, their medic was attending to the wounded. I recall one was shot in the knee, and was crying in extreme pain, "I don't want to die!" The other kid was silent and pale. He had a bullet in his chest. He looked into the sky with a vacant stare, and breathed with severe difficulty.

I knew he was dying. I wondered why a chaplain wasn't there to pray with him. I believe it was at that precise moment that God called me to serve Him as a military chaplain.

The third team was down in the trees and got fired up. One went down, and the other three scrambled back up the hill to the NCOIC. As he surveyed the situation, he looked at me and said "Go down with this guy and get that guy out of there." I responded..."I'm a Redleg!" He said, "not now, you're not!"

I told him I didn't have my gun (weapon, for you lifers) or helmet. I nearly puked as he handed me an M-16 and helmet, both drenched in blood. "Here," he shouted, "now, get going!" As I slowly made my way down the trail to the trees, I looked at the kid with me. He had to be at least 12! I asked, "Have you ever done this before?" He responded hesitantly, "no." GREAT!

I said "You watch the ground, I'll watch the trees, kill anything that moves!" With that strategy, we picked our way down the trail till it came to a sharp bend. I had a hunch, there was trouble so I got down and slowly crawled to the bend in the trail. As I peeked around, I saw our grunt...down, but alive...not moving. The big decision now was...how do I get him without becoming a statistic myself? The other kid and I finally decided we had to just do it. We couldn't see any sign of a bad guy so I asked him to cover me while I crept forward...nothing. The bad guy was apparently gone. I scurried up to the downed guy to see if I could drag him back. He must have weighed 300lbs! I was 120lbs, so it wasn't gonna happen! I sent the other kid back up for some help and I waited. That entire time, the WIA never moved. He was unconscious.

A few minutes later, three guys arrived with a stretcher. We loaded the WIA up and hauled him back up the hill. By the time we got him there...he was KIA. And, I was no longer a 20 year old kid from Minnesota. I'd aged years! That was my baptism under fire and I'll never forget it. I knew why I liked being a Redleg!

The Air Force arrived shortly and saturated the trees with napalm. The sight was mesmerizing. I'm on record as saying, "thank God for DOW Chemical!" No bad guy could survive that, long enough to hurt me!



THE DAILY GRIND

Within days we started getting "incoming" every time a chopper would try to set down on the pad. It took its toll. Two or three rounds and silence. Virtually every time we took casualties. We all were getting jumpy. Eventually we got into the habit of dropping into a bunker as soon as a bird got close. Even that didn't always help. One morning, after an incident I saw the medic leaning against some sandbags puking his guts out. He was white as a sheet. I, of course, figured something happened. When I asked him, he explained that two of our infantry guys had jumped into a bunker for cover, and a mortar jumped right in behind them. They couldn't even figure out who they were at first. I remember feeling good when I found out they weren't my Redlegs.

Another morning we took casualties. I don't remember how it all happened...it went so quickly. I vividly recall a "cherry" jumping off the slick...with a bewildered look...just as a mortar round impacted. He took some shrapnel in the chest and they just threw him back in the chopper. He was in country what? Three days? And he was going home...if he survived.

The Infantry sent out LP's (Listening posts) every night. In FDC we would monitor their radio. They would key their radio mikes every hour to let us know they were OK. One particular night...about 0300...we stopped getting signals from the LP down south. When the infantry went down, after sunup to check, they found all four with their throats slit. Everybody freaked. It hadn't occurred to us that anybody was interested in getting that close. The next night we got movement on the wire, and it all hit the fan. We called in Spooky (now, there's a beautiful sight!) for air support and just threw as much lead out as we could. I had an M-79 and was popping rounds as fast as I could. When the silence set in we were all terrified. All we could think about was sappers. Nothing...just silence. Just as the sun was coming up I heard some distant moaning outside the wire. It took ages before we got permission to go out and investigate. We found a wounded NVA soldier. We brought him in and tried to nurse his wounds. He had obviously taken some WP in the face 'cause it looked like his flesh was melting off. He was conscious, and scared to death. All I could think about was "how do I explain to this guy that I don't want to hurt him?" We fed him some applesauce out of our C-rats and shipped him back to Pleiku.

My worst day on Swinger was Mar 10, 1969. It was early, and a resupply bird was inbound. I got a call in FDC that "Sugar Bear" was on board. He and I had been close friends before he went back to the rear. Funny thing...I don't even remember his given name. He was being shipped home so was taking one last trip out to say goodbye. As soon as I heard the bird, I jumped out of FDC and headed up to the pad. The slick was settling in and I was almost on the pad. For some reason my eye caught sight of something in a bunker. It was a brand new Time Magazine. "Huh?" I immediately dove in to get it. It would never be there when I got back. Just as I landed in the bunker, two rounds impacted on the pad. Six casualties.

"Medic!" was being screamed immediately. I popped my head up and peered toward the helo pad. There was dust, and confusion everywhere. All of a sudden I thought "where's Sugar Bear?" I saw a guy jump in next to me and I asked him. He didn't know anything. I jumped out of the bunker and ran to the pad. There were four guys sitting there in all states of damage. I remember one kid's shirt was off and his back looked like hamburger. He was crying. Another kid had crapped in his pants. I thought he must be embarrassed. I looked over next to some empty canisters and saw Sugar Bear. His helmet was off and half his head was missing. His eyes had blown out of their sockets and both his hands were scraped clear to the bones. They looked like skeleton hands. I checked for vital signs and he was breathing so I began to attempt first aid. But...where do you begin? Out of nowhere somebody handed me a breathing tube. I put it down his throat so he could breathe easier. I worked on him for 45 minutes. Carefully bandaging all his wounds, always checking his vitals. Shallow breathing...weak pulse. But he never quit. Eventually his breathing was so shallow I could barely detect it and I could no longer feel a pulse. By this time the "Dust off" birds were coming in and I had Sugar Bear covered with a poncho to keep the dust and sand off him. A grunt colonel came up to me and asked me if I wanted to put him on a bird. I knew the drill: Casualties with likelihood of surviving were first. I asked the colonel if there was any space left, and he said "no, but I can make space." With tears in my eyes I told him we could wait for the next bird.

I was awarded a Bronze Star w/ "V". For what? I didn't do anything the rest of you wouldn't have done. Still...My head told me, I made the right decision, but some days my heart still wonders. The Lee Thompson who came down off that hill, was not the same Lee Thompson that went up a month earlier.



THE BRIGHTER SIDE

Everything wasn't always such a downer. We'd often play poker at night in FDC. Different players would come and go, but Lt Livingston seemed to always want to play. Over time I was very lucky. I had built up savings of over $3,000. I was saving to by a new car when I got home. One night Lt Livingston was having bad luck. We were playing Black Jack for $5 a hand. He was down $50 and was getting angry. He decided we should play for $10 a hand. I said "it's a bad idea Sheila...you're just gonna lose twice as fast." He hated being called Sheila, but it's how we felt about him. Like an obedient Sp4, I complied. $150 later he asked me if he could have his money back. No, he wasn't kidding! Sheila asked me what I was going to do with my money. I told him I was dreaming of a Dodge Charger. I showed him pictures, and he got all excited. He told me he was gonna get one too. On Lt.'s pay I figured he could swing it. A few days later he got a letter from his wife. The car died and she bought a new Dodge Dart. He was all bummed. "Now I can't get a Charger" he whined. "are you kidding?" I cried. "Tell her to take the damned car back. She never got your permission to by a DART!" Sheila whipped off an angry letter to his wife. (Who was the kid who owned the GTX?) A couple of weeks later he got another letter from his wife. She basically said "sit on it and spin!" I wonder if he ever found out who popped purple smoke in his hootch. I don't think it was me...I'm not sure. But, I was there and it was hysterical. Actually...I got a little nervous when he came screaming out of his hootch coated with purple...gasping for breath! We got a new Lt., Sheila moved on. This guy had a screw loose. One night I was working up H&I fire. A sixteen point grid. The book says to compute the mission one column at a time...top to bottom, left to right. One of you gun bunnies asked me why they couldn't be shot left to right...for some reason it was easier. It seemed good to me. Anyway, back to the Lt. He asked me what I was doing and I told him "H&I's." "You're doing it wrong" he said. "You're supposed to do it up and down, left to right." I explained how it was easier on the gun bunnies this way and he basically said "Screw the cannon-cockers! You do it the way I tell you." I patiently said I wouldn't...He was new and I knew what I was doing. You've gotta hear this..."If I tell you to do this in red ink...you'll do it in red ink! I'm the Lt!" Well, I laid my pencil down and said "I quit" I walked out of FDC and went down to see Lt Allin, the XO. After listening to me he gave a chuckle and said "I don't really think you can quit, Hardcore." I know two things about that. I never did a mission in red ink, and I never computed an H&I the way the book said. I wonder what ever happened to that cherry Lt?

(The 1/92nd Field Artillery Association - Vietnam)