By Terry A. McCarl
The most memorable experience of my one-year tour in Vietnam from December 68-November 1969 was on March 4, 1969. A couple of Colonels from USARV ( US Army Vietnam) Headquarters in Long Binh flew up to Phuoc Vinh in their LOH (Light Observation Helicopter) to perform a full-day preventive medicine inspection of the base camp. Phuoc Vinh was the 1st Cavalry Division’s Forward Headquarters, where I was stationed for my entire tour. As Vietnam War base camps went, it was a relatively civilized place with mostly wood-frame buildings with sheet metal roofs as opposed to tents. At nighttime, the camp was frequently subject to attack with enemy rockets and mortars.
The Division Surgeon, LTC Guthrie L. Turner JR, had asked me the first thing that morning to go along on the inspection with him and these two visiting Colonels. LTC Turner was driving his jeep around the base camp with one Colonel in the front passenger seat and the other Colonel and me in the back. The visiting Colonels, wearing their nicely-starched and pressed jungle fatigues, were pretty critical of what they deemed to be poor sanitation. What they seemed almost irrationally upset about were the puddles of water everywhere (potential mosquito-breeding areas), due to rain the previous night. LTC Turner and I could tell it was going to be a long day!
Our inspection was just getting underway when at about 10:00 AM on that bright, sunny day, as we were driving around the base camp, we suddenly heard and felt the loudest ” boom” I have ever experienced. An enemy rocket had impacted about 50 feet away from us. LTC Turner stopped the jeep and all four of us piled out of the jeep and laid flat on the ground. We spotted a bunker near the roadway, and we all crawled to it as fast as we could! Attack sirens were sounding, and US soldiers, Vietnamese civilians, chickens, pigs and other livestock were scurrying in all directions.
We huddled in the bunker until the all-clear siren sounded indicating that the “attack” was apparently over. We returned to the jeep and found it to be completely unscathed as if nothing had happened.
I am not sure what happened; either the rocket failed to fragment, or the shrapnel all went over us without doing any damage. To the best of my knowledge, this was the only time that incoming was received at Phuoc Vinh during the daytime during my VN tour.
Anyway, before the four of us got back into the jeep, we all looked at each other with the unspoken thought that we all could have had our
Vietnam tours come to an abrupt end. LTC Turner, being the most “calm, cool and collected” individual I ever knew, seemed totally unrattled, acting as if the whole incident was an everyday occurrence.
In any case, the visiting Colonels, their nice clean jungle fatigues covered with mud, decided that they had infinitely more pressing business back at Headquarters in Long Binh, and decided to abruptly cut their inspection short- I mean right that minute!
LTC Turner drove them back to the helipad for their trip back to HQ. They hastily said their goodbyes without comment, and with faces white as a sheet, boarded their helicopter and took off for their nice, safe home base.
After they departed, LTC Turner and I looked at each other and simultaneously broke down in uncontrollable laughter! LTC Turner commented that “ If it had to happen, it couldn’t have been at a better time!”
For some reason, we never had high-ranking visitors come to perform a similar inspection of our base camp again! I guess the word got around!
Author Bio:
Terry A. McCarl served with the 15th Medical Battalion of the 1st Cavalry Division in the Vietnam War from Dec 1968- November 1969. He currently serves as the Historian for the 1st Cavalry Division Association and the 15th Medical Battalion Association. He is a retired civil engineer.
