MY YEAR ON MONKEY MOUNTAIN

A Memoir

by Dick Reynolds

Son Tra Peninsula embraces Da Nang Bay like a long misshapen arm. Hanoi lies 500 miles to the north and Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) is about the same distance south. Forty years ago, the peninsula hosted three American military installations: an Army communications site perched on the arm’s shoulders, an Air Force command and control unit sat on the elbow, and a Marine air control squadron with HAWK surface-to-air missiles held Hill 647, the arm’s fist. Hill 647 was also called Monkey Mountain. Hundreds of rock apes lived there.

In 1966, American Sea Bees went to work on Hill 647. They gave it a sharp hair cut, creating several flat acres on top for the Marines’ radars, radio antennae and computerized air control system. Four areas at different lower levels were carved out for supply sheds, squadron offices, mess hall, barracks, and missile sites. The barracks were unusually comfortable for a combat zone and made of plywood, 2”x4” and 4”x4” beams anchored on concrete blocks. A building held ten rooms with each room designed to accommodate two men. The room had a desk in the corner and two “hot lockers” for storing clothing and weapons. A single light bulb in each locker stayed on continuously and kept these necessary items dry. Marine Air Control Squadron Four came from Southern California in 1967 aboard two ships, quickly took up residence on Hill 647, and soon became operational.

I arrived in January 1969, having been promoted to major six months earlier, and took over as the Communications-Electronics Officer. This was an unusual assignment for me. For eleven earlier years, I had been a platoon sergeant in the Infantry Training Regiment, an infantry platoon leader and company exec in the Hawaii-based 4th Marines for three years, and a platoon leader at the Officer Candidate School in Quantico, VA. Our Headquarters called my Viet Nam job a “payback tour,” serving in a technical billet in return for getting a bachelor of electronic engineering degree at government expense.

We were the only Marine unit like this one in Viet Nam. Our mission was to control all Marine and Navy aircraft from south of Da Nang up to the demilitarized zone. Marine planes were based in Da Nang and Navy jets were launched from carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Air Force control center (code name PANAMA), down the road from us on Son Tra Peninsula, handled all Army and Air Force planes.

Action was heavy that year. In March we controlled over 24,000 sorties (one or more aircraft on a combat mission), about 800 per day. To help accomplish this demanding task, I had 110 well-trained officers, technicians and maintenance men. They kept our radars, radios and computers operating around the clock, every day of the week. A little known technical achievement called the Southeast Interface Project significantly helped us coordinate air control actions with PANAMA and Navy ships. MACS-4 acted as a real-time data exchange hub allowing Navy and Air Force controllers an instantaneous picture of the air, ensuring an unprecedented level of air crew safety in a crowded spacial environment. Before coming to Viet Nam, I had participated in numerous joint committee meetings for this project to coordinate and agree on digital message formats and content.

I wrote home to my wife, Pat, and four children back in Woodbridge, VA every day but my letters were short because there really wasn’t much in the way of news. Writing paper was plentiful and it was easy to write FREE in the upper right corner of the envelope. Pat managed to do some volunteer work at the Navy hospital down in Quantico while the kids were in school. Her letters kept me abreast of the kids’ activities. John (12), Joe (10), Keith (9) and Cindy (7) were doing well in school but Pat often reminded me that they missed their father and no amount of academic or after-school activity could provide a cure for that ailment. We also exchanged audio tapes but they weren’t as frequent as the letters. I made a huge mistake with one tape I recorded. An ammunition dump in Da Nang had caught fire and I recorded a number of explosions on tape, thinking the boys would get a kick out of that. They did but, Pat was not amused. I promised to never do anything like that again.

Pat and I met in Hawaii that July for a great week of R&R. We visited all the familiar places on Oahu that we’d enjoyed when we lived in Kaneohe from 1959 to 1962. Pat and I also got to see Neil Armstrong taking his one small step for mankind on the moon, live on TV. We talked with our kids on the phone several times. They stayed with another Marine family for that week.

One of the few good things about the tactical situation was our light contact with the enemy. Since there was no hostile air threat, our HAWK Battery never fired a missile in anger. However, the heat that summer caused a missile to “cook off.” It roared horizontally past our squadron offices with a loud whoosh. All of us instinctively hit the deck before it fell harmlessly into the South China Sea. Our Group CO was on Monkey Mountain that day. Lucky for us; his presence did away with the need to send him a long report. We did have several minor skirmishes with the Viet Cong and I always wondered why they didn’t attack in greater force. Perhaps they didn’t realize what an important target we were or maybe it was because we were in such a remote location.

We had other enemies to contend with, problems that made up for the lack of attention by the Viet Cong. Spare parts were hard to get and always in short supply. For example, we had twenty-eight GRC-112 radios for voice communications between our controllers and pilots. These radios were new models, quickly built and shipped to Viet Nam before they were completely tested. Subject to constant use and punishment in our field environment, a design flaw became rapidly apparent. In this case, the air blower fan didn’t move the hot air adequately to keep the radio cool enough. The fan eventually failed and the radio shut down. We had top priority in the supply chain for replacement fans but the manufacturer had difficulty keeping up with our demand. My Radio Officer, Captain Tom Glovier, would go off the mountain on “scrounging runs” and magically reappear with a couple of new fans. I asked where he got them but Tom hinted that I shouldn’t be asking questions like that. Out of twenty-eight radios, we usually had four to six operating at any one time, just enough to stay in voice contact with the pilots.

That spring, another problem surfaced, this time with one of our search radars. The TPS-22’s drive motor and rotation gears began slipping as the antenna made its 360 degree rotations and the antenna would get stuck. Fortunately, my Radar Officer, Captain Don Whisnant, found that the antenna could be moved with enough physical force. While an emergency requisition was being processed, Don and his men securely attached a wooden beam to the antenna base which was about shoulder height. Two men could use the beam as a lever, applying constant pressure while trudging around the radar pedestal in a clockwise direction. It reminded me of a scene in an English movie where an ox was grinding wheat with a millstone. Don and his crew kept at it for two days, sometimes in a driving rain, until replacement parts arrived from our sister squadron on Okinawa. Washington headquarters also alerted the radar’s manufacturer, Westinghouse, who then designed a permanent fix that was later retrofitted to all TPS-22s worldwide.

Our second enemy was the weather. We had four seasons on the mountain but spring and autumn got shortchanged in favor of summer and winter. Winter was also typhoon season. It brought heavy rains and occasional lightning storms. At times, the clouds were so thick and close to sea level that our visibility was nil. It was like being imprisoned in a giant wool sock. The lack of visibility during times like these gave me the willies. It was the ideal time for a Viet Cong attack but it never came. One vicious thunderstorm packed powerful lightning bolts that caused high electrical currents. Our radios were damaged and huge pulses surged back into the computers. My technicians worked around the clock for several days to repair or replace fried circuit boards.

Summer temperatures reached 100° almost every day and there was little relief at night. Our stripped-down uniform consisted of “gung ho” cap (like a baseball cap only flat on top), green undershirt, camouflaged trousers and jungle boots. Getting a nice tan came naturally if you worked outside and removed your undershirt. We were pretty ignorant in those days about skin cancer so sunblock was rarely used. If I had known better, I could have avoided liquid nitrogen treatments on my face and the occasional scrapings and excavations on other parts of my body. Our air controllers, who worked inside air-conditioned modules, faced a different problem. The modules, about 6’ wide by 8’ high by 12’ long, were painted white on top to reflect sunlight and minimize heat buildup inside. Nevertheless, when a display console inside the module overheated, its thermal interlock would shut it down. My maintenance crew wanted the air conditioning thermostat turned down but the freezing controllers kept turning it back up. We issued them winter clothing, but when their six hour watch was up and they came out and into the heat, they had to strip down immediately. Most of our controllers suffered with colds during the summer because of these extreme temperature changes.

The third enemy we had to face was, in a word, ourselves. Our several hundred man unit reflected the makeup of the American population during those turbulent years. We had draftees throughout squadron sections such as Security, Motor Transport and Supply. They hated the war and only wanted to get home as soon as possible. Drugs and several grades of marijuana were readily available. Those of us who were career Marines were derogatorily known as “lifers.” We weren’t fans of the war either, but we had a duty to perform and were going to do it the best way we could. Many of my enlisted technicians and repairmen were well educated. All had high school diplomas, some had college, and each man had received some valuable and highly technical electronics training after joining the Corps. Many were nearing the end of their first enlistment and looked forward to heading stateside and a lucrative career in the electronics industry.

One spring morning, a member of our Security Section came out of his barracks with his loaded M-16 rifle and started shooting. He killed an air controller lieutenant and wounded two other Marines, one who was a member of my radio section. When his ammunition ran out, the shooter was captured, tied up and transported to our brig at the Da Nang air base. The officer’s body was also sent to the Da Nang mortuary. The wounded Marines were taken to the hospital, treated, and eventually returned to duty. Much later we learned that the shooter had been under the influence of a drug. That summer, I testified at his general court martial although I didn’t have much to offer since I was in my office on top of the mountain when the shooting took place. He was found guilty of manslaughter, and assault and battery, and sentenced to thirty years in the federal prison at Fort Leavenworth. I often wonder if this man survived prison and whether he’s now a free man somewhere in America.

Some of our disgruntled enlisted men liked to play dirty tricks on the officers and NCOs. A huge tank held all our water for drinking, cooking and bathing. A tanker truck made a daily trip down to Da Nang, filled up, came back to the mountain and emptied its precious cargo into the water tank. In the summer, the tanker truck sometimes had to make two trips per day. One summer day after a morning run, the driver parked the tanker truck next to the mess hall on the edge of the third level terrace. While the driver was having lunch, someone got into the truck’s cab, released the emergency brake and put the drive gear in neutral. The truck started to move, gathered momentum, and barreled down the side of the hill. It crashed into the side of a barracks and knocked it off its foundation. The single casualty was a napping staff sergeant who was thrown out of his bunk; he suffered minor cuts and bruises. The Sea Bees were summoned and had the building back to normal in a few days.

Someone attempted to murder my replacement shortly after I returned to the states. The culprit had taken a hand grenade, placed white adhesive tape around the spoon and pulled the pin. Then he placed it inside the gas tank of the jeep which my replacement inherited. The theory behind this treacherous act was that gasoline would dissolve the tape and the grenade would explode. Fortunately, the bomber didn’t realize there was a screen mesh in the gas tank just below the cap, a porous metal fabric designed to filter impurities. The fully intact grenade was found by one of our motor transport men when he filled up the jeep’s gas tank. The perpetrators of the wayward water truck and taped grenade capers were never discovered.

As terrible as these incidents were, there was an even worse one that still haunts me. It happened on an early morning that autumn when I was awakened by the Sergeant of the Guard, banging the metal end of my bunk with his rifle butt. (I was now the Executive Officer of the squadron, second in command; the previous XO had gone home and, being the senior major in the unit, I moved up to that slot.) I woke up immediately, looked at my alarm clock just coming up on 4:30, and asked him what the problem was.

“Sir, they want you at sick bay right now. They got a dead body up there."

I dressed quickly and began hiking up the hill, filled with dread and wondering what could have happened. It was dark and eerily quiet on the mountain. I was sure that if we'd been attacked, I would have been wakened earlier by small arms fire or explosions.

When I got to sick bay, I found our senior corpsman giving CPR to someone laying on the wooden floor. There were only two others in the room, the squadron's junior corpsman and our security chief, Gunnery Sergeant Goodeagle. When I asked what it was all about, "doc" raised his head and started chest compressions. I looked at the body's face and got sick to my stomach; it was Sergeant Andy Thompson (not his real name) and he didn't look like a "picture-book" Marine any more. In fact, the upper part of his body was already a sickly yellow and his face a deep purple. While "doc" continued the chest compressions, I could hear a deep wheezing and rattling coming out of Thompson's O-shaped mouth, nothing that resembled any breathing sounds I had ever heard in my life.

Several weeks ago our CO, LtCol Bob McCamey, handed Thompson his promotion warrant and a set of chevrons that one of the other sergeants in the squadron had donated. Slightly over six feet, Thompson was well built with short blond hair and a rugged but handsome face. An electronic technician on his first enlistment, he had a bright future if he chose to stay in the Corps. There was only one more ceremony for Sergeant Thompson, the traditional "wetting down" party.

When I recovered a bit, Goodeagle gave me a quick summary of what he'd been able to learn. Sergeant Thompson had thrown his "wetting down" party the night before at the Sergeants Club and it was well attended. During the evening, Thompson had a lot to drink and, after almost passing out, several of his new comrades decided he'd had enough and would put him to bed. Sometime later, Thompson became nauseated and tried to throw up. Due to his highly intoxicated condition, however, he was not able to fully wake up. So he lay in his bunk and simply choked on his own vomit. Someone heard the commotion, called a nearby security guard and they carried him up to sick bay.

The two corpsmen continued trading off with each other but Thompson was not responding. It became clear that the situation was not going to be reversed.

"Give it up doc," I said, "he's not coming back."

But neither of them would stop and this was one time that I didn't mind one of my orders being disobeyed. After about twenty more minutes of their valiant attempts, they too realized it was futile and accepted the grim fact that he had died. They covered him up with a green wool blanket and we began talking about moving the body to the Da Nang morgue. Sergeant Thompson would be going home in a box, alongside other Marines killed in the Viet Nam "bush."

LtCol McCamey closed the Sergeants Club for a few days, out of respect for Thompson's memory, but he also wanted to send a message to all squadron members about the perils of alcoholic overindulgence. My main task during this time was writing the customary condolence letter to Thompson's widowed mother. We had a problem trying to establish her home address; she apparently moved around a lot. More aggravating were the frequent revisions mandated by Group and Wing Headquarters before the letter could be mailed. The letter had to be typed perfectly; erasures were not allowed. I never knew if she got that letter.

Could Thompson’s death have been prevented? Was there some failure of leadership in our unit? We could have banned wetting down parties on the mountain before this happened, but these kinds of celebrations have been a tradition in the Corps for most of its 232 year history. A peremptory strike against such parties would probably have been met with significant hostility by the officers, staff NCOs and enlisted men in the squadron and lowered morale even further.

We had a visiting priest every Sunday morning and he said mass in the NCO's portion of the mess hall. I attended faithfully and prayed for my wife and children. Strangely enough, I was more concerned for their safety than my own. Just before mass, the priest would hear confessions in a small room next to the dining area. On the Sunday morning after Thompson’s death, our priest was Father Joe Sestito from New Jersey. He had become a regular visitor and was Italian as spaghetti marinara. I usually went to confession with him before mass and my penance was always the same: go outside after mass to the edge of the mountain, say the Our Father and think about the words. The most relevant part of the prayer is the sequence: "thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." I’ve invoked it many times over the years when dealing with a life crisis and, when other options are not available, it helps me accept what I can’t change.

I still remember that experience whenever I say or sing the Our Father at mass. I think of Father Joe and the astounding view of that area 2150 feet below, the placid deep blue water and the white Navy hospital ship tied up at the pier. Lush green jungle stretched for miles along the far side of the bay, up to the horizon, deceptively peaceful while hiding dangerous spider holes, land mines and locals masquerading as friendly citizens.

I also recall my friends who didn’t make it home. LtCol Russ Hittinger, a former boss, was killed by a remotely detonated mine while leading his Civic Action Group. My Woodbridge neighbor, LtCol Jack Dowd, was shot by a sniper while leading his battalion in a sweep south of Da Nang. Several weeks after his death, I received a letter from my wife in which she described the scene in the Dowd’s home just after Barbara (Jack’s widow) received the bad news. She calmly gathered her four children into the living room and said they were going to say the rosary for their father. I wept bitterly then and still fight back the tears when I recall her courage and compassion.

I’ve read few positive articles about our Southeast Asia experience. One memorable essay appeared in the Wall Street Journal many years ago in which Viet Nam infantry veteran Ken Mullholland argued that our involvement there should be recorded as the most honorable and unselfish sacrifice any great power has undertaken; we honored our commitments and stopped the Red tide of communism. He concludes by saying that our fallen Cold War veterans "...made the supreme sacrifice for a cause every bit as just as the ones fought for at Valley Forge, Gettysburg and Omaha Beach." Combat deaths totaled 58,209 but a more recent statistic has come to light that dwarfs this number. Using Google, I found an article that estimates (my emphasis) some 150,000 suicides can be traced to Viet Nam veterans. If this number is anywhere in the ballpark, it’s a national disgrace. All of this causes me to wonder -- was it worth it? Sadly, I have to say no.

But it does lead me to ask myself another important question: Did we, I and my unit, make a difference? I’m sure we did. We provided effective air control for an unprecedented number of Marine and Navy aircraft launched from Da Nang and carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin, guided them to the locations where they could deliver their ordnance in support of our “grunts,” and got the air crews safely back to their base or ship. We doubtless helped save numerous American lives but shared responsibility for many more enemy and civilian deaths, the horrible result of any ‘successful’ combat action.