Part II

Ed Hess: Vietnam in his own words

About five years after my first tour in Vietnam, I returned to Vietnam as a chief warrant officer and was a counterintelligence special agent with the 4th Infantry Division. By then things were much more organized, and we were no longer living in tent cities, except for those in firebases, and for the most part they were then living in Conex Containers surrounded by sand bags.

Military Intelligence was responsible for gathering information from informants about the activities of enemy combatants and to identify local members of the Viet Cong (VC) infrastructure. Consequently, my unit was required to go into outlying villages to conduct cordon and search operations, interrogate indigenous personnel, and to develop informants. It was always risky business, but it paid off when we discovered weapons caches or identified VC cadre.

Occasionally, we were required to interrogate wounded prisoners of war and to search dead bodies for important papers. We also gathered information that was carelessly thrown away by our own troops that could be useful to the enemy. We sometimes found classified documents and other important information that ended up with the trash that could be useful in determining VIP travel plans, combat readiness, site and equipment vulnerabilities, maps, troop strengths, etc.

In 1962, the time of my first tour, most people had never heard of Vietnam, but by 1968, especially after the Tet Offensive, the war in Vietnam was headline news. At the end of my first tour, Vietnam veterans were treated with respect, but by 1969 anti-war proponents were demonstrating against and treating military personnel with contempt and great disdain. It was not until Haily Williams invited me to attend a ceremony at Driver Elementary School in honor of Randolph County veterans that I felt as though anyone really appreciated what veterans have done for their country.

It still brings tears to my eyes thinking about that day as veterans representing all branches of the military from all the wars from WWII to Iraq and Afghanistan entered the auditorium while the band played patriotic hymns. It was a very touching moment when a grateful student body stood respectfully clapped their hands in honor of all those veterans.

I have been to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. on one occasion, but I was moved by it in the same manner that those students touched my heart with their applause that particular day.

The first time I went to Vietnam , it took 36 hours flight time from McGuire AFB in New Jersey to Tan Son Nhut. That was on a turboprop chartered airline. The supercharger went out and it was hotter than blazes, but it was repaired when we landed on Guam. Then the air conditioning was so cold everyone practically froze.

I retunred on a Pan American jet nicknamed the "Freedom Bird" which landed in Seattle approximately 15 minutes earlier than when I took off from Cam Rahn Bay, having crossed the International Date Line and losing a full day in the process.

In the early days of 1962, we did not have a good choice of food, but our cook made the best of what we had, supplementing our diet with fresh fruit and vegetables from the local market in Saigon. For nearly six months we had ham for breakfast, dinner and supper, and I was so sick and tired of ham I could not eat it for a very long time after that. We boiled and purified river water. In the morning the water cooler looked clean and clear, but the moment you pressed the button for a drink of water, bugs, hair, and other debris would bubble up and make you think twice about whether you were really that thirsty.

Poverty was one of the most noticeable things in Vietnam. We would take our trash and garbage to a local dump just outside of Saigon near a tea plantation. As soon as we pulled up women and children would start going through the trash looking for anything that might be salvageable for food or other use. It was a sorry sight to behold, and it made us realize just how fortunate we were to be Americans.

The poorer class of Vietnamese lived in make-shift huts that were covered with aluminum sheeting with beer can labels on them. A fire broke out in one of these villages that spread like wild fire and many of the people lost all their worldly belongings. The fire spread so quickly that all they could do was to run for their lives. It was a frightening sight to behold.

Many major improvements had been made between 1962 and 1968. In order to move military personnel around the countryside, highways and bridges were constructed by the combat engineers. Major airfields were built, firebases were established, and local residents were sometimes relocated to fortified villages.

Prior to the military coming to Vietnam, many of the Montagnard tribal people were mortal enemies with other clans and often resented the Vietnamese, but they were sometimes forced to live together in villages that were protected by Special Forces, civil affairs, and other military advisors.

Security was much improved by my second tour of duty, but there were still plenty of risks involved. VC sappers tried on two or three occasions to attack the 4th Infantry Division compound at Camp Enari near Pleiku, but their efforts for the most part were unsuccessful.

It was awesome to see the amount of firepower that could be brought to bear on a potential enemy, and at times it made you feel as though you were indestructible. But then the VC would hit us with 122 rockets that were designated to whom it may concern’ and that brought you back to a sense of reality in a hurry.

In January 1968 the NLF (National Liberation Front) attacked major cities throughout Vietnam. This became known as the Tet Offensive. The 4th Infantry Division intelligence sources were reporting that the North Vietnamese were bringing Russian-made tanks down the Ho Chi Minh trail, but some of the reporters were skeptical and refused to believe these reports.

One day there was an air strike and we happened to capture one of those tanks. General Pepke had the tank brought back to Camp Enari and parked it in front of Division Headquarters. He then called a news conference and told those reporters in no uncertain terms, "There's your damn tank!"