A collection of photo illustrated war and post war vignettes, short stories, war nightmares, war poetry and travel writing by a Vietnam combat medic. Site includes war related videos and documents. There is some harsh language.
In 2022 Medic edited Gary Rafferty’s memoir Nothing Left to Drag Home: The Siege at Lao Bao During Operation Dewey Canyon II-Lam Son 719, as Told by an Artilleryman Who Survived It. Three years later I sent Gary the above photo, found on the internet, and vaguely captioned “U.S. artillerymen relax under a crudely made peace flag at the Laotian border in 1971. The gunners were giving covering fire for South Vietnamese troops operating inside Laos.” I wondered if this was A Btry, 2nd Bn, 94th Artillery, Gary’s old unit.
“Thanks for sending this photo!” Gary replied. “It’s hard to tell for sure but, I don’t think so. Absent the ability to see any bumper codes it’s hard to be absolutely sure.”
He continued:
“While it’s an 8 inch battery of self propelled guns like us, and the terrain in the background does look similar, there are a number of things that make me think not.
“While I can’t make out the names on the gun tubes the color of the letters and style of font don’t look familiar.
“Most telling are the powder canisters, which appear to be stored in the open, without overhead cover. Out of necessity almost everything at Lao Bao was below ground, especially powder.
“It’s daytime, and the guys are relaxed, out in the open. At Lao Bao, any time we were above ground in daylight we were paranoid woodchucks, always just a half-step from a foxhole or bunker. So the feel of the men is not right. Also, their uniforms are too clean, they’re not the color of the red soil. We were filthy when it was dry and muddy, filthy and wet when it rained. We wore our helmets and flack jackets not for any regs but from pure necessity. Oddly, nights at Lao Bao were safer than days. We always got hit in daylight. Only once, we were hit by tank fire, at night.
“All in all, things in the photo look way too neat and clean. With all the incoming we took, Lao Bao was a mess. The sandbags were all torn, our remaining trucks were peppered with shrap. We did have a flag like the one shown, but it was torn by shrapnel. While our guns were above ground, as best we could we kept everything else under cover. And everything, I mean everything, was covered by that goddamn red dirt.
“We in A Battery 2/94th were the only 8 inch battery at Lao Bao. The other batteries in our battalion, and all attached artillery at Lao Bao were equipped with 175mm guns, easily identified by their huge barrels. So, if it’s not my unit, it’s not Lao Bao.”
An hour later Gary followed up with second email:
“Well shit, don’t go printing my last email, Doc, cuz I was completely wrong! When I downloaded the photo and expanded it on the computer screen, I could see a lot more detail.
“First, and most importantly, the name on the nearest 8 inch gun is “Annie Fanny,” so this IS a photo of A Battery! I’m completely stunned. FYI; track and gun names usually start with the first letter of the unit— A for A Battery, B for Btry, and so on.
“Second, from the way they’re piled, the powder canisters in the near foreground are probably freshly used and empty.
“Third, the powder canisters stacked further away are held in place with a pile of sandbags, likely used as a makeshift bunker or blast wall. We had no wooden beams to build bunkers, so we made do with sandbags, with anything we could get. In the picture on the cover of my book I’m sitting on my small bunker, which is covered with sandbags and sand filled powder canisters. Gun crews had first dibs on empty powder canisters and used them a lot.
“At first we thought two layers of logs topped with two or three layers of sandbags was good enough for what we called a “hole.” One of the first direct hits from NVA artillery occurred on a empty hole which had that level of cover. Inside the hole the guy had spread his fatigue jacket to dry on his rubber mattress after washing it. When he returned to his wrecked hole he loudly declared he’d have been fine if he’d been there. We said for sure he’d have been wasted. “Nah,” he says, and climbs down into the hole, grabs his shirt, and holds it up to show us it’s unharmed. But when he stood up the only thing in his hand was the collar. The rest of the shirt was cut to ribbons. We thought it hilarious, the way all the color drained from his face when he realized that could have been him.
“Truth is, there’s not much that will survive a direct hit from a Russian 152mm howitzer. You gotta dig your hole deep, and when you think you’re deep enough, dig deeper still, then pray it doesn’t hit you. Because if it does, you’re history.
“Fourth, I think this photo was taken fairly early in our Lam Son 719 adventure. The knees of the red-leg standing with a cigarette to the right of the flag are dirty enough, but not as torn and filthy as we would get. Also, one of the trees in the background is familiar! We later cut it down so the NVA couldn’t use it to range us. Plus, the guys have beer! As Lam Son 719 dragged on, and the ambushes on Rt. 9 became more frequent, like most supplies beers were hard to come by.
“It’s easy to tell that Annie Fanny is in firing position. The recoil spade at the rear of the gun is grounded, ready to absorb some of the recoil, and keep the gun in a steady position. The gun farther in the background (whose name I can’t read) has the recoil spade up and is NOT ready to fire. 8 inch howitzers tubes have a limited traverse, so the whole gun has to be re-positioned (relayed) to point in another direction if it’s outside those limits. The unnamed gun might be relaying or standing ready to do so quickly if needed.
“The photo likely shows the part of A Battery nearest the road, i.e. Route 9. My hole and the FDC Track would be much farther from the road and these two guns.
“Now that my feeble memory is awake, I believe the man in the right foreground wearing a headband may be Tito Santiago. The other guys may well be some of Steve “Rhody” Rhodes gun crew. Steve is the only guy from Alpha Battery I’m in touch with. I’ll send him a copy of the flick and ask. He probably knows the names of the rest of these men.
“What have I learned from this? My memory of Vietnam is compressed, at least the parts I remember. And I remember the terrible times best, how we dressed in rags, each day were battered by incoming, our collective hopelessness, the lousy food, the scarcity of water, all of it crowned with B Battery obliterated. What I’d forgotten, suppressed, denied, whatever you want to call it, was the journey of losing my humanity, becoming feral.
“I know that trauma distorts our sense of time. A healthy wide perspective becomes tunnel vision. Terror lengthens seconds into hours. Seeing this photo of Lao Bao, the rush of memories it ignited, made me realize I’d forgotten how long it took to live like an animal.
“At first glance my battery mates looked too clean, too relaxed. Because we were. The photo was taken at the beginning of Operation Lam Son 719, not the bitter end, where the ARVN in Laos, the Americans at the border, were so firmly defeated, and so firmly frozen in my mind. It’s a snapshot of heady days before we grew old. Like I say in my book, each morning, when I wake, I give thanks.” _____________________________
Lao Bao: A Blast From the Past, by Gary Rafferty
In 2022 Medic edited Gary Rafferty’s memoir Nothing Left to Drag Home: The Siege at Lao Bao During Operation Dewey Canyon II-Lam Son 719, as Told by an Artilleryman Who Survived It. Three years later I sent Gary the above photo, found on the internet, and vaguely captioned “U.S. artillerymen relax under a crudely made peace flag at the Laotian border in 1971. The gunners were giving covering fire for South Vietnamese troops operating inside Laos.” I wondered if this was A Btry, 2nd Bn, 94th Artillery, Gary’s old unit.
He continued:
“While it’s an 8 inch battery of self propelled guns like us, and the terrain in the background does look similar, there are a number of things that make me think not.
“While I can’t make out the names on the gun tubes the color of the letters and style of font don’t look familiar.
“Most telling are the powder canisters, which appear to be stored in the open, without overhead cover. Out of necessity almost everything at Lao Bao was below ground, especially powder.
“It’s daytime, and the guys are relaxed, out in the open. At Lao Bao, any time we were above ground in daylight we were paranoid woodchucks, always just a half-step from a foxhole or bunker. So the feel of the men is not right. Also, their uniforms are too clean, they’re not the color of the red soil. We were filthy when it was dry and muddy, filthy and wet when it rained. We wore our helmets and flack jackets not for any regs but from pure necessity. Oddly, nights at Lao Bao were safer than days. We always got hit in daylight. Only once, we were hit by tank fire, at night.
“All in all, things in the photo look way too neat and clean. With all the incoming we took, Lao Bao was a mess. The sandbags were all torn, our remaining trucks were peppered with shrap. We did have a flag like the one shown, but it was torn by shrapnel. While our guns were above
ground, as best we could we kept everything else under cover. And everything, I mean everything, was covered by that goddamn red dirt.
“We in A Battery 2/94th were the only 8 inch battery at Lao Bao. The other batteries in our battalion, and all attached artillery at Lao Bao were equipped with 175mm guns, easily identified by their huge barrels. So, if it’s not my unit, it’s not Lao Bao.”
An hour later Gary followed up with second email:
“Well shit, don’t go printing my last email, Doc, cuz I was completely wrong! When I downloaded the photo and expanded it on the computer screen, I could see a lot more detail.
“First, and most importantly, the name on the nearest 8 inch gun is “Annie Fanny,” so this IS a photo of A Battery! I’m completely stunned. FYI; track and gun names usually start with the first letter of the unit— A for A Battery, B for Btry, and so on.
“Second, from the way they’re piled, the powder canisters in the near foreground are probably freshly used and empty.
“At first we thought two layers of logs topped with two or three layers of sandbags was good enough for what we called a “hole.” One of the first direct hits from NVA artillery occurred on a empty hole which had that level of cover. Inside the hole the guy had spread his fatigue jacket to dry on his rubber mattress after washing it. When he returned to his wrecked hole he loudly declared he’d have been fine if he’d been there. We said for sure he’d have been wasted. “Nah,” he says, and climbs down into the hole, grabs his shirt, and holds it up to show us it’s unharmed. But when he stood up the only thing in his hand was the collar. The rest of the shirt was cut to ribbons. We thought it hilarious, the way all the color drained from his face when he realized that could have been him.
“Truth is, there’s not much that will survive a direct hit from a Russian 152mm howitzer. You gotta dig your hole deep, and when you think you’re deep enough, dig deeper still, then pray it doesn’t hit you. Because if it does, you’re history.
“Fourth, I think this photo was taken fairly early in our Lam Son 719 adventure. The knees of the red-leg standing with a cigarette to the right of the flag are dirty enough, but not as torn and filthy as we would get. Also, one of the trees in the background is familiar! We later cut it down so the NVA couldn’t use it to range us. Plus, the guys have beer! As Lam Son 719 dragged on, and the ambushes on Rt. 9 became more frequent, like most supplies beers were hard to come by.
“It’s easy to tell that Annie Fanny is in firing position. The recoil spade at the rear of the gun is
grounded, ready to absorb some of the recoil, and keep the gun in a steady position. The gun farther in the background (whose name I can’t read) has the recoil spade up and is NOT ready to fire. 8 inch howitzers tubes have a limited traverse, so the whole gun has to be re-positioned (relayed) to point in another direction if it’s outside those limits. The unnamed gun might be relaying or standing ready to do so quickly if needed.
“The photo likely shows the part of A Battery nearest the road, i.e. Route 9. My hole and the FDC Track would be much farther from the road and these two guns.
“Now that my feeble memory is awake, I believe the man in the right foreground wearing a headband may be Tito Santiago. The other guys may well be some of Steve “Rhody” Rhodes gun crew. Steve is the only guy from Alpha Battery I’m in touch with. I’ll send him a copy of the flick and ask. He probably knows the names of the rest of these men.
“What have I learned from this? My memory of Vietnam is compressed, at least the parts I remember. And I remember the terrible times best, how we dressed in rags, each day were battered by incoming, our collective hopelessness, the lousy food, the scarcity of water, all of it crowned with B Battery obliterated. What I’d forgotten, suppressed, denied, whatever you want to call it, was the journey of losing my humanity, becoming feral.
“At first glance my battery mates looked too clean, too relaxed. Because we were. The photo was taken at the beginning of Operation Lam Son 719, not the bitter end, where the ARVN in Laos, the Americans at the border, were so firmly defeated, and so firmly frozen in my mind. It’s a snapshot of heady days before we grew old. Like I say in my book, each morning, when I wake, I give thanks.”
_____________________________
wikipedia / Operation Lam Son 719
2nd Battalion /94th Artillery Vietnam vets
See more of Gary Rafferty’s writing on Medic