Off the Beaten
Path!
By Ray
Sarlin
Copyright
2003: Ray Sarlin. All rights reserved. (Copy permission at bottom)
Webmaster's
Introduction
Webmaster's
Comments: Author/philosopher Henry
D. Thoreau wrote, "I went to the woods because I wished to
live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and
see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came
to die, discover that I had not lived." Like Walden for Thoreau,
Vietnam had a way of confronting an Infantryman with the essential
facts of life... and of death.... We didn't even have to seek out
Walden Woods as Thoreau did; our woods were assigned to us by the
Green Machine. |
"In Nature
there are neither rewards nor punishments - (only) consequences."
(Robert Ingersoll)
While cleaning my office the other day I found an old box that I hadn't
thought about for years. It included badges, patches, insignia, medals
and other memorabilia from my activities decades ago
from Cub
Scouts and Boy Scouts; junior high school and high school letter jackets;
police, fire fighting and Army units; martial arts clubs; and so on.
Almost lost among so many long-forgotten but treasured momentos was
a small green diamond shaped patch embroidered with an ice axe, the
symbol of the Seattle Mountaineers.
Formed in 1906, the Mountaineers is one of the premier outdoor recreation
and conservation clubs in the USA, if not the world. Its members were
among the first Americans to climb Mt Everest and K2. More importantly,
it offers some of the best climbing instruction available. While attending
the University of Washington in the 1960s, the Mountaineers not only
tutored me in rock, snow and ice climbing but also helped put me on
top of many peaks in the Cascade Mountains. As my skills progressed,
I also became involved in Mountain Rescue.
In a sense, I couldn't have asked for better preparation for Vietnam
a preparation that saved my life in the mountains of Lam Dong Province!
"Wait a darned minute," you ask, "you used an ice axe
in Nam?"
I'll let the story tell itself.
It hardly seems that long ago, but my time-worn copy of my old climbing
textbook, Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills, is a First
Edition published in 1961. The very first book published by the Mountaineers,
it's now in its Sixth Edition with 500,000 copies sold, and is still
the leader of the 450 or so titles that the Mountaineers now produce.
When I got my copy it seemed as if the ink was still wet, so proud
were the instructors of the then brand new book being distributed.
My copy still has notes scrawled in the margins, just like my textbooks
on more mundane topics like calculus, fluid dynamics and mine surveying.
The Mountaineers' Basic Course hasn't changed much. It still starts
with knots, knots and more knots; rope handling; belaying and rappelling
at Camp Long in Seattle; high exposure at Mt. Erie near Anacortes;
crevasse rescues at the Nisqually Glacier on Mt Rainier; and three
experience climbs. The Intermediate Course extends the techniques
of safe climbing on rock, snow and ice, and introduces further technical
and leadership techniques. It says a lot for the Mountaineers that
they don't have an "advanced" course; they believe that
that level comes only from experience.
Along the way, I learned how to use crampons and snowshoes; to cut
steps; to set belay and rappel anchors; to use the ice axe for climbing,
descending and self-arrest. The self-arrest was particularly useful
when sliding down packed snow or ice at high speed, and we learned
to arrest whether sliding head first or feet first, face down or butt
up. The key was to flip into a face down feet first slide and then
self-arrest.
I also learned to glissade. Oh, did I learn to glissade! "Glissading"
is just a fancy name for sliding down hill without skis. It's said
that there are three types of glissade - standing, sitting, and uncontrolled.
One usually leads to the next pretty quickly. I found that it helps
to keep your balance, and having a trusty ice axe handy to steer or
stop the glissade abruptly with a self-arrest can give one a lot more
confidence.
In addition to club climbing, climbing for fun and mountain rescue,
I practiced many of the skills while working summers in the Coconino
National Forest in Arizona. By the time I arrived at the Dahlonega
Mountain Ranger Camp in Georgia, the knots, rope work, free climbing,
lead climbing, glissading and other technical skills were old friends,
and I could focus on the many unique skills on offer. Moving troops
over mountainous terrain and across swiftly flowing rivers in the
middle of winter was both new and challenging, especially under tactical
conditions.
The Field Manual puts it this way, "Operations in the mountains
require soldiers to be physically fit and leaders to be experienced
in operations in this terrain. Problems arise in moving men and transporting
loads up and down steep and varied terrain in order to accomplish
the mission. Chances for success in this environment are greater when
a leader has experience operating under the same conditions as his
men."
So welcome to the mountains of the Central Highlands of Vietnam!
In early 1970, Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion (Mechanized),
50th Infantry was operating on foot in the southern part of the Truong
Son mountain range in Lam Dong Province. This southernmost portion
of the Central Highlands consists of sparsely populated heavily forested
mountainous terrain, with steep slopes and deep valleys. The average
altitude is about 5,000 feet above sea level, with some ridges higher
than 6,500 feet and the highest nearly 8,000 feet. Over 70% of the
province including the mountains where we operated was covered with
leafy rainforest interspersed with great pine forests. The mountains
received up to 12 feet of rain a year, with 80-90% falling between
April and November.
The remote terrain and difficult weather made the Vietnamese reluctant
to colonize the land until the French colonial authorities started
forcing the issue in the 1920s. Even then it was only done half-heartedly,
leaving the region as the domain of ethnic minorities and malaria.
That of course, made the mountains a natural sanctuary for the NVA/VC
command structure during the Vietnam War.
Charlie Company was part of a two-company sweep searching for an elusive
enemy Regimental Headquarters. We were patrolling along the ridges
above a tributary while a troop of the 2/1 Cavalry was patrolling
the main river valley across the mountains to the north. We were due
to meet up when our tributary emptied into their river some six days
downstream.
Like everything in combat, military mountaineering is characterized
by long periods of boredom and physically strenuous drudgery punctuated
by short periods of sheer terror when least expected. We were working
across the military crest of a steep ridge high above a stream cascading
in waterfalls and rapids through a rocky chasm far below. It was a
clear, dry day, a bonus in the damp mountainous rainforest.
We'd been following a narrow, hard-packed trail that ran just under
the crest of a steep ridge above the south wall of the river canyon.
While we normally broke fresh trail, there were several advantages
to using this particular established track. The going was easier than
pushing through the dense vegetation higher up the ridge. We had run
into numerous punjii stakes, foot-deep punjii pits and even some bamboo
whips and a swinging spiked log, but none were freshly set and none
were well hidden. Indeed, they were decades old and only partially
camouflaged here and there with threadbare covers. It was a rare pleasure
in Vietnam to be following a safe, well-beaten path that hadn't seen
active combat since the 1950s at the latest.
Intelligence had warned that the local Montagnards hated the ethnic
South Vietnamese so much for destroying their independence that they
supported the enemy, so we were on the lookout for crossbow attacks.
There was a certain primal fear about facing such primitive weapons,
but our mission was to find the headquarters of a much more modern
but equally elusive enemy.
The trail led onto a scabble-covered 45º scree slope some 50
to 100 feet wide that slid off to a majestic sheer rock cliff falling
another 100 to 200 feet to the rocks and white water below. To my
right was thick vegetation and to my left, empty space. Humping a
70 pound load, I moved carefully and deliberately, sometimes able
to grasp a limb for balance but more often just placing one foot in
front of the other and shifting my weight forward. Step, place, test,
shift. Moving called for a balancing act that was very, very tiring,
but there was no way off the scree but onwards... that is, no other
way except down into the abyss.
Still, the main body of Charlie Company had easier going than our
flank security elements in the dense jungle on the ridgelines on either
side of us.
The Company C.P. (command post) was trailing the lead platoon. I didn't
notice the subtle shift in degree of difficulty until about thirty
men had already negotiated the slightly more open and steeper pitch.
We were passing through a transition zone that could easily have justified
a rope handline. All that stood between us and the rock-strewn river
far below were a few gnarled trees clinging to the lip of the sloping
ledge below us.
With the bulk of the company yet to be fully exposed, I paused briefly
to see if we could reasonably rig a handline from the point men who
had reached firmer ground.
Somehow in turning to size up the situation, I felt my feet start
skating out, and then I started sliding down the scree towards the
precipice. Mountaineers know that a falling body reaches terminal
velocity in five seconds, so it was now or never! Without thinking
I threw my accelerating body into an ice climbing self-arrest position:
face down, feet downhill, body arched on three points - my two feet
and my M16. An ice axe might have been better, but I had to make do.
I wasn't stopping, but my descent over the scree towards the edge
of the cliff had definitely slowed down.
Time seemed to slow down as well, and I noticed how the rocks flowed
over each other - almost like an avalanche. I wasn't aware of fear;
it was as if I were watching this happen to someone else.
Using my upper body weight to press the butt of the M16 down into
the scrabble, I somehow slid into the roots of a tree at the very
edge of the overhang with a jarring but welcome jolt!
There I was, my outstretched arms and rucksack wedging me into the
roots while my legs hung freely over 100 feet of air. I couldn't move
and could barely breathe as I lay gasping in a state of adrenalin-induced
shock. While sliding through the scree, I hadn't had time to be scared,
but now fear washed over me and I started shaking.
I took a few deep breaths and slowly opened my eyes. The first thing
that I saw was ants: glorious ants! They seemed more scared than I
was and were running around in fear of ME! Fascinating, simple, beautiful
ants! I saw life
the ants were life. I was alive!
Life flooded back into my body as if I'd broken through some inner
reservoir, and I ascended into a place that was close to pure, undiluted
bliss! The feeling was exhilarating! I thanked God for my survival.
Several men told me later that they thought I had been killed by the
fall because I wasn't moving in the roots. Even if I could have moved,
it would not have been a good idea. The gnarled tree clinging tenuously
to the rocky escarpment was my sole means of support.
In a reasonably short time, several anchors, belay lines and rappel
lines had been rigged, and two men rappelled down to retrieve my mortal
remains. Although part of me watched warily as the rocks loosened
by my rescuers' feet zipped by, another part was inwardly laughing
at the simple joy of surviving the fall.
Balancing on the roots while belayed from above, my rescuers couldn't
get sufficient leverage to lift me enough to tie a safety line on.
So tightly was I wedged in that it took a few minutes just to work
out how to pull me out of the roots without sending us all, tree and
roots included, sliding over the cliff onto the rocks far below. They
wanted to remove my rucksack to pull me out, but that was the only
thing keeping me from squirting out of the roots to my doom. It was
a bona fide dilemma. Finally, a safety line was hooked with a snaplink
to my LBE (load-bearing equipment) and I was hoisted enough by the
people up above to get a safety line around my waist.
After that, the rescue was routine. As I finally returned to the trail
where my misstep had occurred only a few moments earlier, I noticed
and fully appreciated the well-rigged handline that had been slung
over the danger area in my absence.
Our patrol resumed. A few hours later, Charlie Company reached our
limit for the day and started setting up our Night Defensive Position.
While the moon rose over the far ridge and cast a pale glow on my
tired and battered body, I reflected on how lucky I was to get to
the end of such an incredible day.
We didn't find the NVA Regimental Headquarters, but our sister Cavalry
Troop did to their great regret. On the day after my mishap, several
hours before we were to link up we heard the sounds of an intense
firefight reverberate up the canyon. The Cav had walked into a large
ambush from the ridge to their north and sustained significant casualties
including their Troop Commander. We broke radio silence to see if
we were needed, but the enemy pulled away quickly before massive U.S.
artillery and air power could be brought to bear.
It seems that the Regimental Headquarters had been very close, just
one more ridge away to the north. By the time friendlies got there
a day later, it had been moved. Charlie Company was to come close
to that NVA Regimental Headquarters one more time during my tour,
but that's another story.
POSTSCRIPT:
On another mission in the mountains, one of Charlie Company's
platoons also had a man fall off a sheer cliff onto a ledge more
than halfway down and sustain very serious injuries. He was extracted
from the cliff face by rocking the Medivac chopper until the extended
jungle penetrator could be grabbed by the rescuers roped to the
cliff near the victim. I hope that one day someone from that platoon
will write this story. Ray. |
Copyright 2003, Ray
Sarlin.
rws@173rdAirborne.com
Permission is hereby granted to copy this
story to print or
on web pages at no charge provided the line below is included:
Reprinted from the 1st Bn (Mech) 50th Infantry website http://www.ichiban1.org/
( web sites should make the url a link or may also just link to this
page )
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