My Story – Dick Briggs

Experiences In Vietnam

Dick deployed to Vietnam in July of 1966. His tour initially started in Da Nang, but his squad was shortly relocated to Khe Shan. 

The Longest Night

My platoon flew off of the USS Okinawa in helicopters as an amphibious assault unit. My longest night in Vietnam happened 7 days into our mission on May 4th, 1966

We had set into position on a mole right around dusk. I went up on the command post and I was getting my medicine because, I was sick. I was dehydrated and the Lieutenant tried to medevac me out a few days prior but, I refused and stayed with the company. While I was up there the corp man was giving me the medicine and we were talking. 

Right then the Vietnamese ambushed us and had two .50 caliper machine guns cross firing on my position.

Me and the corp man rolled into the bomb crater from the command post and we looked around and there was about 15 guys down there, I didn’t think being in there would be the greatest idea to be down there since it would be the best place for a mortar to hit and kill a lot of people so I crawled back into my fox hole

Then we had a long battle back and forth where they were calling out to us and yelling stuff while we were fighting like “marines, you die tonight” for almost the whole night that we were fighting.

My Lieutenant was KIA in this battle, he was up checking lines when I saw him get hit. It was the first time I really dealt with death in my service in Vietnam.

A little after 2am is when we finally had enough of the fighting they called in the gunship called the Douglas AC-47 (“Puff, the Magic Dragon”) it was a gunship. After it was called in we had no more contact. I always thank the lord we had so much air support because they really saved us a few times.

Us having to fight all night ended up earning us a full night of sleep 2 days later. My whole unit got to sleep the entire night because we got covered by delta company.

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USS Okinawa Photo Credit                                 AC-47 Photo Credit    

The Longest Day

I came to love the F8 – Crusader, a cousin of PAM’s A7 – Corsair, on May 10th, 1967.  This was one of the longest days I had in Vietnam.

F8 – Crusader                                                        A7 – Corsair

The day started out with my squad in the rear security position.  As we were moving out, we could hear incoming mortar fire.  We started to “recon by fire” in the direction of the sound of the mortar tubes.  This is when I first had the experience of the M-16 rifle jamming.  We were the first Marine unit to be issued the new weapon.  

I felt like I was fighting in the Revolutionary War.  That is, I had to break the weapon open, put together my cleaning rod and jam it down the barrel to knock out the spent cartridge.  I had to do this for three times after firing the weapon.

We then moved on for about a half hour, still in the rear guard of Charlie 1/3.  The point of the column came under heavy fire.  We were ordered to take cover and wait.  Well, I opened up my C-rations and started making a cup of coffee.  

Just as I was ready to drink it, we were ordered: “move up”.

As we moved up, we ran into the command center with the captain holding his “45” and shouting instructions.  If you know anything about “45’s”, you know you can’t hit the broad side of a barn.  Therefore, I knew we were “in deep dog doo-doo.”  

Our squad was ordered over to a hedge row at the bottom of Hill 101.  As we started to move through the gap in the hedge row, Killion was just ahead of me and was hit in the left arm, breaking it.  Of course, he had to fall forward and I had to pull him back to safety.  I do remember seeing dirt kick up around us from enemy fire.

I don’t remember much for the rest of the day, but Charlie 1/3 lost 22 Marines (KIA) that day.

As the day wound down, we started setting up in our defensive position for the evening.  We had not yet been able to evacuate the KIA and WIA (wounded in action).  I was sent by my squad leader to the command post (center of our 360 defensive position) to get orders for the evening.

As I was returning to my squad, I heard this loud jet screaming and coming in low.  I had about a 5 second memory of the incident.  The jet, an F8 – Crusader was diving right in front of my squad, coming right to left.  Who can forget that open nose?  

I could see the pilot’s helmet and hear the enemies’ AK-47 rifles trying to shoot him down.  I could see a cluster of eight bombs fall.  My heart and stomach met, as I thought the bombs were landing right on my squad.  What a cloud of smoke and noise.  I then realized that the bombs hit just in front of my squad’s position.

Needless to say, the F8 – Crusader did its job, as we did not hear a peep or gun shot from the enemy for the entire night.  I would hate to think what our evening and night would have been without the air strike.

See and feel what I saw and felt with the close air support that day

The Vietnamese Sniper

A couple days after my longest night in Vietnam came my scariest moment during my service.

There was a tree line to our right and our left and in the middle was a dry rice paddy. There were three people in my fire team that day (normally there is supposed to be four but, one of our guys were medievaced the day before). So the three of us went out in the open rice paddy that day.

Before we had gone out into the open the delta crew briefed us and said there was a sniper out there watching. When we heard this I called recon by fire so we can find out where the sniper was and they denied the recon by fire three times. So we went out into the rice paddy.

When we went out into the open rice paddy about halfway through it there was a rice dike that was about a foot and a half tall. Rice dikes are paths that are built to control and conserve water in a rice paddy field, but since it was dry it was just a small cover for us. The dike was pretty long but just barely sticking out of the water.

We went to cross it and my friend Earl went first. He went right over the rice dike and got over on the other side of it and right then the sniper opened fire.

We all hit the deck with Earl still on the other side. I called out to him where the sniper was and where it hit him. Then Earl rolled over to tell me where he had gotten hit and the bullet ended up hitting him in both legs and an artery with the one shot.

We called out the corp man that we had a man hit, and we jumped back over the rice dike and pulled him over to the other side so we could have cover. Then we put a tourniquet on both of his legs and we pulled him back from the rice dike to the tree line where we started.

Then Earl was transported out to the hospital ship. Luckily we had the medical ship close by and Earl ended up surviving. That is the first time I pulled someone to safety but it wouldn’t be the only time that day.

Mike, a guy from another crew, came and tried to pick up our equipment that we had left out by the rice dike when we pulled Earl in. The sniper took a shot at him and it grazed his helmet, the bullet went through the metal and the liner but, Mike only got skimmed by the bullet.

He ended up having to only get stitches and he had a concussion which was a miracle but, he fell backwards when he was hit so we ran out there and got him and we had to pull him back to the tree line as well.

After all this my equipment and now Mike’s was still out in the dry rice paddy. The staff sergeant on duty said to go out and get our equipment and I refused three times because my life was more important to me than the equipment. I did not want to go out there and get what we had left behind.

The squad leader finally got me to go out with him and get the equipment.  So we went back out. He went over to where Mike was and picked up his equipment and I went up to the back of the rice dike where we had put a tourniquet on Earl and grabbed mine. When I grabbed mine I started heading back to the tree line where the rest of the platoon was and the sniper fired again.

The shot rang out and I saw the stuffing of the shoulder pad on my flak jacket explode out. So I yelled out that I was hit because the force from the bullet had knocked me onto the ground. When I was on the ground I thought I was hurt and I checked myself but, it only hit my jacket. I then dragged myself up to the bank of the rice paddies and a platoon came and said they would give me cover fire while I got up.

So we went on three and I got up but, I pulled the ground too hard and it came up and I fell back down on my back. They then ended up having to cover me again and so I finally got up and into the safety of the tree line.

This was my scariest and my luckiest event in my service in Vietnam. I think me being short, and clumsy when I run saved my life that day. If the shot was 3 inches down or in on my body I surely wouldn’t have made it out, I thank God for that.