Vietnam Sons
For some, the war never ended
by
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White dropped in on Gradoville and had barely begun to visit when the test firing commenced. Churchill jumped into his four-foot deep machine gun hooch and hunkered over his lethal weapon. He had stakes set up on the right and on the left to govern his field of fire, generally to the west-northwest. Churchill let lose with several short bursts. It lasted only a minute or two.
Less than a minute after he had completed the test, a distant “thrrump, thrrump” reverberation shocked Churchill. He immediately knew that Mike Company had become the target. Two rounds hurled toward the unit, coming from the general direction where Churchill had spread his M-60 fire. It was as if Churchill, in random firing, had hit an unknown, unseen hornets’ nest. Now killer bees were making the return flight, seeking to administer a lethal sting.
Those in Churchill’s fighting hole hit the dirt. The rounds were low enough in trajectory that if Churchill’s gun team had been standing outside their fighting hole they would have been sawed off like brush branches.
Schwooooooop!! Schwooooop!! In they came, first one, then the other, deadly twins.
What was it? Rocket fire? Mortar? Artillery? Tank rounds?
Saylor, dug in 200 feet to the northeast of the command post, heard the shells swoosh into the compound. Churchill’s machine gun emplacement was west of Saylor’s hole. Behind Churchill’s position, southerly toward the rest of Mike Company, was a small line of trees. They blocked the view between Churchill and the command center. The two shells whizzed over Churchill’s emplacement and zipped between the trees. Both rounds landed inside Mike Company’s perimeter.
Neither exploded. Both, it turned out, were what most of the men identified as tank canister rounds, chunks of lead usually destined as bunker busters. The first, by some miracle, landed harmlessly.
Gradoville heard the incoming shells and instinctively hit the ground outside his fighting hole. He propped himself on his right elbow and methodically picked up the radio receiver. His plan was to call someone at battalion to see if there was any information on the source of the return fire.
“What the ---- is going on?” White yelled at Gradoville. “I didn’t know they were going to test fire the M-60s.” He hugged the ground, 10 feet from Gradoville.
White had barely finished his sentence when the second projectile struck Chuck Gradoville before he had a chance to roll into his hole. It was a direct hit, nearly severing his head from the rest of his body. It happened so fast that when White looked up he noticed the radio receiver was still in Gradoville’s right hand. Gradoville died instantly. It was shortly after 6 p.m. <p class=
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About the Book
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About the Author
DALE KUETER is a native Iowan who wrote for Iowa newspapers for 41 years. He graduated from the University of Iowa in 1958 with a degree in journalism.
During the years working at newspapers, Kueter won a number of state and national awards for reporting. In 1990, he went to Czechoslovakia and wrote a series on the changing political structure of the former Soviet satellite. It was his third reporting assignment in Europe.
Kueter grew up on an Iowa farm. He and his wife Helen live in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They are parents of five daughters and have 13 grandchildren. "Vietnam Sons" is his first full-length book. Two years ago he authored a children's picture book, “Hide the Daddy”.