Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [61]
Henry was very concerned about Delta Company’s situation. The new company commander, the senior first lieutenant who had taken over ten days earlier, was too green. From monitoring the radio transmissions within the company net, Henry got the impression that the platoon leaders and troopers did not have the same confidence in him that they’d had in Whittecar and Mekkelsen. Captain Whittecar was having the exact same thoughts. From the LZ bunker line, he’d watched the entire action with binoculars and, since he knew both the terrain of the valley and the men of Delta like the back of his hand, he had been in radio contact with the new lieutenant throughout. The man sounded like he was in over his head and knew it: his voice cracked with fear, confusion, almost shock. The company had frozen in place. The North Vietnamese now had the upper hand.
That’s when Henry asked Whittecar to resume command of Delta Company. He eagerly agreed. Whittecar then radioed the lieutenant, noting that he’d be pulled back to LZ West as soon as he could get the helicopter in.
The sigh of relief in his response was obvious.
Whittecar had a Huey on the LZ West pad loaded with ammunition and water containers; then they made the short hop down the mountain. They kicked out the supplies in that grassy clearing beside the hootch, then he hopped out and headed for the command post. He walked fast, helmet on, M16 in his hands, pumping adrenaline. He was only vaguely aware of the lieutenant passing him to board the helicopter. Whittecar didn’t trust him enough for a situation report and they didn’t even exchange glances.* Whittecar, who wore eyeglasses and had an angular jaw and was thirty-one years of age, was something of a hero to the nineteen-year-old grunts of Delta Company; as he strode through the high elephant grass, the looks of dejection turned to astonishment and relief.
One trooper was young enough, scared enough, and proud enough to exclaim, “My God, I’m glad you’re back!”
“Well, let’s get this damn show on the road!”
John Whittecar had grown up in Glenrock, Wyoming, the son of an oil field worker. His early years were routine. He graduated from high school, did a hitch in the Navy, then joined the men in the oil fields. It wasn’t the life he wanted, so in 1961 he reenlisted, this time in the U.S. Army. His company commander in West Germany recommended him for OCS, and he was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1965. Whittecar was soon leading a rifle platoon of the 1st Infantry Division in III Corps, north of Saigon. That was a 1966–67 tour, and afterwards he contemplated taking his Silver Star and Purple Hearts and quitting the service. Things just didn’t make sense. The national leaders did not seem able to come to grips with what was necessary to finish the job they’d started. His platoon had operated near the Cambodian border and their observance of that imaginary line had aided only the enemy. That was just one example of their self-imposed restraint, and the enormous waste of it ate at him like acid. What hurt even worse was his homecoming; if he wore his uniform in public, there were strangers who’d call him a baby-killer and his wife a whore.
Whittecar stayed in the Army. He focused on doing a job and in November 1968 he was rotated back to Vietnam with captain bars and orders for HQMACV in Saigon. He pulled strings for another combat command in the Big Red One. The night before he was to ship out to them, an allotment came down from the Americal Division for captains, and he found himself on a transport plane to Chu Lai.
Whittecar had never even heard of the Americal, but he did know about the 196th Infantry Brigade. In 1966, his battalion of the 1st Division had been rushed in to bail them out after their disastrous operation in War Zone C. He was not impressed when he joined his new company in the bush, initially viewing his reluctant draftees with the thought: you guys aren