Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [14]
That was in 1966. Spinning wheels.
Against these solid odds and against these frustrations, the American GI soldiered on. In Trooper Gross's letter to his buddy, he described 7 March 1970, when he was attached to an ACAV crew:
My T.C., Sgt. Wertz, was using the minesweeper, and I was in the cupola behind the .50-cal, and we had gone about ten feet and blam!!! We had run over a mine–it also “totaled” or combat-lossed the track. It blew off the track and a couple road wheels etc. I got shook up quite a bit and my back hurt me plus my teeth, arms, legs etc. I felt like I had been beaten all over. I got a scratch on my leg and arm–nothing big.
Later that week, back in the jungle and back in the driver's hatch of his Sheridan, Gross ran over a hundred-pound mine. The force of the explosion blew off three of the five sets of road wheels on the right side. It also burst a food container inside Gross's driver's compartment and sent the ten main gun rounds placed on either side of his seat crashing into his back:
I got out real soon, fearing rounds going off or a fire. I threw off my communications helmet and flak vest and checked myself for shrapnel– I got a small cut on my arm …then I heard the loader gasp–and saw the medic jumping off the track and running towards me and all the guys. Sergeant Wertz grabbed me and told me to sit down. I looked down and I almost fainted. My shirt and arm and the front of my pants were just soaked with red …just as the medic started to wrap me–I took my finger and put it on my arm and put it to my mouth–Those people looked at me! I said,“It's ok, its Blackberry Jam!” …People still kid me about that. I was still awful shaky and couldn't stand up. Other than that I was ok….
Gross's crew received a new Sheridan on which they painted EASY RIDER III, but if the truth be known, Gross's bravado was wearing thin. In April 1970, I Troop was operating out of Fire Support Base Thunder II along Highway 13, and after a breakfast of coffee and chocolate chip cookies sent by his girlfriend, Gross climbed into the driver's hatch and fell in line behind three ACAVs on their way to escort another truck convoy. His Sheridan had just been topped off with diesel fuel and ammunition, including twenty-eight 152mm rounds and 5,500 machine gun rounds. An instant after Gross started to pull out of a shallow dip, he ran over another buried mine, and all of the fuel and ammo began to cook off in an inferno.
I was thrown completely out of the driver's compartment onto the front of the tank, diesel fuel was on fire and rolling under and around me. … I fell onto the ground and started to run–I fell and got up again– I fell and couldn't get up. A friend of mine jumped off and picked me up…. The tank was burning like hell–rounds were going off all over–50-cal, 60-cal–grenades going off…. We always run with the gun ready to go. The fire inside melted the wiring and set it off …my T.C. was sitting on the ground with his head hung low, his face, arms, legs, and chest were burned-3rd degree. He was in shock. The loader was burned in the face, head, and arms and was moaning. The gunner who was down inside and got dragged out was burned over 65 percent of his body and was stripped of his clothes and was in shock too. … I went into hysterics … I didn't want to but when I saw my friends burned like that I couldn't help it…. Our Colonel landed and he and the sergeant major loaded us in the chopper and dusted us off to the 93d Evacuation Hospital at Long Binh. I had a cut on my arm and cuts on my two legs and a piece of shrapnel in my right leg…. The doctor gave me a profile on my back and said I had mild combat fatigue and I felt like saying“No shit.”
Unable to bring himself to climb into another Sheridan after being released from the hospital, Gross shammed in the rear until the troop commander called all available troopers to the field. There, the captain said he had arranged for a permanent job in the rear, and Gross spent the last three months of his tour clerking and jeep driving