The Beast in the Woods

Curse Words- Can blank out some letters if you want.

It was late spring of 1964 when President Johnson disbanded our Army Reserve unit. Great for most of our unit. But I and four others got called up to active duty and a free flight to South Vietnam. I didn't have a choice. I served as a company clerk and the other four were construction workers with experience building an Interstate Highway in the mountains of east Tennessee.

We found ourselves on an ARVN military base. ARVN being Army of the Republic of South Vietnam. I had no clue were I was but it reminded me of the wooded hills of northern South Carolina.

We were assigned to a one story building with bunk beds and footlockers just like at Fort Jackson, SC. None of us in the building were real soldiers. I was was a company clerk doing morning reports and updating 401 files ( Personal Records) and typing up food order lists for the company cooks. My most important job was keeping the officers in coffee. That would have been instant trouble for me. My four Reserve buddies with construction experience went to work building new helicopter landing pads and support buildings.

We were located near the middle of the base, and on a normal day had zero contact with any South Vietnamese except those working at the PX. The PX is the Army version of a convenience store. You could buy cigarettes, beer, toothpaste, soap and magazines.

Besides me the barracks were full of construction workers, cooks, truck drivers and mechanics. We were so new and so untrained for combat we given World War II M-1's for rifles. After a few days I put Playboy Magazines inside the 401 files I working on and read some really good stories and James Jones's serialized "The Thin Red Line" World War II novel. And looked at the photos.

The ninth night there, after supper and an afternoon rain, suddenly our Sarge called us to get fully dressed and and put on our steel pots (helmets) and bring our rifles. As we filed out the door, there were what sounded like fireworks off in the distance. Sarge handed us our ammo belts and we loaded up, locked and ready as some say. Their were about 30 of us support soldiers and we laid down in a line in the grass just on the edge of the woods on the front of barracks. Three times there was what sounded like old railroad steam locomotives, ch-ch-ch-ch followed by a bang off in the distance.

Nothing was happening in front of us. But the distant fireworks sounds lit back up. Sarge told us that The Beast might appear in the woods in front of us. And it could be hungry. I was 20 and realize that lying there, unlike being in basic or even I would imagine AIT training, I had no idea what was out there. Was it a small group of Viet Cong, armed civilians probing our base? Or a full battalion of North Vietnam regulars coming at us? The unknowing was worrying.

This went on for at least an hour. I laid in wet grass and it soaked my shirt and we weren't allowed to smoke. Probably ten guys to my right and everyone else to my left.

Just a bit past the hour, there was a noise in the woods. Not loud but like a branch snapping. This got our attention, but is was only two or three sounds.

Then down at the other end of the line, I could hear men firing their rifles. I looked out into the woods and saw nothing, heard nothing in front of me just staring into dark woods. But I began firing also. I felt fear. Not from anything I was aware of, but from thinking the other end must be seeing something. This firing when on for about half a clip, when Sarge screamed for us to quit firing. He screamed at least three times. Everything went silent and I keep my eyes in front of me and listened intently. Again there were small noises of what sounded like branches breaking, this time more in the middle of our group.

This time the middle starting firing. I used up my first ammo clip still not seeing or hearing anything in front of me. And happy to not see or hear the red-yellow burst of incoming fire. Before I could pull my second ammo clip and load it, Sarge was screaming again to stop firing. We did this time quicker. And we still saw and heard nothing in front of us. But after about three minutes a single fire shot rang out to my left and I heard a voice screaming in the dark of the woods. At first I couldn't make out what the screaming was because it was followed by more gunfire. But at last out of the dark woods came a clear, American voice screaming, "Stop shooting, goddamn it Stop the fucking shooting. Another round or two was fired but Sarge screamed again and we could all hear the voice from the woods screaming "I'm your Chaplin. Stop the goddamn shooting. I'm your Chaplin. Quit the fucking shooting, dear God stop."

Sarge shouted for him to come on in.

When we got back to the barracks we learned our Chaplin had been at the PX when the enemy firing began on the perimeter of the our base. He thought cutting through the woods would be the safest way back to the barracks. Out of sight of any VC or NVR's to shoot at him. Lucky he was right. We must of fired over two hundred rounds into the woods that night. And not a single one struck him. I remember the my old training Sergeant telling us that in Korea enough bullets were fired to crush to death from the weight of the bullets for every enemy who got shot. And I'll never forget that Chaplin.