ONE OF MY SCARIEST NIGHTS IN VIETNAM

Toward the end of my tour in Vietnam, I was reassigned to Tây Ninh Base Camp as the assistant brigade signal officer. I arrived late at night and was taken to an underground bunker which housed about twelve officers. I at once fell asleep, but around 2:00 a.m. I was awakened by the loudest explosion and shock wave that I had ever heard or felt while in Vietnam. The explosion was so loud that I jumped out of my cot and headed toward the exit, then realized that I was already in a bunker. All I could think about was where the mortar round had hit and how lucky I was to still be alive. I had seen the death and destruction that a 120mm mortar with a time delay fuse could do to a bunker and I will never forget it.
The odd thing was that none of the other officers were awakened by the explosion. After another ten minutes or so, I was again awakened by another explosion on the other side of the bunker. I dove under my cot again, but this time fear had set in, and I was convinced that our area was being bracketed and the next round would be a direct hit. I absolutely feared artillery and the destruction it caused; there was nothing you could do about it, and the only way to survive it was to get deep underground and hope that the round did not land on top of you. I spent the rest of the night under my cot, thankful that the killer round was never fired.
When I left the bunker in the morning, I was shocked to see an 8-inch howitzer behind the bunker. It turns out that the gun had fired two harassment rounds during the night but in my exhausted state I thought they were incoming rounds. Nobody had bothered to tell me about that gun!
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