In my eight months as Battalion Surgeon with 3/9, I was usually at the Rockpile or Ca Lu, both with barbed wire perimeters, bunkers, shitters, etc.  At that time the battalion was generally parceled out a company here and another there, etc.  Two exceptions for me were Operation Robin South or whatever they called that operation a few hundred yards from the Laotian border and the Khe Sanh operation following it.  At LZ Robin, I rode in on a CH-46 on D-day and I remember looking down at those forbidding hills probably crawling with NVA.  If felt better to look at the familiar faces in the helicopter.  When we spiraled down and landed on a hilltop in some very tall grass, I got off very quickly as I was told and moved off the LZ.

I don’t remember the exact sequence, but I believe we than watched a flight of A-4 Sky Hawks dropping retarded bombs and I remember Maj. Frank Breth pulled a little pocket camera out and he took some pictures.  He said Laos was about 400 yards ‘that way’.  I had no clue which direction that was as the border takes a big loop in that area.  Naturally I thought if he was ‘taking pictures’ he must know the area was safe (just kidding, I wasn’t that dumb!).  The planes were diving down on a line right at us bombing fairly close and pulling out right over us.  You could see the bombs separate from the plane, the fins snap open, the bombs steepen their curve, and smash in a few hundred yards away.  I did wonder what would happen if the little fins didn’t open up.  I was smart enough not to ask.  I thought they were supposed to bomb sideways to where we were, but then where the hell were we?  I could only actually see a handful of people.  Somehow in the confusion as we moved off the actual LZ, I got separated from the few BAS chaps I was with but fell into a ragged line which moved straight down a very steep hill.  For all I know one or more of my corpsman had me bracketed.  We then crossed a gully and started up a steep hill.  At one point it was so thick, steep and slimy that Marines had cut a skinny tree down, cut the limbs off and were holding it so you could hand over hand up this one particular bad spot.  Marines around me were muttering about how strung out we were and if would be hell to pay if the gooks hit us.  I tried not to listen.  We finally got up on this ridge or hill.

The Chief decided that the BAS would be in this one particular spot about 4 yards from the ‘perimeter’ and who was I to argue?  All I could see was one foxhole already dug with two Marines in it and tall grass immediately to their front and we were supposed to dig behind them.  I didn’t even have an e-tool but I did have two chest tubes and plasma and all the battle dressings I could carry.  The Chief and I were about to start digging the official BAS foxhole with his e-tool when the Sgt/Maj came up and said our location was no good and we followed him a few yards up the ridge where some Marines (maybe mortars) had already dug  holes, again only a few yards from the perimeter.  He then told them they were not in the right place, but this was the right for the BAS!  I was amazed how he could tell that, but since the holes were already dud did not press the point.  The Chief didn’t either.  I remember the perimeter ‘outside and inside’ was defined by the direction the Marines were facing in the foxhole I could see I guess to my ‘front’ and the tall grass was beat down somewhat to the ‘rear’.  If they had turned around and faced me, I would have thought I was ‘outside’ I suppose.  I told them I was the battalion surgeon thinking they would be extra alert – they ignored me.  At first I sat on the edge of the hole but when it quickly got dark and they told me to get in the hole, I did.  By this time in my Viet Nam tour I did not have to be told twice.

That night about one in the morning all hell broke loose on the next hill – LZ  Loon I guess.  There were a lot of tracers many of them green, a lot of explosions and you could hear shout and screams.  Up to that point I didn’t know there were Marines on that hill.  Everyone was might tense and there was whispered speculation about if were  going to move out and help them.  At the same time artillery from I guess Camp Carroll or maybe Khe Sanh was firing illumination rounds and the canisters were crashing down through the branches and landing around us.  We took off our flak jackets and held them over our heads.  At least I did, and I would feel better now if someone else would now own up to it and admit to doing the same thing.  During the night I learned those were 4^th Marines over there who were getting hit.. In the cruel calculus of the Viet Nam was at the time was the thought – ‘I’m glad it isn’t us!’

At any rate the night passed very slowly, except I noticed the chills, fatigue, aching, etc.  I had had for about 24 hours were getting words.  Shit, that’s all I need!  The Chief who was in a nearby hole crawled over and pulled a thermometer out of his unit one and took an oral ( I said oral!) temp.  105!  After it got light in the morning it was still 105 although I actually felt better except for a splitting headache.  I thought I would be all right but someone must have said something to the Colonel because the CH-46 that came in they threw my ass on it.  I remember laying on a pile of cargo nets right by the back door which they never closed and thinking this is what it must be like getting med evaced and what a chicken shit I was to not put up more of a fight to say out.  We had two Marines die of Malaria in the months before so I think the Chief didn’t want to take a chance.  We landed at Quang Tri on the airstrip and since this wasn’t a med evac flight, I asked where the Army Field Hospital which was there was located.  It wasn’t too far and I walked into their triage and asked them to do a malaria smear on me.  They didn’t seem to cotton to the idea and I had to tell them several times I was Navy doctor with a  Marine Battalion just in from the bush.  I think that because I hadn’t landed on their LZ in a med evac threw them off.  The malaria smear came back negative my temp was still 105.  A couple Army doctors told me they wanted to put me in and observe me but I didn’t feet too bad except for the headache, so I walked out and went to the 3/9 rear BAS which had moved down from Dong Ha. They were surprised to see me.  The crud lasted several days with temps to 105, chills. bad aching, etc. (might have been Dengue Fever).  I saw sick call, took aspirin and laid around and stayed away from the Army hospital and got better.  Such was my contribution to Operation Robin South!  When a few days more had passed I rejoined the 3/9 field BAS, now at Khe Sanh (the Rockcrusher).