I was actually assigned to the artillery battery C/1/13, but was attached out as the artillery FO to Kilo 3/26.  The FO job was an officer’s billet, but with a shortage of officers in late 1967, I got the job even though I was just a PFC at the start of my tour.  I always think of myself as a Kilo guy because  I spent less than two weeks with my parent artillery unit and that was back in Khe Sanh when I first arrived in-country (Mid Sept '67).  Khe Sanh was real quiet then; they had not taken a round of incoming or even sniper fire since July!  After 12 days at Khe Sanh, I was sent to Camp Evans and Kilo.  I was the only enlisted FO in the battalion.  Normally, the team is a Lieutenant, an enlisted "scout," and a radioman.  I lost my PFC grade after my first month with Kilo as I was promoted from L/Cpl to Cpl in a twenty-four hour period.

My first time to set foot on 881s was on or about the 19th of Dec '67.  Kilo was heli-lifted to 881S, and we set off with the other companies in the battalion for a 5 day sweep west towards Hill 918 near the Laotian border.  It was real spooky out there, and had we gotten into heavy contact, the only arty support available would have been the three 105’s on 881s!

My second visit to 881s was the 12th of April '68 when Kilo was lifted from Hill 861 to Hill 881S.  I will always remember my arrival there because of the naked, “where-can-I-hide feeling” that reverberated through me as I scrambled down the helicopter’s rear ramp and into a nearby trench line.  I had left the relative security of my deep-in-the-earth, 4-man bunker on 861, and now all I could do was move along the trench line essentially following the Marine in front of me.  At some short distance from where I jumped into the trench, I came across the acrid smell of cordite, freshly turned earth, and blood.  The floor and walls were covered with skin tissue, blood, and bone fragments.  Our group halted momentarily, and I watched as flies began arriving and settling on the human remains that had just been blasted into the earth.  There was a lot of scrambling around to find bunkers and overhead cover.

PFC Ralph Wayne, (a Navajo Indian and my radio operator) and I managed to scrounge an old, somewhat small, barely functioning bunker, but it did not provide much protection.  It was really terrifying to leave the relative comforts of 861 only to be deposited onto a new and totally unfamiliar landscape without the relative security of my 861 bunker which slept four and was fifteen feet underground.

Very near where Ralph Wayne and I found a "home," was a downed CH-46.  Late in the afternoon of that day, Ralph and I took a "tour" of the 46.  It had been cleaned out of weapons, ammo, flares, etc.  We sat in the pilots seats and used our John Wayne P-38 can openers to unscrew the clock and compass from the instrument panel. It took hours.  Ralph got the compass and I got the clock.  I had that clock for years; it was made by some company in Waltham, Mass.  Sorry, we were just kids in those days.  I hope that didn't mess up the maintenance people too much when the bird was lifted out and repaired.

That evening, I remember going to a pre-881N assault briefing in what I took to be the main bunker on the hill.  All the company officers, Staff NCO's, air reps, arty reps, and senior corpsmen, were in attendance.  The following night, around midnight, we left 881S for the Easter Sunday attack of Hill 881N.

Two years ago (July 2000), Bob Arrotta, Glenn Prentice, Paul Knight and I returned to Vietnam.  We took a side trip to Hill 681 and it was a thrill to find my original bunker from 1968!  Some of the group spent the night on 861, but terrible wind and rains forced us off the hill and back to the Khe Sanh ville.  A day later, I went back to 861 by myself (a three hour hike) and for about 5 hours on July 11, 2000 it was just me up on 861 with the wind, the mist, the memories, the history, and the ghosts.  The only down side to this trip was that we were arrested by the local Military Commander as possible spies or smugglers.  Passports were confiscated and we spent four days under house arrest.  Glenn called a business friend in Hanoi, as well as his Congressman, and we were released after paying a $40.00 fine!!