After a couple of hours drinking with a group for extended periods, you struggle to maintain conversation. Everything worth saying has been said, and everyone has run out of mindful things to say. You don’t want to end the drinking session. It helps to take the mind off the many small tragedies we sustained at Advisory Team 51.
Beer becomes the force keeping us going. Being a New Yorker, Baker started bragging. “Do you know that New York was the first capital of the United States?” he asked.
“Well, hell, what about Texas?” I asked. “Do you know that Texas, the largest unfrozen state, is the only state that was formerly a sovereign country? And do you know that Texas is the only state that can legally fly its flag at the same level as the US flag? That was part of the agreement when they joined the US.”1
“Damn, I come from Kentucky,” said Spider. “Kentucky’s got nothing to brag about. Only good thing about my state is that is that we have a population of some three million people. Only twelve different last names in that population.”
Baker and I were still trying to figure out the significance of that. Baker figured it out while I was still working it. “Cousins marry cousins!” Baker blurted out. No way to top that. Now long pauses followed. You sort of sense that’s the point when you just know the liquor has put you into that next stupor level. At first you struggle to think of something else interesting to say, something that will elicit a laugh, a response, a cruel comment. You search the still-working part of your working memory. Thoughts come garbled and outrageously slow. It was at this point that I recalled an incident at my previous Advisory Team. I relayed to my two drinking buddies how two team advisors decided they were so fed up with mortar attacks they decided to find the source of incoming mortars, a regular occurrence. These were two men assigned to our Advisory Team’s Communications Detachment. They planned to mark the mortars as they landed then triangulate hoping to locate the direction of fire. I thought it was a bad idea since distance to the source could not be determined. They were sure they would get some appropriate medals for their efforts. I would not be part of their plan. Nothing – not even liquor courage – strengthens my cowardly streak.
The Army actually used a similar method known as Sound and Flash platoons assigned to Target Acquisition Batteries from the late sixties up to mid-eighties. Sound and Flash personnel would install a series of linked microphones in a “V” pattern facing away from the forward edge battle area. When incoming artillery, mortars or rockets were detected by the microphone network, the sound data were fed into an analog computer which would use the sound data to determine the probable location and distance of the enemy location. Forward observers spread out over the FEBA2 and equipped with binoculars would then scan the probable enemy area trying to locate and verify the origin of the enemy location. It was a crude and only sometimes reliable method displaced by Firefinder Radars3 in the eighties.
As the mortars started falling that night, the two got in a jeep and rushed to mark the first point of impact. As the second mortar landed, they rushed to mark that point of impact. They were on their way to the third mortar landing when a sergeant yelled out to them from a bunker “Get the hell out of that jeep and take cover NOW!”
After yelling at them a second time, they ran to the nearest bunker. Come morning, they were called before the Communications Detachment’s senior sergeant who insisted on knowing just what the hell they were trying to do that previous night. “Don’t you dumb asses realize you could have gotten killed?” he said. “We’ve already had our share of casualties. Think of the damn paperwork that would’ve required. And, besides, think of the damage you could’ve caused that jeep! We don’t have too many good jeeps around here!”
The Sp4 and the Sp5 explained their plan to the senior sergeant. This could have been a court martial offense; however, they were let off with a verbal reprimand. I finished telling my story to my two drinking buddies. Baker was an impressionable young Private First Class who thought it would be fun to chase mortars. “Hey, if we can get a jeep, we can do that, too. I don’t care about that triangulation shit, but I’d sure like to do it just for the thrill of it,” he said.
Spider thought it was a stupid idea. “Now who the hell you gonna find to go with you? And, besides, where the hell are you gonna get a jeep, dumbass? And this place is different. We get mortars and rockets from multiple locations all at once. Don’t be stupid. You’ll wind up either dead or wishing you were dead.” Seems the more we discussed Baker’s plan, the quicker the liquor wore off.
The bottle was killed and so was the mood. The magic wore off. We went back to our hooches and crashed. I ate breakfast with both Spider and Baker that next morning. No one mentioned ever again the mortar chasing plan.
1 I heard that in some high school class, but I never sufficiently researched it as fact.
2 FEBA - Forward Edge Battle Area or the "Front Line".
3 Fielded in 1980, Firefinder Target Acquisition Radars AN/TPQ-37 are capable of pinpointing artillery enemy guns up to 75 kilometers. As a Target Acquisition Radar Warrant Officer, I owned the first two AN/TPQ-37 Radars fielded to the US military services.
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