Tom McGavran

Pleiku was located on the West side of Viet Nam in the Central Highland region. Pleiku was right along the Cambodian border. Cambodia was sort of a safe haven for the NVA. They would come across the border and attack and then go back to their safe haven. In April 1970 the United States started bombing Cambodia. We were scheduled to invade on the ground. As we approached the border we were stopped. We were stopped for about 3 hours and eventually pulled back to base camp. We found out later that because of political pressure President Nixon was forced to call off the attack on Cambodia. We were disappointed because we felt that attacking the NVA in their safe haven would have been effective. Shortly after that event we turned the Pleiku base camp over to the Vietnamese as part of the “Vietnamazation” and moved our headquarters to An Khe, Vietnamazation was supposed to be the begfinning of the US Troop withdrawal.

Life got a little easier after that first fire fight.   We were assigned to bridge security on Highway 4.  Highway 4 ran from An Khe to Plekui.  In April 1970, our company moved to An Khe.  At Pleiku we slept in under ground bunkers or on the ground. When we got to An Khe we had a large tent and cots and showers.  Of course we weren’t there all the time, but it was nice to have a place to go to when we would come in out of the field.  We would space ourselves several hundred yards apart about 50 yards off the road facing away from the highway.  It was our responsibility to protect the highway so that supply trucks, etc  could safely travel the highway.  Then at night there was no travel on the highway so we would park on all four corners of the bridges. If the bridges weren’t protected the Viet Cong would blow them up to impede travel.

This was pretty good duty because just being there was enough to keep the highway safe.  We would usually do road security between other missions.

It was the spring of 1952.  I was 5 years old and looking forward to starting school in the fall  We didn’t have kindergarten so this would my first year of school.  We lived on the farm north east of Wells. I begin having trouble with my left knee and developed a limp.  My parents took me to the doctor in Bennington and he examined me and x-rayed my knee and couldn’t find anything wrong with it.  My patents decided that I was faking to draw attention to myself.  One afternoon my mom was hosting her women’s club.  All of the women would bring their children and we would play outside in the yard while the moms had club in the house.  That day my knee hurt so bad that I wasn’t able to run and play so I stayed on the front porch.  I sat on the porch and played the sheriff.  When dad came home from work mom told him there was definitely something wrong because I had stayed on the porch all afternoon with all of those kids there.

So mom & dad took me to Minneapolis to see Dr. Foutz.  As I was walking back to the exam room Dr, Foutz said “why that boy has Pertheis disease.  As we learned this is a disease that affects young children, mostly boys age 4 to 10.  It’s a rare disease affecting only 1 -3 in 20,000.  With Pertheis the ball of the hip joint dissolves causing a limp and  pain in the knee.

Dr. Foutz sent me to Salina to Dr. McCray who became my doctor for the next three years.  Treatment involved traction and a brace.  I spent 30 days in Asbury Hospital in the children’s ward flat on my back with my left leg in traction.  For some reason Ray & Fred weren’t allowed to come into the children’s ward to visit me.  The ward was on the ground floor so we were able to open the window by my bed and talk that way.

When I got out of the hospital I had to wear a brace on my left leg and an elevated shoe on my right foot.  I wore this brace for three years and never once walked on my left leg.  My would take me to St, Johns hospital every month for x-rays of my hip.  I found out later that the Cripple Children’s Association covered the cost of my hospital stay, doctor visits and x-rays.  After three years I was so excited to get the brace off and get a pair of regular shoes.  I put on my new shoes and started to walk and fell flat on my face because I had no muscle in my left leg.  I had to use crutches until I got the strength built up in my leg.

Although it was considered an extremely rare disease there were two other boys my age in Ottawa County that had the disease and one older person.  The older guy and one of the guys my age had a limp for the rest of their lives.

So I started elementary school at the Wells Grade School with a brace on my left leg and an elevated shoe on my right foot.  All my siblings had went to school at Sunnyside which was only two miles from our home.  Wells was eight miles from home so we rode the school bus to school.  Our “school bus” was a Ford station wagon with the rear seat facing the back.  The older boys always got the rear seat.  Our bus driver was Frank Comfort.  We spent a lot of time on the bus because we were the first ones to get picked up in the morning and the last to get off at night.

My brace kept my leg stiff and had latches to allow me to bend my knee as I sat down.  When I would run, I ran stiff legged.  The day before Thanksgiving a huge snow storm started moving in.  Frank showed up at mid-morning and told our teacher that he needed to get started taking the kids home.  Our teacher, Mrs. Damarn, ignored his admonitions and said we needed to stay until one pm so that the day would count as a full day.  Frank waited in the parking lot until Mrs. Damarn released us and we headed home.  We didn’t make it.  It took Frank all afternoon to make his rounds.  It was after dark and we were about 2 1/2 miles from our home when we got stuck.  We had just passed Siler’s house so Frank said we needed to walk back to Siler’s.  Since I was wearing a brace, Frank carried me through the drifts to safety.

We spent the night at Siler’s.  There was me, my brothers Ray & Fred, my sister Deanna and Larry Welch.  Larry would have been considered “special” in today’s school system.  When we all got into bed there was a rack of rifles on the wall.  Dixie Siler told us, now don’t you touch those guns.  Of course as soon as Dixie left the room Larry got one of the rifles down and was messing with it.  I was sure he was going to shoot one of us but he didn’t and the rest of the night was uneventful.  Of course there wasn’t any communication so our parents had no idea where we had spent the night.

The next morning we were sitting at the breakfast table and Dixie brought out this jar and ask us to guess what was in it.  Of course none of us knew.  Turns out it was Carmen’s fingers that he had cut off in a farming accident.  A neighbor had gathered them up and brought them to Carmen.

At the age of 18 all males were required to register for the draft.  Their was a “selective service officer” in each county who kept track of all of the young males who were eligible for the draft. This was before the lottery so your name was just on a list and when you worked up to #1 then you were the next one to go.  Our selective service officer was a lady by the name of the Marguerite Wallace. She was a shirttail cousin of my dad but that didn’t seem to make any difference. Marguerite’s claim to fame was her son (Eddie) was a starting guard for the Kansas State Wildcats on the 1955 to 1957 basketball teams. We lived on the farm north of Wells at the time and I remember dad getting to go to one of the games. I’m sure that was a huge thrill for him because he just didn’t get opportunities to do things like that. Ray & Fred and I sat around the radio in the kitchen and listened to the game.  When I was in grade school we had and “athletic banquet” and Eddie Wallace was our speaker.  I still have his autograph.

I became number one on the list in the spring of 1968.  It was my 4th year of college so my “college deferment” was expiring.  It was pretty difficult to spend your night studying knowing that as soon as school was out you were headed for the army.  I had already taken my army physical and passed.  Right before school was out we all went to a new club to see a band.  After the bar we went to an after party.  A friend of mine fell down.  As I leaned down to help him up a guy by the name of Bernie Blevins mistook the situation as a fight.  Bernie was an ex football player at FHSU and obviously I was no match.  He threw me out the door and then followed out and proceeded to beat me up.  He broke my jar in three places.

Because of this of course I couldn’t go to the army so my draft was postponed for one year.  I was also scheduled to be best man in Mert & Connie’s wedding on June 8.  I Had my mouth wired shut so Mom and dad took me out so that I could still be in the wedding but we had to leave right after the dinner and first dance.

Since I avoided the draft in 1968 I was able to go back to school.  I graduated from FHSU in May and was drafted into the army June 11, 1969.

I was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division which was headquartered at Pleiku. Pleiku was on the Western side of Vietnam at one end of Number 4 highway near the Central Highlands, sort of a low mountain range. We flew from Cam Ram Bay on a C130 and then were bused out to the base. I remember an enlisted man who was riding the bus with us. We were packed on the bus like sardines and this GI could tell that we were all scared to death. He told us not to worry, if we started taking fire to just hit the floor. That was not very confronting since we could barely move. After we had been “in country” for a while we realized that there was very little risk of any kind of attack in that particular area in broad daylight and that he had just been playing with us.

We spent a couple of days just hanging out waiting for our assignments. I was assigned to Company C, Mechanized Infantry. My squad was headquartered on a Armored Personnel Carrier (PC). Each PC was equipped with a 50 caliber machine gun. We were squad 23. Our squad leader was Sargent William Taylor. And our PC driver was James Walker. They were the only two left in squad 23. They had been in an area near a village called Plei moran (sp) and more than half our company had been wounded or killed in battles. We sat by our PC for a couple of hours listening to “war stories” from Sargent Taylor and James and they told us how lucky we were that we weren’t a part of that. After a couple of hours we got orders to go back to that area. You talk about scared! We set up camp right outside of the village of Plei Moran. During the day we would do recon patrols through the jungle and then at night all of the PC’s would be parked in a circle facing out. Each squad would have one person on guard duty all the time. There was probably 16-18 PC’s in our company and 2 or 3 tanks.

The third night we were there, the Montagnard men came over to our camp with rice wine. I didn’t drink any because I was new in country and had been warned not to accept anything from the Vietnamese. When it started getting dark the village men left our camp and went back to their village. We had guard duty throughout the night and would take turns sitting behind the 50 caliber machine gun. My duty began at 4 AM. Of course we slept in our clothes but I had taken my boots off. When it was time for me to go on guard duty I just slipped my boots on and didn’t bother to lace them up. I can’t recall how long I was on duty when I saw an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) bouncing between the dark and my position.   Then all hell broke loose! I had been “in country” less than a week and I was involved in a full-fledged fire fight.  I began to fire my 50 caliber machine gun into the dark perimeter.  My decision to not lace up my boots came back to haunt me.  As I fire my machine gun the hot casings were kicking out the side of the gun.  A couple of the casings landed inside of my boot resulting in severe burns to my ankles. I never failed to lace my boots again after that night. A couple of days later my squad leader told me that I had been credited with three kills because there were three dead NVA (North Vietnamese Army) found in front of my position. He said he was going to put me in for a medal but I never heard anymore about it. Also the medic told me I was eligible for a Purple Heart because of the burns on my feet but I declined. Many times over the years I have seen my RPG bouncing on the ground in front of my position.  Thank God it was a dud! One of  the guards on the other side of perimiter was not as fortunate.  He took a direct hit killing him instantly. Our driver complemented me after the fire fight for holding my position. Some of the other new guys bailed out of their guard positions when the shooting started forcing a lot of the veterans to take over their position. And important lesson was learned by me  that morning.  I realized that the friendly villagers who were offering us wine and who we were there to protect where trying to get us drunk so he will sleep through our guard duty.  After performing a search and destroy mission through the the village the next morning we were pulled back to Pleiku and I was glad to go.