{"id":2848,"date":"2024-12-25T17:02:25","date_gmt":"2024-12-25T17:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=2848"},"modified":"2024-12-25T17:02:25","modified_gmt":"2024-12-25T17:02:25","slug":"capt-dale-dye-christmas-at-the-con-thien-hill-of-angels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=2848","title":{"rendered":"Capt. Dale Dye: Christmas at the Con Thien \u201cHill of Angels\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"


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By Capt. Dale Dye, USMC (Ret)<\/a><\/p>\n

S<\/span>ome short-timer due to rotate off the hill came by our bunker to gloat. He wouldn\u2019t be around for Christmas, which he informed us was tomorrow. News to me. In my view, counting days was akin to tempting fate. Life at Con Thien was dicey enough without that kind of distraction.<\/p>\n

My bunker buddy Sergeant Steve Berntson stuck his head through the muddy culvert section that provided access to our small bunker somewhere along the hill\u2019s cramped perimeter and squinted up at the sky. As usual, rain-swollen clouds were rolling toward us from the direction of North Vietnam, which was just three klicks north, or as we liked to say too damn close.<\/p>\n

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Marines gather near a bunker to pray on Christmas Day in Vietnam. The location of the base means issued weapons remain close at hand. Image:\u00a0U.S. Marine Corps<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t guess we\u2019ll be getting a white Christmas.\u201d Berntson was masterful in his grasp of the obvious. \u201cIn fact, if those clouds hover like they usually do\u2026\u201d He paused to wipe a layer of mud from his G.I. spectacles with a section of his equally muddy t-shirt. \u201cI\u2019d say it\u2019s gonna be a wet Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

About that time, we heard distant booms from across the Ben Hai River that marked the DMZ separating North and South Vietnam. All along our section of Con Thien\u2019s perimeter, Marines began to count. Depending on which NVA battery was shooting that day, we either had seven seconds or eleven seconds until the first rounds of incoming artillery landed.<\/p>\n

It sounded like a game show where the audience counts down to the big prize drawing. We thought it would be a big hit Stateside. Something like \u201cHunker in the Bunker\u201d or \u201cSing for Your Shrapnel.\u201d Regular notes we sent to Hollywood written on muddy remnants of C-ration boxes were ignored, but the game went on at Con Thien.<\/p>\n

\"USMC\n<\/picture>
In December 1967, Pfc. Frank N. Bunton carries a small decorated Christmas tree while on a patrol north of Con Thien, Vietnam. Image:\u00a0NARA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the count continued, Marines all over the hill\u2019s 1,100-meter perimeter scrambled for a bunker, a wall of soggy sandbags, or an old shell crater half-filled with muddy rainwater. Just six rounds impacted that Christmas Eve 1967, down from the usual 20 or 30, which we deemed both fortunate and unusual.<\/p>\n

Only a couple of unlucky guys, caught literally with their trousers at half-mast during a visit to one of Con Thien\u2019s reeking crappers, had been hit. Nothing our Navy Corpsmen<\/a> couldn\u2019t handle. Nearly everyone on Con Thien had minor shrapnel wounds, and the Docs had become expert at plucking slivers out of one body part or another. Just another dreary day on a shell-pocked little knob of dirt that the Vietnamese called the Hill of Angels.<\/p>\n

And Peace On Earth\u2026<\/h2>\n

When all clear was sounded, Marines began to slowly, cautiously emerge from their muddy underground hovels like groundhogs sniffing the muggy air for further threats. Infused with Christmas spirit, maybe hoping there were a couple of closet Christians among the NVA artillery gunners over on the other side of the DMZ, Berntson dug out his transistor radio, extended a bent antenna and twisted the tuning knob in an effort to pick up a signal from the American Forces Vietnam Network.<\/p>\n

\"Marine\n<\/picture>
Marine Cpl. Larry Go Nabb of Colorado finds a moment of peace next to a decorated Christmas tree at Quang Tri Combat Base in 1968. Image:\u00a0Staff Sgt. D. Shearer\/NARA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Apparently there was some truth to the report that it was Christmas Eve in Vietnam, as the military network was pumping back-to-back holiday tunes. Elvis was just winding down his rendition of \u201cBlue Christmas\u201d when an oily-voiced G.I. disc jockey came on with the day\u2019s top news.<\/p>\n

The lead story prompted hoots and croupy chuckles from everyone within earshot of Berntson\u2019s radio. A Christmas ceasefire had been declared throughout Vietnam. The National Liberation Front in a magnanimous gesture was going to halt all offensive operations in South Vietnam for an unspecified number of days in honor of Christmas.<\/p>\n

In a reciprocal move, the allied forces in Vietnam agreed to a similar hiatus early in the following year for Vietnamese Tet festivities. Apparently, that order had not filtered down to the artillery batteries that had just dropped HE on us a few minutes earlier. \u201cJust goes to show you,\u201d I grumbled. \u201cThere\u2019s always that 10 percent that don\u2019t get the word.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Marines\n<\/picture>
Pfc. Steve Boggn and Cpl. Ren Horton decorate a Christmas tree at Con Thien in December 1968. The tree had been sent from home by Boggn\u2019s grandmother. Image:\u00a0U.S. Marine Corps<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We were harmonizing along with Bing Crosby on \u201cWhite Christmas\u201d when the Company Gunny visited our section of the line and confirmed the ceasefire reports. He pointed at Berntson\u2019s radio and growled. \u201cSome of you sweethearts probably heard about that ceasefire horseshit.\u201d As usual, the Gunny was candid and direct.<\/p>\n

\u201cThem shoe-clerks in the rear say it\u2019s a fact, but I don\u2019t trust them heathen commie bastards, so don\u2019t let me catch any of you peckerheads lollygaggin\u2019 anywhere on this hill without yer helmets and flack-jackets.\u201d We thought that might be the end of his tirade, but there was an afterthought that restored the Christmas spirit within Fox Company, 2nd<\/sup>\u00a0Battalion, 1st<\/sup>\u00a0Marines at Con Thien.<\/p>\n

The Surprise<\/h2>\n

\u201cIf it don\u2019t piss rain like it usually does \u2026 and if them air wing jarheads get off their asses \u2026we\u2019re gonna get a Christmas dinner tomorrow.\u201d We were stunned. For the past two weeks, we\u2019d been on a solid C-ration diet. We had become one with the cat-size bunker rats on Con Thien scavenging morsels of anything that looked remotely edible. Desperate battles had broken out over cookie crumbs from parental care packages.<\/p>\n

\"Santa\n<\/picture>
Using his Chinook<\/a> sleigh, Santa Claus delivers presents to United States Marines deployed to Vietnam on Christmas Day, 1969. Image:\u00a0U.S. Marine Corps<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now they planned to bring a Christmas meal \u2014 complete with turkey and trimmings \u2014 up to us skeletal waifs? Was there something to this Hill of Angels business that we\u2019d so loudly and roundly cursed? Speculation ran rampant throughout the bunkers. Much sleep on that Christmas Eve was lost to prayers for good weather and for a contagious epidemic of a fatal disease that would ravage the NVA gunners on the other side of the DMZ.<\/p>\n

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A major part of those prayers was answered on Christmas Day, which dawned bright and cloudless. Santa, in a gaggle of Marine Corps helicopters, had been cleared to fly. Ever cautious and leery of them heathen commie bastards, the Gunny organized us into 10-man sections.<\/p>\n

\"Marines\n<\/picture>
U.S. Marines at Fire Support Base Dick spend Christmas Day 1968 making the most of the holiday. Image:\u00a0NARA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the chow line was set up, we would sprint down from our bunkered holding station, grab a paper plate and side-step smartly past a line of vacuum cans to receive delicacies, including roasted turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and veggies topped with a big dollop of cranberry sauce. Waiting, watching and salivating, Berntson and I eyed squads of Marines delicately balancing overloaded plates and staggering back to their bunkers. It was nearly an hour before our section, the last to eat that Christmas Day, was called away to share in the feast.<\/p>\n

The Battle Returns<\/h2>\n

We were halfway to our little hole in the ground, cradling the overloaded paper plates, when we heard the dreaded booms. I counted just four, likely the anti-christ battery, declaring that Hanoi ain\u2019t the boss of them. Regardless, we were within safe distance of our bunker if we sprinted. But sprinting risked spilling the glorious feast on our paper plates. We hunched our shoulders over the chow and did a version of the green-apple quickstep. Berntson made it. I did not.<\/p>\n

\"Marines\n<\/picture>
Known as \u201cMr. Christmas,\u201d Lance Cpl. Ronald Christmas decorates a Christmas tree with Navy Chaplain Lt. Vernon Awes at Force Logistic Command, near Da Nang. Image:\u00a0NARA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Focused on not spilling an iota of the food that was balanced on my rapidly deteriorating paper plate, I stepped into a waterlogged shell hole and went down hard. Four HE rounds hit well away from me as I watched my Christmas dinner disappear into the slime. Who knew cranberries would float? The last thing I remembered was Berntson pulling me up out of the mire and watching a big turkey leg floating away, chased by a flotilla of rats.<\/p>\n

The True Spirit\u2026<\/h2>\n

That\u2019s when I became familiar with the true spirit of Christmas. Berntson divided his dinner into precisely equal proportions and gave me half. Basking in the glow of full stomachs, he even rescued what was left of that floating turkey leg which we washed with canteen water and enjoyed as dessert.<\/p>\n

\"Santa\n<\/picture>
Santa leads Marines of the 9th Marine Regiment in Christmas carols in Vietnam on Christmas Day 1968. The woman on the left was a journalist who delivered gifts from Jacksonville, Florida. Image:\u00a0NARA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every year around this time of year, I find myself remembering that time with a smile. And I\u2019ll never again gnaw on a turkey leg without thinking about Christmas on the hill at Con Thien in 1967.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: Please be sure to check out The Armory Life Forum, where you can comment about our daily articles, as well as just talk guns and gear. Click the \u201cGo To Forum Thread\u201d link below to jump in and discuss this article and much more!<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Capt. Dale Dye, USMC (Ret) Some short-timer due to rotate off the hill came by our bunker to gloat. He wouldn\u2019t be around for Christmas, which he informed us was tomorrow. News to me. In my view, counting days was akin to tempting fate. Life at Con Thien was dicey enough without that kind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}