Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
6:11 | On search and destroy missions, you always had to be careful about booby traps, says Galen Foster, who has a couple of stories about that. Don't just open a door, either. You don't know what's on the other side.
Keywords : Galen Foster Vietnam search and destroy helicopter hooch Viet Cong (VC) rice grenade sleep Punji stake bamboo tunnel Charlie
Galen Foster's father was a Marine and he gave his son this advice, join the Army. It's safer. He did just that and when he got to basic training, the Drill Instructor made a big impression on him. He went to Fort Polk where they had a training camp called Tigerland, designed to prepare troops for fighting in Vietnam.
The closer the plane got to Vietnam, the more somber was the mood on board. That's what Galen Foster remembers about the flight. What he remembers about arriving is the heat and the smell, both overwhelming. He went where he was most needed, a unit that had just been hit hard, and was issued an M79 grenade launcher.
Galen Foster's first night after joining his unit in was memorable. They were mortared and, since the fire base was new and had no bunkers yet, a half dozen new guys huddled on the floor of their tent with their duffel bags around them. Welcome to Vietnam. After the barrage, they emerged and readied for a fight which did not come.
He was going to war for the first time. It was the first foray outside the fire base for Galen Foster and, right away, he was in combat. As the men crossed a clearing in pairs, the man next to him stepped on a mine and Charlie opened up. The blast knocked him back into the tree line and, finding himself unhurt he returned fire. That answered a question he had been wondering about himself.
Charlie was smart. You seldom saw him. An air strike would drive him into his tunnels but he would be back. Galen Foster describes just such an encounter, with friendly shrapnel flying all around. After that firefight, his unit was given an uncomfortable task, hosting an American news crew.
Nobody liked night ambush patrol. You were out in pitch black in the enemy's own backyard. Galen Foster was on one of these patrols when they spotted a light in the distance where no light should be. They crept closer and he fired a dozen rounds from his grenade launcher at the area.
They found a lot of tunnels, says Galen Foster, who was glad it wasn't his job to go down in them. He felt sorry for the Vietnamese people, who were caught between the Americans and the Viet Cong. The search and destroy missions were continuous and when one of them went bad, a relief force hurried to help their brothers. They were in too much of a hurry, as it turned out.
A captured North Vietnamese soldier had papers on him that indicated a large enemy movement would be coming in a few days. Galen Foster's unit dug in, set up an excellent ambush, and waited. For two days, his mind was swirling with thoughts of home, his childhood and his family. He wrote a letter to his fiance that was never mailed. He prepared himself to die. It was the most scared he'd ever been.
A hot landing zone meant that you could expect contact as soon as you set down. They might tell you that a landing zone is cold, but Galen Foster says you never could tell. He saw the lead helicopter get shot down as they went into a so-called cold LZ. When moving on foot, the point man used a compass the guide the unit. Once, an improper reading led the men straight into a Viet Cong base camp.
For his last duty in Vietnam, Galen Foster moved to Chu Lai. The base camp was on a hill with a view of the South China Sea on one side and a village on the other side. One night, they heard a ruckus in the village. Women and children were screaming and crying. The soldiers were forbidden to go and help.
After his Vietnam tour, Galen Foster returned to Fort Benning. He went from slogging through the jungle with muddy boots to spit and polish. He was assigned to an honor guard unit. One day his unit was sent to help a film crew and he wound up being in the film The Green Berets. He did not re-enlist and he reveals his only regret over that.
