Marble_Mountain

Guarding the perimeter fence lines of Marble
Mountain Transmitter Site was our main responsibility. Fourteen dog teams were assigned posts there each night, seven each evening watch and midnight watch.

A typical evening had us arriving at the site well
before dark. There were several reasons for this. One the roads were closed before dark and we had to be through the ville, and at the transmitter site, before the Marines closed the roads. There was also a period of obedience training each evening for the dogs and then a session of grooming.

Finally we had a quick dinner of C-rations and walked out to post at sunset. Remember the C-rations? The dates on the side of the cases showing they were prepared in time to be used during the Korean War? The scramble to secure a B1A unit? The culinary perfection that was hardtack biscuits and peanut butter? The sublime pleasure of a can of cling peaches in syrup? The unique flavor of decades old Kent cigarettes?

When I first arrived those handlers not on watch slept in a hootch up on the hill among the other security forces near the C P. I don't remember exactly why we moved from there to a period of sleeping under the stars on top of the weather roofs over our dogs' kennel. It seems there was an evening of firefights, and the decision was made that we were too far away from our dogs at the hootch location. Then the following fall when the wet monsoons started to kick in, we began sleeping inside a storeroom at the rear of the transmitter building.

It always seemed Posts 7, 1, & 2 were the ones most likely to have activity on any given evening. These were the posts closest to the ville. Posts 7 and 1 straddled the 'main gate', which must have been some historical reference, because the entire time I was there the gate was never used. Post 2 bordered up against the Marine amphibious base on one end.

On the far side of the amphib base the posts picked up again with post 3. Post 3 ran parallel to the beach, and for whatever reason, even though it was the quietest post, it's the one that I personally felt most uncomfortable on. Maybe it was the solitude, the way it was situated it seemed the farthest from any support, if needed. Maybe it was the fog, especially in March and April, the fog would settle in on post 3 during the predawn hours and visibility went down to yards, or less.

Post 4 was a horseshoe shaped stretch of fenceline on the top of a sand dune. There was only one bunker on post 4, and while I have to assume it was well placed to observe all portions of the fenceline. the horseshoe shape allowed it to be set quite a ways back from apex of the fenceline.

Towards the post 5 end of post 4 sometimes gave you a ringside seat on the nights that the VC launched rockets towards DaNang. Near the end of my tour large spotlights were mounted on poles in this area. I guess they were a good idea as far as Marble Mountain Security was concerned, but as a dog handler, walking along in the wash of the glare of these lights off the sand, was unsettling.

Post 5 was a mostly a ravine between the sand dune that was post 4 and another sand dune at post 6. It was also the shallowest of posts, as it backed up against the hill formed by the connecting of these two sand dunes. The C P sat at the top. Post 5 seemed to be a great place to see the flashes of artillery and bombing missions, and listen to the associated explosions, of in the distance. When they installed the spotlight on post 4, they installed a second one between posts 5 and 6, giving post 5 the same problem of walking in the wash of reflected light. If you walked your post close to the fenceline where you were supposed to, it really left you feeling quite naked out there.

Post 6 was another 'action' post. If something was going to happen there was a greater chance you'd be involved if you were on posts 1, 2, 6, or 7. Bill Sheldon died on this post while walking the midnight to dawn watch on May 5, 1968. He handled Rex 73X5, who was also handled by Harold Morgan and David Tucker.

One of my memories of post 6 has some humor though. One night the dog on post 6 was getting repeated alerts. There was an old french fort outside the fenceline. The dog kept alerting, the bunker watches hear noises, and saw movement outside the fence in the loom of pop flares. Nothing was seen clear enough to identify, it was just know something was going on out there in the dark. Finally on the midnight watch, the CP had enough of the uncertainty and playing defence. The order came down to open up, blow whatever was out there away and have done with it. The dog handler started shooting with his M-16, the bunker opened up with its M-60 machine gun and it's M-79 grenade launcher. The mortar pit near the CP alternated between flares and HE (high explosive). There's no accounting for how much ordinance was thrown over that fenceline. But, it was enough, the movement and noise ceased. All was guiet through the remainder of the night.

The following dawn and small patrol was sent out to inspect the area and try to ascertain what we were up against, and vanquished the previous night. What they found was the remains of a very unfortunate water buffalo. The humor? Well that was a picture I saw sometime later, of our Lt. Adkins with his foot up on the water buffalo, M-16 on his hip, looking for all the world like the conquering hero, or the great white hunter. All he really needed was a pith helmet to complete the scene. Come to think of it, I'm not really sure where he came from, it was not his normal procedure to be out at the mountain overnight.

The last post was post 7, a long flat post running from the sand dune that was post 6 to the main gate. Post 7, along with posts 1 and 2 afforded you a great view of the little hills that were adjacent to Marble Mountain. On top of one of these was an Army compound with a 106mm recoilless rifle. Some nights you could see them apparently setting their range with single shots of 50mm tracer fire and then opening up with the 106. It really was pretty awesome. Whether they were doing any damage is open for conjecture, but it certainly looked like they were getting the job done.

We were excused from post at 6:00 in the morning. Some of us listened to transistor radios on post and for those who did there was something we all looked forward to. Right after the news came those 4 words immortalized decades later by the Robin Williams' movie of the same title. 'Gooood Morning Viet Nam!!' I think the show it prefaced was called was High I Core. A show that introduced me to country music and more specifically the 'outlaws' Waylon, an Willie, and the boys.

What about the dogs? Well I never got the impression either Erich of Rebel cared which post we were walking. I know when I went to the kennels in the late afternoon they were bouncing happy to see me. And they enjoyed the whole obedience-grooming thing in the evening. They even seem to set out for post with a bit of bounce in their step and tugging on the leash. But by the time morning came, especially on those warm summer nights, they walked with a slack leash, a bit tired from a night of walking. And neither of them looked forward to post on those wet, cold, rainy and windy winter nights any more than I did.

Those are the posts of Marble Mountain. To take license with the old line, that is where we spent hours of boredom and tedium walking those posts on quiet nights, interspersed with moments of blood racing excitement and nervousness when a fire fight would erupt. Either of the posts was a front row seat for watching the arsenal of the US military on display. On any given night you could see the strikes of B-52's in the distance, or F-4' Phantom's closer in. Artillery from the 106's on Marble Mountain or various other firebases scattered around. Huey, and Cobra helicopters were almost common place, as was the C-47 "Puff's" with their mini-guns. Something more unique was the Battleship New Jersey. It sat so far off the coast that I never saw it, and it's target was so far inland that I don’t remember seeing the flashes from where it's shells landed. But I do remember seeing and hearing it's shells go overhead. Actually seeing the shells go overhead was impressive.

Another thing I saw out at the mountain that I was impressed by was a squad of Army snipers. They were sitting around, waiting until the cover of darkness to move out. One of them had a single shot .50 caliber rifle, with a starlight scope mounted on it. To hear him tell it, he could hit the circle on a pack of Lucky Strikes at a half-mile. Like I said, if true, impressive.

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Marble Mountain Transmitter Site