W3 Company - Service Stories

A Matter of Principle - Doug MacKintosh

Two or three times during our twelve months in Vietnam we were required to attend a formal Battalion Parade.   To me at the time, it did not seem quite right for a company on a short break between operations to be pounding a parade ground.   Just before one of these parades, this time for the Brigadier, a Platoon Sergeant asked me to speak to one of his soldiers, as the soldier was refusing to go on parade.   This appeared to be a case of refusing a lawful command whilst on active service, and had the smell of a possible Courts Martial.

Of course I agreed to speak with him and the soldier appeared within two minutes.   The soldier was not well known to me.   I do not remember his name; I don’t believe he had ever attracted my attention before for any type of unsoldierly behaviour.   I asked him if it was correct he was refusing to go on parade, and if so what was the reason.   The soldier gave his answer in a calm and polite manner.   Yes, he was refusing to go on parade, because he would not do so for that Brigadier.   When I asked what he had against that particular Brigadier, I was told the Brigadier did not think much of New Zealand soldiers.   How did he know that?   Because the Brigadier had been overheard to say so in the Officers Mess.   It did not matter that our soldier would not have been anywhere near the Mess, or if it was true or just a rumour, what did matter was that he believed it.

What could I say?  I suspect we just looked at each other for a minute as I considered what to do.  I knew that threatening to not go on parade was unlikely to be an offence. But if he did carry out his threat and stay in the Lines when the rest of us were on parade, it would be very serious, maybe a Court Martial and time in a military jail.

My advice to him was that the company would look very silly in front of the Australians if he did not join us on parade.   The soldier looked at me for a while, obviously mulling it over.   Then quietly he said he had changed his mind and would now go on parade.   I had not threatened him with any dire punishment; he seemed intelligent enough to know the likely result if he carried out his threat.

That was the end of the matter.   Or was it?   At the time I respected the soldier for his attitude to be willing to stand up and be counted.   That took courage.   But the good name of the New Zealand soldier and W3 Company was ultimately more important to him than his personal point of view.   I realised later that his decision to change his mind may have taken just as much courage again.   No soldier wants to lose face or appear a coward in front of his friends.  To that unknown soldier, whoever he was, thank you for your example .

'I Was There' - add a comment

Morphine syrettes and dust-off’s - 'Doc' Mitchell

I was the Company medic for W3 and on operations travelled with Company HQ.   We received magnificent training in NZ that included working at Christchurch Hospital A & E.  We got good practice in suturing, minor surgery and dealing with trauma - though nothing prepared me for the trauma caused by the 7.62 rounds fired from SLRs, or the devastation that a claymore could inflict on the human body.  Trying to treat these wounds was daunting and thank God I carried morphine syrette's.  All you could do was put up an IV, bandage the wounds to try and prevent bleeding and give pain relief, and hope that the DUSTOFF chopper would arrive quickly.

Mike Morrison who was the intelligence NCO and I had the responsibility of searching the dead VC.  This was an unpleasant task that was made even worse when we had to disinter an enemy body which had been buried for some time in the hope that it would have documents on it.  The VC were tough fighters and the contents of their packs showed how they improvised with whatever materials they could find.  I remember a notebook that had been used as a text book on first aid.  It was illustrated with pen drawings that had been coloured with watercolours and the text was written in pencil in a miniature script that had obviously been a labour of love.

In May 1969 Company HQ and the mortar section led by Cpl Mark Binning were on Long Son Island in the Rung Sat Special Zone.  One day around lunchtime a group of VC attacked us from behind a bund in an overgrown orchard on the other side of a dry paddy field.  A RPG round hit the crown of a palm tree above my head and showered me with shredded foliage.  Meanwhile the VC had opened up with an M16 and I think an AK47.  Just like in the movies bullets were kicking up sand and cracking overhead.  I heard someone calling for a medic and realised it was coming from a gun pit on the edge of the paddy nearest the enemy.  What disconcerted me was the fact I would have to cover 25 metres or so of ground that had no cover.  Duty calls, I ran down to the gun pit and saw as I dived into it that it was packed with tangled bodies on the top of which I dived.  Charlie had made his point and left, and the gunfire died down and stopped.

Mike Morrison was at the bottom of the pit giggling like a schoolgirl and this started the rest of us laughing as we untangled ourselves and stood up.  None of us were wearing shirts and two of the guys had bullet creases on their arms.  Mike Morrison though had his hand against his chest and had stopped laughing.  I asked him if he was alright and he took his hand away revealing a wound that had obliterated his left nipple.  After looking at his chest I told him he was very lucky as he and the others had been clipped by the bullets fired at them.  Little did I know that a M16 bullet had punched through Mike's chest and the bullet was sitting in his pericardial sac behind his heart.   We heard the DUSTOFF chopper approaching and just before he flew out to the 1st Australian Field Hospital Mike complained of feeling breathless and I saw he was getting paler and paler.  On the way to hospital his condition deteriorated and he was very sick by the time he was taken to theatre.  I visited him in the ICU a week or so later but he was unconscious.  I didn't see him again for another 30 years.

 'I Was There' - add a comment

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