Sergeant of the Guard

First Tour

One of my occasional duties was to be Sargeant of the Guard at Battalion Headquarters. Most nights it was very boring but occasionally there was some excitement.

One night I was sitting with the Officer of the Day and an enlisted man who operated the telephones and the radio. Suddenly the phone rang with a call from one of the guard towers saying he could see movement in the no-go area.

Before going into what happened next, I guess I should describe the compound. There were 10-foot high concrete-block walls on three sides with the front gate in the middle wall.  A sandbagged bunker guarded the gate and there were three guard towers with sandbagged positions at the top, one on each of the remaining sides. On the left, a dirt road nestled against the wall and beyond that a field that contained nothing but old junk of all kinds. On the right was a lumber mill. I had been told that the owner of the mill paid off the VC not to attack his property and that he got the money from us so I did not have to worry about that side. The back of the compound was the most interesting. Our land ended at a 10-meter wide river and the no-go area was a large field on the far side. A boat dock with an old outhouse with a hole to deposit the goods in the river were the only structures on our side, except for a barbed-wire fence. The guard tower was in the middle of this side.

The Officer of the Day, a 2nd Lieutenant who looked like he was not old enough to shave, said that maybe we would come under attack and that we should do something about it. We started discussing what we should do when the phone rang again. The guard sounded panicky so the LT told me to go find out what was going on and report back to him. He mentioned something about the possibility of shooting and how as Officer of the Day he should stay in the protection of the guard force headquarters.

I took off for the guard post and quickly reached the bottom of the tower. Looking across the river, I could not see anything and decided that I should climb up to the top to get a better view. I have never climbed a ladder so fast.

At the top, the very nervous guard, a PFC, pointed out the area where he had seen the movement. I could not see anything definite but there did seem to be something there. It appeared to be about 100 meters away and moving extremely slowly with long stops between movements. Whatever it was had made no aggressive moves and had not gotten any closer.

I phoned the LT and he said to stay there until we determined what it was. About fifteen minutes later, it finally moved to a place where we could see it clearly. A farmer, who was staying in the shadows so that he would not get shot, was feeding his water buffalo on the lush grass. At least this time I did not damage my camera.