I was 18 in 1966 when I first set foot in Vietnam, arriving at a firebase near Chu Yang Sin. The only way in and out was by helicopter, and it was all day everyday that these aircrews made their deliveries to firebase McKey. On the first night of my tour, a North Vietnamese rocket attack slammed our base, killing a few marines that had arrived before I did. My first patrol was the following day, where we were ambushed, resulting in the deaths of two close friends of mine from basic training. We were under fire pretty much all day and all night, everyday. snipers, mortars, machine gunners, rockets, everything you could think of, they launched at us.
Of course, air strikes hammered our attackers just as much as they hammered us. Napalm, rockets, 1000 lb bombs, and more slammed the NVA around us. You would think that with the constant fighting, bombing, and destruction, the NVA were our main target. At firebase McKey however, that was not the case. Here, entire patrols would be wiped out, seemingly out of nowhere. Whenever there was a lull in the rocket attacks at night, if you listened closely, you could hear the screams of the NVA. Sometimes, you’d hear firefights that seemed one sided. You’d hear AK-47, SKS, and other standard NVA weapons firing, soldiers barking orders in Vietnamese, but no American weapons returning fire, American voices cursing the NVA, or American firepower targeting the firefight. Almost as if they were fighting something, instead of someone.
I got used to it after my first week, but there was an event that made it much worse than I could have imagined. A few ARVN troops arrived, Vietnamese fighting on our side, and one of them bunked with me when my usual bunkmate was wounded by shrapnel. As usual, rockets fell, machine guns fired, and our jets hammered the jungle. Almost like clockwork, after our jets finished up, the one sided firefight started. This time, a little closer than usual. As we listened, the ARVN trooper with me sat up in his bed, and listened with a look of horror upon his face. I thought nothing of it, thinking he was just not used to hearing such events.
That was until he informed me of what the NVA were saying. All this time I had no idea what was going on, and after he told me, I was wishing I didn’t know.
“They’re saying that they are fighting a Thần Trùng, a demon that tortures the souls of the deceased.” He said.
There was a sense of fear and seriousness in his voice that made me believe him. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but I felt fear wash over me. A thunderous “BOOM!” filled my ears, and the most inhuman, deafening screech I had ever heard rang out. I covered my ears, as did the ARVN trooper, but it only got louder. When it stopped, my ears rang. My vision blurred. Sergeant Clark threw the tent open, and we grabbed our rifles. Our M60 gunners sent tracers out into a specific part of the jungle. As my hearing started to return, I heard our radioman, Bruce, repeating orders barked from Captain Calhoun.
Seeing the Captain’s fearful face as he commanded an airstrike to hit the direction of where the screech came from made me feel even worse about the situation. He had been fighting here since 1964, when he was an advisor for local militias fighting the NVA. He had seen death, destruction, and violence on a scale few of us could imagine, he was even at the Ia Drang Valley. He had seen it all, yet, this scared him. An illumination round from a mortar lit up the jungle where the tracers flew. In between a few burnt trees, was what appeared to be a shadow, tearing an NVA regular in half, before sprinting into the jungle as bullets ripped the ground nearby.
Even the NVA didn’t shoot at us, it was almost as if we agreed on a temporary ceasefire to fight this thing. Then, fear filled me as I heard the words, “Sergeant Clark, take the rest of second platoon down there to kill that fucker. Take a flare in case you need us to call an airstrike.” That implied that it was our goal to lure the damn thing in, and call in enough ordnance on top of ourselves to wipe out a small city.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding,” Clark mumbled under his breath. “Second Platoon, let’s get out there.”
26 of us made our way beyond the wire and sandbags, down the bombed out hill, and into the jungle. Mortars and tracers still landed all around us, but our guys did their best to avoid hitting us. There was really no coordination, no protocol for this kind of event. We just moved in the direction we thought it to be. I held my M16 steadily facing forward. Gene, our M60 gunner who stood at 6’6”, let loose a few rounds in every direction he saw movement, with extra ammo belts over his shoulders. Bruce, the radioman, stayed close behind Clark in case of a needed airstrike. As we made our way further, our group seemed to dwindle.
Men would disappear at the back of the group, or just vanish near the sides. No resistance or gunfire, they just vanished. The Chu Yang Sin mountain had a few caves here and there, and when we reached the entrance of one, we figured that we were at the right place. Our group was 16 strong, 10 men having disappeared. The scratching and inhuman wailing from the cave suggested that we were in the right place. The tracers and mortars stopped hammering the jungle.
“Captain, we’ve reached a cave that we believe to be housing the target.” No response came from the other end of the radio. Through the treetops, we could see firebase McKey, and could hear the sound of approaching jets. We watched as napalm covered the entire hill, leaving few survivors, if any.
“Gene, take a few boys and go check that out, we gotta help our guys.” Clark told our gunner, who responded with, “We can’t split up again, we’re fucked if we do.”
At that moment, Clark’s head morphed quickly, ballooning up, with a mouth of jagged teeth, which in a fraction of a second, bit down on Gene’s right arm. The rest of what we thought was Clark morphed into this awful creature, tall, with quick, jagged movements that scratched and tore at our troops. Gene drew his knife and fought before being torn apart in front of us. With one quick slice of the monster’s arm, Bruce was cut in half, while we shot the thing. It slammed its claws down on my left leg, shattering it. I watched as my comrades fought the beast, and I crawled over Bruce, who was dead. The radio was still working, so I took the phone and called in for base.
“This is Private Kosker, second platoon at firebase McKey. We’re being torn apart by this fucking thing, drop everything you’ve got on the flare.”
“What is going o-?”
“Just fucking do it!! Drop it all!! We’re being overrun!! Captain Calhoun is KIA!!”
“Roger, sending in sorties.”
Command understood the words “We’re being overrun!” as the sign to glass an entire area. I yelled for Thorne, a lieutenant nearby me, to fire his flare. He fired it into the air. I loaded a new mag into my rifle, and fired in the direction of the beast. It had torn several men apart, and didn’t seem phased by the bullets that hit it. It kept tearing us up, shrugging our bullets off, and then I heard the sound of jets incoming. A salvo of rockets tore up the ground nearby, sending shrapnel into my leg, which was already destroyed. Another dropped napalm, which caught several of our guys in an inferno. The beast turned its attention to me as a few bombs impacted, knocking me unconscious.
I awoke to the sound of rotary engines. All around me, I saw my comrades torn apart, as a few helicopters landed in a clearing made by a bomb. The men got out, and I threw my hand into the air. They ran over to me, I blacked out. When I opened my eyes, I saw a white room, with doctors and nurses, with my right leg amputated, and my left leg not covered by blankets. Before I could speak, a man in a black suit informed me that I would not tell anyone at home about what I had experienced, as it would put them and myself in danger. He informed me that my leg was infected by the scratch. But was being investigated before being removed. They cleared it for amputation, and a month later I was back in Virginia.
Of course, I’m old and nearing the end, this story needs to be shared. I just hope that my story is heard, alongside the rest of the men at firebase McKey. We never should have been there, and the government knew it. Two more entire companies were wiped out before the US abandoned it, claiming the NVA pushed us out. I know the NVA kept fighting that thing for years after I left, and I have no doubt it’s still out there.