Lieutenant Jackrabbit

I don't remember his real name, but I will always remember him as Lieutenant Jackrabbit.

He was born near Hanoi in 1943. I know nothing of his history until 1967, when he came south. I can imagine he was well educated and accomplished. His handwriting was meticulous and his grammar perfect. He looked great in his western style suit in the picture with his pretty wife and two young children.

His unit was the 10th VC Battalion, if I remember correctly. He was listed as "cadre", which probably meant he worked with the largely untrained "volunteers" who were recruited locally and then trained by North Vietnamese such as himself. The mission of his unit was to disrupt traffic along Highway One north of Hue, in I Corps, northern South Vietnam. They would carefully plan and then carry out ambushes of convoys carrying soldiers of either the ARVN or American units who used the road daily.

My unit was B Troop, 2nd of the 17th Air Cav, stationed near Hue. I was a scout pilot. We had just finished a hair-raising assignment 150 miles to the south in Tam Ky. We had participated in one of the most brutal 3 month battles of the entire war. One American Division and a brigade of another had been assigned the task of preventing the cutting off of I Corps by the 2nd NVA regiment and it's attached units. We had succeeded and had returned to our home base at Camp Eagle. We were in the process of unwinding from unrelenting hell. We were actually back sleeping in our beds instead of in tents!

We had settled into the routine of "first light", "last light", and convoy cover missions. Our Aerorifle platoon was conducting ambushes and listening post missions. The rainy season was in full swing, so we had a lot of down time.

The day I met Lieutenant Jackrabbit, our mission was to clear a section of highway for a group of engineers who were heading north to Quang Tri. Our Aerorifle platoon had been inserted near the highway and was conducting a sweep along it. I was flying just ahead of them, guarding against ambushes. All along the highway were "spider holes"; shallow one man firing positions hidden in the tall elephant grass. Each spider hole had to be found and checked out. As we found a hole, we would lob in a CS grenade to flush out whoever was in it.

My crewchief/gunner that day, as on most days, was Bruce Carroll, a young, skinny E5 who just happened to be the best gunner in the platoon. My observer was Jerry Gauthier, a big, burly E-5. You see, I was the platoon leader, so I could pick my aircraft and crew, and naturally I picked the best.

I was nearing the end of my tour, and due caution had begun to enter my head. I had switched from a minigun ship to one with three crewmembers just to get another pair of eyes in the aircraft. This meant, of course, that I depended on my gunner to take care of whatever firepower might prove to be necessary.

About a half hour into the mission, I was becoming convinced that we would have no trouble that day. There appeared to be no signs of a pending ambush. The grass hadn't been disturbed, and, since tunnels were rare in this part of the coastal plain, we figured no one was around.

All of a sudden, I heard Bruce's excited voice on the intercom; "Hey there's a Gook in that hole!" Jerry had just lobbed a grenade in a hole, and we had moved away to avoid the CS gas. I quickly glanced over my right shoulder and met Lieutenant Jackrabbit. I kicked right pedal just as I heard the staccato beat of Bruce's M60 Machine gun. The rounds were flying all around him in the always deadly dance of Bruce's unerring aim. "@#*%#&, the %#$%@* got away". Sure enough, he managed to evade the bullets long enough to get into another spider hole about 15 feet away. Damn! we were getting low on CS!.

About this time, the pilot of the Cobra overhead was anxiously inquiring as to what was going on. Jerry got on the radio and told them we had a Gook in a spider hole. He said; "Okay, if you can't get him, we'll take over". Since the object of our chase didn't seem to be armed, we weren't in any particular hurry. "We'll take care of it" was my reply.

This time Jerry used a fragmentation grenade. He figured that would take care of the problem for good. It didn't. Out of the smoke and dust stepped a very ragged looking and bloodied Gook. He darted out of sight so quickly this time that we had a hard time finding him again. By now the Aerorifle Platoon was only about 3 or 4 hundred yards away, and I had no idea how many more Gooks lay in their path. I didn't have any desire to see a bunch of AK47s appearing out of the tall grass.

I told the Cobra to have at it. He expended almost his entire load of 2.75" rockets into the nest of spider holes. The area was now a mess of torn up grass and craters. After he was done, I went back in to have a look. I heard Jerry's quiet voice in the intercom this time. "Damn, the little bastard's still alive". I jerked the helicopter around so Bruce could get a shot. This time I caught sight of him in full flight. Boy, could he run! Bruce's shots kicked up dust behind and all around him as he zigzagged like a tailback trying to avoid a linebacker. Sure enough, he found another spider hole!

"I swear I had to have hit him". This from Bruce. I told him I was sure he had, and anyway, Burke and the boys were almost on top of us by now, and they could take care of him.

Just as I said that, a very battered looking but brave Hanoi resident who had, just two years before, come down the Ho Chi Minh trail to fight for his cause, decided to take a stand. Unbeknownst to us, he had a sidearm. He stood up as tall as he could in the lone remaining spider hole and aimed his pistol in the general vicinity of the platoon, which by now was on top of him. At least a dozen M-16s spoke as one. His bullet riddled body slumped back into the hole.

His personal effects were collected and sent to Division G2. About a week later, we got a report from them with the details I spoke of at the beginning of this story.

Many times I have wondered about the little guy in the sharply creased khaki uniform. He had a Ho Chi Minh medal and some other awards which he had earned fighting us in the two years he had been in the south. We know he left a wife and two kids. What else didn't we know about him? Maybe he was a schoolteacher, or a civil servant.

We'll never know about Lieutenant Jackrabbit. Just as we don't know all the stories of the 58,000 American men and women on The Wall. I do know one thing, however, he was as brave a soul as I have ever seen.

Marcus A. Pryor
Stogie 43 B 3/17 1968
Banshee 16 B 2/17 1969
npc@accutek.com