We have been learning about Tracy’s Dave Ziemke, who enlisted in the Army in June 1967; trained as a field wireman; and deployed to Vietnam in December 1967. The Army assigned him to the 1st Battalion of the 5th Artillery Regiment, north of Vietnam’s capital of Saigon. About half of Dave’s service was at remote fire bases. The fire bases were forward positions for the battalion’s howitzers. They were miles away from the battalion’s base camp; fortified with bunkers for the troops and ammunition; and designed to provide artillery support to Army units operating in the region.

In late October 1968 Dave was at Firebase Rita. He explained Rita’s mission.

“The North Vietnamese transported all their equipment through that area. So they put Battery A and Battery B, Firebase Rita and Firebase Julie [out there] to stop them.”

The Battery’s 105 mm howitzers were in a wide circle of sandbagged firing pits so they could fire in any direction. The larger, self-propelled 155 howitzers were inside that circle and concertina wire, spools of razor wire staked to the ground in long, spiraling strings, surrounded the guns and the bunkers for their ammunition and artillery crews. Mechanized infantry with bunkers, armored personnel carriers, and tanks provided additional security outside the artillery wire line.

Dave’s battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Rogers, was at Rita, visiting his troops at their remote site.

Dave remembered that it had been a busy day.

“I had been humping ammo and pitching in, doing this and that. I had just crawled into my bunker, a little, sandbagged bunker with a crawl-out on the side.”

Dave said they almost never saw enemy soldiers, but Halloween 1968 proved an exception to that rule.

“I can’t tell you what time it was, but it was the middle of the night. All the sudden I thought the whole war ended up at Firebase Rita.”

Eight hundred North Vietnamese soldiers attacked the outnumbered troops of the fire base with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), machine guns, and infantry assaults.

Dave described how he got into the fight for Fire Base Rita.

“I crawled out of the bunker and went to the command post. The colonel was in there and they were patching him up. He had gotten hit in the knee and he got a piece of shrapnel through his nose, so he spit it out. I asked him, ‘What do you need me to do?’ He said, ‘You get out in the middle of that and you’ll know exactly what to do.’ “

The battalion commander had rallied the howitzer crews, who were frantically defending the fire base. Dave re-emerged into the chaotic battle.

“I got out there and they (the enemy) were coming over the wire. They would send a line in and we (the 105 howitzer crews) were firing direct fire beehive rounds. They’re little metal flechettes like buckshot and we were stopping them. Well, they’d crawl over their dead and they were crawling in the wire. They wiped out half the infantry on the outside.”

The explosive chaos of battle reached out to Dave. “My best friend was standing next to me. We’d been through Basic, AIT, the whole bit — just another 18 year old kid. He took an RPG to the gut. Right next to me he just blew up. It totaled my head out and from there everything went to slow motion.”

Dave redirected his efforts to pulling injured soldiers to the aid station near the command post.

“I was running, but it felt like my feet were lead and just barely moving. I was busy pulling guys back to the medics off the wire. You’re running on complete adrenaline and everything’s slow motion.”

The fighting continued through the night. Lieutenant Colonel Rogers was wounded again, but continued directing the defense of the fire base while lying on a stretcher. It was some time before Dave realized he was a mess.

“The colonel kept wondering where I got hit because I’m just covered in blood. Every time I tripped — it hadn’t rained in three months, but I was running through puddles and it was blood — everywhere on the firebase.”

Then the fight ended all at once for Dave.

“I’m hauling guys back when all of the sudden, ‘Boom’ and my helmet took off. A big chunk of shrapnel stuck in my helmet. It hit me right in the head, ‘Ptchew.’ Well, that was it. I called it quits for that night.”

Air strikes at daybreak drove off the remaining attackers and the firing came to an end.

Lt. Co. Rogers received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor that night. Dave received a Bronze Star for his own actions defending Fire Base Rita and a Purple Heart for his injury.

“When it was over you felt a pride and a loss at the same time,” Dave explained, “you look over and there are all these body bags lined up.”

Dave and the other survivors whose injuries did not require medevac stayed at the fire base.

“The choppers took out the wounded and the dead and brought back newcomers,” he explained. “You’re nineteen years old, but you feel a lot older than these [replacements] and they’re only months younger than you,” he remembered. He added, “In Vietnam you can probably age ten years in three months if you go into combat.”

The Lyon County Museum is organizing an exhibit about the Vietnam War and Lyon County. If you would like to share Vietnam experiences or help with the exhibit, contact me at prairiev iewpressllc@gmail.com or call the museum at 537-6580.