Saturday, March 20, 1999
SP4 Jeffrey W. Haerle
--- General / Personal ---
Last name: HAERLE
First name: JEFFREY WILLIAM
Home of Record (official): MINNEAPOLIS
State (official): MN
Date of Birth: Thursday, May 23, 1946
Sex: Male
Race: Caucasian
Marital Status: Single
--- Military ---
Branch: Army
Rank: SP4
Serial Number: 16862792
Component: Regular
Pay grade: E4
MOS (Military Occupational Specialty code): 05H20
--- Action ---
Start of Tour: Monday, April 15, 1968
Date of Casualty: Monday, May 13, 1968
Age at time of loss: 21
Casualty type: (A1) Hostile, died
Reason: Small Arms fire
Country: South VietNam
Province: Tay Ninh (Nui Ba Den Mountain)
The Wall: Panel 59E - Row 022
LASTNAME: HAERLE FIRSTNAME: JEFFREY WILLIAM IDNO:
16862792 SVC: A COMP: R RANK: SP4 GRADE: E4 MOS: ----- AGE: 21
HOME: MINNEAPOLIS ST: MN CASDATE: 19680513 CAS1: A1 CAS2: E
CAS3: 7 BODY: --- CTRY: VS PROV: 22 LSVC: 02 BIRDATE: 19460523 RACE:
C REL: LU MAR: S SEX: M CIT: 1 TOURD: 680415 PANL: 59E LINE: 022
REFNO: 14378 PDATE: 6805
Blood on the Mountain
Nui Ba Den (Black Virgin Mountain)
I suffered thru an estimated 180 separate rocket/mortar attacks during Tet '68 at Cu Chi. Tay Ninh and Dau Tieng (January to June. 68). Spent many days (and nites) out in the weeds with the PRD-1 teams trying to keep the fucking PRD-1 radios operating for the Duffys. PNH-4 recorders in the vans were right behind it as being a tempermental SOB to keep running. Then R-390's and 390A's.I got used to them because worked on them more than anything else.I was spending a couple of weeks on the Black Virgin mountain when Haerle got killed 13 May 1968.
There were 28 or so SF types there.They were B Team support types with a black Captain CO and a wild man for a 1SGT. There were other signal types up there who ran microwaves and other jumbled up signal gear.The SF types were weapons, medical,. signal operators, and admin type guys. I knew all of them fairly well and none of them were authorized to be anywhere near our detachment's shit in the pagoda. The SF CO was alway's trying to get us to tell him what we were doing up there. We'd BS him all of the time and Jerry Gainous. the other repairman with me told him one afternoon that we monitored submarines operating off the coast.
There weren't many American heroics that night. They only found 2 VC/NVA bodies and they'd been killed by the Korean generator repairman for PA&E who'd killed them with an M-60 he'd bought on the black market. SFC Beeson was trapped in the pagoda with a SP/4 operator through the whole performance because ever body else had gone back to either the mess hall, the club or the barracks. Captain Carter and I listened to Beeson on the radio while the AK's were being shot through the window.He was destroying the gear and the documents.
In his infinite wisdom Captain Carter wanted a sitrep every 5 minutes. Beeson continued to xmit until the 292 antenna on the back of the pagoda was blown up at about 22:00 that nite. Writing this right now has made my pulse go up by leaps and bound. Damn near 29 years ago.
Haerle and a big guy named Smitty were trapped under the barracks.
As it burned down around them Smitty said the last thing Jeff did was tell him he couldn't stand being burned to death and he was goint to try to make a run for it. He made it as far as a big rock next to the trail Icading up to the pagoda. There was a huge pool of blood on the rocks of the trail and there was 40 to 50 AK-47 casings right there. According to what they told us that morning, the survivors who were still on the hill said that the bad guys went around and fired into every American body that they could find. I was pretty obvious that is what had happened to Jeff there by that rock.
I spent almost 48 hours on that fucking rock after we flew back in and I would say that there was probably less than 1 brass M-16 casing for every 200 copper-colored AK casing along the trails and up at the pagoda. The piles of NVA brass made the walk up and down the path from the pagoda to the chopper pad treacherous because it was like walking on marbles.
I hate the sound of flies buzzing in the summer because it still reminds me of the fucking
things I saw and heard at that pool of Haerle's blood. Good thing that shit like this doesn't bother me huh?
To say that Nui Ba Den was a loose goose operation was an understatement .Even during the worst of the Tet 68 Offensive,it had never been hit ,either by indirect fire or ground attack. They told me that the last time they had been hit had been in the middle of the summer 1967 and that had been only a few mortars.That night we were so poorly trained, poorly led, stupid and naive that we walked around without our weapons and other accoutrements because we were so sure that the mountain was inpenetrable. Most of the time I left my iron hat, rifle, and flak vest at the pagoda rather than fuck with carrying it around .At any given time there probably wasn't more than 110-120 guys up there. That night there were 99 Americans on the Black Virgin Mountain .We ended up with 22 WIA and 22 KIA..
The spooks with the company didn't do much of a job of covering up Jeff Haerle's death.
His name is on the wall at Foggy Bottom. Panel 59E Line 022. Ref # 14378. I 'd gotten back the next AM before all of the walking wounded WlA's were off the mountain. The 25th Infantry Division put in 2 companies of grunts from the 2/22 Triple Deuce (Golden Dragons) on the mountain as soon as the fog and the smoke disapated enough to land H model Hueys on the pad. When I got there a couple hours later, it was still cool enough that the flies handn't started buzzing around the blood pools. So l m positive that there weren't t any people from the ASA up there before our CO ,the security officer, and us numbnuts arrived. Because I worked at the pagoda before the attack, Captain Carter demanded that I be in charge of evacing the equipment back to Cu Chi.
This event still plays with my head. There has been 28, May I3th's have gone by since then and I still think about it serveral times a week.There are only 2 dates out of the 716 days Ispent in RVN that I remember.02:45 January 31,1968 the minute that the Tet of 68 began while I was on guard duty on the East perimeter of Cu Chi base camp ,and l 3 May 1968.
If I dwell on either one for very long, I border on screaming,crying,laughing or puking
it is baggage that I carry from back then when I was a 20 year old cherry Speedy 4.
--Buck Buchanan
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