| Sergeant, E-5 |
| Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment |
| Vietnam June 1970-May 1971 |
My name is Charles Edward Wood. My friends call me Charlie. In Vietnam, everyone called me "Woody" so as not to confuse me with the enemy when they called my name. I was born on August 9, 1950 in a rural area of Duplin County, North Carolina. My father was a poor sharecropper who died later that year on Christmas Day, December 25, 1950. Shortly thereafter, my family moved to Goldsboro, Wayne County, North Carolina where I grew up. The picture of me on the right is the earliest known picture of me that I have.
I had a difficult time growing up but somehow managed to stay out of trouble and graduated from high school in June, 1968. After graduation, I had a couple of jobs that barely paid minimum wages. My first real job was buffing sheepskins into chammy cloths. That job didn't last too long before I was laid off. My next job was working for an electrical company that sold household appliances, repaired electric motors, and installed electrical wiring for new construction. I worked in all three areas until one day I decided I needed to do something different to get ahead in life and escape the poverty I was in.
I had always been intriqued by helicopters. So, I decided that joining the Army and becoming a helicopter pilot was the best thing for me to do. That was not to be, of course. I didn't pass high enough on the tests to qualify for helicopter school and was talked into going to the Non-Commissioned Officers school by the recruiters, after I had already signed up on July 23, 1969. Well it sounded great at first, more money in the long-run. Little did I know I had just signed up for the infantry.
Early that same night, I got on a train in Raleigh, North Carolina with a bunch of new recruits and headed towards Columbia, South Carolina. We arrived late at night. I think they planned it that way. After a few days of being processed in the Army at Fort Jackson, they put a bunch of us on a bus and took us to Fort Gordon near Augusta, Georgia. Anyway, I struggled through Basic Training with stress-fractured heels and almost didn't graduate because of the pain and being on sickcall for most of the last two weeks. After graduation and with two weeks off, I returned to Fort Gordon for AIT in the infantry. I had a good time and made lots of friends. One in particular was Gary Smith. We were fairly close through AIT at Fort Gordon and NCO school at Fort Benning. Later while in Vietnam and reading the Stars and Stripes I found out that Gary had been killed. It was a very sad day for me.
After OJT, the final phase of "Shake-N-Bake" school, at Fort Jackson, South Carolina I got my orders for Vietnam. So, after a few weeks off on leave, I headed to Fort Lewis, Washington. Still more processing and lots of shots in the arm, and finally, a ticket on a plane at McChord Air Force Base to South Vietnam. We took off and landed in Anchorage, Alaska a few hours later. It's pretty cold there in June. We left there and headed for some place near Tokyo, Japan. The people there were so white they looked sick. I'm glad we didn't stay long. Our arrival to Vietnam was a little scary to say the least. As the plane approached Cam Ranh Bay it felt like we were going into a nose dive and were going to crash.
Once we got on the ground, a funny looking bus with steel mesh wire across all the windows picked us up, again late at night, and took us to an area for processing in. We even had to brush our teeth as a group before they would let us get any sleep. That was on June 16, 1970. I had been up almost 24 hours and had 364 more days to look forward to in a place called "Viet - Nam."
After a few days at Cam Ranh Bay, several of us got on a C-130 plane and flew to Chu Lai. Those of us in the infantry were sent to the Americal Division Combat Center, which was located right on the beach of the South China Sea. During our training there, we got a taste for what happens when you make stupid mistakes in a place like Vietnam. Two sergeants were giving us a class on how to setup a mechanical ambush using C-4 explosives instead of claymore mines. They brought us to a covered bleacher area and one of the sergeants started talking while the other sergeant left to who knows where. All of a sudden a loud explosion occurred. The sergeant doing the talking had a look of panic and dismay on his face. He took off to where the second sergeant was and we followed close behind. The second sergeant had been putting together the explosive for the demo when it went off in his hands and face. It appeared we had set off the trip wire and made a full circuit for the explosives when we seated ourselves on the bleachers. Anyway, the sergeant looked like he lost an eye and had pretty extensive damage to his hands and arms. A med-evac helicopter came and picked him up, and, needless to say, we had our class in mechanical ambushes canceled for the day.
Shortly after my indoctrination at the Combat Center, I got on another C-130 plane with a bunch of other guys and flew to Landing Zone (LZ) Bronco at Duc Pho, Headquarters for the 11th Light Infantry Brigade. Somehow or another I made it over to the Headquarters for the 3rd Battalion, 1st Infantry. I think someone was there to meet us. As I recall, I was the only one that day going to A Company. Since my specialty was mortars, I was automatically assigned to the 4th Platoon, or the Weapons Platoon as most called it. It just so happened that A Company was on "stand-down," or taking a break from the field at this time. A few days later the entire company loaded up on a convoy, and we headed out for Fire Support Base Hill 4-11. It seemed like a long ride on the back of that "Deuce and a Half" to Quang Ngai City, past the airport, and out to FSB Hill 4-11 in the middle of nowhere. It was also strange that I found myself on FSB Hill 4-1l on July the 4th loading up on a Chinook helicopter and being airlifted to the field for combat duty.
I tried to go along with everyone else on my first day in the field and started to think things weren't going to be all that bad. But I was soon disappointed because two days later a grunt from one of the other platoons got killed by an NVA/VC sniper. The CP and Weapons platoon had just packed up to move out. During chaos, the seasoned guys in my platoon setup the mortar and started firing off rounds. I just watched, not knowing what to do. They started yelling at me for some reason when I realized had an 81mm mortar round strapped to my backpack. As fast as I could, I unstrapped it and gave it to them so they could fire it. Needless to say we didn't do much good with the mortar that day because the damage had already been done: One friendly soldier KIA.
Over the next few months I had several close calls: snipers, dud booby traps, and even a Phanton jet firing at me. I came pretty close on these occasions, but never as close as the time when Jim Waters and I came upon an NVA soldier near an enemy base camp in the mountains above Nghia Hanh Valley. This area was not far from the location that A Company had lost several men, including medic David Winder, on May 13, 1970. After I found an NVA rucksack while setting up an observation post, some of the guys from the CP, including Captain Vitters, and the weapons platoon went on a patrol to see what else we could find. Well not far into our expedition, we found a dead NVA soldier on the trail with maggots coming out of his head. The smell and the stench were horrific. We had to step over him to continue down the trail and into a ravine. There, we found an abandoned NVA base camp. As everyone searched the area, Jim and I decided to continue up the trail to the other side of the ravine. For some reason, Jim got in front of me and took the point. We had not gone to far when the trail started up a steep bank. When Jim reached the top, he was fully exposed when all hell broke loose. Rounds were flying all around Jim and myself, when all of a sudden Jim flew through the air over my right shoulder and landed in the stream in the middle of the ravine. Without thinking twice about what to do, I reached down and pulled Jim to his feet. He had taken a round in his right arm. It was broken clean through. Another round ricocheted off the right side of his head near his eye. Once I got him to his feet, Jim took off through the brush and down the trail to where the others in our group were. All of a sudden, I felt very alone and scared. That's when I realized I had exposed myself and began fire back in the direction where the enemy was. I yelled out for someone to come and help me, but no one came. That's when I decided it was time for me to move out quickly. As I ran through the brush and reached the others, all weapons were pointed to me. They thought I was the enemy and nearly shot me. At this time, we moved back up the trail from where we came to a more secured location. A med-evac chopper was called. It came and extracted Jim out with one of those "jungle penetrators."
After the mission was over, I got to go with Captain Vitters to visit Jim at the hospital in Chu Lai before he was sent home. He looked like he was going to make it 100 per cent. I hope he did. I never saw him after that. Fifteen years later, I learned from my buddy Rod Watkins we had all earned a Bronze Star for the incident that occurred that day and saving Jim's life. It's an event I will never forget, regardless of the medal.
I stayed in the field for a couple months after that episode and got a job in the rear area at Duc Pho some time around the middle of November, 1970. I finished my tour as the Supply Sergeant for A Company and left Vietnam on May 7, 1971. I arrived home on Mother's Day to see my mother waiting for me at the airport in Raleigh, North Carolina. What a sweet homecoming it was, especially for my mother.
Less than a week after being home, I met my future wife, Rose Mary Mooring, while she was playing softball in a church league. Not long afterwards we were engaged. And, a few months later we broke up.
To be close to home, I had signed up for Drill Instructor school in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Eventually, I got an early-out on January 22, 1972. I packed up my bags and headed to West Covina, California to stay with my brother.
Not long afterwards, I sent Rose enough money to fly out to California. We stayed for a few months more and drove back to Goldsboro, North Carolina and arrived there on July 2, 1972. Everyone thought we had already gotten married. Little did they know. The next day on July 3 we returned to Dillon, South Carolina to get married. We spent our last 15 dollars on a marriage license that cost 20 dollars. We stayed in Goldsboro for a few months and decided to go back to California. Things just weren't the same. We ended up staying in California until about May, 1976 when we decided to move to Bullhead City, Arizona to be near my brother who had left California a few months earlier.
Things didn't work out either in Arizona, so we moved back to Goldsboro, North Carolina when Rose was about six months pregnant. We had our car repossesed and lived mostly on the the charity of my family until I got a job paying minimum wages. Later, I was rehired by the electrical company that I had worked for in 1969. But, this time I was more experienced in repairing electric motors because of the jobs I had in California and made more than minimum wages.
In August of 1978, the time limit on my GI educational bill was almost expired. That's when I decided it was time to take advantage of it. I went to Wayne Community College in Goldsboro, North Carolina and graduated in June of 1980 with an Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) Degree in Electronics Technologies. In July, I was hired by Western Electric, formerly of AT&T, for a position as a technical writer. One requirement to keep this job was to obtain a Bachelors Degree in Engineering Technology. I almost didn't make it because Rose and I had a second son, Jonathan, born on February 13, 1980 with multiple birth defects, including spina bifida. We've always suspected "Agent Orange" had a part in this, but you never know.
Jonathan lasted less than a month, and I spent the next 3 years trying to deal with his death, keep my job, and continue with school. It was pretty tough, but I never gave up. Finally, I got my degree in December of 1983. Almost two years later I decided to move to Denver, Colorado and start a new life for me, Rose, and Eddie, our first son.
We lived in Denver area for almost 16 years. While in Denver, I went back to school and received a Masters degree in Business Administration in 1995. Eddie graduated in May, 2000 with a degree in Physics and accepted a job with StorageTek near Boulder. Eddie married Melissa Wozny on August 13, 2000, and they live in Broomfield, Colorado.
Here's a picture of Eddie and me on the summit of the Mount of the Holy Cross, Colorado in 1996.
In July, 2001, I retired from Avaya Inc. (formerly Lucent). In August, 2001, Rose and I moved back to Goldsboro, North Carolina.
My current hobbies are genealogy and developing and maintaining the Fire Support Base Hill 4-11 website.
You can email me at webm...@hill4-11.org.
Welcome Home to all Vietnam Veterans!
