Forward Observer

A Hot Zone reader recounts her husband's journey to find validation in a Vietnamese combat zone he fought in more than three decades ago.

Editor's Note: In July, the Hot Zone asked readers to send in their stories about the Vietnam War to be featured as part of our Vietnam retrospective. The Hot Zone received this email from Dr. Theodore Colwell:

"I served in Vietnam 1968-1969 and was an artillery forward observer with the 9th Infantry Division assigned to Special Forces operations near the Cambodian border. We spent 5 months on or near Nui Coto trying to recapture this mountain from the NVA... My wife and I returned there in 1999 to visit this area... Mary has written an article about our return to Vietnam from her perspective looking at my reaction to this experience."

The following is Mary Colwell's story, recounting their return to Vietnam from her viewpoint as originally published in the Idaho Press Tribune (http://www.idahopress.com). Ted and Mary Colwell now live in Idaho.
 

Ted Colwell with Cambodian soldiers
in Vietnam in 1968.

Nui Coto
by Mary Colwell

We really hadn't expected to find it.

Now 30 years later, Ted was hoping to find the infamous Nui Coto. The mountain he, with Special Forces units, had taken and lost, to the Viet Cong, over and over.

"Two Million Dollar Mountain" it had been dubbed because of the number of bombing raids it had sustained. That was November 1968 through March 1969.

E-mails, phone calls and Lonelyplanet.com had failed to turn up any information on Nui Coto. What had then seemed so terribly important was not even a dot on the map.

And so we set off from Ho Chi Minh City in the general direction with Khai, our guide and interpreter, who wasn't even born in 1969; Hoang, our driver, who mercifully never took his eyes off the road; Joe, our interested friend from Idaho, and Ted and me. Off to the Mekong Delta and from there? No one was quite sure. We just hoped.

I can't remember a road trip that comes close to the experience of driving in Vietnam. Caught up in a frenzied stream of Vietnamese life, we sped through lush rice paddies and crowded villages, millions of cyclists and motorcyclists, oxen and carts, wandering toddlers, exhaust belching army trucks, school girls sitting bolt upright on bicycles in gleaming white "oudais" (the traditional dress) gracefully holding their long skirt on the handlebar to keep it out of the spokes, long strips of brown rice drying on the shoulder of the road, and whole families on one motorbike without a helmet in sight.

"Very safe," stated our guide, when I commented on sandwiched babies standing between parents on motorbikes. Five was the record for one bike. Occasionally, we spotted what looked like little lemonade stands but were in fact odd bottles of petrol for the forgetful motorcyclist. Everywhere and everything was fascinating.

I finally decided that the Vietnamese are very skillful drivers. They have a sixth sense called the sense of distance. Like the mystery of schooling fish or flocking birds, they never seem to bump into each other. I surprised myself in concluding there was no point in being a nervous back-seat driver. As we drove into the face of many an oncoming vehicle and missed by inches, cruised on the other side of a double white line, passed on blind corners while the driver looked like he was sitting in his Lazyboy watching TV, I decided it was pointless to bother with thoughts of death.

There were a few towns Ted recalled. We headed west to Chau Doc and stayed in a five star one-month-old hotel on the Mekong River. Talk about contrasts. We were the only guests and it cost all of $65.00. Air-conditioning and silence never felt so good.

The next day we left the bustle of crowded streets and headed in the general direction of Nui Coto. I could sense a change in Ted's mood. Places started looking familiar. We were on a road, on a dike, in the midst of rice paddies as far as the eye could see. The flatness of the Delta was broken by some hills. "It was just like this," Ted would say and we kept heading for the mountains. In actuality, they are more like hills, even piles of rocks, huge rocks.

Khai never seemed impatient with the vagueness of Ted's destination. As we got closer, he became caught up in the excitement. We found a mountain, Nui Sam, but from Ted's comments, I felt discouraged that we may never know for sure. I was wrong. We asked directions to Tuc Dup Hill, which our guide thought must be the area we were looking for. Suddenly Ted recognized Tuc Dup Hill as the end of Nui Coto Mountain. It was Tuc Dup Hill that had been the Viet Cong stronghold.

Mary Colwell stands with a Cambodian
woman at Tuc Dup hill

After a 13-hour drive we had found it. And much to Ted's surprise, a monument honoring the Viet Cong who had died there. Not only a monument but a snack bar for tourists! Ted's positive reaction to this fact was the first clue to help me understand his need to return. Despite the atrocities and senselessness of the war he somehow needed to feel his contribution had significance. Those five months had not been pointless, forgotten acts of bravery. Even if it were the Viet Cong and not the Americans who were honored at least the battle had been remembered.

A challenging, concrete stairway had been built up the mountain. We joined a group of young European backpackers whose young guide was telling the history. Ted's mood was expectant and alert. Although being on the mountain for five months he had not been inside to see how the VC had held on so determinedly. I recalled the letters I had received as his twenty-one-year old fiancée, letters muddied with dirt from this very spot. Viet Cong flags were planted here and there on the rocks. A painted South Vietnamese flag was crossed out.

At one of the many openings, we were cautioned that the rocks inside were wet and slick. The stairs changed to rock stairs and we stooped sideways to inch ourselves under a two-story boulder. A path lead down and in and I realized I had imagined rounded dark caves. In fact, the caves were spaces between and under huge boulders. From deep inside we could see holes to the sky. Black scarring from napalm still coats the rocks. Bomb pockmarks were clearly visible.

And in that hole I realized how wonderful it was that our friend, Joe, had tagged along. I already knew Ted's stories. Joe's presence meant that Ted could retell those frightening months in Nui Coto while standing on the very spot. The guide for the backpackers pricked up his ears. When Ted told him he had been there at the very time of the major offensive he treated Ted like a celebrity. He urged his group to gather round. And they did.

Fascinated, they listened to Ted's account of the mountain being pounded with bombs and as the planes left, the place becoming alive with anti-aircraft fire from inside the mountain. The bombs merely bounced off the boulders, the mission totally ineffective. He told the story of dodging bullet fire from a sniper on the mountain as he ran across the rice paddy below for a shower and mail. He shared how even back then he had seen the beauty of Vietnam and how he hoped he would return in peace times. The guide acted as the interviewer, and filmed it on video. I was touched that these young people were so interested. A young English girl walked down the mountain with me and when she unexpectedly asked me how I felt, I surprised myself by choking up. It made Ted's experience there so much more real for me too.

The Colwell party on Tuc Dup hill,
examining the napalm-charred rocks

It turns out that Steve, the excited guide, was the son of a high positioned South Vietnamese who worked for the Americans. After the liberation of Vietnam in 1975 while the family ate their evening meal, authorities stormed in, blindfolded, bound and carried off his father to re-education camp. For 11 years the family only knew he was "up north." He now lives in Ho Chi Minh City. Steve and his wife have lived in the United States for several years but have returned Ho Chi Minh City since the birth of their child. Because of his father's position, Steve is unable to get a good job under the present government so he has settled for being a tour guide, which he calls a "hobby." He wants to change the perception of Vietnam from being just a bargain place to shop to being a country of great beauty and good service.

We wondered how the Vietnamese would feel about Americans. After all, we often heard the word "liberation," and the "Reunification Palace" was definitely a focus of victory in Ho Chi Minh City. Over whom? All imperial forces, I am sure, but still, America most recently would be identified as the "Evil One" encouraging the South to fight against the North and "Uncle Ho." However, we encountered no antagonistic feelings. I did see bomb craters out the window of the plane and several converted U.S. Army vehicles but otherwise there were few reminders of the war. Immigration officers at the airport on our arrival were definitely grim look-alikes of Viet Cong in foxholes. Their coldness made me a little anxious but my fears were ill founded for we had only warm smiles and shy welcomes elsewhere. We were told that 80 percent of the population is 40 and under. We felt that youngness of a nation. Ted also thinks that it is simply the Asian mindset to put the past behind and to live only in the present. We sensed no grudges.

And so Ted had come full circle. I sensed a calm and peace in him. It was good to return. There was validation in this mission.

Was there a point to the actions of the time? Not enough.

Was the area a disaster zone because of what he'd been a part of? Not from the sights of lush rice paddies, happy faces and normal farming activity.

Was there bravery and service in Ted's tour of duty as a Forward Observer with his artillery unit? You bet! Five Bronze Stars with two Oak Leaf Clusters for Valor, plus a Purple Heart from shrapnel wounds, are reminders of the horrors he witnessed at this very spot.

As in everything he attempts, Ted simply saw a job to be done and did it, in this case military service, to the very best of his ability.

Republished with permission from the Idaho Press Tribune. 

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