TIME Correspondent Don Sider spent several days at Khe Sanh last week
ducking incoming shells and observing the unique quality of life in the
besieged Marine base. His report: A chill, grey mist hangs over the jungled hills around Khe Sanh and
drifts down onto the base's metal run way. The morning mist often lasts
into the afternoon, the bright sun of recent weeks is lost in monsoonal
overcast, and the air is raw and wet with winter.
The camp seems to have settled into a dull, lethargic pace to match the
dull, damp weather that envelops it. In a mood of resignation, Marines go
about their life-or-death work, digging into the red clay, filling
sandbags, bolstering the bunkers they know are their one protection
against the real rain: the whining rockets and the mortars that come
with no warning—just the awful cracking sound as they explode. The dash for cover is part of every man's routine. “It's a modus
vivendi,” says Protestant Chaplain Ray Stubbe, 29. “The men run for
shelter, but they don't cringe when they get there.” Except for an
occasional case of what the corpsmen call “acute environmental
reaction” , the Marines at Khe Sanh are taking their
ordeal with considerable composure. Only their unwelcome
bunkermates—the rats—be come frantic under fire. When the “in coming”
starts, the rats race for the bunkers and wildly run up to the ceilings
made of runway matting and logs. One sergeant has killed 34 rats,
establishing a base record. Khe Sanh grows steadily shabbier. More and more “hardbacks”
are tumbled by the incoming; day by day the
protective sandbags and runway matting rise higher on bunkers. Even so,
the bunkers cannot withstand direct hits. A rocket or mortar round will
collapse a bunker and likely kill its occupants. The Seabees are
finishing strong underground bunkers for the control-tower crew of Khe
Sanh's airstrip and the evacuation hospital, rushing to complete the
work before the threatened battle erupts. Meanwhile, the doctors must
make do in cramped quarters: the operating room is an empty metal box
used to ship mili tary goods and measuring only 8 ft. by 6 ft. by 6 ft. The top Marine at Khe Sanh is Colonel David E. Lownds, 47, the
mustachioed commander of the 26th Marine Regiment, who oversees the
defense of the base from an underground bunker left over by its
original French occupants. Sitting in a faded lawn chair, he seldom
rests, night or day. He keeps constant watch over the nerve center, a
labyrinth of whitewashed rooms lit by bare bulbs and bustling with
staff officers and enlisted aides. Is he worried about the huge enemy
concentration surrounding him? “Hell, no,” says Lownds. “I've got
Marines. My confidence isn't shaken a bit.” He fully recognizes his
stand-and-fight mission: “My job is to stay here. My job is to hold. I
don't plan on reinforcements.”
