Viet Cong Prisoners
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At first I considered guarding work details of Viet Cong prisoners a very hazardous duty. Later this was determined to be one of the safest jobs on Artillery Hill. Here’s the story.
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Viet Cong Prisoners
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The first few months I was in Vietnam, I was assigned to guard work details consisting of captured Viet Cong Prisoners. There were four of us guarding 12 prisoners. We all had our helmets, flack jackets, and M16 rifles as uniform for the guard duty. We picked them up in a Duce and a half truck and hauled them to Artillery Hill. Most of the prisoners spoke some English so they were easy to communicate with. At first when I started the guard duty, I was extremely nervous and I watched those guys like a hawk while they were completing their work fearing they may try to over power us. They did work like digging ditches, filling sand bags for bunkers, clean up work and basically anything we wanted to them to do. When they finished their work we hauled them back to the Army prison camp.
Viet Cong prisoners we used on work details at various locations around the Pleiku area.
After I had guarded two or three batches of them, I started talking to them some. I found if you would give them a cigarette, they would work much harder. I asked some of them if they had ever tried to escape and each one answered that they didn’t want to escape. They said no one was trying to kill them now and they were getting three good meals every day now instead of getting one meal every three days. It was obvious they were quite contented doing what they were doing. I asked a couple of them why they became VC in the first place if they didn’t like the life and they said they had no choice. Themselves and their families would have been killed if they had not agreed to fight.
Soldier with helmet. Flack jacket, and M16 Rifle like we used when we guarded the Viet Cong Prisoners..
After these discussions with those guys, I was no longer worried about the threat of being over powered by them which made this duty a lot more tolerable. It’s funny that things are often so different that they seem at first glance.
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Thanks for reading Viet Cong Prisoners,
Bille