The monotone log entries for the 4th Infantry Division’s 14th Battalion units during January 1969 belie the drudgery, confusion and horror endured by U.S. Army grunts in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. They forge an accountant’s dispassionate version of reality, with platoons scouring the jungles for tunnels and spider holes, following blood trails. The narratives are drab and untextured, with notes like “C Co finds 6 foxholes, water point, A Co finds 8 57 recoilless rifle rounds, 8 81mm rounds; D Co has snakebite” and “B Co still digging, finds 14 NVA bodies, 4 Chicom grenades, claymore, B40 warhead and other gear.” Etc., etc.
But then, on Jan. 13, a week before Nixon was inaugurated, something extraordinary happened, although you’d never know it by reading the index line summary of that day’s events: “B Co has early morning movement, engages. D Co hears voices, engages.” Maybe, given the routine deprivations and futility of the mission, it was regarded as just one more damned weird thing in an unending string of weird things. Anyhow, shortly after 1 a.m., a bogey showed up on radar and was reported to have made “two landings,” then a “touchdown,” and yet another landing more than an hour later. The stenographer included no eyewitness descriptions, and North Vietnam wasn't renowned for its whirlybirds. The clerk listed the thing as a “UFO.”
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