Music Sooths the Savage Beast by David Avery

t always seemed to me that the Blackhorse base camp at Xuan Loc was a good place to avoid.   In the field you knew what was expected of you and mostly no one messed with you if you did your job.  Returning to base and getting a shower and better food and a dry place to sleep was nice but it came at a high price.  Too many officers were at  Xuan Loc that had too much time on their hands, and they seemed to think that part of their mission was finding things to keep the junior officers busy. 

I was the company maintenance officer for a time and usually I’d end up back at the base camp because some track was broken beyond repair further out in the field, or to pick up replacement vehicles for those lost in combat.  Often there would be orphan vehicles and crews from other troops hanging around Xuan Loc, ostensibly awaiting assembly of a convoy before returning to their units, but like me mostly trying to avoid notice.

1969 was the year when “winning hearts and minds of the people” was in vogue at the puzzle palace.  MEDCAPs were one part of this program in which a medic would visit a local village, treat minor injuries, dispense vitamins and generally show the flag.  Of course, you couldn’t send a lone jeep out to a remote “friendly” village, so these MEDCAPs required a security force to accompany them, usually made up of an ad hoc assembly of combat vehicles and crews that happened to be in Xuan Loc at the time.  I lead one such security force.  The MEDCAP that day was to consist of a jeep and trailer with a medic, a chaplain and his assistant in a second jeep, an officer from the squadron staff and two deuce-and-a-halfs with members of the 1^st Air Cavalry division band and their instruments.  I’m sure the band members were as thrilled as I was to undertake this important mission.

The road march was uneventful, and we pulled into a dusty village with a rag-tag group of ACAV’s, two Sheridans and a shiny M48 just withdrawn from stores.  The band put on cute yellow scarves and  began setting up folding chairs, and a crowd formed to watch just what the crazy Americans were up to this time.   I posted the tracked vehicles around the village perimeter.  The medic set up shop and began doing his thing, and the band leader shouted “And a ONE, and a TWO”, and the collection of horns and drums swung rather incongruously into "Moon River".  On the tracks we tried to rig some shade and broke out C’s .  A girl began a brisk business making the rounds of the vehicles, selling tomato sandwiches on French bread.  The cigarette and ice vendors soon found us as well and it was shaping up to be a pleasant afternoon.

Then the band swung into the Colonel Bogey march and a music critic out in the tree line popped off three rounds towards us with his AK, hitting no one.  Instantly, the villagers were GONE.  The band came to a discordant stop, as the tracks opened up on the tree line with .50 calibers, the fat orange tracers streaking across the village over the heads of the startled bandsmen. Many of the band members remained seated for a moment, and then suddenly it was like a herd of geese running for cover.  Bandsmen ran in every direction, heading for the safety of the tracks..   A heavyset French horn player got his foot stuck in the bell of his horn, but he was not going to let that slow him down and he stumped across the square at an amazing clip, arms pumping, horn clattering.

No more fire came from the tree line. We checked fire and waited tensely.  Nothing happened.  After a time the band began collecting instruments and chairs.  With no one to treat, the medic packed up, and we rolled back to Xuan  Loc, another draw in the contest for winning hearts and minds.