On February 5, 1969, Les Vander Lugt enlisted in the United States Army. He was 20 years old, one of six children born to Pete and Margaret Vander Lugt of rural Chandler.

Les enlisted after going to Dordt College for two years to study math and education. He couldn’t decide which path he wanted to take and the army was offering a two-year enlisted option with the verbal promise that you could choose where you were deployed.

After eight weeks of basic training, Les had 8 more weeks of advanced infantry training, also at Ft. Polk. During that time, he would occasionally call home to his parents and his fiancé, Pamela Van Hill from Sioux Falls.

AIT was tougher than basic training, but Les was becoming accustomed to the army’s ways. They went on longer marches and more bivouacs. The soldiers were conditioned to carry more weight and to endure more hardships. The goal was for them to be able to carry 80 pounds plus ammo on their back. The ammunition weighed an additional 30 pounds Les recalls. Some of the weight they carried was water – they were supposed to have 10 quarts of water with them all the time.

AIT also focused more on using weapons. When he got to Vietnam, Les would carry and M16. The gun that was most reliable was the M60 machine gun, but Les remembers that it was very heavy. There was also an M70 grenade launcher that he would carry some of the time.

After eight weeks of AIT, Les received his orders. He was going to Vietnam. He was sent home for a month first and his parents were of course upset to learn of his orders. Pam was also quite upset as her brother-in-law was already serving in Vietnam.

When he boarded the plane in Sioux Falls to head to Ft Louis, Washington, his Dad read Psalm 121 and prayed with Pam and her parents and he remembers seeing his Dad cry while leaning on the chain link fence. They could watch through that fence at the airport as his plane took off.

“I remember thinking, what did I do?” Les recalls. He took a Pan American flight across the ocean with about 100 other soldiers. They flew from Seattle to Hawaii and then to Wake Island and on to Cam Ranh Bay, a deep water bay in Vietnam.

He was there doing mundane work for about two weeks before he and two other soldiers boarded a helicopter to go to Company B of the 12^th Battalion, First Air Cavalry Division near Tay Ninh.

They were “logging” the company via a helicopter, which entailed bringing ammunition, weapons, clothing to the company, and extra solders to the platoons that were already in the jungle.

Twenty minutes after he landed on the ground, Les heard the “clack, clack” of AK-47 Viet Cong gun fire. He learned very quickly to keep his head down and keep shooting.

Les was involved in several firefights during his stint in the jungles of Vietnam.  His life consisted of going out into the jungle into areas that may or may not have Vietcong or north Vietnamese fighters.

Most of the time he was out for a period of 15 days, and then they would come to back to a base camp for about three days and then go back out.  His company’s job was to seek and destroy. To him it seemed like they were aimlessly wandering around the jungle.

“You could not see anything,” he said. “You had to cut your way through.  So many times, I thought, ‘Why’?”

He got along well with the guys in his platoon. There was a constant in-flow and out-flow of soldiers. In his squad of 7 or 8 guys, they would all have different times of being in country. In that way, each soldier could not get really close to one person.

One unique thing about Les’ unit was that a dog would come with them a lot of the time. Prince was a dog that was with them often. He was worth $7,000. One time on a search mission, the dog indicated that there was something ahead of them. Pretty soon they could smell that there were Viet Cong nearby.

They came across small village that had women and children in it. But the Viet Cong were in bunkers nearby. They apprehended several men there and took them as prisoners of war. They also ushered out the women and children and later flown to Saigon. Les was awarded the Bronze Star for that mission.

Les has memories he doesn’t like to talk about. But he kept his head while he was there. He remembers that there were some soldiers who would sit and think “I am never going to make it home.”  But Les told himself, “I’m going to beat this. I’m going to make it.”

“As miserable as it was, I was more miserable with the environment than with combat,” Les said. For the first half of his tour, Les endured the rainy, monsoon season. It rained every night. They could not use air mattresses because they made noise. They would lay their poncho on the ground and try to sleep while the rain came down and pooled around them.  Land leeches would get in their pant legs and the bites would easily become infected, hence the term “jungle rot.”

Between May and October it was the worst. It was hot and muggy during the day and by 5 p.m. it would start to rain and it would rain all night long.  Les’ socks rotted in his shoes and the laces on his boots would fall apart. Underwear was not worn because it would not dry out. The soldiers would wear the same clothes for 15 days or more.

“It was the closest thing to hell that I could imagine,” he said.

On October 8, Les’ company received supplies via a Log Bird helicopter. They had to quickly grab the supplies and then get out of there so that they did not disclose their position to the enemy. They went about 1,000 meters into the jungle and were getting their perimeter set up, which involved digging fox holes.

A fox hole was typically two to three feet deep, about 5 feet long and two to three feet wide. They piled a berm of dirt in front of the hole. The holes were in a large circle. The area in the middle was safe ground where they could sleep and keep their ammo and supplies.

“It’s amazing how many guys can fit in a fox hole at one time,” Les said.

Unfortunately, when they went to dig their fox holes, they could not find their pick ax.  His squad had to go back to the landing site and find the ax. They made it back to camp and dug their holes. At about 10 p.m. they heard the “thwump, thwump” of incoming mortar rounds.

They jumped in their fox holes. They were surrounded and things were chaotic. A company mortar tube malfunctioned and one of their men lost part of his leg. A claymore fired backwards at Les and he was wounded with the pellets in his back. They lost several men and before long, they were completely out of ammo.

Thankfully, they held their position. Les’ wounds were dressed and the more heavily wounded were flown out. Another helicopter that was supposed to bring them more ammunition was shot down. Les’ platoon found the pilot and door gunner who were okay. They secured the chopper until morning, with fighter jets and gunships flying overhead to help them hold the perimeter.  Les was awarded the Purple Heart and another Bronze Star for this encounter.

While Les’ wounds were superficial, the wounds of others were more serious and some were killed. During some of the firefights they had to carry their fallen comrades for what seemed like miles. One time, they carried the body of a soldier for an entire day, taking turns. The war statistics say that 11,780 United States soldiers were killed in Vietnam during 1969.

Les’ memories are littered with death. Not only did he have to deal with the death of comrades, but they encountered places where the Vietcong had not carried away their dead to be buried.

They did not encounter action every week – it was very sporadic. He was involved in 15 – 20 battles; some were small skirmishes, some were larger fights. Some were sniper attacks.

Sleep was illusive. Sometimes he could sleep when he was not the guy keeping watch. Sometimes, he would be so tired he could fall asleep standing up.

Around Christmas 1969, Les was at Nui Bara, a small mountain where they had a radio tower. They were “king of the hill,” but shortly after Christmas they were attacked and the choppers had to come and get them off that hill.