Conversation with Robert Painter
Ray Stubbe discusses the harrowing experiences of reconnaissance team DOCKLEAF with Robert Painter. DOCKLEAF was a reconnaissance team from Company B, 3rd Recon Battalion.
Date: Spring, 1997
Author: Ray Stubbe and Robert Painter
STUBBE: You were part of DOCKLEAF, weren’t you?
PAINTER: Yes.
STUBBE: That whole bunker that was hit on 24 January was DOCKLEAF, I guess.
PAINTER: STUBBE: Yes.
STUBBE: Yes. You had been shot out several times just trying to get into your zone. I remember baptizing POPOWITZ: his face and the faces of his team mates that were with him, standing beside my bunker in the C Med area, were all camouflaged.
PAINTER: Trying to get water: just trying to get water we were shot out several times. We were trying to get water for ourselves because they wanted us left out there. We were spotting artillery. We got word Khe Sanh was being kicked with both feet. “We need you guys to stay.” At that point we had already been four days without food and two days without water! And then they extended us to the 20th, and then the 23rd we were hallucinating for lack of water …
STUBBE: all around? It was obvious that there were bad guys all around?
PAINTER: STUBBE: PAINTER: Yeah. They were just bounding —
STUBBE: How did you ever avoid them?
PAINTER: We crawled on our hands and knees everywhere we went. We didn’t dare stand up in the daylight. And when the sun went down, then we were standing up, and we were trying to spot gun flashes and rocket flashes and trying to direct. And we had two different fire missions going on at once.
STUBBE: So you were forward observers?
PAINTER: They had us out there as long as we could, and then finally-MARTIN was out there with us, SCOTT MARTIN. He was with DOCKLEAF.
STUBBE: How did they get you all back?
PAINTER: They just sent the choppers out, because we said we’re hallucinating. Doc said: They’re hallucinating; they’re out of water. We seen the bad guys everywhere. I was second point because I was the grenadier. RICK NOYES was point. And they pulled us in on the 23rd, and we spent the night down in that big Air Force bunker where the dentists were. A big bunker. We spent the night down there, and they kept hydrating us. They were feeding us water loaded with electrolytes because we were so dehydrated, and they sent us back on light duty. GUNNY says: There ain’t no damn “light duty! You gotta dig holes!” So the morning of the 24th we were digging holes and eating C-rats. And I remember coming back in. They said: Painter, your camera is all messed-up. I said: Hey-I think that’s where I started using ‘shit happens.’ It was real strange that day. All day long we were digging, and then they started hammering at us. And we’re diving into different bunkers along the runway there. And that whole day, Ray, just had this feeling: “Man, I’m going to get it!”
STUBBE: You just felt it?
PAINTER: Yeah.
STUBBE: That was not uncommon.
PAINTER: All day long we were laying there and the guys were-guys that had been there when they first started-were in the holes, and they’re doing this [motions arms embracing one’s own body] every time one of them went off. And they went: “Painter, you ain’t-how come you ain’t jumping?” And I go, “I don’t know, I guess I’m just used to it by now.” I mean, there ain’t nothing you can do about it. All we can do is just lay here in the hole-and-wait!
It was towards the end of the day. We secured from work detail. AndI was walking back with a bunch of stuff, and they started right in on us again. And I’m caught out in the open! And everywhere I turn, something’s going off-over there, something’s going off over here. And then Scribner yells, “Hey, Painter! Get your ass over here!” And I went-three, four more guys, into the bunker.
Now Scribner was at the far end, close to the runway. And I went down a little bit. And I said, “Wait a second, I got something here for us.” Aha! I had my little stash up there. And we fired one up. We were laughing and giggling. And stuff was hitting around us, and we’re going, “Whew! That was close!” [pause]. And [pause] … We heard a loud THUMP! And zzzt! [pause …] That was a delayed fuse in that rig. It came in the door, hit the deck. Went, zzzzt! And at that same time, Scribner goes: “Shit!” [very loud]. And then it was like a fly: you know how that fly feels or that mosquito that you slap between your hands? Everything went black! It just went black. And I-heard it go off. I actually heard the blast. So for me, the one that got me, I heard it; I heard it go off.
STUBBE: No blinding light, just the opposite: real dark?
PAINTER: Knocked my ass right out. Knocked me cold with the concussion. And I actually-then, some time passed. I have no idea. Some time passed, and I had a conscious thought: So this is what it’s like to be dead? It’s not so bad. And then, slowly, sounds started coming to my ears-screaming. And I realized it was me doing the screaming. I was screaming real loud. And I stopped, and I said to myself: I’m screaming! I’m alive! And at that point-I, then I actually stopped. My head was like this-this weight was on me. I was pushed down -. Because I was standing up in the bunker. The bunker went this ways, and I’m standing cross-ways in the bunker.
STUIBBE: So all the roofing and everything else—
PAINTER: The sandbags, just sandwiched me down. I was turned this way. I was ninety degrees to the blast, and I was facing the blast when it went off. And it turned, it spun me-and why I didn’t have anything in-I had an abrasion across my stomach because my flak jacket was open.
STUBBE: Maybe the force of the concussion turned you before all the —
PAINTER: Shrapnel reached me.
STUBBE: Right.
PAINTER: And it just peppered my back.
Stubbe: I know, because I saw it!
PAINTER: And my neck. But I was saying: If you’re screaming, you’re alive! Some of the guys stated settling down. And I could hear someone coughing, “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” Later on, I found out who it was-just recently; it was Ken Martin. He called me from Oregon because he read the ad. His wife prompted him into calling me. And he called me late at night, and we talked and cried for two hours on the phone.
STUBBE: Was it all the dust?
PAINTER: He was along full of cordite! Because he was on the far end. His ears were gone. My ears were bleeding too. I think I was bleeding from my eyes, my ears. Then somebody said, “They’re coming to get us; they’re going to get us. They’re going to get us out of here.” It was just until recently, I remember calling out: “Scribner! What happened? Scribner!” Because it was on his end. He took the full-right in his lap! … MACAULAY —
STUBBE: Was digging you out.
PAINTER: Yeah. But the first person I saw was Gunny, our little bitty gunny,. And he was digging us out. And I saw his face as the light broke through, and I went: “Gunny!” [loud]. And he jumped! He thought I was a dead man. “You’re still alive! There’re some live people in here!” And Kevin —
STUBBE: Was digging. And Rick [Noyes] was OK.
PAINTER: Yeah, he was down there at the same end as-I don’t know who else was in there; I have no idea. That’s why I have the ad. I’m desperately searching. I want to find all of us …
STUBBE: Do you remember anything right after that, like at C-Med or anything, or were you just really out of it? In shock-probably hear anything?
PAINTER: I was in shock. I remember you talking to me-but very vaguely.
STUBBE: And then they evacuated you right away?
PAINTER: They evacuated me the next morning. I spent the night in CHARLIE MED. I don’t know whose care I was under. But I remember waking up during the night-OH! just the pain! in my back and my neck! Just constantly ached-for months after that.
STUBBE: It’s amazing nothing got into your spine.
PAINTER: The surgeon that did the work on my back feels that there were two vertebrae that were cracked.
STUBBE: From that weight and crushing.
PAINTER: Kevin Macaulay was under the impression that I was slammed into the roof before it came down. But, yeah, I remember CHARLIE MED, and I remember the ride up to CHARLIE MED in the jeep.
STUBBE: They took you in a jeep!
PAINTER: They took me in a ride-they took me in a jeep-and shit was still coming in! [laughs]. We were still being hammered and they’re running me-I don’t know who drove me up; I have no idea.
STUBBE: Were there others with you?
PAINTER: That I really don’t remember. I remember Gunny saying, “Careful! Careful! Don’t step on the guy below you!” And-this actually is one of the easiest times I’ve ever talked about it. .. As they were pulling me out they go, “Damn, Painter!” And I go, “All these months in the bush-43 days left to do in-country, and they had to bang my ass in the hole!” They had to beat me up in a hole!
STUBBE: 43 days.
PAINTER: It’s all I had left. March 1, I was out of there…
From the diary of Ray Stubbe, 24 January 1968: “PFC Robert C. Painter walked over to C-Med in complete shock, shrapnel wounds all over his back and face-little holes with small burn marks and blood dripping out of a few of them.”
HN Charles Wayne Miller, KIA 24 Jan 1968
LCPL Gregory Francis Popowitz, KIA 24 Jan 1968
LCPL Juan Antonio Rosa, KIA 24 Jan 1968
LCPL Gary David Scribner, KIA 24 Jan 1968
Source Note: The Khe Sanh Veteran, Issue No. 38, Spring, 1997.