Night walk

[Bill Farnie]

As I said I would do, I put out an email to the guys of my old company and after reading their responses it seems that my memory isn?t quite as good as I thought. Overwhelmingly they all said that although we were training for squad sized ops and patrols that it wasn?t for ?night patrolling.?

The reason for the night movement training, and it was the whole company that was involved, was just that ?? to train on how best to make a company sized move at night.

I had mentioned the night CA we made as the RRF into Firebase Currahee while it was under attack but what I failed to mention was what a cluster phuck the movement at night to the LZ was. I really don?t know how nobody went missing that night. Apparently the night movement training was something started after a higher-higher of the 101st read the lessons learned section of the 3rd Bridage operation report about the attack on the firebase which had all the problems my company encountered, moving at night, from our NDP to the LZ.

So to all who questioned my writing about training for night patrols ?.. You were right. To paraphrase the NAACP, or is it the The United Negro College Fund .... ?A mind is a terrible thing,? in my case ?. remembering.

[Beldan]

Went out of the lines and set up usually in platoon- sized positions. Used star light scopes a heck of a lot.

Ever see the columns of NVA using those little perfume bottle lanterns ? Interesting to watch . Looks like a line of cigarettes bobbing along .

[SL Bronco]

When I moved from the BRO to the Americal (south of Duc Pho) in March 1970 I was shocked to learn that squad and platoon sized night patrols were a regular thing. Our company CO had been on two earlier tours as a Green Beret, and his strategy was to have small units moving around at night hoping (him hoping, that is) that we'd bump into NVA stragglers or VC moving around, which did sometimes happen. I thought it was crazy because (a) I was always afraid we'd run into each other (since after wandering around for awhile you had no idea where you were), and (b) because of all the booby traps. An FO who worked with the company and had known the CO explained to me recently that the ordinary booby traps we hit during the day were usually planted by VC who were following us and running ahead to set them, and that they subsequently picked these up and didn't leave them around at night (for obvious reasons, now that I think about it). That would explain why we never did hit one on a night patrol. Our night patrols would usually culminate in setting up an ambush, sometimes a mechanical ambush. I hated moving at night, but we did get used to it and I guess improved our night vision.

We never did run into each other, but after I came home a patrol from my platoon ran into the CP during daylight, and the CO personally killed the squad leader, my friend Ron Herd, and seriously messed up another guy. I'm told that the CO was manning an M-60 (that would be the machine gun, not the tank).

[MORTARDUDE]

Welcome aboard Bronco !!!!

Larry

[MontanaKid]

When I came in country, we were in the mountains, fighting NVA. But about 30 days before I came, the battalion was on LZ Baldy, a Place on Highway 1, beteeen Tam Ky and Hoi An.

There, they did a lot of "rat patrols" names after the TV show. They were five-man night patrols, designed in interdict the local VC.

Our worst friendly fire incident happened on night patrols, two squads of Echo Recon ran into each other, shot each other up, before they realized the mistake. Dead was the platoon leader and four other men.

It put the guys off on "rat patrols." We didn't do them on professional because there was no population out there. The enemy was different. The FOG's (f^

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