Night Ambush

[Andy]

You do know I believe you. In a Mech unit there was supposed to be a driver, gunner, and 11 men on each vehicle, each squad. (13 guys would have been too much, not enough room for all the General Westmoreland Party Favors that we brought with us). We usually had 5 men per vehicle, 7 would have been the right number. With an Lt that?s 21 per platoon as a norm.

Guess I misread a previous post. I thought you were saying that each squad was pulling at least 2 ambushes per week, plus all that leg stuff you walkers did. Junior RTO, remind me not to ask for that lofty position in my next life.

I don?t ever remember a tent in a company NDP. In battalion where HQ,HQ would have a major or light cornel in charge and maybe a real doctor on those high top APC?s there might be some canvas hanging over the back door but that was about it. Some people did enjoy sleeping under an APC but that was not always recommended, especially during the rainy season. Soft wet ground, 13 tons of vehicle plus all the things we carried, sometimes they would sink in a bit.

We also usually got one hot meat a day, unless we were in a bad place. They usually served it when it was raining about 2? per hour or at a time when Charles would throw a few mortar rounds inside our wire but we often got that meal.

I honestly think that either you were cursed with some bad officers or we were blessed with some good ones. Lt - John reminds me our CO during Tet. He got on the net one evening and told Bat that we were going to have tank or SP155 support in the morning or we weren?t moving one F%$K inch. He got off the radio and cried for a long time. We had about 15 dust offs that day. That Captain and a number of others did care for us and they did a lot to make life a little less terrible.

Went to high school with 3 guys who went airborne right after school. My best friend spent 13 days with the 173rd and took a burst of three in the chest. The other two both went to the 101st and describe similar to the way you do. Wonder if there was an officer corps that wanted to prove Airborne was tougher than anyone else? Very strange way to do it.

Stay healthy,
Andy

[exlrrp]

Originally posted by Andy I honestly think that either you were cursed with some bad officers or we were blessed with some good ones. Lt - John reminds me our CO during Tet. He got on the net one evening and told Bat that we were going to have tank or SP155 support in the morning or we weren?t moving one F%$K inch. He got off the radio and cried for a long time. We had about 15 dust offs that day. That Captain and a number of others did care for us and they did a lot to make life a little less terrible.

Went to high school with 3 guys who went airborne right after school. My best friend spent 13 days with the 173rd and took a burst of three in the chest. The other two both went to the 101st and describe similar to the way you do. Wonder if there was an officer corps that wanted to prove Airborne was tougher than anyone else? Very strange way to do it.

Stay healthy,
Andy

Half the time my platoon wasn't cursed with ANY officers. We had 5 platoon leaders in the 6 months I was there, three of them were NCOs. OUr company had 3 COs during this time. Now tell me how THATS going to work out good. There was little or no institutional memory with that kind of revolving door leadership. The grunts, of course, stayed the same.
I won't say we never got a hot meal in the field but I can count the times on one hand. Once the lt sent it back and we ate C's, it was that bad. It was actually a big insult--I saw it and you woudn't have fed it to your dog. They'd send out a couple of duffel bags full of ice and beer and soda maybe every 2 weeks (?) (help me out here pukin buzzards, I don't want to make wild claims) All the might of the US Army couldn't hardly bring thirsty men a decent meal or cold beer or soda on a consistent basis, that would have been too fcking much to ask. But ask what you can do for yr country and see what happens. People were walking around in rags--you know what combat does to a pair of pants--but damd if theyd send out clean clothes.
We never got the proper amount of Sundry packs with the C's because they'd been looted in the rear. People were writing home on C-rat toilet paper--no shit!! literally!!
Ive never heard of a unit in the Vietnam War yet that was supplied worse than the 101st--and that wasn't the half of it--OUr mail was looted continuously. My mom sequentially numbered her letters and packages she sent me--less than half the letters arrived and only 2 packages out of more than a dozen. They never brought packages to the field: If you didn't get it on a standown,it sat there getting stale untill the next one. Nothing was EVER done about this.
When I got to the rear to go lrrp and went to pick up the duffel bag I'd left stored for security, they told me it was all gone, looted, nothing left. As they hadn't asked me for my name when they told me this, I can assume THAT THE WHOLE FUCKING COMPANY'S STUFF WAS LOOTED!!!!!!!!! Nothing was ever done about this either
I'm getting mad all ovver again just writing this. Sorry sonsabitches!!!! They could have done a LOT better than this. The fact was: nobody gave a shit!! If they did, they would have done something. Thius wasn't the way it was supposed to be.
There was nothing in the war that made me more cynical than coming off the line and seeing how the rest of the Army was living. Hot showers every day, TOILETS!!, cold beer--these are luxuries beyond the dreams of a 101st grunt. Mountains of supplies, every luxury being bought and sold and given away and they couldn't (wouldn't!!) get clean clothes or hot meals to the fighting men.
Its about power and control, like the Army's about power and control. everybody's staking out their little fiefdoms. A supply Sgt rates his power and control by how much goods are in his warehouse. If you send allthat stuff out to the troops, you won't control it any more, will you? Thats the thinking in the rear anyway.
The little guy with the gun was the guy that got constantly and completely screwed from one end of that war to the other was what I saw then and think nopw. We made the sacrifice while the rest of the world lived high on the dog. I always thought that this was a way to keep you in fighting trim--hungry, angry men with a case of the ass fight better than happy satisfied ones--thats just the law of the jungle. The Army always said GET MAD AT IT GET MAD AT IT!!! Thats their problem solving technique and their People approach also--it has its limits, to say the least.
Re: Officers: We did a lot better when they weren't around, one of the things I liked about the lrrps. They tended to get in the way sometimes. Wasn't no officer "leading" me on Team 4-7. Ever. Except in the rear.

James

[DMZ-LT]

Tiny and Bob , a guy in my platoon , Tell me they were thankful I was their platoon leader. Never asked anyone to do anything I couldn't or didn't do. Stood between them and higher fighting for them. We never got hot meals and only once new fatigues. Scrounge all the time. 1/2 my mail got lost both ways , but thats what happens when you throw the mail bag on a body going out. Operated as a platoon of about 26 people, 5 of us went out every night on ambush. Both these guys told me they would follow me to hell - and they did. FTA. We fought for each other. Welcome home , pleased to be here. Peace

[exlrrp]

Originally posted by DMZ-LT Tiny and Bob , a guy in my platoon , Tell me they were thankful I was their platoon leader. Never asked anyone to do anything I couldn't or didn't do. Stood between them and higher fighting for them. We never got hot meals and only once new fatigues. Scrounge all the time. 1/2 my mail got lost both ways , but thats what happens when you throw the mail bag on a body going out. Operated as a platoon of about 26 people, 5 of us went out every night on ambush. Both these guys told me they would follow me to hell - and they did. FTA. We fought for each other. Welcome home , pleased to be here. Peace

John
I hope that you and some of the other exofficers here don't take what I say personal. I knew many good officers in Vietnam and since that I respect a lot, that did a good job.
But I'm still carrying resentments, no doubt, forgive me if they bubble over sometimes

James

[DMZ-LT]

Don't mean nothing , James. Looking forward to giving you a hug pretty soon !

[exlrrp]

Originally posted by DMZ-LT Don't mean nothing , James. Looking forward to giving you a hug pretty soon !

The feelings mutual, John.
This is really an amazing bunch of guys, eh? I always think so,I'm proud to know most of you and I'm trying to tolerate the rest.

James

[Andy]

I have a real understanding why they called you guys the one hundred and worst. I do believe I received all my Care Packages, one per month. Even the one Aunt Mary sent that included a jar of lambs tongues that probably broke state side and smell like hell.

You and I have something in common. You left a grunt unit to be a LRRP thinking things would be more mellow. Sounds a little crazy but I totally understand. After a year as a grunt I extended to be a door gunner knowing when I wasn?t in a chopper I?d be in an NCO club where I?d have ice in my J.D. Then extended again to be a grunt in Saigon just knowing there were lots of ladies available. Had nothing to do with brass balls, each extension was a job with more creature comforts.

About those ragged uniforms. I?ll never forget after we fought the battle of the race track, just north of Saigon, in May of ?68 we got a visit. This full bird Air Force guy came out on a Huey and looked at us. Some in fatigue shirts, some T-shirts, some no shirts. Some fatigue pants, some cut offs, some splattered with oil, diesel, or blood. The night before our company had held off an attack by an entire battalion of NVA, lots of bodies in the field.

The Air Force dude looks at us and shakes his head and says, ?It was only by the grace of God that we held them off.? Then our CO yells, ?No Sir, it wasn?t God, it was Infantry!?
You give me an officer like that, a .50 and a mobile platform and I?d charge the gates of hell. (Sorry, still have a bit of an attitude.)

Stay healthy, sorry you had it so bad,
Andy

[39mto39g]

I would like a picture of LT hugging James.
Id even pay $5.00 to get that kiss on the cheek (picture).

Andy
I seen this guy get hit by a 50 while running away from a PC.
He only got hit twice, but Damm, The first one hit him in the lower back and cut him in half, the second shot hit his leg just above the knee and took it off, He went down in a pile of stuff that his mother wouldn't have recognised. Thats one nasty gun.

Ron

[DMZ-LT]

Ain't gonna be no kissing for $5 , gonna cost you a lot more GI . 50 was a bad ass weapon. 51 was to. Know a guy got in a fight with a 51 above him and he was a 60 gunner. Said " that 51 will dig you out of the ground" I said what did you do and he said " I left". I'll give $10 bucks for a picture of James , you and I. Come on up.

[MORTARDUDE]

Officers and Aps, OPs, and LPs..

The first CO I had with the 2/22(M), who broke his leg when blown off a track in March 1970, believed in using the mortar platoon for OPs and LPs, and some limited daylight patrols out side hardspots.. When we did this, it was all mortar guys together. It was usually outside the wire of a patrol base, not the larger fire bases. I did not like trying to stay awake. Thankfully, we had no contact..This went on until our E-7 platoon Sgt. rotated around March or April of 1970. The highest ranking NCO we had in the mortar platoon after that was E-5s who rotated in from the 82nd and 1st Inf. Div, after they left 'Nam. We had only one LT the whole time I was over there in our platoon and he served for about six months and was not replaced...I will never forget the first night we spent in Cambodia. We dug large fighting positions under all our tracks and we were receiving mortar fire. I was in FDC then and was his RTO. All we could think about was a human wave attack. Fortunately the NVA knw better than to attack a mechanized infantry company. No one slept very well for the next few days....

After the first CO left, the next one as a loser. He wore his un-subdued bright silver captain's bars for all to see on a green Marine fatigue cap. There is an image of him forever etched in my mind of him with a .45 merrily blowing away animals, including a big brown cow, in some nameless 'ville we were in. He got relieved of duty for general stupidity while we wer in Cambodia. I didn't know all the details about this until I read the book "Into Cambodia"...The next CO that I can remember had us line up in formation after we got back from Cambodia, and told us that we would have regular haircuts, keep our steel pots on while riding on APCs, and generally look like soldiers...or what he thought soldiers should look like...He got a grenade in his laundery bag with a note that said next time the pin would be pulled. He went back to the rear and another CO appeared who had armor insignia. From that time on we spent most of our time in the Filhol area above the Tunnels of Cu Chi and had contact ( minimal ) every few days. There were a lot of booby traps, some big enough to disbale a track...

As for hot food, sodas, clean clothes, beers, and SPs...no complaints here. We could carryy a ton of stuff in our track besides ammo amd weapons, so we had the best of all worlds. The "hot food" that was brought out in mermite cans was most often the green-tinted "roast beef" and powdered food. Our cook frequently burned the coffee...I became addicted to C-rations. I did enjoy the cold milk they sent out. All we ever got was rusty cans of Carling
Black Label beer and a lot of Fresca ( with banned cyclamates in them ). They would send out a block of ice and you could roll you drink to get them cold or put them in a cooler. Our supply sgt. was put in jail for stealing SPs. I don't recall anyone complaining about mail and packages or looted stuff in the rear...

James :

Didn't anybody write home about all this and have a politician check into it ?? Sad situation....Thanks for the description.

Larry