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#1
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A Rifle Company In The 101st
A typical day started before daylight. We'd be up, silently preparing for the day's hump. As the day lightened up, squad-sized clearing patrols would fan out from the laager site looking for any signs that Charlie had been in the area. If there had been any out, the listening posts would be brought in. Trip flares and claymores would be gathered up.
Once the LPs and clearing patrols were safely back in the perimeter, we'd clean up the area. Fighting holes were filled in, garbage was buried, the whole place was policed of any items that might benefit the enemy. Usually the unit commander had briefed the platoon leaders the night before on the next day's objective. The CO specified the route, pace, and the next laager site. We'd head out. The platoons rotated the point position each day. Within the platoons the squads rotated the point, also. Most often, because of the thick jungle, bamboo thickets, or elephant grass, it was necessary to cut a path through the foliage. Each of us carried a machete to hack through this stuff. In the heat and humidity few guy could last on point for more than an hour or two, then a new squad would move forward to continue hacking. The hump would continue as we forced our way to the day's objective. Most of a grunt's life is pretty boring. Rarely did we see signs of the enemy. If contact was made, it was usually initiated by the enemy. A typical contact scenario would be a sudden burst of fire. Often there would be cries of pain or calls for a medic by those hit by the initial firing. The rest of us had hit the dirt and was firing off magazines towards where we thought their positions were. After several minutes of firing, we'd cease fire. All would be quiet and the smell of cordite would hang in the air. You'd take a personal inventory of yourself. Good, I wasn't hit! Clearing patrols would cautiously leave the perimeter, seeking Charlie. Search And Destroy. A medevac chopper would be called in for the casualties. By the time an LZ had been cut out of the jungle, the patrols would be back. Most of the time it would be the same report: "No sign of Charlie, sir." The chopper came in, picked up the casualties, and departed. We'd organize back into our squads and continue the hump. We'd make it to our objective, set everything up like we did the night before, and do it all over again the next day. We'd stay out for weeks at a time; sometimes MANY weeks at a time. Rarely did we get a cold beer [usually a warm Black Label ], a warm shower, 3 hot meals in a row, a candy bar, or a newspaper. I've gone for as long as 2 weeks without mail. We'd wear the same fatigues for weeks at a time, sweat stained and blood stained [usually someone else's]. Our boots would often be rotting off of our feet before a supply chopper would bring us somemore. When fresh fatigues were choppered out to us, the platoon sergeants would divvy them up to the guys that needed them the most. So that's a thumbnail description of a day in the life of a 101 Trooper. Of course there were variations. Different terrain; bigger, longer battles; ambushes set up [more often than not, nobody showed up]; patrolling villes; etc.. And that's how I spent my Southeast Asian vacation.
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Tom |
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#2
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A day
Although a little different than toms, still, pretty much the same. ?
As far as I can remember we never had BN sise operations, The bigest was usually 1 or 2 companies. E-company was moved around so much from place to place that our job was to fill in everywhere, I think. We wouldn't go out for weeks normally. If we were on S&D then we would stay out and look for sign for mayby 4 or 5 days. Get extracted and do it again in a nother area, if we found sign then BN would send in a Company and do a big spoke wheel type operation, After we switched from the 25th to the 4th we got a HOT meal in the field every day. Mermights they called them, kinda like a ice chest, with some kind of hot food and a tub of iced beer and soda. This didn't happen every day but I would guess 5 out of 7 days. The kind of day depended on who we were working with and what area we were working in, The 101 we were kind of there ginny pig, the 173 we were in the way most of the time, the cav would just ignor us , until they needed us, then we were great to have a round. The Marines I couldn't even talk to, We were to do some kind of operations with a Marine unit west of hill 55 but we went left and they went right and that was the last I seen or heard from the Marines. When we did our own 4th inf operations it was out of some base camp somewhere and was more of a show thing than an acual operation, something a Major could do to get a CIB. (oh no a sniper, ) Hes qualified. I think most of the time we were in a small cluster F in the middle of a huge cluster F. But thats just my perspective. Ron |
#3
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frisco,
Yup just about what it was like until we went into the A Shau. That's when everything changed. Bill
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506th Infantry "Stands Alone" It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it. General Robert E. Lee |
#4
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RON
I was with the 101st JUN66-JUN67. It was only the 1st Bde. until late '67, when the rest of the Div. started arriving from Ft. Campbell. The 1st Bde. consisted of 3 Infantry Bns., 1/327 [James], 2/327, and 2/502 [Me]. There were also some 326th Engineers and 1 Battery of the 320th Arty.
During that time, Westmoreland used us mostly as a Reactionary Force. They bounced us all around the place, often with the 3 Bns. being in different places far apart. Like you, we'd stay in an area anywhere from a few days to several weeks and then be extracted and taken somewhere else and dropped off. Hell, most of the time I had no idea where I was. Just know it was some where in such-and-such province. The places that I can remember being was Dak To in the Central Highlands when I first got there; Tuy Hoa over on the Coastal Plains between Qui Nhon and Nha Trang; Kontum in the Central Highlands; Phan Rang [our main base camp] SW of Cam Ranh Bay; Bao Loc in the southern Central Highlands; the mountains above Phan Thiet in the northern part of III Corps; Di Linh in the Central Highlands west of Phan Rang; Kahn Duong in the Central Highlands NW of Nha Trang; Duc Pho about 100mi. south of Chu Lai on the coast. We were in some of these places for just a few days to a couple of weeks. We were like heavily armed homeless people . BILL: How did things change after the A Shau? Give us details, Bro. Inquiring minds want to know .
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Tom |
#5
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Tom
Heavyly armed homeless people, I was sitting in the office laughing and no one around.
The reason I kinda knew where I was and when, was because I was the LTs RTO, I had to know where we were and where our frendlies were and who we had on our flanks and how to get arty and mortars and jets, So I kept a log or record of sort, And My mother had a door size map of vietnam that Col. Hampton Rollen sent her, We became friends at Fort benning, He was in charge of SP forces, An E-4 and a Col drinking Blue Ribbon togeather, Got passed the gates at Benning a few nights because we were togeather, also I bought a 8mm camera and three rolls of film at some PX and filmed us in the field, I filmed a firefight, Tracers flying mortars comming in and mussel flashes. I still have two of the 8mm films,. My brother-in-law is a high school teacher and barrowed the firefight one for his class, He showed it to his class and that night his house burned down along with my film. I don't think I ever forgave him for that. It was a very cool film, No sound but very intence. After I took the film I through the camera away, didn't need to carry that thing any more. Besides I had a great film of a firefight, no one else I knew had that. The most spoooookyest place I ever seen was at the bottom of the Ashaw valley where it met with the IDrang valley. That place makes the hair on my arm stand up right now. On guard 100% of the time, hair triggered, Something moved, you shot, asked questons latter. Ron Last edited by 82Rigger; 07-14-2008 at 01:01 AM. |
#6
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The A Shau Valley 69'
Frisco and any other inquiring minds,
After processing in country and getting assigned to the 101st , I joined my unit in the field somewhere around Chu Chi. After a couple of weeks we went back to Phouc Vinh and got ready for the move up to I Corp to join the rest of the 101st at Camp Eagle. We operated out of Eagle in company sized units and pretty much did what you posted. Then the 3rd Brigade moved again to Camp Evans and replaced the 1st Cav. At Evans we still operated as we did when we were at Eagle but on May 10th 1969 the whole 3rd Brigade , two battalions of the ARVN 1st Division and supporting units combat assaulted into the A Shau and whole battalions operated together. Col. Conmy's plan was if a battalion made contact another battalion would CA in and reinforce the one in contact. Good in theory but didn't work to well. There were two major battles while I was with my unit in the A Shau. First was the battle for Dong Ap Bai , Hill 937 , (Hamburger Hill) and the second was the battle for Hill 996. My company wasn't directly involved in the fight for Hamburger Hill. At the beginning of the battle my company was providing security for FSB Currahee but when Lieutenant Colonel Honeycutt realized he was facing a whole regiment he asked for the 506th to help him in the battle. Hamburger Hill wasn't just one hill. There was a saddle between Hill 937 and Hill 900 and another saddle between Hill 900 and Hill 911 and bunker complexes on all three hills. Hill 911's ridge line went into Laos. While the other company's of the 1/506th went to the 3/187th's aid my company made a CA to this ridge line and setup on the border to try and stop the NVA from sending reinforcements into the raging fight. The battle for Hill 996 I'll talk about later this year in July but that also was a large operation with three company's , our battalions recon platoon , the 2/17 Cav and the 58th IPSD. I didn't mean to get into a long war story here but my point is that when we were in the A Shau we went on large unit operations as opposed to just company sized ops like we were used to. As I was getting ready to leave Vietnam the game plan was changed back to small unit ops all the way down to squad level and operating at night as well as during the day. Bill
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506th Infantry "Stands Alone" It is well that war is so terrible, or we should get too fond of it. General Robert E. Lee |
#7
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A tip of the hat and a sharp hand salute to all you guys that humped the boonies every day.Don`t know if I could have done it.
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A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. ~Thomas Jefferson Peace,Griz |
#8
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Question for you guys. As a percentage, how often were you in contact while outside a firebase...every other day ? When we were in cambodia, for the first 30 or so days something was happening every day. It slacked off some after that. For the other 10 months we seemed to have significant contact every 4 -6 days maybe.
Larry P.S. : Since it is difficult to move quietly in a large group..how many times was your lead element ambushed ? Any ideas why it didn't happen more times ? I believe the only thing that saved us ( mechanized unit ) from being ambushed more than we were, was the amount of fire-power we had and the response we would have given the enemy in return. All of our operations were only company size except for the April 1970 reaction force for the rangers that got ambushed and most of the time we were in Cambodia when were with A,C, and D( recon ) company of the 2/22, and possibly other units as well.
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#9
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frisco-kid
Gee, that sounds just like a typical day for a straight leg unit
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DUTY FIRST On the bloody morning after, one tin soldier rides away. |
#10
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LEG
Yeah, but the Army, in it's infinite wisdom, recognized that we were a STRIKE FORCE [2/502] that gave NO SLACK [2/327] and were ABOVE THE REST [1/327], so paid us $55/mo more to do it because we are superior to LEGS .
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Tom |
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