5 May 1970, 0300

Many events that occured during May '70 left a deep and lasting impression on me(along with a hearing loss and a permanent "ringing"in my left ear).However,while isolated events remain crystal clear in my memory,I have found that I cannot trust it as far as date,place,and exact sequence of events(much of which I never knew in the first place).In order to relate anything about this time period in any kind of coherent manner I find I must rely heavily on the little that has been documented.Sorry.Much of this post will be taken from Nolan's book Into Cambodia.

I had been assigned to the forward mobile aid station traveling with the 2-47(M)CP on it's drive into Cambodia.I arrived in the Bn. CP laager on 3 or 4 May after a 2-4day trip.I was VERY happy to be there.The "road" I had just traveled was the one and only ground supply line for Taskforce Shoemaker and was recieveing constant and serious attention from any and all NVA forces that could get to it.I had just learned a great deal more than I had ever wanted to know about ambushes and night probes and had lost all the gear I had with me along with the first track I had been rideing.Figured things just HAD to better hanging out near the Bn. CO.
____________________________________
From Into Cambodia:

Chug!
Major Weeks came instantly awake from his light sleep in the sandbagged shelter dug behind his APC,where with his radios beside his head he'd been he'd been catching his sleep in only fifteen-minute snatches anyway.The sound was of an NVA 60mm mortar round exiting its tube from not far away.
"Incoming!Incoming!"
CHUG!The Mortar Platoon from Headquarters & Headquarters Company,2d Battalion (Mechanized), 47th Infantry,was already responding with illumination rounds.A and C Companies scrambled into the foxholes dug between their vehicles in the wagon train laager astride Route 7.
BOOM! The first round exploded in the laager.
BOOM! The second round.Men were shouting.
BOOM! A tank commander from A Company,2d Battalion,34th Armor,had already traversed his 90mm main gun toward the sound of the NVA mortar in the canebreak,and pulled off the first of many cannister rounds.Steams of tracers erupted from the laager as shadows moved toward them through the elephant grass and scrub brush.
It was 0300, 5 May 1970.
When the first enemy mortar round landed,Lt. Peske had been sitting atop his track, talking with a GI from Texas.It turned out that they had come incountry on the same day, and the kid talked about his parents and their farm.Something suddenly flashed loudly in front of them, and Peske was thrown backward onto the track deck.The kid from Texas had a piece of shrapnel sticking from one eye.He made no sound.Peske screamed for a medic.One ran up,but when Peske began helping the wounded man off the APC, a big hunk of shrapnel walloped into his back,bouncing off and leaving a big red welt:he went over the edge,the wounded man and medic flattened beneath him.The wind knocked out of him,Peske climbed back up to get his radio.No one at the company headquarters answered.Frustrated and angry,Peske clamered into one of the foxholes and picked up the M60 machine gun lying in it.
Green tracers from AK47s and RPDs snapped from the brush that was silhouetted by the illumination rounds popping overhead.
Shrapnel oscillated in wild shrieks to clang against the steel of the tanks and tracks.Men were screaming.Flares were going up.Faces were moving in the elephant grass.
Lt. Peske let go with one long burst at the moving shadows,until the machine gun overheated and jammed.He jumped from the hole.Someone had gotten a stretcher, and they rolled the wounded man onto it;then Peske and the medic humped the litter to the middle of the circle where the battalion medics were set up.Peske rushed back to his platoon and spent the night moving from APC to APC, making sure the men were firing.They needed little encouragement.
...With bullets literally scything the brush and canebreak, Major Weeks thought gleefully that all they'd had going for them was their mortar, while their men were being eaten alive as they tried to crawl forward.No contest.
By dawn it was over.Seven GIs had been hit,two of them requiring medical evacuation.The skirmish line that Lieutenant Colonel Claybrook and Major Weeks accompanied counted seventeen enemy dead in the clearing.The NVA were small and waxy,frozen in individual deaths.One was slung with several rifles-recovered probably from dead comrads-but when he'd gotten up to run,a slug had blown off the back of his head. Another NVA lay right in front of a tank whose .50-cal turret gunner, a new black staff sergeant,had been firing madly during the night.He now stood behind his tank describing the action in a high-pitched chatter as he waved his arms around.Flattened elephant grass marked the path of the staff sergeants kill,showing where he had crawled up with his 57mm recoilless rifle.The NVA had set up the tube weapon but had been shot in the head before he could fire a single round. That was fortunate, because when the GIs walking around the clearing with M16s in one hand and cameras in the other kneeled behind the recoilless rifle to peer through its sights, they found that the NVA had had the tank dead nuts in his viewer.

The attack on the night laager thus became the heart of the citation for the Silver Star later presented to LtC Claybrook, and for the Valorous Unit Award presented to the battalion,the word FISHHOOK embroidered on the red, white, and blue streamer.
-----------------------------------------
Well....so much for the ole "stay near the CO and stay safe" theory.

[catman]

Doc...your signature line says it all. In about three+ weeks I will be rewarded with meeting you face to face, and I will smile. Glad you made it Doc, welcome home!

Trav

[MORTARDUDE]

Hal :

I was talking to a platoon-mate this week about that very day. I was near by. Take care brother.

Larry

[Robert Ryan]

Doc thanks for sharing, hope you can work through the issue. Take care okay. By the way I was C-2/47inf at Fort Lewis.

[frisco-kid]

Doc, Fate spared you and I, and many others on here, so we could one day meet, shake hands, and enjoy a beer in each other's company. Looking forward to fulfilling Fate's plans for us in April, Bro.

WELCOME HOME!

[DMZ-LT]

Tom , I call it luck but fate will work. Well spoken my friend . See ya soon

[b3196]

Like Tom said.....For some reason, we all survived......And we are definitely gonna enjoy a beer together along with a few laughs.
24 and a wakeup!!!!!
Bob K

Yeah!Looking forward to it for sure,for sure.Been looking forward to this year ever since last year and am especially tickled at the chance to meet Tom,Trav,Paco,and other folks I haven't met yet.

Robert,
2-3 days after the night mentioned above, 3rd Plat.,C Co. lost 8 KIA, 3 WIA to a single RPG.Most of us considered this loss entirely avoidable and are STILL pissed off about it.In a day or two I'll post about this and see what y'all think.