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Strength lies not in defense but in attack. -- Marquis de Acerba |
Strange Day7394 Reads
  I was on a S&D with the RFs. We were moving along a heavily vegetated canal with open rice paddies to our flanks. The VC were waiting for us and we got into a sharp firefight. It was head-on and we could not maneuver against them because of the paddies. To our front, a small finger of vegetation stuck out from Charlie's positions, so we decided to assault it in an attempt to flank them.As the assault squad moved in the open towards the tree line of the finger, an RPD opened fire on them. Our troops went down like they had been cut with a scyth. Geez, what a terrible sight. What the heck will we do now, I thought.
About a minute later, much to my surprise, the entire "dead" squad arose and ran back to the jump off point. It seems that the VC machinegunner had merely fired over their heads to warn them off. Brother vs. brother? It was a strange occurrance, but shows that compassion can exist on the battlefield.
Note: by Don Steiner
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1604: After a two-year siege, the Spanish retake Ostend, the Netherlands, from the Dutch. 1853: The Allies defeat the Russians at the battle of Alma on the Crimean Peninsula. 1863: In one of the bloodiest battles of the war, the Confederate Army of Tennessee drives the Union Army of the Cumberland back into Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Chickamauga Creek in northern Georgia. 1917: British advance east of Ypres and take Inverness Copse, Glencorse Wood, Veldhoek, and part of Polygon Wood amassing 2,000 prisoners. 1943: British submarines attempt to sink the German battleship Tirpitz as it sits in Norwegian waters, as Operation Source gets underway. 1965: Seven U.S. planes are downed in one day over Vietnam. 1968: U.S. military spokesmen defend the use of defoliants in Vietnam at a news conference in Saigon, claiming that the use of the agents in selected areas of South Vietnam had neither appreciably altered the countrys ecology, nor produced any harmful effects on human or animal life. 1972: The USAF reveals that U.S. planes have been mining the coastal rivers and canals of northern Quang Tri province below the DMZ, the first mining of waterways within South Vietnam. 480: Themistocles and his Greek fleet win one of historys first decisive naval victories over Xerxes Persian force off Salamis. |
Comments
Stranger things happened in the bush but what got me was the fact that the local's we had as scouts etc never worked after 4-5pm.
When that time came they were done for the day..patrol or no patrol.
Roy Branch
deltamedic
This was circa 1968-1969. Over-all, in RVN, the RFs amounted to only about 5% of SVNs fighting force, yet accounted for about 25% of the casualties inflicted on the VC and NVA.
Needless to say, I am proud to have been associated with both the US 2/28 Infantry and RF Mobile Group 61.
I still remember the time we were taking an ice cold shower. Incoming started, and before we could get out of the shower tent. The shower tent was burning all aroundy around us, and we stopped and said WTF, and ran out.
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