6/19/2014

1968 a Look Back


                REDLEG

During the second half of 1968, I was assigned to a 155mm Towed Howitzer Battalion.   They were assigned to a Field Artillery Brigade on Artillery Hill near Pleiku, RVN.  The good news was they didn't have any assigned Forward Observer positions.  The bad news was that every so often a tasking would come down from the top of the hill and being the low man on the Totem Pole, I would gather up two people and go out on short assignments.   Most of the time there would be a death from "Hostile Fire and I would spend a week or two until a replacement could be obtained.   I had been a Forward Observer in the unit I went to Vietnam with and had lots of experience calling fire.  I had a young Corporal and a PFC that had gone out three or four times and knew as much as I could teach them. 

Most of our operations would start with us flying into an area by helicopter and the usual meet and greet with a new commander.  Most of the time I'm sure he looked at the skinny, tall and very young Lieutenant and just shook  his head.  I would spend a lot of time near the headquarters element for the first few days and most commanders just watched me like a hawk until I proved I could read a map and call for fire.  I don't know if it was a test or that there were truly that many guy that got lost a lot, but several times a day I would be asked to spot our location on the map.    There was even once that I had the firing battery fire a spotting round to prove I knew where we were.  I would have them fire a White Phosphorous round with a time fuse at a location  I would pick on a map.   I would tell the unit that at the direction I would give them, expect to see a puff of white smoke.  I can't ever remember not having the round where I predicted.  Each evening, I would fire a defensive target on all four sides of the unit.  I would brief the unit commander and made sure that his defensive plan was all integrated.  We generally had a mortar unit from the Battalion available and the heavy weapons platoon in the company.   I never misfired and got my rounds anywhere near the infantrymen in the company.  Close enough to discourage a ground attack but far enough to now wound us.

I had been back with a battery and providing them ammunition from a base near the airport in Ban Me Tout for a couple of weeks.  In addition to the ammunition, we made sure they had C-Rations and at food to cook at least one hot meal a day.  There was a need for a couple of water trailers and all the pop the local PX would let us buy.  One thing that always was welcome was the bags of mail we would send out to the battery.  I had a Sergeant with me that would look through the mail for any for the men in the detachment with me.   Most of the units we were supporting in the area were from the 4th Division.  They wore a diamond shaped patch with four leaf clovers on them.  We wore the First Field Force patches and the 4th Division MP's left my guys alone.   That pretty much gave us free reign to go where we needed to go when we needed to do it.  It would look a lot like a mini convoy for two or three ammunition trucks and the Mess truck to go back and forth from the supply point to the airfield daily.  I generally sent one of the Sergeants with them in my jeep to ride heard on them.   For the most part they knew if they screwed up they would find themselves back on a fire base in the middle of nowhere. 

Dang, it took me three paragraphs to get to where the real story starts.  I guess background isn't the worse thing.  I got a call on the land line from the 175mm unit we were co-located with.  I had a call from my Headquarters in Pleiku.  I went over and after what seemed like an hour of trying to get a call through, I finally got the Operations Sergeant from the battalion on the line.  He said I was to report back to Pleiku on the earliest flight I could catch.  Being right on the end of the runway, I basically packed my bag and went over the airfield.  Catching a ride back to Pleiku was fairly easy as the Air Force had a large base their in Pleiku and a lot of cargo aircraft from the 4th Division flew pretty much daily sorties.  Long story short I got to Pleiku and to my unit headquarters by nightfall.  The S-3 told me that the next day I was to be assigned to a unit of the 3rd Bat, 503rd Airborne (173rd)down near Saigon.  He gave me one of the few written orders for that assignment as I would have to travel through the big base near Saigon to make connections.   I think it took a couple of days to get to the headquarters and then to find a helicopter ride out to Company A.  That unit had a forward observer who went home on emergency leave because his dad had a heart attack.   He was due back in a week or so, and it was no big deal to me.     There was even a recon team from the unit with an honest to god E-5 Sergeant and a Spec4 radio operator.  They had been with the unit for months and were darned good at what they had to do.  One of the first things I noticed was that everyone thought it was funny that I wasn't airborne qualified.  I got called leg a lot at first and soon started making sure that they knew it was Redleg for Field Artillery.  It didn't take them long to see I knew my job and to gain the unit commander's trust. 

When I first got to that unit, The Company Commander and I had a talk.  He said that because his unit has a lot of older soldiers, drinking was a problem.  He didn't allow booze in the field.  I told him that I had a fifth of scotch in my ruck sack and I would not break the seal.  He could come over at any time and check to make sure but I would abide by his rules.  I damned sure wasn't going to pour it out to make him happy.   I am not sure who was listening in on that conversation but it was soon known that I had a bottle and the bidding began.  As many as five pretty senior NCO's started the bidding at $20.00.  Now what the hell was I going to do with money out in the field?  When the bid got to over $200. it was close as to how much higher I could stand to keep the bottle.  My conscience won out and I did not drink a drop out in the field.

About the end of the first week, I asked the higher Artillery Headquarters when their guy was going to get back.  They reported that he had just been admitted to the VA hospital in Wichita and they didn't have a clue.  I reminded them that I was not assigned to their unit and wanted to be replaced as soon as possible.  For five more weeks, we were out in the field playing hide and go seek with the enemy.  I won't get into the details but will tell you that only when I staged an artillery ambush on a position we had just left did we make any contact at all.   The day after we were resupplied, the unit commander and I discussed that we were being trailed and could not quite make contact.  I planned a Time on target with three batteries for about noon that day.  As soon as the firing stopped, we sent a platoon sized element back into the old position.  My E-5 Sgt wanted to go so I let him go be my eyes and ears.  He reported that there were several of the trash pits dug up and obviously we caught a squad sized element digging through the trash homes looking for food and information.  There were no bodies but several pretty large blood trails out of the position. 

The Unit Commander and I discussed what would be a good move to make.  When the report got to our Battalion Hqs, the decision went right out of our hands.  We made a company recon in force and followed the trail as far and as fast as we could.    Late that afternoon, we found signs of fresh digging and it was pretty obvious that they were graves.  We kept moving for another hour and left one Platoon to dig up the graves.    They found three bodies and they were all killed by artillery.  The bodies had a little information with them and first light the next day we sent that information to the Battalion S-2 (I hate to use the words Army and Intelligence in the same sentence but the S-2 is the Battalion Intelligence Officer)   It appears they were a unit that had pretty much been wiped out during TET and they were stragglers working their way back to a bigger unit.

During that Day, one of the Aerial Observers in a Bird Dog called us and reported that there was an enemy convoy of elephants headed down the valley we were in.  Mass jump through your butt by Battalion and we were deployed on a line across the valley.  I spent several hours pre-planning fires to get an elephant kill.  We had a nice rest and for some reason the AO had to leave and the Helicopter they sent to keep an eye on things couldn't find the elephants.  Do you know how stupid that made me feel?   200 of us, the best trained and equipped soldiers in the world couldn't find an elephant convoy.   I think we spent the better part of the next three days sending out patrols looking but Poof! they were gone.   A couple of months later I was flying in a bird dog that had an elephant painted on the side of the cockpit.  He had evidently stumbled on the elephants a week later and when he shot it with a rocket under his wing he damn near crashed from the explosion.  That elephant was obviously carrying a lot of explosives. 

Somewhere near the end of the sixth week, we humped (walked not fly) into a fire base and I was finally given the word to return to my unit.  I caught a helicopter out of there and flew to Ahn Khe not too far from Pleiku.  For the life of me, I could not find anyone headed to Pleiku.  I was told that the next morning there would be a convoy and I could catch a ride with them.  Time to break out the scotch.  I had a two quart canteen and it became a 50/50 scotch and water bottle.  I nursed about half of it that night and started on the remainder pretty early the next day.  I went over to the convoy traffic control point and found a truck full of sandbags.  I crawled up in the back and was soon fast asleep.  I remember the convoy moving and that we stopped somewhere down the road.  Some MP was mad as hell that we had left the start point early.  He took everyone's name and I promptly forgot about it.  

I finally made it back to my unit and went to the Battalion headquarters.  I met the new commander and told him that I was damned sure I wasn't the junior Lieutenant in the unit anymore and I wanted an assignment in a firing battery and priority on the R&R list.  I got both and was soon on my way to Hawaii to meet my wife and then on to Battery B, 1st Bn, 92nd FA near DakTo.  

MUD, Headed to Hawaii to be with the wife.

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