Chap 20 Welcome to Loc Ninh

     On the 15th of October 3 companies of the 1/18th Infantry Battalion were flown to Song Be in C-130s. My B company was left behind at Phuoc Vinh. Song Be was located north of Quan Loi and a few miles east of Loc Ninh. It was very close to the Cambodian border. Since all 4 companies were away from Lai Khe during and also after the battle of Ong Thanh, our battalion grapevine did not pick up and transmit information about the tragedy. No news of the battle reached my ears for years to come. If we had been in Lai Khe, I would most surely have gotten "wind" of it, because that's where many of the wounded were initially taken. Instead, our A, C, and D companies were far removed and operating around Song Be until the 28th, and my B company was left behind at Phuoc Vinh, which was in War Zone D.

     Dick would have been with the main force at Song Be, but it would have been up to him to choose what company commander he was going to leave behind, as ordered by his brigade's senior command. He picked my company commander, Watts Caudill. It wasn't unusual for a company to be separated from the rest of the battalion and tasked for independent jobs, such as guarding roads, guarding engineers or pulling security for a fire support base like Phuoc Vinh. In part, Dick picked Watts for this job, because he knew that Captain Caudill could operate autonomously, and so far, had made good decisions. Dick recognized that Watts had a very practical way about him which was very orderly and that was reassuring. So far, Watts could be trusted. However, there was another reason why our beloved, but also very soulish battalion commander picked Caudill, as his "go to" guy, not only this time, but for the rest of Operation Shenandoah II. Caudill did not cuss. He did not drink. "For goodness sakes", he never once visited the officer's club at Di An. Furthermore, he only raised his voice so his commands could be heard above the clashing clamor of combat, and this was behavior which Dick had no problem with. However, there was an elephant in the room which he did have a problem with. It would always separate these two men, far into their future careers. That elephant in the room was Watt's ongoing walk with Jesus Christ. It’s a given, that an earthy soulish man like Dick, will always be unnerved when he comes in contact with a person like Watts. Many times, that person will want to keep this type of Christian at arm's length. For a soulish person like Dick (someone who only lives within the bounds of their own thoughts) it is impossible to understand one who is seeking to be led by the thoughts of God and when Dick couldn't understand something he automatically shied away from it.  Their conversations were all business and to the point but there was an underlying sense in both men, that something between them needed to be guarded. Dick found Watts hard to read. Quite frankly, Dick much preferred bareback associations with generals, with all the confrontational "up and down" conversations and the foul language to go with it. With Watts, it was more like riding in a horse drawn buggy with someone who responded to his communications in all the proper ways yet left him feeling "all funny inside". The guy voiced nothing back of himself, with the raw emotion Dick craved to hear. This in itself gave Dick an eerie feeling, which he just couldn't shake. Yet, they were in this buggy together and Dick would just have to ride it out. There had been several cases in his past career with other so-called Christians which gave him real reason to be concerned about Watts. It was just better to keep this guy at arm's length. Satan always works hard trying to convince soulish people, that Christians are weak people, and the fearful actions of other Christians are his best tools for promoting this lie.    

     Here is a final afterthought on this matter. Though Dick believed in God, like all soulish people, Dick also believed, as his father before him, that it was totally up to him to make things happen in this world. Dick had no idea that there was another way, a better way, a spiritual way, and even if he had known, he definitely wasn't about to join Caudill in learning more about this "better way". Why "rock the boat"? His own way seemed to be working just fine. No matter what Dick may have thought, however, Caudill was definitely not going to unwind in battle, revealing himself to be nothing more than an emotional cripple, using a feigned faith in God as his personal crutch. On the contrary, Caudill was the "real deal". Like Henrietta Chamberlain King, Watts followed that light that burned deep inside. Still, I doubt that he was as forthright with Dick, as he needed to be, concerning his faith.

     Like the moon, Dick was his very own force of nature and few there were who could hold their own in his presence. In many ways he followed in the steps of his "namesake", Richard King. On the other hand, Watts was following in the steps of the missionary's daughter, as he embraced that light that is Christ. Both lights are powerful, except the one is of the moon and the other is of the "Son". Both lights bring goodness to the world around them, but the one light never fades. The other one does. The one light can only shine as a reflection through the eternal legacy of the other, but the light which burns within the heart of a true follower of The Holy Spirit burns on when there is nothing but darkness all around. It is the light of Christ. It is His church. Watts and Sally Caudill are His church. After retiring as a Lt. Colonel, Watts spent 20 years as a high school teacher, influencing the lives of countless teenagers. All three of his sons served in Iraq at the same time. Simply put, Watt's and Sally's lives have become living stones in the foundation which continues to make America great. Am I trying to say that Watts left his mark on this world and Dick did not? Absolutely not! Dick's name should be listed as one of America's greatest soldiers and his story needs to be told. However, there is another story which also needs to be told. It is a story, which is bigger than any one American and if the lessons of that story or heeded by our people, than our nation shall be saved.                

     B Company Commander Watts Caudill and friends would be separated from rest of the battalion and would not be at the Battle of Loc Ninh.

     Patrick McLaughlin and his C company would be there, though. He had started his tour of duty with the 1/18th in January and had caught the tail end of our former commander, Lt. Col. Denton's tour. McLaughlin was finishing his orientation week at Di An, while I and other newbies in my squad was earning our C.I.B. at Lt. Col. Denton's fiasco in Bien Hoa Province. I say fiasco because this hero of "Pork Chop Hill" had commanded us to charge that enemy bunker complex "head on" with no artillery and misdirected air support (I talked about this earlier). Soon, though, McLaughlin was acting squad leader, even as a PFC. He was then promoted to buck sergeant in July. "Mac", as McLaughlin's men called him,  had taken over as acting squad leader shortly after that long hot day, where his squad was digging in next to my squad ( I also mentioned this earlier), It was there that I got a glimpse of his C Company, "Lima" platoon in motion. I could tell with just this one brief glance that this was a group of guys which had a certain chemistry about them and at the time I remember feeling "downright" jealous. I now believe the reason for me feeling that way is because at the time, I also felt my own platoon was somewhat disjointed and 'scattered brained" as a unit. 

     Moving on, as I said, the entire unit, minus my B Company was air lifted to Song Be on the 15th of October. My B Company stayed at Phuoc Vinh. "Mac" left a day or so before his C Company was flown to Song Be on R & R. He had been able to obtain one of the first R&Rs being issued to Australia and that break had been long overdue. On returning to Di An after having one of the greatest times of his young life, he learned that A, D and C were still located in Song Be. More than likely Mac learned this first from the guy working our unit's supply counter, because that is the first place he would have gone when he arrived back at base camp. There were several good reasons why he stopped here first. For one, he would have wanted to pick up his combat gear, and duffle bag, which held every personal item he owned in Vietnam. It had been stored in the supply room while he was in Sidney. Then, it would have been on to his sleeping quarters, where he could change clothes. I remember those sleeping quarters as being nothing more than a World War II vintage canvas tent large enough to house his entire platoon. However, by this late date in 1967, Mac believes that they had been replaced by screened-in hoochs on concrete slabs. However, the type of dwelling really doesn't matter. What does matter is that Mac would have been wearing his kaki uniform on the plane flying back from Sidney and also on the hot one-hour bus ride from Tân Sơn Nhất. The bus had heavy meshed wiring on the windows and no air conditioning. Thus, Mac would have been soaked with sweat when he arrived at his unit area. This was another good reason why he did not go straight to the orderly room first. He certainly was not going to report to the noncommissioned officer on duty soaking wet, and looking like he was anything less than ready for duty. The last piece of clothing he would have donned had a certain "back to work" look all its own. Actually, it was not clothing at all. It was his "steel pot" which had also been stored in that duffle bag. It had a smelly and well-worn camouflaged cover, which was stained red from sleeping in the mud of "War Zone C” way too long. Sure, he could have gotten a new camo-cover while at the supply counter. However, this smelly stained one made a great statement. It and a smooth shave said, "I am back and more than ready for duty. Of course, that was a lie, but nevertheless that's the "visuals" Mac's appearance now signaled to anyone, who would be looking him up and down in that orderly room, as he reported for duty.

      "Truth is", changing into dry clothes did make Mac feel better, but his mind was still not "open for business". Changing clothes couldn't change an attitude. Wouldn't it be nice if it could? ""Doggone it", why did Australia have to be so much fun?" It was everything and more than Mac had ever dreamed it would be. Now he was suffering the downside of that grand experience. Mac had grown up a "military brat" which meant that he had been forced as a child to grow up fast and learn how to "fit in" quickly because his family moved around a lot. However, that first night in Sidney there was no such thing as "fitting in". "Standing out" would have been a much better word for it. The patrons of the bar he randomly chose to visit would not stop slapping him on the back and buying him another beer before he could empty the one already in his hand. All the while they called him "Yank" and pointed him out to every new arrival as if he was some kind of celebrity. It was one of the most marvelous, impromptu nights of Mac's young life and he couldn't quite make himself believe it was all happening in the company of complete strangers. To this very day, Mac would probably say that there has never been a night like it since. He talks more about it in his book, "Cheerful Obedience". However, as soon as Mac slipped into his kaki uniform to board his return flight, gone was this fleeting moment of lighthearted exhilaration, and in came the dread. To counter that dread, he told himself all the usual reasons why it was "good" to be returning to his unit. That "little pep talk" did help some. He reminded himself that he wasn't new anymore. "He knew his job and he knew it well. He also knew his people and they were good". His point man, Johnny O'Conner was one of the best in the business and he was training another man, Tom Mercer, who was probably going to be even better. However, he was not about to tell Mercer that. Furthermore, he told himself, "He had been in enough scrapes to be able to handle himself no matter what came his way", but he immediately knew that was a lie and that is where the "pep talk" started to "break down". In his heart, Mac knew that the deadly realities of this particular war, were so random and the safe havens so few, that no guy in his shoes had an even chance of making it out unscathed. No amount of experience or good thinking on his part was going to change that fact. He had a little over two months left and even one month was a lifetime in Vietnam when you were that "one in ten" soldier at the "tip of the spear". To make matters worse, he not only had to look out for himself but at least ten other guys as well.

      This was the sobering reality, buried deep in Mac's gut and no amount of self-talk to the contrary was going to change what he knew to be true. Still, there was a little time left to dream. So, during the flight back Mac kept replaying in his mind those brief but heavenly moments which he had just experienced. Those thoughts did nothing but grow stronger on the bus ride from the airport, and now, they were still in his head as he was walking toward the orderly room to report to the duty officer. It wasn't healthy. It was daydreams of an incredibly pleasant getaway and nothing more. It was definitely not the kind of thoughts which he now had the luxury of entertaining. Yet, he couldn't seem to shake those thoughts. As he drew closer and closer to the orderly room door, Australia continued unrelentingly to loom larger and larger in Mac's mind. Finally, Mac blurted out to himself, almost audibly, "That's it. Enough is enough. This is nothing but torturous thinking and I will have no more of it. Yes, Australia was great", and yes, I am probably going to die, but not now. Now, I must begin to put one foot in front of the other and regain my composure". With that determined thought in mind Mac tried one more time to flip that switch back to "God, country and duty  mode", but it was to no avail. That switch was broken. These thoughts in his mind were like listening to his own fingernails scraping across a caulk board, but still, he couldn't make them go away. "Heck fire", to make matters worse, he not only couldn't get the thinking to clear up but now it was being joined by vividly vivacious mental pictures of those gorgeous Australian girls, who were so open and inviting to a "Yank" like him. Those tantalizing visions now flashed ever so seductively, with every step Mac took toward that "orderly room" door.

      Wouldn't you know it? It took something comical, which only a grunt "turned sergeant", like Mac, could appreciate, to snap him back to the present reality. That "something" now appeared out of nowhere. Mac spotted two soldiers working on a "detail" in the distance. At the back of two wooden outdoor latrines, Mac watched as those two soldiers dragged "cut-in-half 55-gallon drums from the latrines' rear trap doors. Gooey human excrement was slushing around inside those barrels and some of it splashed on one of the soldiers as the bottom rim of his barrel dropped from the floor of the latrine to the ground. The man immediately let go of the drum and began hopping around on one foot while "hollering out" a string of cussing shouts that would have made any drill sergeant "proud". Mac couldn't help but let a faint smile cross his face, as he watched and listened to the man's miserable antics. Shaking his head, Mac mused to himself. "Things could be worse. He could be returning from R & R, to be placed on a roster, for a detail like these guys were "pulling". As a newbie he had "caught" that detail and It had been the most disgusting and humiliating job of his life. However, those E-5 strips he now wore on his sleeves, assured him that he would never have to do what these guys were doing ever again. No, coming home to hell was not quite as bad as it could have been and with this amusing scene playing out before him, those mental pictures of Australia began to fade, at least for now. No thanks to Mac, that switch was flipped, and the timing was perfect because he was just reaching out his hand and getting ready to open the orderly room door to report for duty. 

      Finally, when Mac was aboard the C-130 which would take him as far as Quan Loi, he began to think about the first things he needed to do when he rejoined his men at Song Be. He had switched weapons with one of his squad members before leaving for R & R. No doubt, switching back for his M-14 would be the first thing he would do. The second thing he would do is say his "hellos". On second thought, more than likely he would just skip the "hellos"  and start right in with the questions. However, Mac was smart enough to know that there was one or two questions which he would never want to ask his men. Asking these questions would be something else he would have already done when he paid his visit to the supply hooch at Di An. Supply clerks not only knew unit locations and transport schedules, but they also had the "down and dirty" scoop, on who was recently killed or wounded and how they were killed. Getting this unabridged information, from guys who interacted with us front line people all the time and getting it before he returned to his men was vital. Mac definitely did not want to be blind-sided with bad news coming from the lips of his own men. He also did not want to hear about bad news from some "paper pushing" duty officer at the orderly room. Fortunately, the unit lost no one while he was away.

      Mac rejoined his men at Song Be with little "fanfare". Several days later everyone got some really good news. They would be returning to Lai Khe and then on to Di An for a two-week break. That was just too good to be true news and sure enough, it wasn't. After returning to Lai Khe on the 28th of October, they did get to eat a nice home cooked meal, produced by the "fine dine cooks" in C Company's very own gourmet kitchen. It was housed in one of those olive drab World War II tents. Afterward, the men of C Company settled in for a quiet evening. Mac's unit was not required to pull perimeter guard, which was very unusual, but very welcomed. Normally, when we were resting up in Lai Khe, we pulled perimeter guard, which meant that one man out of three had to be awake at all times.

      At 0100 hours, on the 29th of October, NVA General, Tran Van Tra, had the forces of his 9th Division led by Col. Hoang Cam launch an attack against the air strip at Loc Ninh. This was a "sleepy time dream buster" for Mac as well as every other 'sleepy headed" soldier in A, C and D Company. The attack also meant that Mac's boys in A,C and D companies could kiss any expectations of spending two weeks in Di An good-bye. The transportation people who flew those big C-130s and Chinooks were also abruptly awakened in the middle of the night. Even before the troops were awakened, however, and within minutes of the news trickling in over the Lai Khe command bunker radios, a sleepy-eyed Dick Cavazos was already setting on the edge of his folding cot, lacing up his jungle boots. His snoring soldiers were allowed to "saw logs" for another couple hours, while General Hay and the other "brass" met with Dick and other available battalion commanders to get a "game plan" going. I have to give credit here where credit is due. Their "game plan" came together fast and it was as well planned as any "checker move" in the history checkers. However, the game being played was not checkers. It was "Chess". Tactically Hay came up with a good plan. Strategically, the entire way we fought the enemy in Vietnam was very foolish, but Hay didn't have much "say" in that matter. General Hay quickly decided that blocking positions around the Loc Ninh air strip were needed, which was all any other military leader in his shoes would have been able to conclude, given the overhaul strategy determined by MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam). Three Companies of the 1/18th would be inserted into a rubber tree plantation 3.5 klicks northwest of the air strip. The 1/26th would be inserted 6 klicks north of the air strip and Murry's 1/16th would be inserted 7 klicks northeast. The 1/28th would later be inserted 2.5 klicks to the east-southeast, while Jim Kasik's B Company, along with C Company, of the 2/28th Black Lions would be flown directly into the air strip along with more artillery. These  Black Lions would reinforce the beleaguered CIDG forces, which had been forced to retreat to the southern end of the air strip during the night, as two battalions of NVA penetrating the north end. The NVA used satchel charges to blow a path through the Constantine wire around the northern perimeter. Dawn was just breaking when Mac and company boarded the C130s to fly them the 53 kilometers to the air strip at Quan Loi. There they quickly transferred to Chinooks to be flown into the rubber tree plantation 3.5 kilometers west of the air strip at Loc Ninh. It was not a contested landing. That's why the Chinooks could be used. Every veteran in Mac's Lima platoon picked up on this fact, and very quickly settled down to take care of business. Every "wide eyed new guy" didn't pick up on anything but the fact that they were "scared out of their ever-loving minds". They would "pretty much" remain that way for the next nine days.

      When Dick's boys arrived in the rubber trees, they started fanning out to establish a perimeter. Not a single shot had been fired and there was no prepping of the surrounding jungle with artillery and air strikes. "Not bad. Not bad at all". It was now mid-morning and looking like it was going to be just another hard hot day of digging in and running patrols. Sure, between the noisy arrival of Chinooks, bringing in supplies, one could hear occasional explosions and heavy automatic weapons fire, way off in the distance, but that was normal. "After all", every veteran in the unit knew that they were not awakened from a sound sleep and rushed into the boonies just to take a peaceful "sightseeing tour" of another rubber tree plantation.

      As usual, the ground was hard and the digging was slow and made even slower, because the same Chinooks which brought "Mac and friends" there had to return to Quan Loi and load up with the extra supplies needed to sustain the unit overnight in hostile territory. Among those supplies were the mattocks needed to bust up the hard ground and the Marston matting needed as supports for the overhead covering. Nevertheless, off came the shirts, and the digging began, along with a little cussing here and there as someone's light entrenching tool bounced off the hard laterite encrusted ground. Mac's bunker faced west. His first squad butted up to recon platoon bunkers on one side and Sergeant O'Brian's second squad on the other. I am sure recon's presence at this time was much appreciated by those veterans in Mac's platoon. As I said earlier, our 1/18th recon were some of the “best in the business” and many carried the formidable M-14.

      As the morning turned into mid-day, the explosions to the east ceased. Artillery shells, which had been sporadically falling around the NDP continued. Most of the explosions, which had now fallen silent, were coming from the east, and were made by the sound of M-72 rocket launchers being used by Kasik's men to help the CIDG guys clear bunkers within the perimeter of the air strip. It seems that some enemy troops had been trapped in these bunkers when the bulk of Cam's forces withdrew at dawn. By 0930 hours the two batteries of artillery which had landed at Loc Ninh air strip earlier, were also firing away to establish registration points around the NDP of the 1/18th. They wanted to be ready if an attack was mounted on Dick's positions while his boys were digging in. Although Dick's landing was unopposed, A battery of the 6/15th and C battery of 1/7th kept firing their registration rounds throughout the morning. I say all this to say that there were a lot of “the sounds of war" being made all around the boys of the 1/18th while they were digging in. These sounds had by now become routine sounds, heard by the ear but ignored by the brain. Maybe that's why no one I interviewed a half century later remembers the sounds of a fight breaking out to the north some 1000 meters or so from C Company positions and beyond the rubber trees inside a wood line of thick jungle.

      As the 1/18th battalion landed, a company of the 165th NVA regiment had been diverted from the main body to "shadow" Dick, as he and his boys settled in. Naturally, that enemy was also looking for a good location to set up an ambush, if and when the opportunity presented itself. The two enemy battalions, which had attacked the air strip at Loc Ninh just after midnight were from a different enemy outfit. The enemy approaching Dick's position, was a company from the 165th NVA regiment and the air strip attack was initiated by two battalions of the 273rd NVA regiment. Here is why I find this notable. The fact that these two enemy units were being deployed differently, in opposite directions around the air strip indicates that our enemy had already anticipated what our response would be to his airfield attack long before he attacked the CIDG camp. Everyone, including Cam, knew, that even if he was able to overrun the air strip and briefly occupy it, there would be no way to hold on to it after the sun came up. This wasn't a war to gain control of spots on the earth's surface. It was plainly a war of attrition, and both sides knew that. Unfortunately, the communists knew something that we American's had forgotten. Totalitarian governments are infinitely less sensitive to the mass killing of their citizens, than are those governments held accountable to the will of the people, through honest and free elections. Because we had forgotten this basic truth, we envisioned our "blocking positions" as a surprise tactic, which would catch a retreating enemy off guard and really hurt him. Actually, our enemy couldn't care less how many people he lost, and furthermore, he had no intention of making a full retreat, but just wanted to draw more Americans into as many traps as he could possibly set. "So what", if he had to lose 19 people every time we lost 1? Here again, we were thinking like a "checker player", but the game was chess. Our response to the airfield attack was no surprise to Cam. He not only anticipated how we would counter his attack, but in what manner. The 165th NVA Brigade was never intended to be a reserve force or a second attacking force for the enemy's attack on the air strip. Instead, it was positioned to respond to any air assaults, which might land on the western side of the Loc Ninh air strip, so Cam could kill more Americans. Of course, these smaller chess moves were all done to divert our thinking away from the grand move which would later be known as the Tet Offensive.

      The guys who withstood the initial attack on Loc Ninh in the early hours of October 29, 1967 were amazing. That overused word could mean anything but here's what I mean. Although most of our war leaders never realized this, the three ethnic groups of freedom fighters who fought at Loc Ninh that night were exactly the blend which was needing to be propagated and incorporated into any over-all winning strategy, to win the war for a free governing people of Vietnam. The first ethnic group, composed of probably two thirds of these fighters was an indigenous tribal "peoples" known as Montagnards. Born on banana leaves and taught to shoot a crossbow as soon as they could walk, they were very disciplined souls, whose entire existence was "one" with the remote jungles of western Vietnam. They were honest, loyal, very hard working, highly intelligent and very receptive to the Judeo-Christian principles necessary to any self-governing nation. They lived in areas, where the average Vietnamese of that era had no intention of going, much less think about building a home there. So, in 1967, there were very few issues over who should possess those jungle lands, as there had been in America, with our native American population. The major issue, preventing coexistence between the lowland's Vietnamese and the thirty tribes of Montagnards was a "human failing", born out of very preventable "ignorance". That particular type of ignorance is usually called "racism". The second ethnic group were Vietnamese who were part of a very professional ranger force. The third was our American special forces. There is nothing like fighting together in war, to meld different ethnic groups together, especially when they fight for a righteous cause. These CIDG fighters were all volunteers, and they were there because they believed in what they were doing. Many in this little band of around a hundred souls formed life-long bonds.

      This small CIDG force withstood an enemy attack, which outnumbered them at least ten to one. Gun ships and "Puff The Magic Dragon" did help, but it took time for those assets to show up. Long before they did, the northern perimeter was breached and enemy conscripts poured through blown gaps, by the hundreds. A combination of quick maneuvering and deadly return fire saved this little band of fighters. Bunkers on the northern end of the air strip were quickly abandoned and those on the southern end were reinforced with these fighters, from the north end. It was a great decision but not nearly as good as the next one. After his men reached the safety of bunkers on the south end, the village chief ordered supporting artillery from another fire base to start shelling the air strip. He requested those shells to be armed with proximity fuses, which exploded in mid-air just a few feet from the ground. This type of shelling killed anyone out in the open but did not harm those men who were in bunkers. After the shelling continued for a while, many of the enemy conscripts started retreating, but only after many of their die-heart handlers had either been killed or had run away, themselves. It was these guys who instilled much more fear in their conscript charges than the defenders of the CIDG camp, itself. This type of motivating fear, worked on a principle, which was mitigated among the ranks of American draftees, because our NCOs were not allowed to arbitrarily shoot people in the head for disobeying an order. Why? Because we were a country “of the people”, whose leaders were ultimately bound by law to “answer to” us ordinary folks, through fair elections, the constitution, and the bill of rights.

       Because of the intense shelling some enemy conscripts sought the protection of abandoned bunkers on the north end, where they were still huddling together long after the main body of attackers had withdrawn at dawn. Later, after the arrival of Kasik and his Black Lions, M-72 rockets were used to clear these bunkers.

      Somehow, someway, a platoon of those irregular Montagnard fighters decided to go hunting for the enemy even before the Black Lions finished landing at the air strip. "I say somehow, someway" because it's not clear where they started their patrol. Where were they during the fighting at the air strip? Were they among the defenders or were they out in the jungle, maybe on ambush patrol when the attack on the air strip began? I don't know. What is known, however, is this. Around noon, they located a company of the 165th NVA regiment about 1000 meters north of the 1/18th's perimeter and a good 4000 meters from the air strip. Since these Montagnards knew this area like the back of their hand, they could have easily walked that 4000 meters from the air strip that morning, or they could have already been spending the night near the area where they spotted the enemy. One thing is "for sure". They would have let us know that they were operating in the area. Since the enemy routinely monitored our transmissions, its also highly likely that they showed up and talked to Dick face to face, shortly after he landed. Here is another line of logical reasoning. It was no accident that this CIDG platoon decided to scout that north side of our perimeter. That side would have been the most likely staging point for an attack on Dick's perimeter. I say that after studying a topographic map showing that area as it was in 1967. Its highly likely that both Dick and this band of Montagnards agreed that they should reconnoiter the area north of Dick's position soon after he landed.

      With these assumptions being made, the rest of Lima's day is "pretty well" documented, except for one thing. Here again, I will make one more likely assumption. I assume that the Montagnards made "soft contact" with that company of the 165th. There are several reasons why I think that. For one, Montagnards were the best in the world at slipping within earshot of the enemy, without being noticed, and they could maintain that "soft contact" all day, if they so desired. Secondly, when Mac and his boys were interrupted from the fun, they were having building their homes for the night and told that they were going to be the lead squad for a "company patrol in force", there was no mention from eye witness accounts that any of these guys were hearing sounds of a fire fight. I Believe that is because those slippery Montagnards spotted the enemy and slipped away without being noticed. The men of C Company have never mentioned hearing sounds of an ongoing fire fight.

      It was an incident which revealed just how subtle battalion commander Dick Cavazos could be while in command and those seemingly small nuances of his command presence saved lives. Here is what happened. The CIDG patrol notified Dick that there was an enemy force located about 1000 meters from his northern perimeter. Dick ordered a company sized force of his own to move against that known enemy presence in a V formation and C company was assigned the job. Mac's first squad of "Lima" platoon was chosen to run point. Johnny O'Conner was point-man. Since Mac's squad was running point, he was called to the patrol briefing, given by the C company commander, Capt. Bill Annan. Lima platoon leader, Lt. Paul Zima and platoon sergeant, John May, were there too. John May had started out earlier that summer in my platoon, training under my platoon sergeant, Sergeant St. Aman. When everyone had gathered around Capt. Annan, he gave his instructions, as he had received them from Dick, but there was a "caveat" in those orders, and I believe Dick knew that this "caveat" might give Bill Annan some trouble at the briefing. It's also possible that Dick wanted to see how Captain Annan would handle that "caveat" and that's why Dick was not present at the briefing, but was circling close by, within "earshot". After giving out the patrol route on the map and the reported location of the enemy, Annan finished up his instructions by looking Mac straight in the eye and slamming him squarely in the face with that wicked little "caveat". "Mac", Annan said, "this patrol is within the boundaries of a rubber tree plantation, so you will be operating in an area designated as a no-fire-zone". Mac knew that meant that he would have to walk toward a known enemy presence and let the enemy shoot first before shooting back. Now Mac, though at this time was a squad leader, he had cut his teeth on running point and all good point men in Vietnam were "gun slingers" at heart. When those words hit Mac's ears, the effects were akin to Wyatt Earp being ordered to let those "Cowboys" at the O.K. Corral take their best shots, before being allowed to shoot back. To say the least, Mac was "jarred to the bone". Without hesitating, Mac blurted out, "Sir, those orders don't make sense. We know the enemy is there". Annan replied, "Mac those are our orders". It was a short and unvarnished reply. 99% of all junior officers in Vietnam would have responded just as "curtly". However, Mac had not gotten to sow strips on his arms, by being shy, so he repeated again, "Sir, it just doesn't make sense". Now, Bill Annan was stuck. He didn't know how to respond to Mac, who was now questioning his orders for a second time. To make things doubly hard, he was being second guessed in front of everyone by someone whom he considered to be one of his best young NCOs. Only one in a thousand young commanders would have been able to deal with a "nuance of command" as complicated as this. Bill wasn't that one in thousand. However, as I said,  the "ole man" had been circling close by. Now, Dick realized that Bill was stuck so he swooped in like "mamma goose", but with more finesse. "Sergeant Mac, what is the problem?", Dick asked in a stern but calm voice. Mac, not the kind to be easily intimidated, never “batted an eye" as he briefly repeated the situation. Dick listened until Mac was finished and then he spoke these few wise words. Patrick McLaughlin has remembered those words from that moment until this very day. It was a “teaching moment” for everyone standing in that briefing. "I and Capt. Annan expect you to make the correct decisions to safeguard your men and you under any circumstances. Do you understand what I am saying?" “Yes Sir”, Mac replied, as he visualized himself receiving a medal from Dick for drilling bullet holes in every single rubber tree in the area. Yes indeed, after hearing those few words, Mac understand exactly what Dick was saying. Bill Annan not only understood exactly what Dick was saying, but he also realized what Dick had done. The "ole man" had just bailed him out of a sticky situation. Bill was in a position to "lose face" with his men, but Dick intervened masterfully. 

      While in the field, I felt very comfortable patrolling in rubber tree terrain, because I could spot the enemy at much longer distances, and it was much easier to perform tactical maneuvers. I could see other patrol members much better, than in thick jungle, as we maneuvered. Our senior leadership didn't like fire fights in rubber trees because they got their "butts reamed" for destroying the rubber trees. We really didn't care. As I have just explained, our "ole man" knew how to "put to rest" any concerns we may have otherwise had, about getting in trouble for destroying those rubber trees. On the other hand, our NVA enemy loved the jungle, and that was his first choice for ambush sites. The jungle was much more advantageous, because it allowed him to get close to avoid our artillery. The AK-47 was much more inaccurate at longer ranges than either the M-16 or M-14. On this particular day, the 29th of October of 1967, enemy soldiers, who had been spotted by the Montagnards were almost certainly an advance party sent out to either start preparations for an ambush inside the jungle curtain to the north or to begin preparations for a night attack on the perimeter of the NDP. Cam would have thought that he had all night to make those preparations. He had no idea that the CIDG patrol had spotted his troops and reported their location to Lt. Col. Cavazos. When he was notified, that American soldiers were moving toward his troops so soon it had to be very disconcerting. Running communication wiring and establishing points for watchers with radios to relay those communications between Cam and his troops had not been established. That alone was a big problem. He had thought that these lazy Americans would wait until morning to start their patrolling. Yet here they were coming closer and closer. The "ghosts of the jungle", better known as Montagnards had really thrown a kink in Cam's plans by warning the Americans. Furthermore, he had no way of knowing that they had been warned of his presence. Now, thinking that he was yet to be discovered, he felt that he had two choices. He could either scramble to get some of his troops of the 165th NVA into those irrigation ditches for a quick ambush or "tuck tail" and "get the heck out of Dodge". Cam chose to have his men "stay put" and use the irrigation ditches to stage a hasty ambush. That decision was not a smart one. His men had not had time to stock-pile enough weapons and explosives to stage a proper ambush. After the first shots were fired, those trenches wouldn't offer all that much protection against American Artillery or even those "nasty little M-79 thump guns". Firing locations coming from those ditches could also be easily pinpointed. Furthermore, when his troops were forced to withdraw, and they would be forced to withdraw, they would become easy targets, to be picked off, as they ran through the more open ground surrounding rubber trees. Yes, those sneaky Montagnards, had foiled Cam's plans "big time". The jungle was a Montagnard's living room and he was completely at home living in it. The jungle was not the home of either the North or South Vietnamese. They endured it because they were forced to endure it by their communist overlords who commanded the power of life and death. The dope which those communist henchmen provided helped quench the pain of having to exist in the most unthinkable circumstances imaginable.   

      No matter how winnable this fire fight was for the men of Charlie Company, Sergeant Mac and Johnny O'Conner should have been killed as soon as the fighting started. Mac was standing fifteen meters in front of the enemy machine gunner when Johnny spotted him. The machine gunner smiled and then opened fired on Mac but missed. Johnny was 10 meters to Mac's right, when the shooting started, but made it through the entire fight without a scratch. Mac was able to lob a grenade into the ditch and kill the entire machine gun crew. It was a minor miracle for the Army and a major one for Mac and Johnny. I am not going to rehash the details, but the reader can read those details for themselves. They are compiled in a book which the guys of C company put together called "Dogface Charlie". I will say this much. Lima platoon rushed those irrigation ditches, clearing them fast with hand grenades and good shooting, while Mike Platoon to their right flank came under heavy fire from their right flank. In an incredibly good piece of maneuvering, Capt. Annan had Lima platoon withdraw to the south and circle around to Mike Platoon's right flank. They then got online and advanced forward, shooting ahead of them at anything that moved. It was truly a Dodge City style shoot out, which sent the VC packing. Only one American was killed in what was later called the Battle of Srok Silamlite I. The night passed without incident and the next day C Company secured the NDP and A Company went on patrol south of the NDP.

      The morning of October 30th, 1967 brought nothing out of the ordinary for my 1/18th Infantry Battalion. Yesterday's events were now filed away in some corner of the mind for most of the boys of C Company and today they would try to enjoy a day at home. It was A Company's turn to take care of this day's patrolling. 100 strong, A Company headed in a southern direction toward a gently sloping hill about 1100 meters away. Around noon, however, the sound of the very recognizable repetitive clacking of an enemy RDP light machine gun could be heard by C and D Companies' men inside the perimeter. That sound was immediately joined by other sounds of AK 47’s, M-1 carbines, M-14’s and M-16’s turning it into a continuous concerto of small arms fire. The sheer volume of fire told everyone in the NDP that a major fire fight was breaking out. The Battle of Srok Silamlite II was beginning. Routines in the NDP immediately came to a halt. Those whose jobs included the use of a radio moved closer to those radios and hoped their batteries were charged. Others looked to their surroundings, checking to make sure that they had plenty of their favorite "security blankets" handy, be it hand grenades, rocket launchers, or just more ammo. If there was a supply helicopter in camp, it would have rushed to unload and "get the heck out of Dodge". Maybe Dick thought about jumping into his observation chopper to survey the trouble, but I doubt it. Dick and my unit had come a long way since he flew over my head looking for ambushers just outside "Fire Base Thrust". He realized that he had more important stuff to attend to, than trying to get a "look see" in a noisy helicopter, as Lazzell had done during the Battle of Xom Bo II. He had already been given a good "sitrep" by his A Company commander and he hadn't picked this guy because he could play a "mean guitar". Dick knew his A company commander could "handle it". Dick had long since weeded out those who couldn't. By now, his "hand shaped" battalion had also been thrown into enough tricky situations to make it the best in the business at handling trouble. With that being said, the best use of Dick's time now was to stay where he was at, which was near his long antenna radio, where he could have clearer communications to better cover his boy's backsides. If he did that, he had no doubt that they would be able to take care of their own front-side. One of those assaults to the backside, needing Dick's protection, might come from one of those high-flying generals, who could come up with more bad ideas than Willy Nelson could songs. Dick needed to be near a strong clear radio channel to counter these domestic assaults. No field commander in the entire division could "colorize" their conversations with senior command the way Dick could. He could mesmerize them into changing their minds and doing his every bidding. He was able to not only make senior commanders believe that he was the smartest thing since sliced bread but that they would be too if they would just do as he said. They say knowledge is power, and Dick also knew something else, which was so powerful that he was very careful to kept that "something" to himself for his entire life. He knew that most of the time senior command didn't know "s__t from Shinola".

      The gunfire heard was Sergeant Joe Amos’s lead platoon of A Company as it “made contact” with a much larger enemy force than C Company had encountered the day before. The shooting started, as they were moving toward irrigation ditches in the rubber trees. This time Cam had sent the entire 165th NVA battalion to kill Americans. He had no idea that this particular battalion of 300 strong was way out of his league. Even if he had known, it would not have altered his plans. Why should he do that just to save the lives of a few of his pathetic conscripts?

      I never met Platoon Sergeant Joe Amos, although we had been traveling on a parallel course for over a year now. He had been one of hundreds of drill Sergeants, who trained raw recruits like me at Fort Jackson South Carolina, in the summer of 1966 and was probably there while I was there. Now, upon arrival in-country on October 17, he had immediately been rushed to the front and assigned as a platoon sergeant in A Company. Less than two weeks later, Joe’s Platoon was in the lead position, when A Company was attacked.

      Joe had been born in the segregated state of Alabama on April 21, 1931. When he was a boy, Americans like Joe not only rode at the back of the bus, but they also were required to use different public facilities like restrooms, restaurants, and hotels. When they traveled, they usually had to sleep in their cars or beside them on the ground. Good paying jobs were all but non-existent for young men like Joe Amos. To say Joe started his life as a second-class citizen would be an insulting understatement. Even the United States Army was segregated when Joe was a boy.     It would be a lie if I said these conditions did not phase young Joe. Yes, they hurt him, but he didn't let these persecutions stop him. Many Americans, who shared those same obstacles, buckled under the steady stream of humiliations, which came with them. However, there was a different kind of fire burning inside the Baptist heart of Joe Amos. No doubt, it had been kindled by those truths which he had been taught as a child in that little "all black" church, which he had no choice but to attend week after week. This kind of fire is not dampened by adversity. Adversity simply makes it grow brighter. Joe learned early on two important things that many people never learn. The first thing he learned was never let other people's opinions shape his own opinions unless they made sense to him. Secondly, he learned from those church bible stories, that life is not fair. He also learned that he shouldn't let that stop him. The teenaged Joe first got to put these truths into practice when he got the opportunity to play football at Wenonah High. Football helped greatly to prepare the young Joe for a career in the U.S. Army. After the Korean War, more and more opportunities started opening up in the U.S. Army. Though still prejudicial in many ways, it was a "no brainer" for Joe to take advantage of the doors in the Army which were opening to him. He learned some valuable lessons about being part of a team, first with football and then in the Army. Joe was able to build on what he learned, but it all started with the foundation laid in Joe's soul, which was shaped by those bible stories taught to him as a boy.    

      After high school Joe served in the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team during the Korean conflict. There are two occurrences, which I was able to glean from researching Joe’s early life, that are a testament to his fearless nature. The first was a statement made by one of Joe’s buddies concerning an incident he experienced with Joe, while they were in combat in Korea. His friend said they were being shelled by enemy artillery and were running for a fox hole to take cover when an artillery shell exploded in that very fox hole, just before they got to it. Joe jumped in anyway and then turned to his friend and said, “Come on. They can’t hit the same place twice”. The second example of his fearlessness was when Joe took on all comers while he was still in Korea to become the Regimental heavy weight boxing champion. With knowledge of these facts, I think it is safe to say Joe was a real man’s man, who did not have to seek out the respect of his fellow soldiers. He just naturally conducted himself in a way that made his fellow officers and men respect him. They automatically gave Joe the type of respect that most men long for, but few obtain. In 1965, Joe, again, entered a combat zone, when his 82nd Airborne Unit was sent to the Dominican Republic.

      All who have faced combat are changed forever by that experience. That's easy to know but here is a fact which is a little harder to understand. It is a rare person, indeed, who is able to face combat in two different wars and be able to volunteer for yet a third combat tour. However, that's exactly what 36-year-old Sergeant Joe Amos did. I have read the comments of his friends and I know what the battleground conditions were, at that spot on the earth where Joe fought his last battle in his last war. I also got a taste of "Joe's world" after he returned from "war number two", just before he volunteered for Vietnam. He was a drill sergeant at Fort Jackson, South Carolina and those drill sergeants who trained draftees like me at Fort Jackson were some of the finest NCOs whom I ever had the privilege of knowing. As a whole, they seemed to possess a "fathering spirit" which said "do as I do" instead of "do as I say". They "walked the walk" and did not just "talked the talk". I have "ever since" marveled at the character, which almost to a man, these men possessed. Most of them, like Joe, had been tempered in the cruel fires of combat in Korea and had been found to be made of a fine and rare metal. My training unit's forty-year-old first sergeant ran every morning at the head of every five-mile run we made. After graduation, one of the guys in my platoon got married and that same first sergeant stood in as the father of the bride to give her away. Almost to a man, we trainees developed the utmost respect for this man.

      Yes, war had changed Joe Amos, but he had defied the odds to become a much better version of himself. He had become a "fathering spirit" to every young grunt under his command. However, Joe had also gotten married and now had two children. In Korea, he had no one to worry about except himself. Now there were other lives, which were his responsibility to shepherd. Now, there was a conflicting choice to be made. Was he going to continue maintaining the high level of respect which he had worked so hard to achieve in the eyes of himself, his superiors and those "grunt sons"? If he was, that would mean "hitting the ground running" by volunteering for a one-year tour in Vietnam. The other choice was to stay stateside and retire in two years. If he chose to leave the Army to become a functioning husband and father to his family, that meant he would probably be limited to accepting one of a list of demeaning civilian jobs, which were usually the only ones available to Americans like Joe Amos in 1960s America. This would turn out to be the most fateful decision of Joe's life other than confessing Jesus Christ as his Lord. He chose Vietnam and his "grunt sons" and gambled that he would have the rest of his life to be a father to his children.

           As Joe's point men in A company moved through the rubber trees, they were noticed by enemy machine gunners while they were still maybe two or three hundred meters away. An enemy machine gunner got an itchy trigger finger and started shooting way too soon. The Americans hit the ground between the rows of rubber trees and stopped moving around in the grassy weeds, where they became almost invisible. Having only four Americans killed in the entire battle is why I say that the enemy machine gunners started shooting too soon. If they had waited, they would have killed more Americans with their first shots. Some members of A Company were no doubt wounded in the initial bursts of fire. From the very start Joe’s combat experience in Korea "kicked in". Joe was conditioned by two previous wars to being exposed to incoming enemy fire. It didn't scare him into freezing up. Instead, it prompted him into doing what he had always done. He hollered for others to help move the wounded to the rear while he began to address a more immediate need to return fire. To do this, Joe needed to make sure that the less than thirty men in his understrength platoon were spread out, online, and shooting. Their return fire was crucial to cover the maneuvering of A Company's other two platoons. Each of those platoons were now moving up and spreading out to cover each flank. Any soldier who wasn't returning fire was instructed by Joe in no uncertain terms to start returning fire in the direction of incoming enemy tracer rounds. Once a perimeter was established and Joe had everyone returning a good volume of fire, the NVA started feeling the heat. At the present range the M-16 return fire wasn't very effective, but the fire coming from the enemy's AK-47s was also very ineffective. Most of these rounds went high at those distances. If Joe had stayed down and issued orders to others, he would have survived the battle, but he wasn't made like that. Joe was a "lead from the front" kind of leader. There was a lot to be done and he was going to personally see that it got done. Extra belts of M-60 machine gun ammo was soon needed. Almost every soldier carried two "one hundred round belts", which were usually draped over our shoulders. However, that ammo now needed to be collected and gotten into the hands of the platoon machine gunners before they ran out. This was not the personal responsibility of the platoon sergeant. He was supposed to assign that task to others. That's what a good platoon sergeant would have done but that's not what a good father would have done. As I have already explained, Joe Amos did not see himself as just a boss, but as a father figure to the grunts he commanded. A good father could never leave his sons alone in a desperate situation without circulating among them, looking them in the eye, and making sure they were doing what they needed to be doing to stay alive. The platoon leader lieutenant was a kid, himself. He certainly wasn't going to fill that role. Besides, he had his hands full on the radio, coordinating artillery, and communicating with the company commander. Moving among his men in a "hands on" way was how Joe had always approached his job and it was how he would approach it today. However, he wasn't alone. Joe and his grunt family had help coming from two "ole timers". They were Kenneth Hanson and Michael Kenter. Both had been in-country since the beginning of the year. Both had earned their C.I.B. in the same battle, clearing those same enemy bunkers, where I had received my C.I.B. Both, like me, were twenty-year-old draftees, who had started out their in-country combat experiences as 19-year-old privates. However, that is where the similarity ended. Both had made the transition to become good young leaders. I had not. Both went from private to sergeant in less than a year while I and many others remained "privates". Although these two young men were my close contemporaries, they were much more mature than I. Both felt more comfortable around authority. I, like so many others, was still an awkward teenager, who was not only uncomfortable around authority, but also uncomfortable around myself and my God.

      There were at least 600 VC attacking less than 100 Americans, so Dick wasted no time ordering D Company to saddle up and "go help". D Company covered the 1000 meters in record time while Mac's C Company spread out into vacated spots on the perimeter, preparing to defend against an attack on the NDP, itself. At this moment, if Cam had been that "storied commander" that the leftist press loves to write about, he would have also attacked the NDP. If he had done that, he would have had an excellent opportunity to overrun it's lightly defended perimeter.

     As D Company left the perimeter and disappeared into the rubber trees to help the battling A Company, the lone C Company was left to defend the NDP. However, they were not cowering down as most Hollywood directors would have portrayed in their movie version of this battle. Yes, C Company was now having to man bunkers that required three companies to man properly but anyone not able to deal with the prospect of the 1/18th's NDP becoming another "Alamo" had long since been assigned elsewhere. At this point in Dick's reign, he had weeded out the ranks of his officers, while C Company NCOs like "Mac" McLaughlin and O'Brian had done the same with the grunts in C Company, who couldn't cut it. Those solid dependable newer guys, like Tom Mercer took note of this and continued that policy. Before I left the field I had really come to like the way my squad leader, Sergeant Bartee, treated us, but he was weak in this very necessary element of good leadership.

      Here is a brief description of the real "mood change" of C Company as they were left all alone to defend the perimeter. As they thinned their already thin defensive lines, they narrowed their focus to just those matters which they had learned over time to be a priority. With that new focus, there came a very "matter-of-fact" mood change throughout the NDP, as everyone went about the business of addressing these new priorities. Most grunts didn't have to be told what to do and no C Company NCO would have tried to dominate his domain by barking out orders. This was not the right time for barking. Quite frankly, every level of C company leadership was now too busy gathering their own thoughts to worry about grunts, whom they had already prepared and come to trust. If there was a "doubting Thomas" in leadership, he could see with his own eyes that everyone was doing what they should have been doing. Besides, the "ole man" had their back and that was a big solace. Overall, a somber, but determined mood did quickly settle over everyone left behind in C Company's NDP, but that's different than fear. A fearful mood paralyses but a somber and determined mood can greatly sharpen the focus of a person or an entire nation. "Ole timers" went about making sure that they had quick access to every available tool, which would help stop hordes of attackers if it came to that. Extra claymores were always a good option, and more were strung out in weak spots. Extra crates of ammo and hand grenades were divided up and placed in easy reach. Extra M-60 machine gun barrels were placed near the gun. An extra LAW (light anti-tank weapon) or two was never a bad idea but these were harder to come by. Yes, the sounds of battle one thousand meters away would have been noted, but it would not have produced that helpless fear ladened response which Hollywood script writers are so fond of portraying. Its true. As the shooting had started, and D Company had saddled up to go help, there had been a notable change in the general mindset of C Company. However, that overhaul mood change was more like that of a lioness, changing from the motherly mood of a "momma lion", watching over her cubs, to that of an expectant and deadly predator, who was now positioning itself to better catch and kill its prey. Feelings of fear might come later, but not now. Small talk would again return, but not now. Barking would also again be heard and NCOs like Mac and O.B. would again attend to the "potty training" of their new guys, but not now. No, no not now.

      When D Company joined the melee, they spread out online to the left flank of A Company. Those same Montagnards, who warned Dick the day before, had spent the night in our NDP. Now they had joined the members of D Company on their left flank and everyone online charged toward a small hill, Hill 203, but not until Dick pulverized it with artillery. There was some hand-to-hand fighting, mostly between the enemy and the Montagnards. Those Montagnards had a lot of pent up anger and many old scores to settle. No doubt every one of those poor souls who fought with us that day lost their lives when the communists took over Vietnam. Wikipedia reports that over two hundred thousand Montagnards were slaughtered after we left Vietnam. The 165th was soon put to flight but how could this have happened? The Americans were outnumbered at least three to one and as I said, the fighting became "man to man". Also, the fighting was on relatively open ground where these so called "storied fighters" and their over whelming numbers of shooters should have laid waste to us Americans. They made two charges which were not stopped by our artillery, because the enemy could charge over this open ground in the rubber trees much too fast for artillery to be effective. Instead, Cam's newly arrived novices from the north were stopped by the good shooting coming from A Company people, laying on the ground and taking careful aim, and then advancing, similar to way Mac's platoon maneuvered the day before. Unlike firefights in thick jungle, the poorly trained NVA could not be organized into formations, to execute those suicidal human wave charges, which devastated the 1/16th in The Battle of Xom Bo II. The accurate rifle, machine gun and thump gun fire coming from Dick's sure shooters coupled with their advance and fire tactics was just too much for Cam's slave army. It soon became a blood bath for these already physically abused teenage conscripts, but I am sure Cam shed no tears. There were plenty more where they came from. At this point, I must say that it was fortuitous that this battlefield was more suited for our traditional "advance and fire" World War II tactics, which we did not get to use in the thick jungles. Couple this fact with American young guns raised on "Roy Rogers" and it was a sure recipe for a victory for the 1/18th. From my analysis, it looks like Dick did not have much direct influence on this one battle, but he had sure done a good job of preparing his grunts for the battle in the first place. No doubt, the quick responses of the lead platoon, led by Sergeant Joe Amos, Hansen and Kenter got the ball rolling for the rest of A Company. They paid the price with their lives, but A Company did not lose any more men in the entire battle. However, like so many others, Joe's family is still paying the price. Most of those payments went to an ungrateful nation, as it bought into the lies spun by the very same type of thugs whom Joe was fighting.

      As the 165th broke and ran A and D Companies continued their advance, but halted at the top of hill 203. Enemy conscripts helped other wounded members of their cell groups run down into a gorge to the southeast. They clawed their way through thick jungle until they found a trail, any trail, which would lead away from the anti-personnel bombs and napalm which Dick was now calling down on them. As hell descended, they were forced to abandon many of their dying and dead comrades along the way. These wounded and dead were almost all the work of Dick's boys. Their bodies were ripped to shreds by the bombs and artillery landing in the gorge. This was not an anomaly. It was a scenario which was replayed over and over in many other battles, as well, giving the impression to naive analysts that artillery and air power won most, if not all our battles. It was a mistake that gave the leftist media an un-refuted opening to propagate the lie that the American soldier in Vietnam was nothing more than a whimpering sniveling lowlife, cringing in our fox holes, and crying for our "mommas", while being saved by American artillery and air power. As I have said before, many times artillery was needed, but always in unison with the fighting man doing his part. It was useless without us first risking our lives in shootouts where many of the wounded and dead enemy were mistakenly counted as enemy killed by artillery and air power. The facts indicate that many times they were killed or wounded first by us. After a battle, the enemy dead would be shredded by our artillery making it impossible to tell the real cause of death. Also, after a battle the enemy would spend hours combing the trails, gathering up the dead and wounded to make it virtually impossible later to get an accurate body count. This meant that even if we did (which we didn't) spend valuable time combing the woods, looking for enemy bodies, it would have been impossible for us to get an accurate count. Also, my familiarity with the battlefields tells me that it was impossible to tell whether an American soldier's bullet or a bomb killed that enemy soldier. Taking these factors into consideration, I am certain that the numbers of enemy dead were on average at least twice what the official reports said. Many of the wounded were taken to primitive underground facilities where they later died for lack of proper medical treatment.

      In the final analysis of any war, it is the grunts, not air power which wins the victory in all wars. North Vietnam is the proof of that statement. It had no air power in South Vietnam, and very little artillery? What it did have was a poorly trained slave army controlled by a relatively few "Mafia type thugs". Through an Increditably efficient bureaucracy, these thugs could manage any number of human beings from cradle to grave, in the performance of their every whim. Their only fear was each other. This system of government produces an almost endless supply of human beings as slaves, to fewer than twenty people at the top of the food chain. The same type of governmental control is taking over once free governments of the world today, which are becoming devoid of what was once considered inalienable human rights and freedom to chose one's own course in life. How many poor Russian souls do you suppose want to kill and be killed in Ukraine and yet they are being forced by their government to do so?