Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [171]
On 7 May 1971, 2d Battalion, 1st Marines stood down (they left Da Nang nineteen days later) and two companies of the 196th Infantry Brigade assumed the bunkers on Hill 327 and the rest of Division Ridge. At that time, the ARVN assumed completely the Que Son-Hiep Duc-Song Chang AO, and the 196th, Americal, joined the 101st Airborne Division in patrolling around Da Nang and the An Hoa Basin (in the new defensive terminology, “areas of responsibility” were now “areas of interest”).
In the fall of 1971, journalists again caught up with the 4th of the 31st Infantry. One correspondent tagged along on patrol with Bravo Company and reported that, although unenthusiastic, the men had a good captain and did a good job. It was also noted that Bravo had not made contact in six months. The morale was entirely different at 4–31 Rear, Da Nang. The story there centered on the battalion exec, a perceptive and strong man, and his war on drug abuse among the support personnel. By then, the GIs had graduated from marijuana to heroin and they did not limit themselves to private bitchings about the lifers. Fragging threats had been made against the exec; the major commented, unbluffed, “It’s like war, you take chances.”
It was a bad time for the Americal Division.
Fraggings. Drug abuse. Combat refusals. They seemed to be epidemic, and the trials for My Lai never seemed to end. “The press at times seemed eager to publicize only the most negative stories about the Americal,” commented Captain Downey of the 196th, who finished his second Vietnam tour in November 1971, “but remember this. In the midst of Nixon’s great Vietnamization program it wasn’t the 1st Cav, the Big Red One, 101st Airborne, nor the 1st Marine Division that was holding the NVA at bay. It was the Americal Division and not much more. My own very subjective opinion is that the Americal Division, after My Lai, was unofficially but purposefully designated as the sacrificial lamb to a war everyone knew would end in tragedy.”
The troops felt the same way. In April 1972, Alpha and Charlie 2–1 were airlifted to Phu Bai, north of Da Nang, to protect U.S. installations in the face of the 1972 Easter Invasion. Of the 142 troopers in Charlie Company, 50 temporarily refused orders to move outside the Phu Bai perimeter. It wasn’t even big news anymore, just a couple of paragraphs:
“Excuse me, colonel, but as accredited MACV correspondents we are entitled to talk to these soldiers.”
The colonel blocked the way. “Well, I’m not going to let you talk to them.” He was as good as his word. The trucks carrying a company of the U.S. 196th Infantry rolled away moments later. In a conversation over a concertina-wire fence, other soldiers explained there had indeed been a misunderstanding and a temporary refusal by a company to go into the field. The soldiers are reasonable and rational, and after a two-hour appeal by their commanding officer they all agree to go. But the soldiers make it plain they feel no obligation to fight for Vietnam and will accept only such action as is necessary to protect themselves and other Americans.
The colors of the Americal Division were folded in November 1971 (taking with it the 11th and 198th Brigades), and the 196th Brigade followed in June 1972. In four years in South Vietnam, about 100,000 men had served in the division; more than 3,400 had been killed and 22,500 wounded. They won eleven Medals of Honor. The last battalion of the last brigade, 3d of the 21st Infantry, remained on the Da Nang perimeter.