Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [106]
The battalion firebase was so high on a mountain, the view of the country-side was beautiful. A tall man–I realized he was the battalion sergeant major–brought me to the battalion commander. He informed me that my unit was in the field and that as soon as another chopper came in, he would take me to Delta Company. Finally, the battalion commander and I boarded a chopper–me and him–not a word was spoken. We landed in a large grassy area and we both ran to the tree line. He introduced me to the company commander, a thin, bearded, and, I thought, hardened vet. Our eyes met, few words were spoken. Just then shots rang out. The battalion commander immediately ran to the chopper, whose blades were still whirring furiously, and took off. My CO then informed me that my platoon was in contact. There wasn't any saliva left in my mouth. The firing stopped as quickly as it had begun and a hatless vet came running up the hill to our location. It was my platoon sergeant, a college grad who had been leading the platoon for some time. I told my platoon sergeant that this was still his platoon and I would be there to support and observe the action. As we proceeded down the hill, staying as close to trees as possible, my legs were like rubber. Within minutes a medevac was overhead and I viewed the casualty being lifted in a body bag through the trees.
On the morning of the assault, 1st. Lt. Robert E. Szigethy had been told by his company commander that he would be leading the battalion in. When he walked to his chopper, he found two French photographers who'd been given permission to ride with his lead ship, which was well and good except that the pilot informed Szigethy that he could carry no more than nine men. With a crew of four, plus the two reporters, that meant Szigethy could take only two men. Angry and unsure, he opted to let his RTO ride in the next ship, while he took a machine gunner and his ammo bearer with him. Minutes later, they were airborne. Twenty minutes after that, the pilot began his descent toward a brown clearing in the towering green of the forest. Unable to hear anything over the thump of the blades, Szigethy didn't realize that they were under fire until he saw the tracers streaming by. He leaned into the slipstream to look down: Around the edges of the clearing, the NVA had dug slit trenches, reinforced them with logs, and emplaced heavy machine guns. The pilot was motioning to his copilot, and Szigethy tried to find out what was going on. The pilot turned to him and jerked his thumb toward the rear. They were heading back.
Things had not gone well across the board that first day. The morning's air strikes on the initial LZs had not had the desired effect, and by the time the lift ships had returned to Plei D'Jereng and Pleiku, there was not enough time to refuel and relaunch before dark. Anyway, the weather had soured, so that operations were postponed until the next day, all of which meant that at the end of the D-Day of Operation Tame the West, not a single 4th Division trooper was on the ground in Cambodia.
It was a situation that could and did produce some finger pointing. When General Abrams, COMUSMACV, flew up to consult with Major General Walker, he immediately asked, “How much air support did you use?”
“We put in a hundred and three sorties.”
Walker had already looked up that figure, knowing that it would be a concern of Abrams, and that basically ended the discussion. If Abrams was displeased with how the 4th Division had acquitted itself, he did not make it known to Walker. In fact, Walker was promoted to lieutenant general soon after Cambodia, and third stars simply did not go to division commanders who had not measured up in the eyes of COMUSMACV.
Although Walker heard no criticism, his subordinates were not similarly immune to