Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [116]
Because of the shattered tree stumps, the Hueys could come to a hover no lower than four feet above the ground. Captain Lawson R. Pride, CO of C Company, 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, 25th Division, aboard the second ship of an eighteen-ship lift at 0710, 6 May 1970, stepped out onto the skid as the Huey descended. He studied where he could jump so that, weighted under full bandoliers and rucksack and his steel helmet, which everyone wore because they expected a hot landing zone, he would not impale himself on the stakes. Their landing zone was a rubble of disintegrated, flattened, and upended trees that swirled with dust and ash at their hovering. Pride surveyed the destruction with startled awe: How could anybody have survived this?
It was the shared hope of Captain Pride and Charlie Company that no one had. Only the afternoon before, they had been in familiar territory when their routine patrol had abruptly ended: Pride was directed to find a clearing in the jungle and to present himself at battalion forward while resupply ships refilled his men's rifle magazines, canteens, and stomachs. Also flying into the battalion firebase in War Zone C had been Lt. Col. John E. Hazelwood and Maj. Carmen J. Cavezza, CO and S-3, respectively, of 3-22 Infantry, who had unfolded their map for Pride in the CP hootch. Pride's company was to be the first into Cambodia as part of Operation Bold Lancer. His job was to secure the Cambodian bank of the Rach Cai Bac at a certain grid coordinate almost due west of Thien Ngon so that mech infantry and combat engineer units plowing their own road the five miles from the marshaling area to the border could construct a pontoon bridge and effect a crossing at a relatively secure bridgehead. The terrain was flat and jungled, and a two-ship landing zone would be opened by two USAF Commando Vault bombs, their combined weight an impressive 30,000 pounds, dropped before sunrise.
Cavezza told Pride that his company would be CA'd into Cambodia in a single lift instead of being shuttled in with the usual two or three ships, and also that the air, arty, and gunship prep on the LZ would be unusually intense. But no one really knew what to expect, and Pride had more than a few questions about the mission. Cavezza had volunteered to accompany the battalion across the border even though his tour was actually over. Getting a nod from Hazelwood, who was quiet, competent, and new to the battalion, and, like Pride, one of the few black officers of the day, he addressed the questions with his usual thoroughness and smarts that always calmed concerns. Cavezza didn't minimize the dangers, but he exuded such enthusiasm, energy, and charisma that Pride, who tried to model himself after the major, had to remind himself that he wasn't going to a tea.
Sharp young officers like Pride and the other company commanders were the reinforcing rods in the 3d of the 22 Regulars, which was a typical battalion with a typical commander. Lieutenant Colonel Hazelwood, sent to the 25th Division after spending his first six months as XO of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, was an infantry manager with clean fatigues and shined jungle boots who never went in his C&C with more than a helmet, web harness, medical pouch, and pistol. He was not a fire-breather: One night, another battalion commander flew into FSB Washington to coordinate with Hazelwood, and CSM William M. Rommal, noting the colonel's M16 rifle, .45 pistol, bandoliers, and grenades hanging from his shoulder harness, commented after their visitor's departure, “Colonel, you and me don't have to go put on all that garbage, do we?”
“Sergeant Major,” Hazelwood replied, “if you and I have to start shooting, this battalion's in trouble.”
That same low-key style of command was replicated by Lt. Col. John R. (Randy) Parker, CO of the 2d of the 22d Triple Deuce, the unit that was to link up with the 3d of the 22d Regulars on the banks of the Rach Cai Bac. Hazelwood and Parker were, in fact, typical of the proficient, undramatic battalion commanders manning the 25th Division. Although