Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [126]
Meanwhile, D Troop, 3-4 Cav (which was organic to but not opcon to the squadron), screened the exit routes as the ground troops advanced, and had chalked up seventy-four kills.
The last unit withdrew from BA 354 at 1925, 14 May 1970, and the 65th Engineers dismantled their pontoon bridge across the Rach Cai Bac. The battalion's motto, First In–Last Out, had been altered by the draftees now manning the 65th to read Forced In–Lost Out. In a sense, the 25th Division had lost out with Operation Bold Lancer. They simply had not had the time or manpower to search the area thoroughly. They had given the NVA a pounding, but in no time at all aerial observers overflying BA 354 were again taking ground fire, and intelligence estimated that 800 troops of the 9th NVA Division and 750 of the 95C NVA Regiment had resumed their positions in the area. The Tropic Lightning was stretched too thinly to respond. Brigadier General Greene was circumspect in declaring victory, “I have serious doubts that the operation was as successful as we–the division headquarters–thought it would be. I think, as time showed, the effect of our operation really was not what we had hoped we were going to do to the VC. In the final analysis, the 25th Division uncovered only a very, very small portion of their large base complex spread along the entire border.”
As an infantry outfit, C/1-5 Mech had few racial problems; so, as their standdown began on 15 May 1970, the appearance of five black troopers from the 125th Signal Battalion, 25th Division, drew little notice. The next day, they numbered fifteen and had laid claim to the last case of beer. The CO of C Company explained that the beer belonged to his infantrymen, to which one of the young soldiers shouted, “Get fucked!” The signalmen, who often mouthed off to their rearechelon officers without repercussions, were cleared from the standdown area by the insulted grunts after much punching, but one of them grabbed his M16 from his hootch and charged back. By then, C Company was assembling in some bleachers to hear a Filipino rock band. The angry signalman emptied two M16 magazines at point-blank range at the unarmed infantrymen. One young sergeant stood up to return fire with an unauthorized .45 pistol. Two GIs were killed and ten wounded. Some in C Company hauled weapons from their APCs and took off in hot pursuit. It was the MPs, though, who found the murderer, and the signalman was eventually sentenced to twenty-two years at hard labor.
PART SEVEN: WE'RE THE UNWILLING LED BY THE UNQUALIFIED DOING THE UNNECESSARY FOR THE UNGRATEFUL
The sweep through the Parrot's Beak of Cambodia was almost exclusively an ARVN show, with the exception of a single U.S. infantry battalion and a half battery of their supporting artillery who were to screen behind the advance of their South Vietnamese allies. Theirs was intended to be only a light step in, but they advanced instead into some of the heaviest combat of the incursion. It received only scant publicity in the shadow of the larger U.S. operations to the north, but it was a fight that, if seen through the eyes of one rifle company– which had its share of the morale problems of the period–told the story not only of agonizing loss, but also of the best qualities of the U.S. Army Infantry.
Chapter 23: POLAR BEARS IN THE PARROT's BEAK
First Lieutenant Randolph S. Sprinkles, the twenty-three-year-old leader of the 2d Platoon, D Company, 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry, 3d Brigade (Separate), 9th Division, a West Pointer and an Airborne Ranger, had been in the bush only two days when he first had this thought: Perhaps the people who are telling me where to go and what to do don't know what they're doing.
Sprinkles had just lost half of his platoon.
They had been on a routine security patrol half a klick from brigade base camp when Captain Busch radioed them to sweep north through a particular wood