Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [134]
Chapter 25: SECOND PLATOON
On the second morning of the Parrot's Beak operation, Lieutenant Sprinkles, having just thumbed a ride aboard a resupply ship leaving the 6-31 Rear at FSB Keaton (Ben Luc), walked over to the shady stand of trees where Captain Lowe and his FO and RTOs stood beside stilts that had once supported a house. The sun had turned the surrounding paddies into broiler pans. GIs had strung poncho shelters between the saplings. Lowe wanted Sprinkles back with his old platoon to help the new second lieutenant, Mize, should the platoon make contact as was expected. Lieutenant Mize was a good man but vulnerably green, and Cambodia was no place to learn the ropes.
Since this was Sprinkles's first day in the area, Lowe took his map and briefed him. The reconnaissance platoon and the three line companies from the 6th of the 31st that had CA'd into the Parrot's Beak were gearing up this morning for a four-day spell of Eagle Flights, which would work them progressively deeper into Cambodia from Ba Thu. Eagle Flights consisted of helicoptering individual platoons into separate, preselected locations where intelligence had calculated the chance of finding a cache or an enemy unit. The platoons went in lift packets of four Hueys, covered by two Cobras, and monitored by the C&C Huey carrying the battalion commander, operations officer, and artillery liaison officer. The platoons dropped in fast, but if nothing developed in the ten minutes it took them to secure the nearest tree line or hootch, the command ship would buzz to where the next platoon was clattering in. Each platoon then spent two or three hours searching their area, and if nothing was found, they would repeat the drill in another potential hot spot. This resulted in the sky above the Parrot's Beak becoming dotted with helicopters. Fire Support Base Seminole, which had no bunkers and no wire, was turned into a way station, with half a dozen Cobras, Hueys, and Loaches parked in the dirt at any given time to save burning fuel in orbits.
Lowe explained to Sprinkles that he, Lowe, would be leaving FSB Seminole soon with Weed's 3d Platoon for a foot patrol to Samraong, where a U.S. Special Forces team had been hit during the night. Helicopters would be arriving later that morning, and Sprinkles was to hitch up with Mize's 2d Platoon for an Eagle Flight to a hamlet west of FSB Seminole called Chantrea. With that, Sprinkles hiked atop a dike to where 2d Platoon was slumped against a low berm. The man he was sent to oversee, Lieutenant Mize, greeted him. Mize had joined the platoon only a few weeks earlier, and Sprinkles suggested that he would control the lead squad if Mize would take his RTO and control the rear squad. That was the most polite way of telling him to keep his ass out of the way, and Mize seemed relieved to have someone lift the burden. Sprinkles then rounded up Nguyen Van Hong, their young Tiger Scout, and got the platoon to its feet.
The grunts on the dike beamed at his arrival, and Sprinkles couldn't help but grin back as they all shook hands. It felt good to be back in the bush, back with men he trusted. One of his men, who'd originally arrived with that group of twenty replacements in September of ' 69, was especially good: Sp4c. Dennis Keith Walker. Better known as Wylie for his cool courage as the platoon point man, he was a tall, lanky, blond-haired kid from a small town in Pennsylvania where his father and both grandfathers had been coal miners. He'd been drafted right out of high school, and he too would end up in the mines after he was mustered out. Walker had originally served as Sprinkles's RTO but had chafed in that assignment. He finally got out from under the radio and, because he wanted to do right by his buddies