Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [149]
Private First Class Wood extended his combat tour by two months to take advantage of a five-month early-out program; so when his DSC was approved in February 1971, he was serving with B/2-8 Cav of the 1st Cav. General Abrams himself was flying up to make the presentations, so B Company was pulled back to their fire support base to get haircuts and fresh fatigues. The NVA mortared them that night. In the morning, Wood was in the Long Binh hospital with shrapnel in his liver when Abrams pinned on the DSC and a second Purple Heart.
PART EIGHT: GOING AFTER COSVN
Three days after the 1st Brigade, 25th Division, used Thien Ngon as a springboard across Rach Cai Bac into Base Area 354, the 2d Brigade, 25th Division, similarly used Thien Ngon in an attack northwest to Krek in Base Area 707. The communists' theater headquarters, known as the Central Office of South Vietnam (COSVN) to the U.S. command, was thought to be beyond Krek, and the planners estimated that several days would be needed to break through to COSVN. However, the day the 2d Brigade crossed the line, Lieutenant General Davison, CG, II FFV, and Major General Bautz, CG, 25th Division, were at Thien Ngon. Resistance was so light that Davison raised the question: could we just go ahead and attack COSVN now? By then it was almost noon–the attack was already committed to its original objectives–and Bautz answered that he would have needed to have made that decision two or three hours earlier. Could the plan be restructured to strike into COSVN within two days? The answer was yes, and the result was cache after cache.
Chapter 29: THE THREE-QUARTER HORSE
On the evening of 6 May 1970, Lt. Col. Corwin A. Mitchell and Maj. Alvin W. Kremer, CO and S-3, respectively, of the 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 25th Division, radioed Capt. Arthur A. Schulcz, CO of C Troop at FSB Bunard, to pack up for a return trip to their normal Cu Chi AO. Captain Schulcz's C Troop, having spent the past week screening behind the Blackhorse's drive into the Fishhook, closed into Cu Chi well before nightfall the next day to resume duty with their own 25th Division. First Lieutenant Laurence OToole's A Troop returned from Phuoc Tuy, and Capt. Oleh Koropey's B Troop returned from Song Be.
The 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry, was reassembling at Cu Chi in order to spearhead another phase of Operation Bold Lancer, this one under the direction of the 2d Brigade, 25th Division, and pointed northeast through the Dog's Face into the Krek rubber plantations of Cambodia. The town of Krek sat at the junction of Cambodian Route 78 (a continuation of RVN Highway 22) running north, and Cambodian Route 7 running west to east toward Memot. The cav was to secure the roads as 4-9 and 1-27 Infantry combat assaulted into an area where a most tantalizing target was thought to be ensconced: COSVN.
Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell would not be going with them. His six months of command time were up and he was to complete his tour at Headquarters USARV in Long Binh. His successor, Lt. Col. Noel D. Knotts, who'd spent his first six months with Headquarters USARV, assumed command on the morning of 7 May 1970 as the line troops closed on Cu Chi.
Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell would be missed by the Three-Quarter Horse. He had originally joined them in November 1969 after the relief of their commander, a West Point classmate named Paluh, by the incumbent division commander, Hollis. At that time the squadron reputation was so lackluster that instead of operating under division control as was normal, the squadron had been turned over to Whitehead's brigade. What Hollis and Whitehead did not tell Mitchell until later was that if he had not begun to turn the 3-4 Cav around in two weeks, he would have gone the way of his predecessor.