Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [151]
Another man who did his job was a lieutenant named Russell Steindam from B Troop. Steindam had already done his six months on the line, but when Mitchell said his Ranger training was needed to lead the night ambushes, Steindam agreed, without an ounce of enthusiasm, to go back. Not wanting to be there, he died there, in the dark of night in an old bomb crater: During a ground assault on his ambush platoon, Steindam threw himself on a grenade tossed into the crater. Steindam died for his men. His death in no other way served the republic. This Mitchell sadly knew, and he started the process that led to Russell Steindam posthumously receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor for giving his all while his country shuffled toward the exit from Vietnam.
Not all lieutenant colonels were made of the same stuff as Corwin Mitchell, so on 7 May 1970, when Noel Knotts introduced himself to his staff and troop commanders, there was a faint reserve on the part of the squadron veterans. As Sergeant Major Hickey commented, 'The skepticism had nothing to do with Colonel Knotts's ability. If he had been Jesus himself, there would have been some negative reaction.”
Lieutenant Colonel Knotts's first operational order followed introductions with Captain Schulcz of C Troop. Charlie Troop was to ride point for the Three-Quarter Horse the next morning. Their road march was to go north on Highway 1 from Cu Chi to Tay Ninh, where they'd pick up Highway 22 farther north into War Zone C to a staging area near Thien Ngon. A jump command post from the 2d Brigade, 25th Division, was being established at Thien Ngon. Further orders would there be passed to 3-4 Cav about their thrust with 4-9 and 1-27 Infantry toward Krek and, hopefully, into the COSVN base camp.
The squadron departed Cu Chi on the morning of 8 May 1970. With the excitement mounting, Lieutenant Colonel Knotts found himself thinking of his first commitment to battle as a tank lieutenant in Korea. That had also been with the 25th Division. Flying now in a Loach above the hundred combat vehicles of his squadron, Knotts was also tightly focused on the moment:
A commander who knows what he is looking for can tell a tremendous amount about an armored organization engaged in troop movement, so with an outstanding aerial scout as pilot and Sergeant Major Hickey as consultant, we flew along the column of moving armored vehicles. The column was adhering to the division/squadron movement SOP, so the discipline without immediate supervision of the squadron was good. There was no inordinate number of tracks falling out of the column, or lagging vehicles, so the vehicle maintenance was satisfactory. Troopers manning machine guns were keeping track of their surroundings, so battle awareness was good. The column was on schedule and causing minimum disruption of the other traffic on the road. I could see that the squadron was a highly professional organization. There were a lot of hats missing, but what the hell in light of everything else.
Lieutenant Colonel Knotts had indeed inherited a good unit. His operations officer, Kremer, was a solid West Point professional, cool, levelheaded, and a hell of a nice guy to boot. His sergeant major, Hickey, was an old soldier who'd grown up during the Depression pushing a plow behind an old gray mule in Cooke ville, Tennessee, and who had fought in Korea as a tank platoon sergeant.