Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [162]
Chapter 31: LOOKING INSIDE THE BAG
While reconning the main access road leading north through the rubber from their laager, on the morning of 12 May 1970, the tank commanded by Lieutenant Kocopi of A Company, 2d Battalion, 34th Armor, had its engine overheat to the point of almost igniting the oil. With smoke pouring from the rear deck, Kocopi had the tank halted and the turret traversed to a hundred degrees so the back grates could be pulled up and the engine checked. Kocopi and his crew were standing on the dirt road waiting for the metal to cool when a jeep approached from the north, braked, and suddenly started pumping AK47 fire all around them. With their M16s out of reach, the tankers could only roll for cover under their Patton as the jeepful of NVA, presumably rear-echelon types trying to find a way through the cordon, spun around and roared off.
In the meantime, Lieutenant Forster's platoon, sitting in blocking positions in a beautiful shaded glen in the rubber, and Lieutenant Carr's platoon, sweeping toward them, flushed not a single enemy soldier, so two hours before dark, Alpha Company reassembled in their clearing. Captain Tieman informed them that for the first time since before Cambodia, First Sergeant Heath was getting hot chow out to them. An hour later, a Chinook set down its slingloaded cargo net, and the tankers formed a food line in front of the mermite cans. An oversized cooler the size of the bed of a pickup truck was layered with Cokes on ice. Freshly laundered uniforms, with personal name tapes and 25th Division shoulder patches, were neatly wrapped in bundles and covered tightly with clear plastic. Mail sacks contained letters from home asking sons and husbands if they were among the units the families had seen crossing into Cambodia on their televisions.
As happy as could be with all these goodies, the tankers were made even happier when someone asked Marvin Six, radioese for Captain Tieman, how they were going to get the empty mermite cans and the giant cooler back to Top Heath. Tieman, just off the radio with higher-higher, dropped the bombshell, “Load 'em up in your tanks. We're going home tomorrow!” With that, everyone hollered, hooted, back-slapped, and jumped into the air. Then they wanted to know why they were leaving. Tieman explained, “B Company is having tremendous maintenance problems with their tanks, so they're pulling back the whole battalion to Tay Ninh for a maintenance standdown.”
The tankers were so relieved that no one took the time to dig in. They slept almost shoulder to shoulder on their cots inside the circle of tanks, which would have been disastrous had an NVA mortar crew been on hand. The next morning, while A/2-34 Armor departed Cambodia, 2-22 Mech, like the other units remaining near the bombed-out headquarters, began looking inside the bag they had encircled. Lieutenant Giasson, HHC/2-22 Mech, recorded in his diary that night:
Living outside, sleeping in foxholes, eating C rations, not shaving or showering is beginning to get old after eight days now. We are all filthy, have various rashes and skin diseases, and other infections from the environment. This is war, someone has to muck it out, fight, and suffer. Now I know what it's really like. Six of our captured POWs were brought back to the battalion CP and questioned. Most of the NVA have escaped except for those sick who were unable to flee. Their information has led us to more caches and enemy equipment. It doesn't take much to force these POWs to talk. Usually a slap will do it. Sometimes a punch, then a threat followed by a knife to the throat is necessary.
Only the day before, two captured NVA and three captured VC had been escorted to the battalion laager. In the presence of the battalion intelligence officer, Giasson had watched their Kit Carson Scouts slap, punch, and brandish bayonets at the prisoners, who were blindfolded and tied, and who, said Giasson, “all looked young–fourteen to sixteen years old–and were scared to death of course.