Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [167]
Those were the roughest days for the Three-Quarter Horse in Cambodia, their operations above the Dog's Face and, near the end of the campaign, in the Fishhook, usually meeting scant enemy resistance. Consequently, war for the cavalrymen in those sunny rubber plantations followed strict procedural guidelines, one of which, Lieutenant Colonel Knotts stipulated, was that all combat operations (save ambush patrols and listening posts) come to an end at 1600. It had been determined by a division operational analyst through computer sorting of casualty data that most mine and booby-trap injuries occurred after this bewitching hour, by which time troops had grown more fatigued and less observant. Other squadron policies, from employing claymore ambushes to randomly squeezing off .50-caliber, M60, and M79 rounds into the elephant grass around night laagers to deter possible sappers, were standard for the armored cavalry, with Knotts, however, placing special emphasis on leaving nothing of value behind as their patrols moved from place to place. He knew what the NVA did with what the American GI discarded. Telephone wire was rigged to carry bundles on supply bicycles, or when stripped provided the electrical current needed to detonate mines. Discarded C-ration cans were also used in making booby traps. In a well-camouflaged spiderhole within the squadron area of operations, they also found an automobile type of radio receiver, which, thanks to American electronics, had been modified to receive the frequencies upon which the squadron communicated. It was powered by an American radio battery, radio and battery both protected from the elements in American ammo cans. Also in the hole was paper marked with Vietnamese-language characters by the English-speaking Vietnamese who had hidden in the hole, monitoring and translating the squadron's transmissions. It seemed, though, that the NVA were using such information mostly to avoid the squadron.
The Cambodian Incursion was different from other operations, at least for Captain Schulcz of C Troop, in the intensity of the patrolling, the lack of time for maintenance, and the clogs in the supply chain, which meant, for example, that after they burned off the rubber on their road wheels, they kept running on the rim. Schulcz leaned mostly on one S. Sgt. John Childs, whom he considered the finest motor daddy in the United States Army:
They used to tell stories about Sergeant Childs, that he was not liked in the 25th Division's maintenance battalion because he knew more about their supply and spare parts than they did. If they told him, “Well, we don't have that,” he'd say, “Check conex four, fifth tray,” or whatever. He would find a way to get the part. He made maintenance in my troop the best in the squadron. He could tell you more about the tracks than even the people who drove them. We had a system where he would tell me what the worst track in the troop was, and then that would be his track. And he would work on it and practically rebuild it. Then the next week or so he'd take another track, which was then the worst track, and through this system of rotation, he would keep up the tracks. That was his system. I can take absolutely no credit for it.
The road wheels and track blocks in particular were taking a beating, and Captain Schulcz finally sent Staff Sergeant Childs back across the border in a truck with instructions to get whatever supplies he could any way he could. Such midnight requisitions were frowned upon from above, but the hierarchy was not responding to the problem. In fact, it seemed to Schulcz that the 25th Division did not even know that 3-4 Cav had a problem so again and again, Schulcz noted, it was the young staff sergeant who had to come through for them:
Sergeant Childs developed a pump for pumping fuel