Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [175]
Sitting around in a laager position, Sergeant Koch of Charlie Company, back from the rear after his wounds had healed, was approached by two soldiers. He knew them; they were good guys. They said that the company commander was responsible for a lot of people losing their lives, and that a five-hundred-dollar bounty had been raised on the captain, whom they called Fat Al. They wanted Koch to kill him, an offer that he wouldn't even entertain and that surprised him. But he was a sniper on his second tour, and because of that and his reticent nature, a certain loner-killer persona had developed around him to the point that some of the new guys wouldn't even talk to him for fear he'd explode. All of which was ridiculous. Koch really didn't have that many kills. He was simply a soft-spoken man who liked to sit and read. As it turned out, no one else was willing to assassinate the captain.
Fragging was a lot like the black clap, Koch thought: You always heard about it but never actually saw a case.
* * *
On 24 May, when the Triple Deuce was in its second full day of recuperating on the Vietnamese side of the border, Colonel Holliday, still in command, climbed aboard his C&C Huey with Lt. Col. Nathan C. Vail for the flight up Highway 22 from Thien Ngon. Climbing from Holliday's helicopter in the muddy laager, Vail met Parker halfway between the chopper and the command post. A quick salute, handshake, and a few words, and Parker loaded his footlocker aboard the helicopter and departed.
Parker had been professorial and subdued, but as the battalion staff spent the day briefing Vail, they realized quickly that this was a man of a different cut. Smart, tough, brash, and egocentric were some of the words used to describe the new CO. He was a paratrooper, a firm believer in established conventional doctrine, and he soon let the Triple Deuce know that as far as he was concerned their casualties along Ambush Alley had been their own fault. The battalion had become too lax, too loose. That would change, he said. They would establish no predictable patterns of movement. They would recon by fire, secure the flanks, and use the Flame Platoon to burn out positions of probable ambush or booby traps. They were to fire and maneuver. They were to take the bush like straight-leg infantrymen. It was time, Vail hammered at his captains and lieutenants, to get back to basics.
Vail also told the battalion that they would be going back into Cambodia the next morning. Giasson wrote in his diary that night, “I didn't have to tell anyone to clean their weapons. They did it out of self-preservation.”
On 25 May, Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie of the Triple Deuce led the way back, busting jungle on the flanks of the road to disrupt possible ambushers. The trees were battered from the night's prep barrage, and the soil was wet from the rains. Tracks got stuck and the going was slow, the vehicles of the battalion command post, which were to go down the road between the line companies, not able to get moving until three hours after noon. Moving and stopping to keep pace with their struggling flank security, the men atop the tracks on the road were anxious with memories of the ambushing on this same road as they slowly rolled past the gouged tree trunks. By seven that evening, the Triple Deuce had made it to the same laager astride Ambush Alley that they had occupied on their way out four days earlier. Ten minutes after they arrived, the NVA opened fire on the tail of the column. The game was back on.
On 26 May, Alpha RIF'd. Bravo secured the AVLB that had been used to exit the area the first time but that had sunk to its turret in the mud. Charlie nosed