Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [179]
PART NINE: COLONELS AND GRUNTS
It was not unknown, when a captain named Rector commanded a rifle company in the 1st Cav, for the brigade commander, Colonel Meyer, to land his C&C during a CA to discuss operations and tactics. Meyer's remarks could be positive or in the form of an ass-chewing, but regardless, it never drew his wrath that, from company commander Rector down to the youngest private, the men around Meyer–the future Chief of Staff of the United States Army–had not shaved in fifteen days, wore grubby fatigues, and stank to high heaven. As Rector noted with approval, the 1st Cav placed less emphasis on appearance than any other unit he served with. What mattered was the mission, and in Cambodia the 1st Cav would again prove that it really was the First Team.
Chapter 34: ROCK ISLAND EAST
The grunts of Delta Company, 2d Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 2d Bri-gade, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), were sitting around on rotten logs when Lt. Col. Francis A. Ianni, their battalion commander, helicoptered down through a hole in the jungle canopy to talk with Capt. James F. Johnson, their company commander. Ianni announced that President Nixon had ordered an invasion of Cambodia, and the company RTO suddenly spat, “That son of a bitch!” The radioman was a bright young man, another one of those whom the draft had plucked out of college and deposited in the bush as an Eleven Bravo. Ianni mused that only in America could an enlisted man cuss out the president in front of a battalion commander without anyone raising an eyebrow. His next thought was that it didn't matter what the RTO thought of the president because when the captain gave an order, this kid would do his duty out of loyalty to his comrades and to the able leaders who, by and large, the Gambler Battalion had in good supply. Under Ianni were Maj. Jerry D. Gatlin as S-3 and Capt. David W. Rector as S-3 air. Capt. Charles D. McKenna had Ace High, Capt. Edwin A. O'Neill had Bad Bet, Capt. Michael B. McBride had Wild Card, Capt. James F. Johnson had Stacked Deck, 1st Lt. Gregory C. Camp had Easy Winner, 2d Lt. Jimmy J. Hudnell had the Joker Recon Platoon, and Capt. Michael R. Hardy had the attached 105mm howitzers of C Battery, 1st Battalion, 77th Artillery of the 1st Cav.
At the time, the 2d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, was headquartered at a large base camp named Buttons, alongside the town of Song Be, and 2-12 Cavalry was operating some fifteen miles to the north out of a miniature firebase named Marisa on the border. Both sat near the first ripples of the Central Highlands. The mission of the 2d of the 12th Cav was to continue their firebase hopping on into Cambodia, where the jungled flatlands met these jungled ridge lines. As such, they would be the northernmost element of the division in Cambodia, and would be tramping through what showed up on the maps as NVA Base Area 351, but which was known as the Belly for the numerous supply caches that Intelligence believed to be under the rolling canopy.
The Belly was protected by the 86th NVA Rear Service Group. Lieutenant Colonel Ianni, a peppery, aggressive West Pointer and veteran of a tour seven years earlier with the ARVN, saw another opportunity in the operation: a chance to capstone his efforts to shape up the battalion. When he had assumed command in March 1970, with only four months left on his tour to make his mark, the 2d of the 12th Cav had been in its fourth month of patrolling the rocket belt around FSB Buttons, and, in his opinion, the paucity of enemy contact had lulled them. The companies knew every foot of ground, and with young platoon leaders and platoon sergeants–there were now few hard-nosed pros with the service stripes to match their chevrons–most platoons opted for the solution of least resistance. They simply patrolled from resupply