Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [51]
Stupid lifers always fucking with someone.
Finally approaching Phu Cuong, their column bumped to a halt amid the congested traffic fighting its way across the two-lane bridge over the Saigon River. An armored cavalry troop was headed in the opposite direction, and the two columns had to send one vehicle across at a time, taking turns smoothly enough until a convoy of ARVN supply trucks barreled across the bridge without waiting for anything. Pulled to the side of the road, waiting his turn, Lieutenant Forster recognized some of the faces of the GIs rolling past: They were Charlie Troop of the Three-Quarter Horse, to which his tank platoon had been attached before Christmas. Calling quickly as their Sheridans and APCs passed by, they said they'd also just been scrambled to replace some outfit that was headed for points unknown.1 Finally across the bridge and finally closing on Tay Ninh, Forster and his company passed a company of M41 tanks of the ARVN parked in an ARVN compound. There were more ARVN tanks parked three to four deep in the courtyard of the impressive white stucco province headquarters. At the dirt road inter-section in a rubber tree grove in front of Tay Ninh, Forster had to pull his platoon to the side to allow an ARVN armored personnel carrier to hurtle past in the direction of the border. Twenty seconds later, another APC went past, and at that spacing interval, it took literally thirty minutes for the entire ARVN column to pass.
Around three in the afternoon of 28 April 1970, 2-47 Mech and A/2-34 Armor cleared the arched gateway sign at Tay Ninh, and tracks that had broken down along the way straggled in one at a time. At Tay Ninh, both units settled into a cantonment area with vehicle parks and real live barracks. The entire next day was spent in Tay Ninh with additional resupply being received, maintenance continuing, and, among other things, Lieutenant Colonel Claybrook instructing his company commanders to personally inspect each vehicle to ensure that all noncombat gear was left behind. In the adjacent motor pool that A/2-34 Armor had pulled into, joined that day by B and HHC/2-34 Armor after a road march of their own from the Xuan Loc area, similar reorganizing was proceeding. This armor battalion had been scattered to the winds upon its arrival incountry almost four years earlier, with C Company sent to I CTZ never to return, and B Company having only recently rejoined the battalion after extended service with the Big Red One. That arrangement had ended with the division's withdrawal. Lieutenant Forster of A Company commented with amusement on the reunion with old B Company:
The tanks and men of B Company looked scruffy when they returned from the 1st Division, probably because they had not received higher maintenance support. They had veteran officers and NCOs, but unfortunately they had too many veteran tanks that hadn't been replaced when needed. They resented all the advisories that came down from battalion after being a separate company for so long without direct supervisors. Battalion SOP said that officers would have no mustaches, but all the officers and men in B Company had big thick mustaches when they came back.
The don't-tread-on-me attitude toward their aloof battalion headquarters