Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [52]
Lieutenant Flowers, not privy to the destination that had the major primed, objected that a mermite can full of beer didn't take up any room strapped to a tank turret, and that it was great for troop morale at the end of a long, hot day.
The major angrily retorted that he said to get rid of the beer, so get rid of the goddamned beer, and Flowers's opinion of those running the Dreadnaughts slipped one more notch. Flowers had enthusiastically joined the outfit in March 1970, and one of his greatest disappointments was that the real Army did not match the idealism and dedication he had observed as a cadet at West Point. There were too many marginal people around trying to get their tickets punched. The major was one as far as Flowers was concerned, and so was the battalion commander: a real pair of Mister Cleans who never seemed to make it to the bush. The colonel was lean and handsome, his gray hair closely cropped and his fatigues fitted and starched. Said Flowers, “He looked like he had a manicure, but I really don't think he knew how to start a tank.”2 The leadership in the 2d of the 47th Panthers also invited colorful commentary: Lieutenant Colonel Claybrook was the battalion gentleman, and Major Weeks, if he did say so himself, was the sonuvabitch. Clay-brook was second-generation West Point (Class of 1952), a tall, thin man who had served with the 1st Cav on his first tour but whom many thought to be too disconnected from the emotions at ground level. That vacuum was filled to an extent by Weeks. A farm boy from Hickory Grove, South Carolina, Weeks was young for his rank at twenty-nine, a husky, confident, volatile, humorously obscene man who could be found tramping around the boondocks with the grunts, a CAR 15 Shorty slung over his shoulder. Little attention was paid to troop appearance, and beer was allowed in the field because, as Weeks told his people, they were here for only one reason: to kill gooks. Period.
Oddly enough, Claybrook and Weeks meshed well in running the battalion. In fact, a lifelong friendship took root.
That evening at Tay Ninh, word began to filter down from those who knew to those who would be bearing the brunt. The platoon leaders and sergeants of Alpha 2-34 Armor, dirty from a day of beating dust out of air filters, greasing road wheels, and manhandling ammunition and rations, anxiously gathered in a partitioned room at one end of a tin-roofed hootch. With no glass in the window frames and the concrete floor for seats, company commander Tieman gave a cryptic briefing: “Look, this is it. We're going into Cambodia.” Stunned murmurs. “The Cambodian army is getting its ass kicked and we have to go in there and stabilize things. I just went to a meeting, and we will be opcon the Two-Forty-seventh Mech, and go in with them.”
Captain Tieman, quiet, calm, competent, explained that Alpha Company would keep only their 2d Platoon (1st Lt. Joe Carr), while two platoons from 2-47 Mech would be cross-attached to fill the gap: 1st Platoon (1st Lt. Harry Kocopi) went to A/2-47, and 3d Platoon (1st Lt. Pat Forster) went to C/2-47.
“ We are going to be opcon to the 1st Air Cav Division. The general over there is infantry all the way and doesn't like tanks, doesn't want tanks, and won't tolerate us slowing down the operation. So, if you break down, you are to abandon the vehicle in place.”
The Panthers and Dreadnaughts bid Tay Ninh good-bye the next morning, 30 April 1970, and Lieutenant Forster's two-tank platoon from A/2-34 Armor joined Captain Kaldi's fifteen-track company, C/2-47 Mech, as they rolled through the southern camp gate. A quarter mile down the dirt road, they pulled to the shoulder in a rubber