Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [56]
Traveling in column toward their line of departure, the crews of a hundred Sheridans and ACAVs watched as howitzer shells slammed into the bramble that concealed the NVA delaying force. The area was a broad savannah with spots of scrub brush and trees, and the morning mist hung over earth still wet from the evening drenching. The howitzers ceased fire. Six sorties of Phantoms rolled in next, and the NVA either died in their holes or picked up and pulled back toward the border.
One of the ACAVs from the squadron headquarters that had fallen behind with a thrown track made it back up the line, and Colonel Starry and Sergeant Major Horn climbed back aboard as the column continued on through the gutted hedgerow. The border was not far ahead. It was suspected that the two NVA regiments the 2d Squadron had been ambushing in War Zone C were deployed along the demarcation line in bunker complexes complete with concrete emplacements for their AAA batteries. Expecting the sky along the border to go black with flak, Starry had grounded his air cavalry troop and had instructed his squadron commanders to ride with their troops lest their command ships be driven away and control lost. For the same reason, Starry had elected to climb aboard a track with his sergeant major.
Nothing in the book, though, said that a regimental commander had to go in fifty meters behind the point, but it made the right impression.
The muddy marsh where the Blackhorse Regiment entered Cambodia was nicknamed the Pig Path. But the only shooting that marked its crossing were .50-cal and M60 bursts reconning by fire. Not only were the NVA nowhere to be found, but the rain-soaked marsh proved firm enough to drive across without the tracks bogging down to the top of their road wheels, as had been feared.
H Company (Capt. H. Miles Sisson) went first. Colonel Donn A. Starry, CO, 11th ACR, Lt. Col. Grail L. Brookshire, CO, 2-11, and Maj. Frederick M. Franks, S-3, 2-11, followed, each aboard an ACAV equipped with a double set of radios. They were accompanied by a fourth ACAV mounted with three .50-caliber machine guns and nick-named the Destroyer, which provided fire support for the squadron command group. G Troop (Capt. Se wall H. Menzel) came next, and E Troop (Capt. Fred Kyle) brought up the rear.
Major Byron D. Marsh, XO, 2-11, remained in the squadron's staging area, a clearing dubbed FSB South I, with F Troop (Capt. E. G. Fish) and the Howitzer Battery (Capt. Richard W. Tragemann). How's 155mm self-propelled guns bombarded ahead of the column each step of the march.
The staging area from which the squadron embarked toward the border that morning had been secured only the evening before, and, without berms or wire or any other structures, FSB South I was simply a scrubby clearing in War Zone C. It had been selected because of its close proximity to the border and because it was treeless–in case of enemy mortar attack, there would be no airbursts–and, as Captain Menzel of G Troop noted, getting there had been half the fun:
Brookshire suddenly ordered us to recover or destroy all thirty-five of our Alpha Alphas. This signified that something big was afoot. Weeks of hard work were to be eliminated within a few hours and some of the troopers were really pissed off. About an hour later Brookshire called back to see how things were