Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [95]
Back at the new battalion laager, each crew dug in directly behind their vehicles. Wielding shovels beside Forster were driver Harvey and crewmen Nabua and Thornwald. Already sweated out, it took some two hours to dig their sleeping position: seven feet wide, four-and-a-half feet long, and twelve inches deep. The sandbags they carried on the front slope and turret of the tank were stacked three high around the position, which contained two cots, both nestled down almost at ground level, with their four legs placed in six-inch holes in the dirt to keep the sleeping men out of harm's way. A third and fourth cot were unnecessary for the four-man crew, because one man was always on guard, pulling two-hour shifts between ten and six behind the .50-cal, and Harvey spent every night sleeping in his driver's compartment. Besides eating C-rats and swatting at the mosquitoes as the light died, about the only way to unwind after each long, hard day was to write home. Forster noted, “Everyone was so nervous and had so much to tell home about that writing was a big hobby in Cambodia.”
Meanwhile, above Katum, Task Force B roasted under a merciless sun and tried to get their vehicles in working order. Lieutenant Flowers's platoon spent another day stripping down a burned-out tank and wiring it to blow in place, the pack (or engine) slingloaded out under a Sky Hook. Out of water, the platoon was resupplied by Chinook with a rubber blivet of hot, stale water and more charlie rats. The troops cursed the lifers who'd forced them to leave behind their mermite cans of beer. One trooper just couldn't resist firing his .50-cal into one of the dead, bloated water buffalo at the edge of the perimeter: poof! The released stench of body gases wafted through the scorched air. A pig trail ran through their clearing, and some live buffalo appeared, pushed along by an old man. He was met on the trail and, with no interpreters on hand, frustrated GIs ended up yelling at him. The old man yelled right back at them, and his words did not need translation: You guys are having a war and I'm not interested. All I'm trying to do is get from here to there with my water buffalo. They turned the angry old man loose. As he hiked off, Flowers reckoned that for all they knew there went the local communist commander. Flowers never saw a GI hurt a civilian on purpose.
On 11 May 1970, General Bautz of the 25th Division flew back up to Lieutenant Colonel Redmond's CP and, in a private conversation beside the command helicopter, told the officer that he was relieved of command. The battalion operations officer was to assume temporary command.
Redmond seemed stunned but said little. When news of the relief percolated down to the tank platoons, the response was: “Roger that.” The task force was to road march that afternoon back to Tay Ninh for a thorough maintenance standdown. There, three days later, a new colonel would join them for what would be the less strenuous duty of escorting supply convoys into Cambodia. Given word that they were pulling out, but also that no equipment could be left behind, destroyed or not, Flowers's platoon tried to refit their stripped-down hulk of a tank, and another Sky Hook arrived and hovered the engine back into place. The tank still wouldn't start, so tow bars were attached, and the column proceeded toward Vietnam along the same dirt road where they'd been ambushed eight days earlier. The men were tense; all weapons were chambered and trained toward the brush they were squeezing past. There was no enemy fire, only a tree limb that jostled loose and crashed into the top of Flowers's head. He was damn lucky; he'd been so nervous reentering the woods that he'd actually worn his helmet.
Discipline problems were few and far between in the line companies of the 2-34 Armor, in part because they were almost always in the bush and the vices of the rear did not rub off