Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [99]
Their conversation was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a lone NVA riding a bicycle loaded down with medical equipment and pots and pans. Before the NVA could respond and stop his rapid pedaling, he rode right into the center of G Troop's ambush position.
The NVA was absolutely terrified.
The Gis were stunned, and before anyone could shoulder an M16, the NVA jumped from his bike and sprinted between two AC A Vs. The vegetation swallowed him, and Menzel chewed out Crupper a bit for not keeping his troops more alert. Menzel's larger concern was whether or not the frightened NVA would be able to pinpoint the location of their ambush to the local NVA units.
The answer was no. That night was dark and their radios were turned down, with instructions that only the troop commanders and platoon leaders could converse over them, and then only in brief whispers. Menzel sat on the back of his ACAV with his AK in his lap. Tom, his track commander, leaned in the cupola, eating a C ration. You could almost hear a pin drop.
Voices drifted to them from the east. Vietnamese voices. They were laughing and talking, and walking down the road that was, after all, in their backyard and that they must have walked a thousand times. Menzel called Brown on the radio and, in a whisper, told him to spring the ambush when the NVA were in point-blank range, to which Brown, a black career sergeant relatively new to the unit, answered with a hushed, “Got it.” There was the muffled metallic click of a .50-cal being readied.
They waited, and the party of NVA, talking and laughing the whole time, walked down the highway in the darkness right into them.
Wham! Wham! Wham!
The .50-caliber machine gun atop the Sheridan pulled a long burst across the road, and Menzel stood up on his ACAV to see past another ACAV and the trees that would otherwise have blocked his view. Orange tracers bounced along the hard-packed road. The tank commander released his trigger button. Silence. Menzel whispered into his radio, and Brook-shire replied, “Sounds like you're having a party, Three-six.” Clouds covered the moon. There were moans on the trail. Finally, no more moans. Menzel, tense with anticipation of a counterattack, leaned against the cupola to catch his sleep in snatches.
The sound of an approaching Huey echoed through the dawn stillness. Menzel answered his radio as the new squadron operations officer came on, “Battle Three-six, this is Battle Three. Pop smoke. I'm coming in.”
Major (P) Richard L. Coffman alighted from the Huey, and Menzel popped him a Citadel parade-ground salute. Coffman lit up with a smile and whacked Menzel on the thigh with his plastic map case. Coffman had been serving as the regimental base commander, waiting to take over the 2d Squadron when his promotion was effected and Brookshire's tour ended, but the wounding of Franks had brought him to the field a little early.1
Coffman's first instructions to Menzel were to conduct reconnaissance in the immediate area of the ambush. Menzel protested. They had recovered propaganda material from the NVA killed in the ambush, and his sensing was that they were not far from the division headquarters, thought to be in the area. Menzel wanted to drive east, in the direction from which the NVA had approached, but Coffman cut him short, “Captain, you will follow orders.”
G Troop was already some ten klicks beyond the rest of 2-11 ACR, and Menzel sent one platoon to recon a trail leading north but not marked on their maps. The platoon leader radioed back that where the trail entered the jungle, it made a ninety-degree turn to the west, which afforded the NVA an easy RPG ambush position. Menzel instructed the platoon leader to have his lead Sheridan fire a 152mm HE round down the trail as soon as it rounded the bend. After the blast, the platoon found a bulldozer-road grader of U.S. make. Menzel ordered the vehicle destroyed in place, while he accompanied the other platoon on a recon down the main road to the east. The NVA had again laid cut logs, two or three deep, along both shoulders