AO Tiger was located in western central Binh Dinh, encompassing portions of the province’s Bong Son plain and the mountains beyond. The plain was sparsely populated, composed mainly of rice paddies and lightly vegetated, gently rolling terrain. The mountains were generally uninhabited—except for the enemy—steep and densely vegetated under double-and triple-canopy rain forest. LZ Daisy lay at the base of the mountains.
Shortly after lifting off from the bridge, the number-four Huey’s crew chief had handed me a headset, enabling me to monitor Major Byson on the battalion command net. As the S-3, he controlled the assault until such time as we were on the ground and the LZ was secured.
Now, at two minutes and seconds before touchdown, I overheard him working our artillery preparation. “Roger, I have rounds on the way, wait.”
Leaning out of the helicopter’s door, into its ninety-knot slipstream, I saw the distant LZ suddenly explode in an orange-white-and-gray fury, as the artillery rounds threw foliage, dirt, dust, and debris high into the calm morning air.
Beautiful! I thought to myself. Sure as hell beats those nonprepped, door-gunner-only-supported inserts we used to make around and about ARO.
In the First Cavalry, as in most U.S. divisions in Vietnam, it was pretty much standard procedure to fire a short artillery preparation on any LZ that could conceivably be occupied by the enemy, which, of course, was virtually any LZ not occupied by friendly forces. Due to the number of air assaults made daily in the division and the ensuing expenditure of artillery ammunition, the cost-effectiveness of such a policy was sometimes questioned by those who involve themselves in such trivia. Obviously, it was only “cost-effective” if Charlie was indeed waiting in ambush on the landing zone. Having once seen the consequences of such an ambush, I quickly became an avid supporter of preassault artillery preps.
We were on fifteensecond final, coming in fast and low, skimming the treetops twenty or thirty feet below, when the last artillery round (white smoke) impacted. As our helicopters flared tails down, preparing to land, the two accompanying Cobra gunships roared past us on our flanks, pouring 2.75-inch rocket and 7.62-mm minigun fire on the LZ’s perimeter. Finally, as the Hueys’ skids were about to graze the landing zone’s protruding foliage, our door gunners opened up with their M-60 machine guns. We were off the helicopters in a split second.
They were gone just as quickly, clearing the trees on the far side of the LZ, gaining altitude and airspeed as they did so.
Within a matter of another very few seconds, Two Six had secured the LZ.
They accomplished this by establishing defensive positions around its perimeter using a clock system to appropriate sectors of responsibility.
In other words, an imaginary face of a clock was superimposed over the LZ, twelve o’clock being the direction of inbound flight—that is, the nose of the lead helicopter was pointing at twelve o’clock. Upon disembarking, each of the platoon’s three rifle squads was responsible for securing and defending a twenty-minute portion of this circle, or one-third of the LZ. After the remainder of the company landed, the perimeter would be extended outward, a twenty-minute portion of it being allocated to each of the company’s line platoons.
This system of assigning initial defensive responsibilities was standard practice in securing a night defensive position (NDP), LZ, and other perimeter-oriented defenses. And inasmuch as there were few linear fronts in the Nam, the perimeter—circle the wagons—was virtually the only defense used.
“Arizona Three, this is Comanche Six. Lima Zulu is green. I say again, LZ green. Over,” I said, radioing Major Byson and informing him that the landing zone was secure.
Orbiting above us in the battalion C&C ship (command-and-control helicopter—a Huey outfitted with extensive communications assets), he replied, almost nonchalantly, “Okay, Comanche, I’ll be out of here soon as I get your hooks in. Good luck and good hunting in the high country. Out.”
The Chinooks landed in trail, discharging the rest of the company. As they descended, and again when they ascended, we turned our backs to them, bracing ourselves against the violent downdraft created by their rotary blades spinning at near full pitch. In the meantime, the Cobra gunships continued to circle the LZ, protecting the Chinooks until they had lifted off and were out of harm’s way. Our eight helicopters quickly became but mere specks on the eastern horizon—and Charlie Company was on its own.
If our elusive foe was to be found on this bright December day, we assumed we would find him in the mountains west of Daisy. With this in mind, I had initially toyed with the idea of sending the company’s three rifle platoons into the mountains on separate routes in order to cover as much of our opponent’s lair as possible. However, this suggestion, when offered the night before, was not met with wild enthusiasm by some of the company’s more cautious men, who felt it to be too risky.
Others of us thought this was but manifestation of the “Charlie’s everywhere” syndrome. However, I did feel that our first operation, a
“shakedown,” so to speak, should risk little while hopefully building confidence among our rank and file. Therefore, we had decided to work the mountains with two platoons on a single route while the remainder of the company, Weapons and 3d Platoon, searched the valley floor, seeking both Charlie and a good location for an NDP.
Leaving Lieutenant Halloway in charge below, we began our foray into Byson’s high country ten minutes or so after our helicopters departed.
Movement was difficult from the start. Barely nine-thirty in the morning, the heat and humidity were already unbearable, and within a matter of minutes, our sweat-soaked jungle fatigues had transformed themselves to a darker shade of green.
Following one of several narrow trails leading from the valley’s lowlying rice paddies into the lightly vegetated foothills and then, the ascent becoming decidedly steeper, up the eastern side of the mountain, we climbed… hour after exhausting hour. Finally, nearing the mountain’s crest, we paused, noting that our trail had leveled off somewhat and now seemed to run generally parallel to the mountain’s face in a north-south direction. We also noted it was well, and recently, traveled.
“Fresh hoofprints, sir,” Lieutenant MacCarty whispered, pointing at the telltale footprints in a portion of the trail wetted by the mountain’s runoff. “These aren’t VC, they’re NVA, and a lot of ’em!”
“Yeah,” I whispered in return, “and most of them seem to be moving the same way, north to south.”
Cautiously, we continued moving north along the narrow trail. And, I observed with satisfaction, we were moving as men ought to move in such a situation. Proper distances were maintained, there was no talking or horseplay, and weapons were kept at the ready, trained on both sides of the trail. These soldiers of Charlie Company were quite obviously professionals who knew what they were doing and were deadly serious about doing it. I was impressed.
Twenty meters or so to our front, a single point man led the column, followed by his squad leader and a two-man M-60 machine-gun team.
Lieutenant MacCarty and his RTO were behind the machine-gun team, with me and my two RTOs trailing him. Lieutenant Norwalk and his 1st Platoon trailed Two Six.
Not at all the way we taught it at Benning, I thought to myself. But, like Al Fallow says, There’s the way it’s taught and the way it’s done.
Yet it made sense in this kind of war, in this kind of terrain. We knew that if we found Charlie it would in all likelihood be by means of a frontal meeting engagement; in other words, the two of us would just run into each other. If that should happen, it was important that we have two assets well forward: firepower and leadership. Few things are more frustrating to a commander than finding himself midway in a column moving through dense vegetation when a firefight suddenly erupts a hundred meters and two platoons to his front.