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RECON PLATOON
Copyright - Ron Heller 1999
- One day after a few months in Delta Company the battalion commander sent
word that he wanted to see me he told me that I had been doing a good job
and that he had another job for me. He said that I had my choice of three
jobs. I could be a company executive officer, the S-3 air or the Recon
platoon leader.
- The simplest and safest job would have been that of company XO. I would
have been in charge of the company rear and worked under the general
supervision of the battalion XO. My main job would have been to support the
troops in the field.
- S-3 air was a choice job. I would have been the staff officer responsible
for air movement and air support. I could have gotten in a lot of chopper
time. It was a good career choice and probably the one to take.
- The most potentially dangerous job was that of Recon Platoon Leader. OUR
Recon Platoon was engaged in combating the Viet Cong infrastructure
in our area. It spent most of its time in villages trying to ferret out the
bad guys. It was considered a glamour job so I took it, of course. The
Battalion Commander said that he was glad that I had chosen that job and
that it would be the most challenging.
- He told me that Recon was a rowdy group that needed to be cleaned up. (I
just recently [8/96] talked to my predecessor. During his tenure Recon was
used as a "fire brigade" or ready reaction force. The change to a
less combat intensive mission probably called for a different leadership
style). I wondered if I had done the right thing. When I joined Recon, it
was occupying a perimeter sector at the Thu Duc water plant. The plant was a
$20 million facility just off the main road between Long Binh and Saigon.
The platoon area consisted of a GP small for the platoon leader and platoon
HQ and several bunkers on the perimeter for the men.
- The platoon itself consisted of about thirty US troops, a half dozen
Vietnamese National Policemen (Camh Sat) and a few Kit Carson scouts or
"KC"'s. KC's were former Viet Cong who had turned their coats and
were supposedly working for us -- supposedly. The platoon rarely walked
anywhere but rather ran the roads of the AO in jeeps. The jeeps were loaded
down with a M-60 machine gun on a pedestal mount, sand bags on the floor for
mines and what we called the toy boxes which were mortar ammunition boxes
full of explosives such as Bangalore torpedo's and claymore mines and C4. A
piece of angle iron was welded to the front bumper. It was higher than a
sitting man and the last six inches were notched and angled forward. It was
designed to cut wire that might be stretched across the road and designed to
decapitate someone driving in a jeep with its windshield down. I never heard
of that happening but it probably did happen at least once.
- The colonel was right about the platoon. It was a rowdy crew that looked
like they had rarely seen a barber. I had my work cut out for me. There is
an old saying the it easier to loosen up than to tighten up. Whoever said
that must have had a recon platoon.
- My first night there I went to check the platoon area. I only found a few
sentries and asked the platoon sergeant where the hell everyone was. He told
me that they had all gone to a whore house called Bebop's. I couldn't
believe my ears. First of all we were not supposed to leave the wire after
dark for safety reasons. Even more important than that, the platoon was the
battalion's emergency reaction force. We were supposed to be able to conduct
offensive operations on a moment's notice. Christ, the men probably couldn't
pull up their pants on a moment's notice.
- The next day I read the riot act to the platoon. I put Bebop's off limits
until further notice. I told the men they would have to begin soldiering,
including looking like soldier's. I told them that anybody that didn't like
it could transfer to a line company. At first I thought that the whole
platoon would transfer, but they didn't. Perhaps they thought they could
always transfer later or perhaps they didn't want to bear the stigma of not
being able to cut it in Recon. It was a near thing but things got better
rapidly.
- For several weeks we worked on the basics. We practiced ambushes and
tactical operations in general. The men began to act like soldiers and they
even began to look like soldiers. They were proud of the fact that we wore
camouflage jungle fatigues and bush hats instead of the normal jungle
fatigues and steel pots. We began to look pretty good. Sure they still wore
their peace medallions and love beads but on the whole they looked more like
soldiers than pirates. Haircuts ranged from good to marginal but were
greatly improved. They were definitely children of the 60's. One of the
jeeps sported the name "the Grateful Dead" I wonder if its driver
is a middle aged "Deadhead" today. The battalion commander
complimented me on the platoon's appearance. All they had to do was to play
the game. I just had to remind them of the rules.
- The platoon sergeant said that we should reward the men with a little time
at Bebop's. I said that I agreed but that we would have to control who went
and make sure they could return on a moment's notice. We soon had a field
telephone "hot line" to Bebop's. I let the NCO's decide who could
go each night. I said I wanted it on a rotational basis but that it was a
privilege they had to earn. The heck with fines and company punishment, I
had the ultimate weapon. Each night we had six to ten men on our own version
of R & R. The men seemed happy and Recon could even react to an
emergency with most of the men sober.
- I hit it off real well with Madame Be Ba or Bebop to the troops. Her place
was divided into the whorehouse and her home. Neither the customer or her
girls could come into her home unless the were invited. Since I represented
a good piece (no pun) of her business, she was very nice to me. She invited
me into her living room to have cool drink. She asked me if I wanted a girl.
I told her that I didn't but that my driver would appreciate one. Needless
to say, after that I rarely had any trouble getting someone to drive me.
- I had many good evenings at her house. It was like a home away from home
for me. I met several interesting people at her dinner table. Many of them
were probable VC but what the hell. One night we had just finished a nice
crab dinner and were sitting around drinking wine and chatting when all of a
sudden, the doors and windows burst open.
- Camouflaged men with guns filled the room. I about had a heart attack. I
thought that a hit squad was about to get me. In a second I recognized some
of my troops. Where was my driver, the leader asked? It seemed that he was
supposed to go on an ambush patrol that night but that he volunteered to
drive me instead. They brought his gear and a replacement driver. The left a
minute later with a none to happy trooper with them.
- Madame Bebop was an interesting lady. She said that she had been one of
Madame Nhu's entourage when Madame Nhu went to the United Nations. She said
that Henry Cabot Lodge had been a frequent late-night visitor to Madame
Nhu's bedroom. Bebop was very proud of her wardrobe and never tired of
showing me her new dresses. She was a nice lady. I decided that I had to be
a straight arrow as far as she was concerned to maintain my credibility with
her and with my men.
- Among other things Bebop was quite a hypochondriac. She was always telling
me of her ailments. One day she asked me if I could get the battalion
surgeon to examine her. I thought that was a good idea as he could also
examine the girls to help keep the clap rate down. The next day I approached
the Doc. I didn't really know him as he was new in country. Of course he was
a Captain but that didn't mean much to a doctor. He gave me all he reasons
why he shouldn't do it and I countered every one. I told him to let his
people know that he was playing poker in the recon area. If an emergency
happened, we could reach him on the hot line and get him back through the
wire in five minutes. He finally agreed but only on the condition that I get
him back early.
- About two o'clock the next morning I was saying, "Doc, we have to get
back to the water plant .... Please let's go!!! It was even harder getting
him to leave than it was to get him to go in the first place. Doc became a
regular. He used to brag that he could recognize each girl by viewing her
pussy. What some guy's won't do for their country. Besides the VD rate went
down.
- Bebop's was a real morale factor for the men. Once they restructured their
thinking to consider it a privilege to be earned, I had it made. At least I
thought so. One day one of the troops asked me if he could volunteer for
guard duty on post number two. I was mildly curious as the troop in question
was hardly the type to volunteer, in fact, it had been quite some time since
he had been allowed to make the run to Bebop's. I told him that I didn't
care but that he had to clear it with the platoon Sergeant. When he asked me
to lend him ten dollars, I decided to ask my NCOIC just what the hell was
going on.
- He was somewhat evasive but when I persisted he told me. It seemed that
every night some free-lance short time girls would come up to the wire at
post number two to offer their wares to the sentry. I don't imagine that it
was as comfortable as a bed at Bebop's, but any port in a storm ......
- The water plant was a pretty cushy billet, especially for the recon
platoon. We went on VCI operations during the day and had to man a small AP
each night. The ambush wasn't a big deal and, since it only involved a few
men and the AO wasn't too hot. Also since our main mission at night was the
battalion Ready Reaction Force (RRF), I rarely went on ambush. I would go
once in a while to observe the men and to maintain credibility but it was
more important to ride herd on my rowdies.
- The best thing about the water plant is that we had unlimited hot water
and a beautiful chrome, tile and steel shower facility. It made the luxury
of Dian seem crude and the shower buckets of FT Apache barbaric in
comparison. One of the more unpleasant sides of duty at the water plant were
the rats. The damn things were all over the place, especially in our
bunkers. I got tired of having them scurry over me at night and decided to
do something about it.
- I got hold of a trap. It was one of the "humane" types that
locked the prey in a cage without hurting them. Every night I would set my
trap and bait it with anything handy. The next morning I would have a rat to
dispose of. Being very careful not to harm one of natures creatures, I would
take the trap to the water settling tank and drown the little bastard. This
went along pretty well until I ran into THE RAT. We're talking big!!!
- The first time I suspected he existed was when my trap was tripped and the
bait gone but no rat. After this happened a few times I figured that
whatever was taking the bait must be so big that the door couldn't close
with its head in the trap. Brother Rat may be big, but he was no match for a
Ranger Trained infantry officer. I decided to use some of the booby trap
tricks I had learned to solve the problem.
- I got some claymore wire, a radio battery and an electric blasting cap.
The blasting cap was used as a primer to ignite a man explosive charge. It
was a metal tube about one quarter inch in diameter and three inches long.
It was closed on one end and had wire leading from the other end which was
sealed with a wax- like substance for water proofing. The explosion was
powerful enough to be dangerous. It could easily blow off a few fingers on a
careless GI.
- I set the rap so that if the door moved one half inch, two wires would
touch making an electrical circuit. I stuck the blasting cap into a chunk of
Slim Jim sausage and put it in the bait holder. After setting the trap, I
armed it by attaching the battery. That night I went to sleep, forgetting
about the trap. The explosion scared the hell out of me, I thought that we
were under attack. A blasting cap isn't that loud, but in a bunker, it
sounded like a bomb going off. It sure as hell worked. The headless rat that
I found by the cage was as big as a cat. I showed off my trophy the net
morning. My KC's were impressed and asked me if they could have it for
dinner.
- Some of my fondest memories of Viet Nam came from my time with the Recon
Platoon. Our typical operation was to cruise the roads and visit villages in
our AO. On Sundays we would set up road blocks so that our Camh Sat could
check ID's. It was good duty. We enjoyed looking at the girls and finding
the occasional weapon provided some excitement. We would usually do that on
Sundays because that wasn't a good time to visit village chiefs in the
looking for information about the Viet Cong. The most exciting
operations we pulled were "snatch jobs" They were midnight
kidnappings of supposed Viet Cong. I sometimes wondered whether we were
helping some Vietnamese eliminate a rival.
- Another operation that could be exciting was a village search. We would
usually do those with a Vietnamese unit. One time we were fanned out
searching when all of a sudden the ARVIN's began shooting into the ground
and hollering. They had found a possible air hole for a tunnel. We pushed
smoke grenades into the hole and looked for other places where the smoke
came out. It was kind of scary waiting for a Viet Cong to jump out of a
hole. We pulled one dead guy out of a hole. He was dyed violet from the
smoke grenade but seemed otherwise uninjured. We finally noticed that he had
a tooth missing. Evidently one bullet had knocked out the tooth and buried
itself in his body without exiting.
- Another time I was poking around some loose ground and leaves near a
hooch. When the ground began to move, I jumped about three feet in the air.
There was a boa constrictor or python in the pile. The KC's immediately
grabbed the snake and wired its mouth shut with trip wire. They put him into
a sand bag and carried him along until dinner. Fresh meat. It kind of tasted
like chicken.
- Lieutenant KY was one of the more unsavory characters that I met in
Vietnam. He was the head of the Thu Duc District Intelligence Operating
Center or DIOC ("Dee-ock"). His job was to interrogate prisoners
and develop intelligence. I made a courtesy visit to his headquarters soon
after joining Recon. He proudly showed me his interrogation (read torture)
chamber. It had manacles and chains on the walls. Prominently displayed was
a hand cranked electrical generator with clip-on connectors. He invited me
to observe an interrogation but I passed.
- As mush as I disliked him, I had to operate with him o occasion. One time
I observed the "water treatment". They grabbed a suspect and pull
his tee shirt over his head. They then got buckets of water from the pond
that served as a latrine for the village. They kept pouring water over the
guy's face, just barely avoiding drowning him, until he said what they
wanted to hear.
- Another time he squatted next to a smiling suspect. Vietnamese smile as a
gesture of submission or helplessness. Ky was also smiling but for different
reasons. He has a small hardwood stick about a half inch in diameter and two
feet long in his hand. As he asked a question he began tapping the suspect
on his shin. He didn't tap hard, just incessantly. When he got an answer he
didn't like, he would give a sharper tap and the suspect would scream. The
really bad thing was that KY enjoyed his work.
- I soon learned that when Ky began to do his "thing" to take my
men out of the area. After my first experience, I reported Ky to the US Army
Senior Province Advisor. He told me that I was pissing into the wind, that
Ky's actions were condoned by his superiors and that it was much more likely
that I would be replaced than Ky. I have never been one to tilt with
windmills so I told my superiors about Ky and tried to avoid the problem.
I'm not too proud of that.
- Every once in a while we would get some butter from the mess hall in the
morning and take it along. We would stop at a bakery and buy loaves of
French bread right out of the oven. It doesn't get much better than that.
Other times we would get red cans of Japanese mackerel and spread it over
the bread. It was pretty good with a liberal sprinkling of hot sauce. Those
same red cans were the type that we saw time and again made into booby traps
by the Viet Cong.
- We made quite a sight with our camouflage fatigues, bush hats and seven to
nine gun jeeps. We were hot shit and knew it. We would zoom around paying
little attention too the speed limit. The MP's that patrolled the main roads
caused us more trouble than the Viet Cong. We has a drill set up that never
ceased to entertain us. When we were stopped by MP's I would announce very
mechanically and as cold bloodedly as I could muster, "My name is 1LT
Heller, I am the Reconnaissance Platoon leader of the 2nd battalion,
eighteenth infantry, First Infantry Division. I am on an operational
mission. If you have a problem contact my battalion commander. Now get the
hell out of my way!!" About that time some of the machine gunners would
make menacing gestures with their guns. It never failed. The MP's would
salute and wish us luck on our mission and we would zoom off. I never really
got in trouble but the battalion commander made a comment at a staff meeting
that the Recon Platoon should stop harassing the MP's. He was smiling when
he said it.
- One unusual thing about the job of recon platoon leader is that I worked
for the S-3, a major and for the Combat Support Company (CSC) commander. The
CSC commander was my nominal superior, but since he didn't rate me and since
I out-ranked him anyway, I would ignore him when I felt like it.
- MAJ Spurlock, the S-3 was a good soldier and a good man to work for. He
never told me how to do something just to do it. Frequently he would get
some hot intel from the intelligence officer (S-2) and give me an emergency
reaction mission. It was fun and exciting. MAJ Spurlock was riding in a
chopper with the battalion commander one day, using the rotor wash to part
the nipa palms and elephant grass, looking for a Viet Cong. The guy popped
up and shot the helicopter down with his AK 47. The battalion commander
wasn't badly hurt but MAJ Spurlock wasn't so lucky. We missed him.
- We never got into any big contacts but we got more kills than most of the
line companies. I had a good stock of "attaboys" with the
battalion commander. One night I used most of them up. I had a five man
ambush out. The normal procedure was for the battalion Net Control Station (NCS)
would contact all ambushes each hour for a situation report SITREP. The
radio contact would go like this, "Darkness 26 this is Darkness 52, if
SITREP is negative, break squelch twice."
- The resulting rushing sound on the radio would let NCS know that the AP
was awake and that nothing was happening. One night I was called into the
battalion TOC. The S-3 told me that my AP had missed its SITREP and that it
continued not to answer repeated calls. The three said that we would crank
up the Quarter Cav and investigate.
- The Quarter Cav was a platoon from the 1st Squadron Fourth Cavalry, the
divisions Cav squadron. The platoon consisted of four ACAV's or armored
cavalry vehicles. They were M113 armored personnel carriers, modified with
extra armor an guns. If there is anything a Cav trooper hates more than
operating in a wooded area, it's moving after dark. The Cav definitely
wasn't happy with me and mine. I left the platoon sergeant in charge and
went with the Cav.
- We moved along a road to within 100 meters of where the ambush was
supposed to be and halted. Now, it's kind of hard to sneak up on anyone in
an ACAV but we managed. The AP still didn't answer our radio calls. Finally,
I started yelling at them and the ACAV's honked their horns. I dreaded the
idea of going any closer on foot. After a few minutes of that, the AP called
the NCS and reported a lot of noise to the east. No shit!!!. I called them
and they asked what the problem was. When we linked up the said that they
were having radio problems and couldn't make the SITREP's. Bull shit, they
were asleep and everyone knew it. We all mounted up and went back to the
water plant.
- I thanked the Cav platoon leader who acknowledged with a grunt and headed
to the TOC. I figured that I might as well get it over with and take my ass
chewing. The Three was still in the TOC and I reported in to him. I told him
that I would take care of the problem and that it wouldn't happen again. I
asked him if the Commander wanted to see me. He said that he didn't. Was I
relieved. The battalion commander was one of the finest soldiers I had ever
worked for or with. The worst think he could say to you was that he was
disappointed in you. He was the kind of guy that you would cut off your arm
rather than let him down. He reserved his ass chewing's for those
individuals who were too stupid to know that they had screwed up. I
definitely knew that I had screwed up. I never heard anything about it.
- My first duty assignment in the army had been in a mechanized infantry
unit. In a mech unit maintenance was of paramount importance. It was the
thing that could get a commander relieved quicker than anything else. When I
took over Recon, I enquired about our maintenance program. I didn't see much
maintenance going on but the jeeps always seemed to run. When there was a
problem with a jeep, the platoon sergeant would ask permission to go to
Saigon and before you knew it, the problem was solved.
- It soon became obvious that the platoon regarded Saigon as a big motor
pool and parts supply store. Our jeeps never seemed to get old. Dents would
vanish overnight and bad engines would heal themselves. I told the men that
if they didn't keep the vehicles running that we would be conduct operations
afoot. Talk about power. One day they carried things too far. They came back
from Saigon with a white jeep. Needless to say, it didn't blend in too well
with our vehicles and those of the rest of the army. It made it damn hard
for me to pretend that I didn't know what was going on.
- My platoon sergeant was quite a character. He seemed to be competent
enough but you weren't sure. One day as we left the water plant, just where
the road swerved to the left, he fell out of his jeep. Luckily he wasn't
injured. The men seemed to like him and he did what I said. We never got
into a major firefight so I didn't know how he would react under fire. I was
to see him again.
- One of my chronic underachievers was a young man named Demelli.
Ironically, Demelli had been my nemesis when I was at First Admin. He was
always getting into minor scrapes. It was hard not to like the guy he was
good natured, always smiling and never got into bad trouble. Finally, I
asked Demelli what I should do about him. He said that his alternate MOS was
Infantryman and that I should send him to a line unit. That seemed like a
good solution. If I had known that he would continue to plague me a few
months later, I would have seen that he went to a different brigade if not a
different war.
- Another interesting guy was the battalion S-2. He was nice enough but he
had a minor character flaw. He may not have been a coward but he sure as
hell avoided leaving the confines of the TOC area, perhaps the best guarded
part of the battalion. As he got shorter and shorter he was leerier and
leerier of exposing his body to danger. One day I decided to play a trick on
him.
- I arranged a mock ambush that I would take him into. It took a hell of a
lot of persuasion but I finally got him to accompany me on a mission. He had
his steel pot and a flack jacket on and he looked worried. Just before we
got to a prearranged location, the Platoon Sergeant set off a quarter pound
block of C4 explosive. My driver pulled over to the side of the road and we
jumped into a ditch. We started shooting into the air and every time the S-2
looked up, I would push his head down. After a brief "firefight"
we routed the enemy and returned to the TOC. The S-2 was shaking. Everyone
in the TOC was in on the joke. He probably put himself in for a Bronze Star
with "V" device for valor.
- Twenty-two months after being commissioned, I was promoted to Captain. We
had a little ceremony by the TOC and the battalion commander pinned me. I
tell everyone that they sent it out with the ration truck. I was going to go
on an R&R before taking a new assignment, but before that I was going to
throw a promotion party. I wanted to do something different. I had no desire
to have a party with the REMF's at battalion rear so I decided to have a
party in a local village and invite the local village chiefs as well as the
recon platoon.
- I got a jeep trailer and filled it with ice and beer. I added a few
bottles of whiskey ad headed to Long Tan My, my favorite village. I also
invited Captain Blue and a few other officers. The party was a great success
and lasted until well after dark. At one time a little boy brought me a .45
pistol and told me that my Platoon sergeant had dropped it. I found him dead
drunk and had him poured into a jeep. I got the village officials drunk as
hell by drinking toasts with the whiskey that I had brought for that
purpose. I faked drinking the toasts and soon drank my friends under the
table. It was getting late and we really shouldn't have been out after dark.
I wasn't too worried about Viet Cong since we were probably drinking with
the local village party secretary but it was time to go home. I had some men
carry the village chief to his house where we dumped him on his porch.
- The next day when I drove through the villages almost everyone smiled and
waved at me. I had gained a lot of face by drinking the Viets under the
table. I later learned that the chiefs thought that I couldn't drink because
I usually only drank a beer or two each time I had visited in the past. So
much for duty and temperance. I probably would have gotten much more
information had I gotten drunk more often.
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