KIA 4/13/66 Ho Bo Woods - Frank was Airborne & Path Finder - He was 3rd Platoon Leader in B Co
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1LT - O2 - Army - Reserve
Length of service 1 years His tour began on Jan 20, 1966 Casualty was on Apr 13, 1966 In , SOUTH VIETNAM HOSTILE, GROUND CASUALTY GUN, SMALL ARMS FIRE Body was recovered Panel 06E - Line 109 More information on April 13th, 1966 |
TRIBUTE TO FIRST LIEUTENANT FRANK D'AMICO, "BOBCAT BRAVO 3-6"
By: Theodore T. Jagosz, Cpt Inf, USAR
Back in Infantry Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, we aspiring to a US Army Commission had to periodically rate all of our fellow students within our respective platoons. Our Tactical Officers (TOs) required that we had to rate a number of our peers in the top 25% of our class and a corresponding number in the bottom 25%. Any collusion to skew the spread was an honor violation subjecting the perpetrators to immediate expulsion from the course. Because we all considered ourselves pretty much equally talented, we called the rating forms "Bayonet Sheets" and the rating period was dubbed "knife your buddy week". The TOs helped a lot with rating the top 25%. They told us to simply imagine ourselves in combat leading the center platoon. To select the best of the best, they simply suggested, "Whom would you want the most to be the platoon leader on your left or right flank?" I would always want someone like Frank D'Amico to be there. Up until December of 1965, I had been a contented paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division.
For eight months I had led the 1st Platoon of B Company, 3rd Battalion (Airborne) of the famed 187th Infantry Regiment ("The Rakkasans"). It was the "best" rifle platoon out of the 81 such platoons in the
whole damn division by virtue of the fact that we had won the Division Rifle Firing Competition, the most prestigious event on the training calendar. That December brought orders making me a First Lieutenant and another set reassigning me to the 25th Infantry Division at Scholfield Barracks in Hawaii. Sadly, my promotion party was also my departure party. I took some solace in the fact that about 161 First Lieutenants, Captains and Majors from the 101st were also going with me. I had Christmas leave coming and I didn't have to report to the 25th Inf Div until 15 January 1966. Watching the news at my parents' house in Hermosa Beach, CA the week before Christmas, we all saw the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Division being airlifted to Pleiku in South Vietnam. Oh, oh! Looked like I would be following them shortly. Arriving at Scholfield the night before my report date, I went straight to the "O" Club for dinner. There was hardly a "Tropic Lightning" (25th Div) patch to be seen in the house. The house was full of "Screaming Eagle" and "Almost Airborne" (Excuse me, "All American") shoulder patches from the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions. All of us wearing our highly shined "Corcoran" jump boots compared notes and that's how the rumor got started. The 173rd Airborne Brigade had shipped out from Okinawa in the spring of 1965 and there was not one single Airborne unit in strategic reserve throughout the Pacific Rim. We looked around us and couldn't see a single 2nd Lieutenant in our rather large crowd. We were all Jump master qualified. All of us had graduated from our respective divisional Advanced Airborne Courses, including: Air Mobility, Air Transportability, and Air Delivery Sub-Courses. Many of the officers wore Ranger tabs, quite a few had graduated from Recondo School and some were Pathfinders. Of course! We weren't being infused into the 25th Division as individual replacements. We had to be the elite cadre around which a brand newairborne brigade was being formed to replace the 173rd!
The next morning, 15 January 1966, one by one, all of us met Major General Weyand, the CO of the 25th Infantry Division (the General personally interviewed every incoming officer for at least 15 minutes each. Classy guy!). He quickly dispelled from all of us the notion of a new Airborne unit. The first officer to see the general was a 1/Lt from the 82nd Airborne (not Frank D'Amico, although he later told me he went through the same process). He returned after his 15 minutes and solemnly told us, "Third Brigade. I'm flying out tonight!"
I was the next to go in. The general explained to me that even as he was speaking, his 2nd Brigade, including the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 27th Infantry Regiment, "Wolfhounds", and the 1st Battalion (Mechanized) of the 5th Infantry Regiment, "Bobcats", were landing at the port of Vung Tau and were moving toward Saigon University to stage for their final move to Cu Chi (a secret destination at the time), a town 20 miles North of Saigon on Highway #1. I was informed that I would most likely be assigned to one of these three battalions. I was ordered to take the earliest available commercial air transportation to Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base near Saigon and link up with the 2nd Brigade wherever they might be by the time I arrived. The general warned me that I might have to wait some time in Hawaii to get a plane seat because the air lift of the 3rd Brigade to Pleiku was tying up not only all of the military air lift but most of the commercial as well. It turned out that I didn't get off the ground at Hickam AFB until 30 January. Those two weeks of waiting were pretty tough duty; dividing my time at Colonel Henshaw's (the J-3 of CINCPAC) house in Fort Kamehameha at the entrance to Pearl Harbor and the guest quarters at Fort De Russy on Waikiki Beach.
The last of us three Lieutenants to see the General was 1/Lt Dye, a member of my old outfit, the 187th Inf (Abn). After his 15 minutes with the General, he reported that he had been assigned to the 1st Brigade which would not deploy for another three months (they arrived around 30 April 1966). The three of us concurred on how General Weyand must spend his mornings, "3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1!"
Frank must have made it to Cu Chi a couple of days after 28 January. B Company of the 1st Bn (Mech), 5th Infantry was the first unit from 2nd Brigade to make it to our future base camp, then "secured" by the 1st Infantry Division. They and the rest of the battalion had to fight the VC mounted and dismounted to get a place to pitch tents. The area was infested with VC tunnels and it took a couple of days to throw a cordon around the mess thus trapping scores of VC in their tunnels within the base camp perimeter, some of them for months. 2nd Brigade HQ to which Frank had been assigned as a Liaison Officer (LNO), (the records say on 20 January), moved into the area the last day or so of the month.
I arrived at Tan Son Nhut on the 1st of February, I think. I lost a day crossing the International Date Line and the flight lasted about 18 hours. There was nobody to meet me. I inquired at the Replacement Depot where the hell was the 2nd Bde of the 25th Inf Div. Nobody seemed to know. A Sergeant First Class from the 101st saw my parachute/glider patch and tried to dragoon me back into the Airborne. I told him I was going to serve with those who wanted me. The Depot sent me by bus to MACV HQ in Saigon to try to find my outfit. An MP there kind of thought that 2nd Bde might still be in Bien Hoa. I flew the 20 miles to Bien Hoa in a Vietnamese Air Force C-47 equipped with a static line cable. What an old work horse! At Bien Hoa I inquired all over the place and some MPs let me use their land line to try to contact "Tropic Lightning Forward". Through what must have been 70 phone line connections I finally talked to somebody who told me that a Supply and Transportation Bn unit from the 25th was located at Bien Hoa and they would have them contact me. It was long after dark when finally an old and grizzled trucking NCO took me under his wing, gave me a weapon (an M-14 rifle), ammo, took me to town, fed me some chow and tucked me in for the night. Up before dawn on 2 February, we traveled in convoy back to Saigon then on Highway #1 to Cu Chi. The forty miles took all day. During one of the many stops and just on the outskirts of Cu Chi town I noticed an M-113 armored personnel carrier (APC) with a base plate strapped to its side that indicated that it was a mortar carrier from the 1/5 Infantry's 4.2" Mortar Platoon. What really grabbed my attention was a 360 degree armored shield surrounding the track commander's cupola and the Browning M-2 HB .50 caliber machine attached to the cupola ring. I thought to myself, "Hmmm. The track commander has a fighting chance with such protection. I might be looking at what could be more than just a battlefield 'Taxi'. This well could be turned into an infantry fighting vehicle!" It was dusk when I finally arrived at the 2nd Bde HQ Co tent. I was hot, dirty, tired, irritable and was struggling with my two over stuffed duffel bags when a smiling Lieutenant emerged through the tent flaps carrying an ice cold and very dry "Martini" in each hand! "Welcome to Cu Chi! I'm Frank D'Amico. I think you could use one of these", handing me one. "You betcha!" I didn't know how he could be expecting me but he was. I don't know where anybody could find potable ice in that desert but Frank did. It's one of those mysteries of a higher head quarters and their resources.
It didn't take long for me to realize that Frank could be my alter ego. When I learned he was from Massachusetts, I mentioned that I had spent the last few months of my 5 and 1/2 year seminary career with the Maryknoll Fathers at their Novitiate in Bedford, MA (actually, Billerica, but Frank knew that too!) So, we were both Roman Catholics and he was well aware of my formative back ground.
We compared notes on our former Airborne careers. Of course we told each other "jump stories" and other lies. Of course we had been to the same Basic Airborne School at Fort Benning. In addition to that we also had attended similar advanced airborne courses such as: Jump Master, Air Mobility, Air Transportability, Air Delivery, etc. I noticed he had a "Path Finder" flash and I mentioned I had orders to attend that course when the Vietnam levy came up.
Coincidentally, in the Fall of '64, we had both participated in the major maneuver called: "Project Team, Air Assault II", conducted at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, which pitted the 82nd Airborne Division (Red Forces or Aggressors) against the 11th Air Assault Division (Air Mobile), later to be renamed the 1st Cavalry Division (Air Mobile) in Vietnam, who were the "Blue Forces". Although I was still a member of Third Army at the time (a "LEG"), I was doing "special duty" as a Special Projects Officer for the G-3 Training Section of the 101st Airborne Division when I was not on Escort Missions for the Department of Army. In fact I was the courier who had hand delivered all the Scenarios for "Project Team" to the various HQs at Fort Bragg, Fort Benning, etc. It was just a fluke that I too, along with a number of 101st Airborne Officers and support personnel had been levied to be "Blue Forces Controllers" for the maneuver. I ended up becoming the "Blue Forces Headquarters Commandant" nurse maiding all the drivers, radio telephone operators (RTOs), cooks, etc for the Blue Forces Controllers (also known as umpires). Frank delighted in recounting to me how the 82nd thoroughly trounced the 11th in the early days of the exercise. I didn't have a dog in that "fight" but I certainly could appreciate Frank's enthusiasm for his "Aggressor" role . I also enjoyed being the "enemy" in field training exercises (FTXs) when I became a member of the 187th Inf (Abn).
When the subject turned to the 82nd Airborne's deployment during the Dominican Republic Intervention of the year before, I could follow the general scheme of the action because at that time, when I was a rifle platoon leader in the 187th, the entire 101st Airborne Division was selected to be the "Immediate Reaction Force" scheduled to reinforce the 82nd either by air landing at the Santo Domingo Airport or by combat jumping into the area should the 82nd have any trouble securing the airport. As it happened, and as Frank took great delight in reminding me, the 82nd not only easily secured their objectives but those of the 101st to boot!
As the reader might well imagine, Frank and I talked all through the night and that means talking "shop". By this I mean real "School of the Soldier" talk: Plans, Operations, Training! Most other normal young men of our time liked talking about cars, trucks, sports and women. Frank and I and other "Happy Warriors" like us, talk TACTICS!
Eventually, Frank got down to some of the specifics of his personal involvement in The Dominican. Frank recalled that while his unit was operating in the city of Santo Domingo, they experienced a nagging problem with snipers. The snipers would pop out of various windows in the upper stories of certain taller building and take pot shots at the "friendlies". When US troopers deployed to flush them out, they'd be long gone. Frank came up with a plan to counter this threat. In his sector he found a tall building with a 360 degree sweep of the other buildings. It was a church bell tower or steeple. He scrounged up a .50 Cal machine gun with a tri-pod and T&E mechanism (traverse and elevation). This was no easy task. The Airborne being very light infantry, the only .50 Cal in a rifle company is the one mounted on a ring mount in the cab of the company's only 2 1/2 Ton truck, the mess truck. Frank set up the gun in the church tower. Somewhere and somehow, Frank also "organized" a high power sniper scope that had a fitting that could attach it to a crew served weapon! I know there are such things but who has them? Frank knew. After attaching the scope, Frank set the gun for single shot fire. He plotted all the windows where snipers had previously appeared and set up the gun to engage those locations the moment a target appeared. It only takes one execution of a plan like this to solve a problem like this. The enemy learns too. I especially mentioned the above episode in Frank's career because I learned something from him that I applied to a similar problem with an application I called "The Tree House". Essentially it was Frank's idea and it helped me and my troops in less than a week.
After all the jump and war stories, we turned to our mutual and immediate concerns, our own future deployments in this war in this place. "Cu Chi Charlie" (many "Charlies" actually), trapped inside the now Brigade perimeter, was popping up from tunnel entrances all over the place, especially in the rear areas and at night. He actually got some GIs into fire fights with other GIs. In Frank's case, the Bde CO, Col Johnson, personally liked having Frank around because he had a cool head and kept the "Palace Guard" from killing each other. Having arrived early as a replacement, Frank foresaw that he would be at Brigade HQ for some time as the LNO. While liaison work is a necessary staff function at a higher HQ, too often one spends most of his time as a "Gofer" and taking care of "ash and trash". Frank recognized himself as the combat leader he truly was and wanted to be with the troops. As for me, I had already mentioned my work with G-3 Training on a Division Staff and need not explain why the troops call such an assignment the "Puzzle Palace". I told Frank how after I returned from "Project Team" to Fort Campbell, I asked Col McCuniff, the Division G-3, for a transfer to the 187th Infantry (I had been invited by Col Smith, the XO of the 3rd Bde to join an airborne outfit). The Colonel said: "Ted, if I knew you wanted to be Airborne so badly, I'd have gotten you a slot for jump school and I can find you a place in the 101st Airborne Administration Company and you can continue working for me." I said to the Colonel: "Sir, consider this. What's wrong with this picture? I'm not going to be a Lieutenant forever. Someday I'll be a Captain and a Company Commander. Suppose my company is sent into combat. Would you or my troops have the type of confidence in me that they need to have, if they found out that I had never been a rifle platoon leader, not even in peace time? Could even I have that same confidence in me, myself?" The Colonel agreed with me. I was young in age and in my career. Staff jobs are inevitable and unavoidable. The experience of leading troops would only contribute to my effectiveness as a staff officer. Frank and I shared this same philosophy. For the time being Frank knew he would be stuck for a while at Bde HQ.
He then started to counsel me as to how I should deport myself at my meeting with the Brigade CO later that morning, 3 February. He gave me a run down on how the three infantry battalions had fared in warfare so far. Frank would never denigrate the history nor the elan of either Bn of the 27th Inf. Both of us had seen the movie "Three Stripes In The Sun", starring Aldo Ray, and both of us had had friends from the "Wolfhounds" in civilian as well as military life. Nevertheless, he felt the "Fifth Mech" was having the best success in combat thus far (and already a couple of Lieutenants from the 27th Inf had been lost WIA in defensive ambushes). Mounted combat had a certain appeal to ex-paratroopers. For one thing a rifle platoon leader would have those four APCs with their organic .50 Cal machine guns. As noted before, a "leg" platoon doesn't even have one. Also considered was the fact that in addition to the two M-60 7.62 MM light machine guns in the Weapons Squad of an Infantry Platoon, each APC had an additional M-60. That came to four .50 Cal and five M-60s. Wow! A "Mech" platoon could out shoot a whole rifle company.
We considered my qualifications for the "Mech". I told Frank that the 3/187th Inf (Abn) had been grooming me to be their next Bn Motor Transportation Officer. So, in the Fall of 1965, they sent me to the 10 week Organizational Maintenance Officers (OMO) Course at Fort Knox, KY, the "Home of The Armor". The last thing I wanted in the Airborne was to end up in the Motor Pool with those 99 wheeled vehicles. In a very hands-on type of course I not only got 40 hours of turret mechanic instruction, I learned how to recover any type of stuck, broken down or combat damaged wheeled or tracked vehicle. For ten weeks I wondered why the 101st would ever send me to a school to learn mostly about tanks and APCs when there is not one single track laying vehicle in an entire Airborne Division! But that was my talking point with Colonel Johnson.
I met with the Colonel later that morning and it went just like Frank had predicted. Colonel Johnson told me he "needed" me in the 27th Inf. I told him about my OMO experience at Fort Knox. He declared, "Damn! I've been trying to get an Officer into that course for either my Armor or Mech unit for over a year. I can't believe anybody would send a paratrooper!" Then he added, "I don't have any slots in the 5th Mech (no casualties... yet)." Then a thought struck him. "Wait a minute. I just heard that a platoon leader (Lt Bob Whaley, 1st Plt, Co B) got burned in a gas fire while his unit was clearing fields of fire. I don't know when or even if he'll return. Maybe I'll send you down as a temporary replacement. Let me think about it. I'll do some checking and I'll let you know tomorrow morning." On the way back to the Officer's hootch, Frank short stopped me and asked how the meeting went. I told him that the Colonel was thinking about putting me in the Mech and that he'd let me know. Frank nodded his head and said, "Believe me. You're in the 5th Mech. I'll be with you before too long"
The next day I bade good bye to Frank and was having lunch with Col Greer, the CO of the 1st Bn (Mech), 5th Inf, his staff, company commanders and other key personnel. The next day I was appointed the 2nd Platoon Leader of B Company. We had sniper problems from day one. Before my arrival a ground radar operator had been killed by a ricochet as he slept. Fire came from all along the trees lining the banks of the Ben Muong River 400 meters to my platoon front, usually at breakfast and lunch when troops would be rotated to the company rear for chow. We killed one my second day when we spotted his location in a tree. It was time to employ the "D'Amico solution". I found lumber in the unfinished section of my Platoon CP which had been a school house. With the help of Sp/4 Goodman from 1st Squad, we had the thing up and working in only a couple of days. The results are as you see in Figure #2.
The next morning, 15 January 1966, one by one, all of us met Major General Weyand, the CO of the 25th Infantry Division (the General personally interviewed every incoming officer for at least 15 minutes each. Classy guy!). He quickly dispelled from all of us the notion of a new Airborne unit. The first officer to see the general was a 1/Lt from the 82nd Airborne (not Frank D'Amico, although he later told me he went through the same process). He returned after his 15 minutes and solemnly told us, "Third Brigade. I'm flying out tonight!"
I was the next to go in. The general explained to me that even as he was speaking, his 2nd Brigade, including the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 27th Infantry Regiment, "Wolfhounds", and the 1st Battalion (Mechanized) of the 5th Infantry Regiment, "Bobcats", were landing at the port of Vung Tau and were moving toward Saigon University to stage for their final move to Cu Chi (a secret destination at the time), a town 20 miles North of Saigon on Highway #1. I was informed that I would most likely be assigned to one of these three battalions. I was ordered to take the earliest available commercial air transportation to Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base near Saigon and link up with the 2nd Brigade wherever they might be by the time I arrived. The general warned me that I might have to wait some time in Hawaii to get a plane seat because the air lift of the 3rd Brigade to Pleiku was tying up not only all of the military air lift but most of the commercial as well. It turned out that I didn't get off the ground at Hickam AFB until 30 January. Those two weeks of waiting were pretty tough duty; dividing my time at Colonel Henshaw's (the J-3 of CINCPAC) house in Fort Kamehameha at the entrance to Pearl Harbor and the guest quarters at Fort De Russy on Waikiki Beach.
The last of us three Lieutenants to see the General was 1/Lt Dye, a member of my old outfit, the 187th Inf (Abn). After his 15 minutes with the General, he reported that he had been assigned to the 1st Brigade which would not deploy for another three months (they arrived around 30 April 1966). The three of us concurred on how General Weyand must spend his mornings, "3, 2, 1. 3, 2, 1!"
Frank must have made it to Cu Chi a couple of days after 28 January. B Company of the 1st Bn (Mech), 5th Infantry was the first unit from 2nd Brigade to make it to our future base camp, then "secured" by the 1st Infantry Division. They and the rest of the battalion had to fight the VC mounted and dismounted to get a place to pitch tents. The area was infested with VC tunnels and it took a couple of days to throw a cordon around the mess thus trapping scores of VC in their tunnels within the base camp perimeter, some of them for months. 2nd Brigade HQ to which Frank had been assigned as a Liaison Officer (LNO), (the records say on 20 January), moved into the area the last day or so of the month.
I arrived at Tan Son Nhut on the 1st of February, I think. I lost a day crossing the International Date Line and the flight lasted about 18 hours. There was nobody to meet me. I inquired at the Replacement Depot where the hell was the 2nd Bde of the 25th Inf Div. Nobody seemed to know. A Sergeant First Class from the 101st saw my parachute/glider patch and tried to dragoon me back into the Airborne. I told him I was going to serve with those who wanted me. The Depot sent me by bus to MACV HQ in Saigon to try to find my outfit. An MP there kind of thought that 2nd Bde might still be in Bien Hoa. I flew the 20 miles to Bien Hoa in a Vietnamese Air Force C-47 equipped with a static line cable. What an old work horse! At Bien Hoa I inquired all over the place and some MPs let me use their land line to try to contact "Tropic Lightning Forward". Through what must have been 70 phone line connections I finally talked to somebody who told me that a Supply and Transportation Bn unit from the 25th was located at Bien Hoa and they would have them contact me. It was long after dark when finally an old and grizzled trucking NCO took me under his wing, gave me a weapon (an M-14 rifle), ammo, took me to town, fed me some chow and tucked me in for the night. Up before dawn on 2 February, we traveled in convoy back to Saigon then on Highway #1 to Cu Chi. The forty miles took all day. During one of the many stops and just on the outskirts of Cu Chi town I noticed an M-113 armored personnel carrier (APC) with a base plate strapped to its side that indicated that it was a mortar carrier from the 1/5 Infantry's 4.2" Mortar Platoon. What really grabbed my attention was a 360 degree armored shield surrounding the track commander's cupola and the Browning M-2 HB .50 caliber machine attached to the cupola ring. I thought to myself, "Hmmm. The track commander has a fighting chance with such protection. I might be looking at what could be more than just a battlefield 'Taxi'. This well could be turned into an infantry fighting vehicle!" It was dusk when I finally arrived at the 2nd Bde HQ Co tent. I was hot, dirty, tired, irritable and was struggling with my two over stuffed duffel bags when a smiling Lieutenant emerged through the tent flaps carrying an ice cold and very dry "Martini" in each hand! "Welcome to Cu Chi! I'm Frank D'Amico. I think you could use one of these", handing me one. "You betcha!" I didn't know how he could be expecting me but he was. I don't know where anybody could find potable ice in that desert but Frank did. It's one of those mysteries of a higher head quarters and their resources.
It didn't take long for me to realize that Frank could be my alter ego. When I learned he was from Massachusetts, I mentioned that I had spent the last few months of my 5 and 1/2 year seminary career with the Maryknoll Fathers at their Novitiate in Bedford, MA (actually, Billerica, but Frank knew that too!) So, we were both Roman Catholics and he was well aware of my formative back ground.
We compared notes on our former Airborne careers. Of course we told each other "jump stories" and other lies. Of course we had been to the same Basic Airborne School at Fort Benning. In addition to that we also had attended similar advanced airborne courses such as: Jump Master, Air Mobility, Air Transportability, Air Delivery, etc. I noticed he had a "Path Finder" flash and I mentioned I had orders to attend that course when the Vietnam levy came up.
Coincidentally, in the Fall of '64, we had both participated in the major maneuver called: "Project Team, Air Assault II", conducted at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, which pitted the 82nd Airborne Division (Red Forces or Aggressors) against the 11th Air Assault Division (Air Mobile), later to be renamed the 1st Cavalry Division (Air Mobile) in Vietnam, who were the "Blue Forces". Although I was still a member of Third Army at the time (a "LEG"), I was doing "special duty" as a Special Projects Officer for the G-3 Training Section of the 101st Airborne Division when I was not on Escort Missions for the Department of Army. In fact I was the courier who had hand delivered all the Scenarios for "Project Team" to the various HQs at Fort Bragg, Fort Benning, etc. It was just a fluke that I too, along with a number of 101st Airborne Officers and support personnel had been levied to be "Blue Forces Controllers" for the maneuver. I ended up becoming the "Blue Forces Headquarters Commandant" nurse maiding all the drivers, radio telephone operators (RTOs), cooks, etc for the Blue Forces Controllers (also known as umpires). Frank delighted in recounting to me how the 82nd thoroughly trounced the 11th in the early days of the exercise. I didn't have a dog in that "fight" but I certainly could appreciate Frank's enthusiasm for his "Aggressor" role . I also enjoyed being the "enemy" in field training exercises (FTXs) when I became a member of the 187th Inf (Abn).
When the subject turned to the 82nd Airborne's deployment during the Dominican Republic Intervention of the year before, I could follow the general scheme of the action because at that time, when I was a rifle platoon leader in the 187th, the entire 101st Airborne Division was selected to be the "Immediate Reaction Force" scheduled to reinforce the 82nd either by air landing at the Santo Domingo Airport or by combat jumping into the area should the 82nd have any trouble securing the airport. As it happened, and as Frank took great delight in reminding me, the 82nd not only easily secured their objectives but those of the 101st to boot!
As the reader might well imagine, Frank and I talked all through the night and that means talking "shop". By this I mean real "School of the Soldier" talk: Plans, Operations, Training! Most other normal young men of our time liked talking about cars, trucks, sports and women. Frank and I and other "Happy Warriors" like us, talk TACTICS!
Eventually, Frank got down to some of the specifics of his personal involvement in The Dominican. Frank recalled that while his unit was operating in the city of Santo Domingo, they experienced a nagging problem with snipers. The snipers would pop out of various windows in the upper stories of certain taller building and take pot shots at the "friendlies". When US troopers deployed to flush them out, they'd be long gone. Frank came up with a plan to counter this threat. In his sector he found a tall building with a 360 degree sweep of the other buildings. It was a church bell tower or steeple. He scrounged up a .50 Cal machine gun with a tri-pod and T&E mechanism (traverse and elevation). This was no easy task. The Airborne being very light infantry, the only .50 Cal in a rifle company is the one mounted on a ring mount in the cab of the company's only 2 1/2 Ton truck, the mess truck. Frank set up the gun in the church tower. Somewhere and somehow, Frank also "organized" a high power sniper scope that had a fitting that could attach it to a crew served weapon! I know there are such things but who has them? Frank knew. After attaching the scope, Frank set the gun for single shot fire. He plotted all the windows where snipers had previously appeared and set up the gun to engage those locations the moment a target appeared. It only takes one execution of a plan like this to solve a problem like this. The enemy learns too. I especially mentioned the above episode in Frank's career because I learned something from him that I applied to a similar problem with an application I called "The Tree House". Essentially it was Frank's idea and it helped me and my troops in less than a week.
After all the jump and war stories, we turned to our mutual and immediate concerns, our own future deployments in this war in this place. "Cu Chi Charlie" (many "Charlies" actually), trapped inside the now Brigade perimeter, was popping up from tunnel entrances all over the place, especially in the rear areas and at night. He actually got some GIs into fire fights with other GIs. In Frank's case, the Bde CO, Col Johnson, personally liked having Frank around because he had a cool head and kept the "Palace Guard" from killing each other. Having arrived early as a replacement, Frank foresaw that he would be at Brigade HQ for some time as the LNO. While liaison work is a necessary staff function at a higher HQ, too often one spends most of his time as a "Gofer" and taking care of "ash and trash". Frank recognized himself as the combat leader he truly was and wanted to be with the troops. As for me, I had already mentioned my work with G-3 Training on a Division Staff and need not explain why the troops call such an assignment the "Puzzle Palace". I told Frank how after I returned from "Project Team" to Fort Campbell, I asked Col McCuniff, the Division G-3, for a transfer to the 187th Infantry (I had been invited by Col Smith, the XO of the 3rd Bde to join an airborne outfit). The Colonel said: "Ted, if I knew you wanted to be Airborne so badly, I'd have gotten you a slot for jump school and I can find you a place in the 101st Airborne Administration Company and you can continue working for me." I said to the Colonel: "Sir, consider this. What's wrong with this picture? I'm not going to be a Lieutenant forever. Someday I'll be a Captain and a Company Commander. Suppose my company is sent into combat. Would you or my troops have the type of confidence in me that they need to have, if they found out that I had never been a rifle platoon leader, not even in peace time? Could even I have that same confidence in me, myself?" The Colonel agreed with me. I was young in age and in my career. Staff jobs are inevitable and unavoidable. The experience of leading troops would only contribute to my effectiveness as a staff officer. Frank and I shared this same philosophy. For the time being Frank knew he would be stuck for a while at Bde HQ.
He then started to counsel me as to how I should deport myself at my meeting with the Brigade CO later that morning, 3 February. He gave me a run down on how the three infantry battalions had fared in warfare so far. Frank would never denigrate the history nor the elan of either Bn of the 27th Inf. Both of us had seen the movie "Three Stripes In The Sun", starring Aldo Ray, and both of us had had friends from the "Wolfhounds" in civilian as well as military life. Nevertheless, he felt the "Fifth Mech" was having the best success in combat thus far (and already a couple of Lieutenants from the 27th Inf had been lost WIA in defensive ambushes). Mounted combat had a certain appeal to ex-paratroopers. For one thing a rifle platoon leader would have those four APCs with their organic .50 Cal machine guns. As noted before, a "leg" platoon doesn't even have one. Also considered was the fact that in addition to the two M-60 7.62 MM light machine guns in the Weapons Squad of an Infantry Platoon, each APC had an additional M-60. That came to four .50 Cal and five M-60s. Wow! A "Mech" platoon could out shoot a whole rifle company.
We considered my qualifications for the "Mech". I told Frank that the 3/187th Inf (Abn) had been grooming me to be their next Bn Motor Transportation Officer. So, in the Fall of 1965, they sent me to the 10 week Organizational Maintenance Officers (OMO) Course at Fort Knox, KY, the "Home of The Armor". The last thing I wanted in the Airborne was to end up in the Motor Pool with those 99 wheeled vehicles. In a very hands-on type of course I not only got 40 hours of turret mechanic instruction, I learned how to recover any type of stuck, broken down or combat damaged wheeled or tracked vehicle. For ten weeks I wondered why the 101st would ever send me to a school to learn mostly about tanks and APCs when there is not one single track laying vehicle in an entire Airborne Division! But that was my talking point with Colonel Johnson.
I met with the Colonel later that morning and it went just like Frank had predicted. Colonel Johnson told me he "needed" me in the 27th Inf. I told him about my OMO experience at Fort Knox. He declared, "Damn! I've been trying to get an Officer into that course for either my Armor or Mech unit for over a year. I can't believe anybody would send a paratrooper!" Then he added, "I don't have any slots in the 5th Mech (no casualties... yet)." Then a thought struck him. "Wait a minute. I just heard that a platoon leader (Lt Bob Whaley, 1st Plt, Co B) got burned in a gas fire while his unit was clearing fields of fire. I don't know when or even if he'll return. Maybe I'll send you down as a temporary replacement. Let me think about it. I'll do some checking and I'll let you know tomorrow morning." On the way back to the Officer's hootch, Frank short stopped me and asked how the meeting went. I told him that the Colonel was thinking about putting me in the Mech and that he'd let me know. Frank nodded his head and said, "Believe me. You're in the 5th Mech. I'll be with you before too long"
The next day I bade good bye to Frank and was having lunch with Col Greer, the CO of the 1st Bn (Mech), 5th Inf, his staff, company commanders and other key personnel. The next day I was appointed the 2nd Platoon Leader of B Company. We had sniper problems from day one. Before my arrival a ground radar operator had been killed by a ricochet as he slept. Fire came from all along the trees lining the banks of the Ben Muong River 400 meters to my platoon front, usually at breakfast and lunch when troops would be rotated to the company rear for chow. We killed one my second day when we spotted his location in a tree. It was time to employ the "D'Amico solution". I found lumber in the unfinished section of my Platoon CP which had been a school house. With the help of Sp/4 Goodman from 1st Squad, we had the thing up and working in only a couple of days. The results are as you see in Figure #2.
. As you can see, we couldn't find a crew served sniper scope but we did have a binocular telescope that we "borrowed" from the 1/8th Artillery. As you can see in Figure #3 As you can see, we couldn't find a crew served
sniper scope but we did have a binocular telescope that we "borrowed" from the 1/8th Artillery. As you can see in Figure #3, the gunner sat behind the weapon while an observer (not pictured) looked through the telescope on the tri-pod on the far right of the picture. The soldier with me is Lt Frank Trenery, XO of B Company. It's hard to believe but even with a muzzle velocity of 3,200 feet per second a .50 Cal bullet (1/2 " diameter) can be seen in flight. All you have to do is look for the apex of the visible shock wave on either side of the bullet and there it is. The gunner is told where the strike was and is given an estimation of what changes he should make with the T&E mechanism. Using this method, we could accurately shoot over the trees along the river all the way into the Fil Hol Rubber Plantation 1,500 meters away. On our very first trial, we selected a VC bunker on the edge of the plantation as a target. The bunker had only a 3" high aperture. After only a couple of spotting rounds, a gunner, using single shot, could put round after round through that tiny opening. I put three consecutive ones in there myself and didn't want to waste any more ammunition. Frank D'Amico came by a short time after the project was finished and gave the system a try. He was impressed. So, were the VC. No more sniper fire. And I gave all the credit to Frank D'Amico. The whole contraption lasted until 30 April 1966, when we permanently turned over our perimeter duties to a platoon from the 1st Brigade. I had to take .50 Cal with us, but advised the new platoon leader that he should get his own up there ASAP. The VC moved in that very night and destroyed the platform with rocket propelled grenades.
Frank came to visit me in my platoon area a few more times in February and March when we were on the perimeter, whichwas not too often considering that the 1/5th Inf (Mech) was out in the woods most of the time on many operations. Whenever Frank did visit, he confided
to me how bored he was at Brigade HQ and how anxious he was to join us in the "Mech". Frank finally joined Company B, 1st Bn (M), 5th Inf on Easter Sunday, 10 April 1966. After Easter Mass, celebrated by Cpt (Fr) Clarence Olszewski, the only Catholic Chaplain in 2nd Brigade, we all went back to the company area where Frank was welcomed as the new 3rd Platoon Leader by the B Company officers and men.
The following is a picture taken by Frank that same day. It depicts most of the Co B Officers minus Cpt Vickery, The CO. From left to right standing are: 2/Lt Chuck Burgardt, the attached 1/8 Artillery FO, 2/Lt Bob Whaley, 1st Platoon Leader, 1/Lt Frank Trenery, Co B XO. Kneeling from left to right: 1/Lt Lo Phillips, Weapons Platoon Leader and myself, the 2nd Platoon Leader.
The following is a picture taken by Frank that same day. It depicts most of the Co B Officers minus Cpt Vickery, The CO. From left to right standing are: 2/Lt Chuck Burgardt, the attached 1/8 Artillery FO, 2/Lt Bob Whaley, 1st Platoon Leader, 1/Lt Frank Trenery, Co B XO. Kneeling from left to right: 1/Lt Lo Phillips, Weapons Platoon Leader and myself, the 2nd Platoon Leader.
What I'm sketching on the ground in the above picture is an elaborate "bull shit" diagram of how I maneuvered my platoon during the 35 minute trench fight in the the Fil Hol Plantation the day before, Holy Saturday, 9 April 1966. I was especially happy to have Frank on board
particularly because of my and my platoon's experiences from the day before. Although Frank had been closely following the battalion's activities through the Brigade's Tactical Operations Center (TOC), I brought Frank up to speed on what had been happening, specifically to B Company, over the last few days. I related to him how Lt Bob Whaley's 1st Platoon on Good Friday, 8 April, had set up a "stay behind" (no APCs) platoon
sized ambush on a trail junction in broad daylight near Bao Cap in the South Western corner of the Fil Hol Plantation. We in the company rear were amazed to listen to Bob's situation reports over the company net (radio). His platoon "kicked" the same ambush on four separated occasions killing a total of nine Viet Cong (VC). In between each contact with armed VC, Bob's men managed to clean up the site after each action. He detained and held several groups of unarmed civilians traveling along the same trail. He kept them and their bicycles hidden in the bushes while waiting for more VC to come down the trail. That evening, Co B got a mission to conduct a Reconnaissance In Force (RIF) of the North Western section of the Fil Hol Rubber Plantation. A VC "Hoi Chan" (Rallyer or defector) had volunteered to lead us to the location of his old unit in that area, a VC Heavy Weapons Company reinforced with two platoons of Infantry. Mounted in our 113s we departed for that Objective early on the morning of 9 April. En route and as we were passing through Bao Cap, Cpt Vickery was either ordered or decided to drop off Lt Whaley's platoon as a "stay behind" ambush at the same location where he had so much success the day before. 1st Platoon's APCs, manned only by the drivers and track commanders, continued on with the rest of Company B (Minus) toward the main objective. At the objective, we found and engaged the enemy, who occupied an East to West trench line on the Northern edge of the Plantation. At first contact, Cpt Vickery maneuvered the three rifle platoons as follows: He placed 1st Platoon's undermanned vehicles to block the Western end of the trench line. He kept my 2nd Platoon in the middle and on line facing the trench to our North. He maneuvered 3rd Platoon from its original echelon right location to swing on line to the right of my platoon and thus be on line with me to support my platoon and to block the Eastern end of the enemy trench line. Thus commenced the 35 minute fire fight between two forces separated by no more than 20 meters. For the first twenty minutes the opposing forces whaled away at each with each side having many machine guns, automatic rifles, and M-79 grenade launchers (the VC had captured some M-79s from A Co, 2/27th Inf on 4 April). Tens of thousands of rounds were exchanged in what I figured to be a "prep" of the target trench. After this softening up exercise, I announced to the company and my platoon that we were moving on the trench. As my four vehicles crept forward keeping a steady fire on the enemy to keep their fire suppressed, I noticed that 3rd Platoon was not moving on line with mine. In fact they weren't moving at all! Prior to this event, the Platoon Leader had been a very dependable fighting man. I did not know that this was his last day in Company B! He must have had the "short timer" jitters. When my four APCs straddled the trench to fire down into it, several things happened: I had just run out of .50 Cal ammo and I had no time to reload. At a range of 12 feet I saw 3 VC trying to run away from my APC toward my 1st Squad track. Leaning my arms over my cupola shield to the right side, I sprayed the fleeing enemy with fully automatic fire from my M-16 loaded with a 30 round magazine. Only one of the three VC went down because my rifle had jammed after firing only six rounds. Then I saw appear from beneath a section of overhead cover of the trench the barrels of two 57MM recoilless rifles (antitank weapons). At a range of 12 feet, they couldn't miss. Both rounds scored direct hits on my vehicle but only one of the 20MM tungsten cores penetrated it, lodging only inches from our 80 gallon gas tank. All aboard were wounded by the molten aluminum and shards of tungsten alloy steel except for me (I had earlier caught a few lead fragments in the palm of my right hand from a ricochet but hadn't even felt it) my driver, Ken Stuart and my radio telephone operator (RTO), Ken Smith.
All four of my vehicles immediately went into reverse, the other three covering the retreat of my stricken APC. After the smoke had cleared and my wounded checked each other out, I called a squad leader meeting and asked if they wanted to try this again, maybe a little differently. They were game even though my platoon strength had dwindled due to WIA from 53 men in February to about 25 on this operation and 8 of us were wounded (two of whom never served in combat with me again). The enemy may have started the fight with maybe 150 men. The plan was for all four vehicles to hit the middle of the trench again, two vehicles, 3rd and Weapons Squads, would turn left (West) with a vehicle on either side of the trench, the other two, mine (2nd Squad) and 1st Squad would turn right (East), again with an APC on either side of the trench. Each team would work its way mounted firing forward to take the enemy under enfilade fire, to the trench side of the vehicles, and to the rear at the portions of trench we were passing fighting our way to to extreme ends of the trench (East and West). Along the way, each squad was to bomb the Hell out of the trench with hand grenades as we passed. I personally "cooked off" and threw 24 hand grenades (a whole case) that the crew below me were handing up to me. They had even though enough to pinch the points of the cotter pins closer together for easier pulling. Once each team reached the two ends of the trench, we were to dismount and fight our way back toward the center. The enemy were still there (a detachment left in contact, DLIC) when we hit them again according to the above plan, although many had exfiltrated through 3rd Platoon's "blocking" position dragging their many dead and wounded and leaving a bloody trail that extended more than a thousand meters away from the battle site. Having dismounted at our respective ends, we worked our way back toward the middle and helped Weapons Platoon (which had taken 2nd Platoon's place on the company line) recover the 13 dead VC and numerous weapons the enemy had to leave behind. After repairs were made to my command track, Co B (minus) continued its pursuit of the enemy, driving 30 of them into an artillery barrage directed by a Command and Control (C & C) helicopter. Our chase ended when our APCs bogged down in the thickets and gullies that bordered the Saigon River. When we got back to base camp, I questioned the 3rd Platoon Leader on why he didn't support my platoon in its two assaults against the the trench. He not too convincingly said that he "Just didn't see anything".
Therefore, the reader should well understand my delight on the arrival of 1/Lt Frank D'Amico the very next day to replace a platoon leader who was now an agricultural advisor in MACV.
I didn't get to see much of Frank on Easter Monday or Tuesday (11 and 12 April). I got lucky and was selected to go on the courier flight to Saigon to deliver mail to Company B personnel recovering at the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon, itself, and the 3rd Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) located in Bien Hoa. Almost half of my platoon were there as a result of Operations Honolulu, Del Rey and Circle Pines. This was my first break from the field since the 4th of February. Upon my return late Tuesday afternoon, we all got a briefing on Operation Kalamazoo which was to commence the next morning, Easter Wednesday, 13 April 1966. The maneuver elements were to be configured as a number of Task Forces (TF) made up of a mix of units from the 1/5 Inf (M) and the 69th Armor Battalion. "Team Vickery", led by the Co B CO, was to be a "Mech Infantry Heavy" TF in that it would have two rifle platoons mounted on M-113s and a platoon of tanks (4). To gain the tank platoon for our TF, we had to detach Lt Bob Whaley's 1st Platoon from our Co B so that he would serve as the Mech Infantry platoon of a "Tank Heavy" TF commanded by a 69th Armor Company Commander. When Co B would have a platoon of tanks attached to our company, Cpt Vickery liked to employ what he called a "modified wedge" in our movements to contact. The tank platoon would be in the lead and on line. In this case my 2nd Platoon was to travel in echelon left of the tank platoon and Frank's 3rd Platoon would be in echelon right of the tank platoon. Cpt Vickery put his command APC and the APC of the XO, Lt Trenery, in the middle of these leading elements. Weapons Platoon followed as a reserve on line with their 4 APCs behind the leading platoons.
The following is a photo of the mopping up after the 9 April trench fight. I'm putting it here because, not surprisingly, this area was to be our first objective on 13 April '66. This, of course, was to be Frank's first operation as the 3rd Platoon Leader of Co B. Our mission at this objective was to recon the area to see if the VC had returned after the clobbering we had given them on the 9th.
sized ambush on a trail junction in broad daylight near Bao Cap in the South Western corner of the Fil Hol Plantation. We in the company rear were amazed to listen to Bob's situation reports over the company net (radio). His platoon "kicked" the same ambush on four separated occasions killing a total of nine Viet Cong (VC). In between each contact with armed VC, Bob's men managed to clean up the site after each action. He detained and held several groups of unarmed civilians traveling along the same trail. He kept them and their bicycles hidden in the bushes while waiting for more VC to come down the trail. That evening, Co B got a mission to conduct a Reconnaissance In Force (RIF) of the North Western section of the Fil Hol Rubber Plantation. A VC "Hoi Chan" (Rallyer or defector) had volunteered to lead us to the location of his old unit in that area, a VC Heavy Weapons Company reinforced with two platoons of Infantry. Mounted in our 113s we departed for that Objective early on the morning of 9 April. En route and as we were passing through Bao Cap, Cpt Vickery was either ordered or decided to drop off Lt Whaley's platoon as a "stay behind" ambush at the same location where he had so much success the day before. 1st Platoon's APCs, manned only by the drivers and track commanders, continued on with the rest of Company B (Minus) toward the main objective. At the objective, we found and engaged the enemy, who occupied an East to West trench line on the Northern edge of the Plantation. At first contact, Cpt Vickery maneuvered the three rifle platoons as follows: He placed 1st Platoon's undermanned vehicles to block the Western end of the trench line. He kept my 2nd Platoon in the middle and on line facing the trench to our North. He maneuvered 3rd Platoon from its original echelon right location to swing on line to the right of my platoon and thus be on line with me to support my platoon and to block the Eastern end of the enemy trench line. Thus commenced the 35 minute fire fight between two forces separated by no more than 20 meters. For the first twenty minutes the opposing forces whaled away at each with each side having many machine guns, automatic rifles, and M-79 grenade launchers (the VC had captured some M-79s from A Co, 2/27th Inf on 4 April). Tens of thousands of rounds were exchanged in what I figured to be a "prep" of the target trench. After this softening up exercise, I announced to the company and my platoon that we were moving on the trench. As my four vehicles crept forward keeping a steady fire on the enemy to keep their fire suppressed, I noticed that 3rd Platoon was not moving on line with mine. In fact they weren't moving at all! Prior to this event, the Platoon Leader had been a very dependable fighting man. I did not know that this was his last day in Company B! He must have had the "short timer" jitters. When my four APCs straddled the trench to fire down into it, several things happened: I had just run out of .50 Cal ammo and I had no time to reload. At a range of 12 feet I saw 3 VC trying to run away from my APC toward my 1st Squad track. Leaning my arms over my cupola shield to the right side, I sprayed the fleeing enemy with fully automatic fire from my M-16 loaded with a 30 round magazine. Only one of the three VC went down because my rifle had jammed after firing only six rounds. Then I saw appear from beneath a section of overhead cover of the trench the barrels of two 57MM recoilless rifles (antitank weapons). At a range of 12 feet, they couldn't miss. Both rounds scored direct hits on my vehicle but only one of the 20MM tungsten cores penetrated it, lodging only inches from our 80 gallon gas tank. All aboard were wounded by the molten aluminum and shards of tungsten alloy steel except for me (I had earlier caught a few lead fragments in the palm of my right hand from a ricochet but hadn't even felt it) my driver, Ken Stuart and my radio telephone operator (RTO), Ken Smith.
All four of my vehicles immediately went into reverse, the other three covering the retreat of my stricken APC. After the smoke had cleared and my wounded checked each other out, I called a squad leader meeting and asked if they wanted to try this again, maybe a little differently. They were game even though my platoon strength had dwindled due to WIA from 53 men in February to about 25 on this operation and 8 of us were wounded (two of whom never served in combat with me again). The enemy may have started the fight with maybe 150 men. The plan was for all four vehicles to hit the middle of the trench again, two vehicles, 3rd and Weapons Squads, would turn left (West) with a vehicle on either side of the trench, the other two, mine (2nd Squad) and 1st Squad would turn right (East), again with an APC on either side of the trench. Each team would work its way mounted firing forward to take the enemy under enfilade fire, to the trench side of the vehicles, and to the rear at the portions of trench we were passing fighting our way to to extreme ends of the trench (East and West). Along the way, each squad was to bomb the Hell out of the trench with hand grenades as we passed. I personally "cooked off" and threw 24 hand grenades (a whole case) that the crew below me were handing up to me. They had even though enough to pinch the points of the cotter pins closer together for easier pulling. Once each team reached the two ends of the trench, we were to dismount and fight our way back toward the center. The enemy were still there (a detachment left in contact, DLIC) when we hit them again according to the above plan, although many had exfiltrated through 3rd Platoon's "blocking" position dragging their many dead and wounded and leaving a bloody trail that extended more than a thousand meters away from the battle site. Having dismounted at our respective ends, we worked our way back toward the middle and helped Weapons Platoon (which had taken 2nd Platoon's place on the company line) recover the 13 dead VC and numerous weapons the enemy had to leave behind. After repairs were made to my command track, Co B (minus) continued its pursuit of the enemy, driving 30 of them into an artillery barrage directed by a Command and Control (C & C) helicopter. Our chase ended when our APCs bogged down in the thickets and gullies that bordered the Saigon River. When we got back to base camp, I questioned the 3rd Platoon Leader on why he didn't support my platoon in its two assaults against the the trench. He not too convincingly said that he "Just didn't see anything".
Therefore, the reader should well understand my delight on the arrival of 1/Lt Frank D'Amico the very next day to replace a platoon leader who was now an agricultural advisor in MACV.
I didn't get to see much of Frank on Easter Monday or Tuesday (11 and 12 April). I got lucky and was selected to go on the courier flight to Saigon to deliver mail to Company B personnel recovering at the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon, itself, and the 3rd Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) located in Bien Hoa. Almost half of my platoon were there as a result of Operations Honolulu, Del Rey and Circle Pines. This was my first break from the field since the 4th of February. Upon my return late Tuesday afternoon, we all got a briefing on Operation Kalamazoo which was to commence the next morning, Easter Wednesday, 13 April 1966. The maneuver elements were to be configured as a number of Task Forces (TF) made up of a mix of units from the 1/5 Inf (M) and the 69th Armor Battalion. "Team Vickery", led by the Co B CO, was to be a "Mech Infantry Heavy" TF in that it would have two rifle platoons mounted on M-113s and a platoon of tanks (4). To gain the tank platoon for our TF, we had to detach Lt Bob Whaley's 1st Platoon from our Co B so that he would serve as the Mech Infantry platoon of a "Tank Heavy" TF commanded by a 69th Armor Company Commander. When Co B would have a platoon of tanks attached to our company, Cpt Vickery liked to employ what he called a "modified wedge" in our movements to contact. The tank platoon would be in the lead and on line. In this case my 2nd Platoon was to travel in echelon left of the tank platoon and Frank's 3rd Platoon would be in echelon right of the tank platoon. Cpt Vickery put his command APC and the APC of the XO, Lt Trenery, in the middle of these leading elements. Weapons Platoon followed as a reserve on line with their 4 APCs behind the leading platoons.
The following is a photo of the mopping up after the 9 April trench fight. I'm putting it here because, not surprisingly, this area was to be our first objective on 13 April '66. This, of course, was to be Frank's first operation as the 3rd Platoon Leader of Co B. Our mission at this objective was to recon the area to see if the VC had returned after the clobbering we had given them on the 9th.
We moved to that objective in the combat formation described above. I was amazed at how well and almost effortlessly Frank managed the echelon right formation of 3rd Platoon, not only in open rice paddies where it is easier to maintain but alsothrough rubber plantation and
Arriving at the objective Cpt Vickery had us "circle the wagons", a normal all around defensive posture while troops dismount to search the ground. Each platoon had its own search area. We had not been on the ground very long when Frank came up to me and said, "Hey, Ted. I'd like to show you something." He led me to an area of rubber trees some 50 meters South of where the 9 April fight had occurred. In a spot not too obvious to explorers there were 13 freshly dug graves, each with a wooden marker indicating the name, etc of the fallen VC. I had to note how Frank deployed his troops on the ground and how quickly he adapted to strange terrain. He was a real professional.
I hate to admit it, but already I felt a little intimidated by Frank. This is natural because all platoon leaders are encouraged to compete against each other. Those who aspire to be the best of anything try to outdo those who are doing the same thing. In my case and since the end of Operation Honolulu in mid March, Cpt Vickery had appointed me his "Field Executive Officer" and second in command. This was no personal "knock" against the abilities or character of Lt Frank Trenery, the TO&E Company XO. The fact was that Frank Trenery's Branch of Service was Military Intelligence. All Regular Army Officers (RA) in non-combat Branches are "detailed" to a combat Arm (Inf, Armor, or Arty) to validate their RA status. Even Bob Whaley was commissioned in the Ordnance Corps but was detailed Infantry for two years. In Bob's case, however, he also attended the Infantry Officer's Basic Course, Airborne & Ranger Schools and the Jungle Warfare School. Frank Trenery didn't have that kind of training. As XO, he went on all operations with us but his primary areas of concern were, "beans and bullets" (supply), vehicular maintenance and recovery and medical evacuation. It's a great honor but I had no duties as "Field XO" except to take over the command of the company should anything happen to Cpt Vickery that prevented him from doing so. Anyway, I got this idea that while looking at Frank D'Amico at work in the field, "Here's a man who just might be that much a better combat leader than me!" He probably was.
Having thoroughly searched that North East corner of the Fil Hol, we were ordered to proceed to our next objective, the Ho Bo Woods to the North. I don't know how it happened, because we were traversing relatively easy rice paddies, but on the way there one of the tanks "threw" a track. When this happens to an APC, sometimes the track can simply be "jumped" back onto its sprocket and road wheels. If the track has to be "broken", even then it's a 30 minute job at most. With a tank, however, it's a much bigger job requiring more than "grunt" power. I was ordered by Cpt Vickery to post a squad and its vehicle as security until a maintenance contact team could repair the tank and then both elements would have to try to catch up to the team. This is the nature of Infantry and Armor working as a team. A tank is an asset that projects great firepower, high mobility and shock action but a tank crew needs Infantry for protection, especially when isolated. Both the APCs (13 Tons) and the tanks of that time (40 Ton M-48 A-3, diesel, 90MM gun) could do 45 MPH on the road. In rice paddies, the tank can negotiate 2' paddy walls with ease and race like Hell. These are serious road bumps for the M-113. On the other hand, an M-113 APC could race through rubber plantations between the trees at speeds up to 35 MPH. The M-48 tank, on the other hand, being much wider, sometimes has to knock down every tree in its path slowing it down to walking speed. Another problem we had at that time working with the 69th Armor was communication. When the 1/5 Inf (M) deployed to Vietnam, all of our vehicles, tracked and wheeled had the new family of FM radios. When the 69th Armor first joined us, they were still equipped with the old family of AM radios. For Cpt Vickery to talk to the tank platoon, the Platoon Leaderhad to be listening to him on a portable PRC-25 back pack radio. The Platoon Leader would then relay Cpt Vickery's instructions to his other tanks via the AM sets. Very unsatisfactory.
I selected my 3rd Squad to remain with the disabled tank. I didn't like the way things were going. I just lost 25 % of my platoon's combat power.
In the Western Ho Bo Woods, we ran into only light contact if any at all. This was search and destroy so we probably found something to destroy, a bunker or whatever. We moved all the way to the East side of the Ho Bo near the Saigon River (the "Iron Triangle") and had nothing in the way of fighting like we had on Operation Circle Pines, 28 March to 5 April. The TF then turned South along the main road that leads back toward Cu Chi. We never drove on the roads, just followed them. We were still in our wedge formation. I was on the left side of the road in scrubby forest just to the left rear of the left most tank when, WHAM! The tank hit an anti-tank mine on its port (my) side. The 12 pound Chi-Com anti-tank mine usually blows off two road wheels and 15 sections of track block when a M-113 hits it. It does a real good number on a tank too. Again, I was ordered to detach one of my rifle squads to help secure the tank. I selected my 1st Squad. As additional security and to assist with a much more difficult repair job requiring the on board mechanics that traveled with the Co XO in his vehicle, Lt Trenery was also ordered to remain with this tank and with his APC. That left me with two two APCs and their squads, my Weapons Squad under S/Sgt Thompson, and the 2nd Squad with whom I always rode, this because it was the platoon command track, having two vehicular mounted radios instead of one. Now I only had 50 % of my platoon. At this time refer to the Sketch Map at the end of this narrative to follow the ensuing action.
We proceeded South in the same formation with two tanks on line and the left wing looking a little stubby. Then all Hell broke loose! The C&C ship overhead spotted a large group of VC at the next road junction. Racing across the rice paddies, the tanks were maybe 100 meters ahead of their Infantry. At the road junction the VC split up, one group heading East toward the Saigon River, the other group heading south through a small stand of rubber trees. The left tank (the one Iwas responsible for) was directed to chase the group heading toward the river. The right hand tank was directed to chase the group going South through the rubber with Frank D'Amico's 3rd Platoon following it. Because, the ground falls away rapidly the closer you get to the river, the tank ahead of me came to a thudding halt as it hit a muddy rice paddy that mired its hull all the way down to its sponson boxes. I halted my two APCs 50 meters short of the tank lest the same thing happen to me. " My" tank fired some "bee hive" (thousands of anti-personnel flechettes) rounds into the woods to our left and the fire from my platoon quieted down the enemy who had been firing at us.
When the tank that Frank was following got to the other side of the small rubber patch, it stopped in the first paddy at the beginning of another field of rice paddies. Frank's 3rd Platoon was a short distance behind. The "Eye In The Sky" (C&C ship) called down to the tanker and asked, "Are you stuck in that paddy?" The tanker replied, "I don't think so." C&C then directed, "Try backing out." Tanker: "Roger. (Pause). Oops! I'm stuck!"
What had happened was the tank had entered a rice paddy that was apparently very dry. Paddies can be very deceptive. They can have a crust of dry soil on top a foot or more thick. Underneath that crust it's all muck. The 13 Ton M-113 with its scant 6 PSI ground pressure (the lightest ground pressure in the US Army, even as compared to the smallest wheeled vehicle,
the 1/4 Ton truck), could drive over such a paddy with impunity. The 40 Ton M-48 can not.
The C&C ship then instructed Frank to halt while he was still in the rubber and to not enter the paddy with his APCs. The apparent reasoning was that the C&C didn't want five stuck vehicles He was told to dismount his troops in order to secure the tank which was receiving fire from its rear.
Before I go on, please refer to Figure #6, a photo of my radio telephone operator (RTO), PFC Kenneth Smith. "Smitty" got that shot through his helmet because he was carrying a PRC-25 radio with its very visible antenna. It is a very understandable
that a rifleman, given a variety of targets and one of them includes an antenna, the marksman would want to shoot the man next to the man with the antenna or in "Smitty's" case the man with the antenna. Another principle to consider is the fact that a platoon leader never goes anywhere without his RTO.
So, Frank ordered his troops to dismount and approach the tank. I'm sure his RTO was right behind him. Frank didn't take
but a few steps when he was the first one hit by a sniper to his front (between him and the tank). The four Infantrymen who died right after him, were either trying to reach Frank to assist him or were moving against the sniper to take him out. Most certainly, when Sp/5 Jimmie Scott, the Company Senior Medic, was radioed at the CO's track, he set out to help all of them. He was hit twice in the head but survived until 1 June 1966 when he died of his wounds.
When all of this was happening, I had no idea how serious the situation was. I heard small arms fire in rubber to my right but it was sporadic. It didn't sound like an all out fire fight. I got a call on my radio: "Bobcat Bravo 2-6, report to my CP and bring your medic (Sp/4 Thomas)". As I approached Cpt Vickery's command track, I believe it was Lt Burgardt, our 1/8 Arty FO, who told me with tears in his eyes: "Frank's been killed!" At first I was not only shocked but totally confused. I told Chuck, "But Frank (thinking it was Trenery) is with the disabled tank and there's nothing happening over there!" Lt Burgardt corrected me, "No, It's Frank D'Amico!" Words fail me to describe how I felt then and now.
Cpt Vickery called me over to him and ordered me to secure a landing zone for a "Dust Off". I deployed my troops into a perimeter and took up a firing position behind a log near the North West corner of the rubber. In my anguish I said to myself: "My God, my God. What the Hell am I doing here?" As if in answer to me, I said to myself, "You dumb Polack! Youvolunteered to be here! If you weren't here right now, somebody else would have to be! Would you wish that on anyone?" Looking over to my left, I saw 3rd Platoon men carrying dead and wounded from the rubber to within my perimeter. It was somehow painful but comforting to see Father Olszewski going from man to man anointing the dead and the wounded with what they now call "The Sacrament Of The Sick", then known as "Extreme Unction" and popularly termed "The Last Rites". It is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that at the moment of death, the soul does not immediately leave the body. Having "died" once for about 20 minutes, I can attest to that teaching as fact. In this regard I can also attest to my unshakable belief that all those who died that day received a First Class Ticket to Paradise and from that time until now, they have been enjoying the Beatific Vision, safe and happy in the Bosom of the Lord. I hope this very long narrative can give the same kind of comfort that it gave to me that day.
It seemed that Fr. "O" appeared from nowhere. Didn't know he was there because he hadn't been riding with my platoon. Then I saw them bring out Sgt Clinton Fackrell. I knew few of the enlisted men from 3rd Platoon except for the Senior NCOs. From time to time I'd had occasion to see Sgt Fackrell on various battlefields and even talked with him a few times. I was always impressed with his command presence, we call it. He was unflappable, cool, assured, decent, brave. Fr. Olszewski recently told me he anointed everybody who needed it. It didn't matter if they weren't Catholic. He feels it works for all men of good will. "The Holy Spirit provides" is what many say in such cases and so, I also say.
I heard the "Huey" helicopter approaching and so I left my log and accompanied my friends to their transportation. I carried the head portion of the litter that held my friend, Frank D'Amico. From under the poncho covering him I noticed his hand and wrist on which he was wearing the olive drab, plastic tactical wrist watch I used to tease him about when he was still at 2nd Brigade HQ. As I helped put Sp/5 Scott next to Frank, I saw the pain he was in from his two head wounds. Somehow, he was still conscious. I told him, "Hang in there, Scotty!" He nodded an affirmative. God bless him. God bless them all. I felt a lot of things including survivor guilt. I felt that the better men had died and the less worthy had lived.
As I saw the 3rd Platoon APCs emerging from the west side of the rubber, now led by the Platoon sergeant, SFC Tommy Hemphill, I knew that they had been recalled from their security mission at their tank. When the CO called me over to him, I knew what was coming, 2nd Platoon would have to take over from the 3rd Platoon. The Lord knows that 3rd Platoon had done enough and suffered enough for one day. They were put in reserve and to secure the TF CP area. As Cpt Vickery relayed the mission to us, he cautioned us not to use .50 Caliber fire until we could clearly see the tank. Although the crew was buttoned up, heavy machine gun fire could enter the exhaust louvers at the tank's rear and disable it further. With this in mind, I briefed my two squads. What were there? Ten or 12 men? We decided to reprise in a way the assault we had made on the trench on 9 April, I.E.: Bomb the Hell out of the interval between the vehicles on the inside as well as outside the two tracks. Shoot everything except .50 Cal to the front, sides and rear.
And so we did. On the way to the tank, I saw a bicycle to my left which a VC had dropped on the trail in his haste. I bombed that too! We took a lot of hits too. See Figure #8 depicting numerous bullet and fragment holes on the port side of my command track. Once the tank came into view, I blasted a pile of lumber with my .50 Cal that I thought might have been a good hiding place for a sniper. Once we stopped, I saw an innocent palm tree to my front about 2" in diameter that couldn't possibly have held a sniper. With two single shots of the .50, I chopped it down too. Just for the Hell of it!. Dismounted, we hand grenaded every conceivable enemy position and set up a perimeter facing our rear. Making contact with the tank crew, I put them on the ground to help. I was determined not only to secure this tank that had caused so much grief, but if there was any way in Hell I could pull that sucker out of that quagmire, I and my men were going to do it.
I had learned at Fort Knox that an M-113 can usually pull out another mired M-113. Tanks seldom can do the same with other tanks. It usually takes an M-88 VTR, Medium Recovery Vehicle (Medium? The "Beast" weighs 60 Ton). APCs recovering a tank was unheard of. I got all the tow cables we had on my two APCs and those from the tank. With my two M-113s pulling forward in tandem and the tank powering up in reverse, we got that hulk out of the mud. With the tank now under its own power we unhooked the cables and returned to the TF perimeter.
It was after sundown by now but Cpt Vickery was still worried about the other stuck tank, the one I was originally following. It was still firing "bee hive" into the forest at VC North of the paddy where it lay. I accompanied my CO East down the trail toward the river. At a path leading North toward the tank I heard the crack of a rifle shot and I saw somebody go down. "Dear, Lord, No! Not again! It was 'Smitty', my RTO who had been hit". See Figure #6. Thank God he only suffered a mild concussion. He had no more than a head ache. I got some of my troops together and we attacked on foot into the forest. We had chased them away for the time being. On returning to the tank I left a security detail with its crew. We all hunkered down in a very ragged perimeter for a night defense because other TF units were having problems of their own and even the M-88 that arrived later that night could not extract the mired tank until the next morning.
I hate to admit it, but already I felt a little intimidated by Frank. This is natural because all platoon leaders are encouraged to compete against each other. Those who aspire to be the best of anything try to outdo those who are doing the same thing. In my case and since the end of Operation Honolulu in mid March, Cpt Vickery had appointed me his "Field Executive Officer" and second in command. This was no personal "knock" against the abilities or character of Lt Frank Trenery, the TO&E Company XO. The fact was that Frank Trenery's Branch of Service was Military Intelligence. All Regular Army Officers (RA) in non-combat Branches are "detailed" to a combat Arm (Inf, Armor, or Arty) to validate their RA status. Even Bob Whaley was commissioned in the Ordnance Corps but was detailed Infantry for two years. In Bob's case, however, he also attended the Infantry Officer's Basic Course, Airborne & Ranger Schools and the Jungle Warfare School. Frank Trenery didn't have that kind of training. As XO, he went on all operations with us but his primary areas of concern were, "beans and bullets" (supply), vehicular maintenance and recovery and medical evacuation. It's a great honor but I had no duties as "Field XO" except to take over the command of the company should anything happen to Cpt Vickery that prevented him from doing so. Anyway, I got this idea that while looking at Frank D'Amico at work in the field, "Here's a man who just might be that much a better combat leader than me!" He probably was.
Having thoroughly searched that North East corner of the Fil Hol, we were ordered to proceed to our next objective, the Ho Bo Woods to the North. I don't know how it happened, because we were traversing relatively easy rice paddies, but on the way there one of the tanks "threw" a track. When this happens to an APC, sometimes the track can simply be "jumped" back onto its sprocket and road wheels. If the track has to be "broken", even then it's a 30 minute job at most. With a tank, however, it's a much bigger job requiring more than "grunt" power. I was ordered by Cpt Vickery to post a squad and its vehicle as security until a maintenance contact team could repair the tank and then both elements would have to try to catch up to the team. This is the nature of Infantry and Armor working as a team. A tank is an asset that projects great firepower, high mobility and shock action but a tank crew needs Infantry for protection, especially when isolated. Both the APCs (13 Tons) and the tanks of that time (40 Ton M-48 A-3, diesel, 90MM gun) could do 45 MPH on the road. In rice paddies, the tank can negotiate 2' paddy walls with ease and race like Hell. These are serious road bumps for the M-113. On the other hand, an M-113 APC could race through rubber plantations between the trees at speeds up to 35 MPH. The M-48 tank, on the other hand, being much wider, sometimes has to knock down every tree in its path slowing it down to walking speed. Another problem we had at that time working with the 69th Armor was communication. When the 1/5 Inf (M) deployed to Vietnam, all of our vehicles, tracked and wheeled had the new family of FM radios. When the 69th Armor first joined us, they were still equipped with the old family of AM radios. For Cpt Vickery to talk to the tank platoon, the Platoon Leaderhad to be listening to him on a portable PRC-25 back pack radio. The Platoon Leader would then relay Cpt Vickery's instructions to his other tanks via the AM sets. Very unsatisfactory.
I selected my 3rd Squad to remain with the disabled tank. I didn't like the way things were going. I just lost 25 % of my platoon's combat power.
In the Western Ho Bo Woods, we ran into only light contact if any at all. This was search and destroy so we probably found something to destroy, a bunker or whatever. We moved all the way to the East side of the Ho Bo near the Saigon River (the "Iron Triangle") and had nothing in the way of fighting like we had on Operation Circle Pines, 28 March to 5 April. The TF then turned South along the main road that leads back toward Cu Chi. We never drove on the roads, just followed them. We were still in our wedge formation. I was on the left side of the road in scrubby forest just to the left rear of the left most tank when, WHAM! The tank hit an anti-tank mine on its port (my) side. The 12 pound Chi-Com anti-tank mine usually blows off two road wheels and 15 sections of track block when a M-113 hits it. It does a real good number on a tank too. Again, I was ordered to detach one of my rifle squads to help secure the tank. I selected my 1st Squad. As additional security and to assist with a much more difficult repair job requiring the on board mechanics that traveled with the Co XO in his vehicle, Lt Trenery was also ordered to remain with this tank and with his APC. That left me with two two APCs and their squads, my Weapons Squad under S/Sgt Thompson, and the 2nd Squad with whom I always rode, this because it was the platoon command track, having two vehicular mounted radios instead of one. Now I only had 50 % of my platoon. At this time refer to the Sketch Map at the end of this narrative to follow the ensuing action.
We proceeded South in the same formation with two tanks on line and the left wing looking a little stubby. Then all Hell broke loose! The C&C ship overhead spotted a large group of VC at the next road junction. Racing across the rice paddies, the tanks were maybe 100 meters ahead of their Infantry. At the road junction the VC split up, one group heading East toward the Saigon River, the other group heading south through a small stand of rubber trees. The left tank (the one Iwas responsible for) was directed to chase the group heading toward the river. The right hand tank was directed to chase the group going South through the rubber with Frank D'Amico's 3rd Platoon following it. Because, the ground falls away rapidly the closer you get to the river, the tank ahead of me came to a thudding halt as it hit a muddy rice paddy that mired its hull all the way down to its sponson boxes. I halted my two APCs 50 meters short of the tank lest the same thing happen to me. " My" tank fired some "bee hive" (thousands of anti-personnel flechettes) rounds into the woods to our left and the fire from my platoon quieted down the enemy who had been firing at us.
When the tank that Frank was following got to the other side of the small rubber patch, it stopped in the first paddy at the beginning of another field of rice paddies. Frank's 3rd Platoon was a short distance behind. The "Eye In The Sky" (C&C ship) called down to the tanker and asked, "Are you stuck in that paddy?" The tanker replied, "I don't think so." C&C then directed, "Try backing out." Tanker: "Roger. (Pause). Oops! I'm stuck!"
What had happened was the tank had entered a rice paddy that was apparently very dry. Paddies can be very deceptive. They can have a crust of dry soil on top a foot or more thick. Underneath that crust it's all muck. The 13 Ton M-113 with its scant 6 PSI ground pressure (the lightest ground pressure in the US Army, even as compared to the smallest wheeled vehicle,
the 1/4 Ton truck), could drive over such a paddy with impunity. The 40 Ton M-48 can not.
The C&C ship then instructed Frank to halt while he was still in the rubber and to not enter the paddy with his APCs. The apparent reasoning was that the C&C didn't want five stuck vehicles He was told to dismount his troops in order to secure the tank which was receiving fire from its rear.
Before I go on, please refer to Figure #6, a photo of my radio telephone operator (RTO), PFC Kenneth Smith. "Smitty" got that shot through his helmet because he was carrying a PRC-25 radio with its very visible antenna. It is a very understandable
that a rifleman, given a variety of targets and one of them includes an antenna, the marksman would want to shoot the man next to the man with the antenna or in "Smitty's" case the man with the antenna. Another principle to consider is the fact that a platoon leader never goes anywhere without his RTO.
So, Frank ordered his troops to dismount and approach the tank. I'm sure his RTO was right behind him. Frank didn't take
but a few steps when he was the first one hit by a sniper to his front (between him and the tank). The four Infantrymen who died right after him, were either trying to reach Frank to assist him or were moving against the sniper to take him out. Most certainly, when Sp/5 Jimmie Scott, the Company Senior Medic, was radioed at the CO's track, he set out to help all of them. He was hit twice in the head but survived until 1 June 1966 when he died of his wounds.
When all of this was happening, I had no idea how serious the situation was. I heard small arms fire in rubber to my right but it was sporadic. It didn't sound like an all out fire fight. I got a call on my radio: "Bobcat Bravo 2-6, report to my CP and bring your medic (Sp/4 Thomas)". As I approached Cpt Vickery's command track, I believe it was Lt Burgardt, our 1/8 Arty FO, who told me with tears in his eyes: "Frank's been killed!" At first I was not only shocked but totally confused. I told Chuck, "But Frank (thinking it was Trenery) is with the disabled tank and there's nothing happening over there!" Lt Burgardt corrected me, "No, It's Frank D'Amico!" Words fail me to describe how I felt then and now.
Cpt Vickery called me over to him and ordered me to secure a landing zone for a "Dust Off". I deployed my troops into a perimeter and took up a firing position behind a log near the North West corner of the rubber. In my anguish I said to myself: "My God, my God. What the Hell am I doing here?" As if in answer to me, I said to myself, "You dumb Polack! Youvolunteered to be here! If you weren't here right now, somebody else would have to be! Would you wish that on anyone?" Looking over to my left, I saw 3rd Platoon men carrying dead and wounded from the rubber to within my perimeter. It was somehow painful but comforting to see Father Olszewski going from man to man anointing the dead and the wounded with what they now call "The Sacrament Of The Sick", then known as "Extreme Unction" and popularly termed "The Last Rites". It is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that at the moment of death, the soul does not immediately leave the body. Having "died" once for about 20 minutes, I can attest to that teaching as fact. In this regard I can also attest to my unshakable belief that all those who died that day received a First Class Ticket to Paradise and from that time until now, they have been enjoying the Beatific Vision, safe and happy in the Bosom of the Lord. I hope this very long narrative can give the same kind of comfort that it gave to me that day.
It seemed that Fr. "O" appeared from nowhere. Didn't know he was there because he hadn't been riding with my platoon. Then I saw them bring out Sgt Clinton Fackrell. I knew few of the enlisted men from 3rd Platoon except for the Senior NCOs. From time to time I'd had occasion to see Sgt Fackrell on various battlefields and even talked with him a few times. I was always impressed with his command presence, we call it. He was unflappable, cool, assured, decent, brave. Fr. Olszewski recently told me he anointed everybody who needed it. It didn't matter if they weren't Catholic. He feels it works for all men of good will. "The Holy Spirit provides" is what many say in such cases and so, I also say.
I heard the "Huey" helicopter approaching and so I left my log and accompanied my friends to their transportation. I carried the head portion of the litter that held my friend, Frank D'Amico. From under the poncho covering him I noticed his hand and wrist on which he was wearing the olive drab, plastic tactical wrist watch I used to tease him about when he was still at 2nd Brigade HQ. As I helped put Sp/5 Scott next to Frank, I saw the pain he was in from his two head wounds. Somehow, he was still conscious. I told him, "Hang in there, Scotty!" He nodded an affirmative. God bless him. God bless them all. I felt a lot of things including survivor guilt. I felt that the better men had died and the less worthy had lived.
As I saw the 3rd Platoon APCs emerging from the west side of the rubber, now led by the Platoon sergeant, SFC Tommy Hemphill, I knew that they had been recalled from their security mission at their tank. When the CO called me over to him, I knew what was coming, 2nd Platoon would have to take over from the 3rd Platoon. The Lord knows that 3rd Platoon had done enough and suffered enough for one day. They were put in reserve and to secure the TF CP area. As Cpt Vickery relayed the mission to us, he cautioned us not to use .50 Caliber fire until we could clearly see the tank. Although the crew was buttoned up, heavy machine gun fire could enter the exhaust louvers at the tank's rear and disable it further. With this in mind, I briefed my two squads. What were there? Ten or 12 men? We decided to reprise in a way the assault we had made on the trench on 9 April, I.E.: Bomb the Hell out of the interval between the vehicles on the inside as well as outside the two tracks. Shoot everything except .50 Cal to the front, sides and rear.
And so we did. On the way to the tank, I saw a bicycle to my left which a VC had dropped on the trail in his haste. I bombed that too! We took a lot of hits too. See Figure #8 depicting numerous bullet and fragment holes on the port side of my command track. Once the tank came into view, I blasted a pile of lumber with my .50 Cal that I thought might have been a good hiding place for a sniper. Once we stopped, I saw an innocent palm tree to my front about 2" in diameter that couldn't possibly have held a sniper. With two single shots of the .50, I chopped it down too. Just for the Hell of it!. Dismounted, we hand grenaded every conceivable enemy position and set up a perimeter facing our rear. Making contact with the tank crew, I put them on the ground to help. I was determined not only to secure this tank that had caused so much grief, but if there was any way in Hell I could pull that sucker out of that quagmire, I and my men were going to do it.
I had learned at Fort Knox that an M-113 can usually pull out another mired M-113. Tanks seldom can do the same with other tanks. It usually takes an M-88 VTR, Medium Recovery Vehicle (Medium? The "Beast" weighs 60 Ton). APCs recovering a tank was unheard of. I got all the tow cables we had on my two APCs and those from the tank. With my two M-113s pulling forward in tandem and the tank powering up in reverse, we got that hulk out of the mud. With the tank now under its own power we unhooked the cables and returned to the TF perimeter.
It was after sundown by now but Cpt Vickery was still worried about the other stuck tank, the one I was originally following. It was still firing "bee hive" into the forest at VC North of the paddy where it lay. I accompanied my CO East down the trail toward the river. At a path leading North toward the tank I heard the crack of a rifle shot and I saw somebody go down. "Dear, Lord, No! Not again! It was 'Smitty', my RTO who had been hit". See Figure #6. Thank God he only suffered a mild concussion. He had no more than a head ache. I got some of my troops together and we attacked on foot into the forest. We had chased them away for the time being. On returning to the tank I left a security detail with its crew. We all hunkered down in a very ragged perimeter for a night defense because other TF units were having problems of their own and even the M-88 that arrived later that night could not extract the mired tank until the next morning.
My RTO, Ken Smith, almost became a casualty of VC sniper on 13 April.
Note the bullet hole through his helmet. Thisphoto was taken on 14 April 1966.
Survivors of the 13 April fight. Left to right: SFC Tommy Hemphill,
Platoon Sergeant, 3rd Platoon, 1/Lt Jagosz, 2nd Platoonand Cpt (Fr.)
Clarence Olszewski, Chaplain, 2nd Bde.
Port view of my command track, Blue 22. Note the many bullet
and fragment holes from the recovery effort of the stuck tank.
Also note that the aft most antenna of my two antennae had
been shot off near the base.
Two days later, after we returned to Cu Chi Base Camp, Fr. Olszewski found me weeping in a totally blacked out supply tent. I had never cried since I had been a baby and I didn't want anybody to see me doing it at 27 years old.. It's at the base camp that emotional things really hit you and hard. Trying to understand God's Providence is tough when you've lost so many good friends. Father explained to me (guess I had forgotten) that God knows all that happens and looks out for everyone of us. Nevertheless, it is the "Permissive Will" of God that lets bad things happen to good people. God, although He could, seldom directly interferes into the "affairs of men". He foresees that bullet flying through the air and could stop, but if He started doing that for some and not for others, where would it end? Would men even have "free will" any more, the gift that separates us from the lesser animals? To expect God to interfere, to stop that bullet, etc. is the sin of "Presumption". In essence we are telling God, "OK, You do my will, not Yours!" That's not the way it works and for the good reasons stated.
In closing I just want to say this to the relatives and civilian friends of Frank D'Amico. Whatever opinions you may have of the Vietnam War in general, Frank and I were of the same mind in this matter. If we weren't fighting Communist attempts at world domination in one place, it would have been in another. That was the nature of the Cold War. It was a morally good endeavor inspired by our love for freedom and our fellow man, especially those less fortunate or able to defend themselves. I think that if Frank were here today, he would agree with me that if freedom ended at our shores and we were the lastdemocracy in the world, we would not keep it for long with a totalitarian world arrayed against it. Frank ran the good race, he fought the good fight, and now in Heaven he has won the prize, eternal peace and life.
Finally, I have to add that in the old days you never heard soldiers telling each other, "I love you man!" We just didn't talk that way. We veterans do that now but this is now and then was then. But we did love one another in ways that even family find hard to understand. And we miss him too. I missed him for months in the later battles. Many fine Platoon Leaders served with me at my flanks before I left Company B for a cushy job at 1/5 (M) Inf Bn HQ Co. Frank will remain always in my memory as one of the finest of all those Platoon Leaders. And I still miss him. He was my family as I was his. Frank epitomized what love is all about for as Jesus said: "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Frank did just that for me and you, all of us, and I'm proud to have known him and served with him.
In closing I just want to say this to the relatives and civilian friends of Frank D'Amico. Whatever opinions you may have of the Vietnam War in general, Frank and I were of the same mind in this matter. If we weren't fighting Communist attempts at world domination in one place, it would have been in another. That was the nature of the Cold War. It was a morally good endeavor inspired by our love for freedom and our fellow man, especially those less fortunate or able to defend themselves. I think that if Frank were here today, he would agree with me that if freedom ended at our shores and we were the lastdemocracy in the world, we would not keep it for long with a totalitarian world arrayed against it. Frank ran the good race, he fought the good fight, and now in Heaven he has won the prize, eternal peace and life.
Finally, I have to add that in the old days you never heard soldiers telling each other, "I love you man!" We just didn't talk that way. We veterans do that now but this is now and then was then. But we did love one another in ways that even family find hard to understand. And we miss him too. I missed him for months in the later battles. Many fine Platoon Leaders served with me at my flanks before I left Company B for a cushy job at 1/5 (M) Inf Bn HQ Co. Frank will remain always in my memory as one of the finest of all those Platoon Leaders. And I still miss him. He was my family as I was his. Frank epitomized what love is all about for as Jesus said: "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Frank did just that for me and you, all of us, and I'm proud to have known him and served with him.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVE WILLIS