Night Ambush Part 4

(Read Part 1 here)
(Read part 2 here)  
(Read part 3 here)

After-Action Report

After the patrol had completed their initial sweep of the Kill Zone, they had found two bodies in the KZ and one wounded man in an ARVN uniform in the rivine south of the KZ.

The Tanks were there, and they dominated the area. Everybody was ready to pack it in, but Sarge said "NO!"  They had performed an initial sweep of the KZ, but they had not performed a detail search of the Ambush area.  Sarge knew that he had allowed the initial elements to pass through before initiating the ambush, and he wanted to insure that the lead elements had not been overlooked, and that there were no members of the VC force left hiding in the area.

First, they searched the bodies of the KIAs in the KZ.  The dead man had no arm, to their surprise, but the woman had a Tokorev pistol in her waistband.  It was new .. so new that she had not even bothered to clean off the preservative grease!  It was decided that since Chief had obviously killed her, the pistol belonged to him.  Spoils of war.  (Later, he was required to turn it in to the First Sergeant, who locked the gun in the Company Strong-box back at the Base Cam in Dian.)

There were a few AK47s strewn about the KZ; these were retrieved by the support troops aboard the Tanks.  The patrol never knew where they went, nor did they bother to ask.

Johnnie found his helmet where he left it on the ground, next to his Aid Bag.  Both had been well perforated by incoming AK47 rounds, so the patrol assumed that our initial Mad Minute was not so overwhelming as they had assumed.  Somebody had found the time to shoot back, but never actually hit anybody!

They found the VC Point Man hiding under a bush on the 'far side' (West) of the KZ.  He offered no resistance at all, and after he had crept out of his hiding place and knelt with his hands behind his head, Sarge offered him a cigarette .. which he gratefully accepted. Sarge was just so damned glad that the point man had not opened fire on the patrol while they were sweeping the KZ and killing other members of the attacking force, he would have given the point man his first born ... if he had any.

The tankers drove their behemoths around the area for a half hour, completely intimidating any other members of the VC attack force .. if there were any left ... while Sarge talked it over with the Battalion Commander.  The Colonel wanted the short squad to resume their ambush position, perhaps move it a couple of hundred yards in any direction.  Sarge wasn't "comfortable" with that.

Looking around at the detritus of the battle area .. claymores expended, and his men with lemur eyes reflecting the biggest fight any of them had been in.  It was clear to him, standing in the middle of the Kill Zone, that he couldn't get any single man to go back on the offensive.  They were frightened, and still trying to come to grips with what was probably the most one-sided fight anybody had ever experienced.  He asked himself:  if this is Victory .. what does Defeat look like?


"No sir", he replied.  "My men are exhausted, everybody in miles knows we are here, and we haven't any Claymores left. We're low on ammunition, energy, sleep.  My men would continue fighting, but I cannot ask them to search for a new ambush sight when everyone in the neighborhood knows exactly where they are and what they have just done."

The Colonel offered to replace the claymores.  Sarge dismissed the proposal.  The Colonel did not insist.

The patrol mounted the tanks, and were carried back to a new Laager.

 Sarge?  He crawled under the nearest tank to sleep.  The Tank Commander offered the suggestion that this was perhaps not the safest place to sleep.  A tank was the biggest target Charlie could find!

Sarge replied:  "Tonight, I will sleep with a roof over my head.  Your tank is my roof.  I earned it.  If you let Charlie blow up my roof, I will kill you.  So shut the fuck up, and post a good watch tonight because me and my men are going to crash!"

And they did, and rode down The Road past the village to the NDP, where they had a hot breakfast and spent the rest of the day cleaning their weapons, resupplying their expended rounds (Including the Claymores), and  every man took a nice cold shower.





After Action:

Response from "Higher:
A couple of days after the ambush, the Sergeant was called to speak to the Battalion Commander. Sarge figured he was about to be congratulated for such a classic, ultimately successful ambush; they caught Charlie with his pants down, kicked his ass, and stopped them from whatever vile intentions they had proposed.

Instead the colonel had just two points of discussion.

Point one:  "Sergeant, I understand that one of your troops .. Specialist Fourth Class "Johnnie" .. is showing off his helmet.  It has bullet holes in it, apparently from returned enemy fire.  I have to ask you, Sergeant, why your man wasn't wearing his helmet in a fire fight?"

Entirely nonplussed, Sarge replied the only way he could:

"Sir, we were already in boonie caps.  If I had required my men to don their helmets, there was a risk of violating noise discipline.  I was not aware of who among my men had chosen to wear helmets which they had already doffed.  I suppose the good news is, if he had been wearing the helmet when it got the bullet holes though it, I would have had one less man to sweep the Kill Zone."

The colonel just nodded.  Then he got to the point which really got his panties in a bind:


"Sergeant, I was in the TOC when we heard and responded to your communications.  I wonder about your RTO.  The men in the TOC were a bit put out by his tone.  There seemed to be no sense of .. immediacy.  He talked as casually as if he was ordering a Pizza, when he was calling for artillery illumination and when he was asking for armor backup support.  How are my support personel suppose to know the difference between an emergency, and a casual request?"
 

Sarge really didn't know how to respond to this question.

After a moment, he did the best he could:

"Sir, I guess that when a patrol blows every claymore they have to initiate an ambush, and then they start shooting thousands of rounds downrange within view of the TOC, I guess they just automatically assume that support units would understand that the patrol was in some deep shit and really needed all the support they could get.  Sir"

The colonel sat for a full minute, mulling this over, and said:


"Very well, Sergeant.  Dismissed."

And that was it.  No "Well done, Sergeant".  just .. dismissed.

Sarge never mentioned to his troops.  No medals were either proposed nor rewarded to the troops.  There was no after-action review with the patrol members, because .. what could anyone say?   They got lucky.

-----------------------------------------

Eventually, word filtered down.

. The two prisoners taken (the one with the ARVN uniform and the point man) were interviewed by "Military Intelligence", and the company heard that there were over 30 people in the VC attack force.  Their mission was to attack the ARVN compound, and kill everybody inside the walls.

. They never heard what happened to the prisoners.  Lima platoon just .. decided that having prevented the death of men, women and children was a worthwhile effort.  Especially so, since no member of the ambush patrol lost a single drop of blood.  Except for Johnnie, he with the perforated helmet, who scraped his face with against the rear sight of his M16 and couldn't shave for two days.

. Apparently, the bodies of the dead VC were brought to the village, having been dragged by a rope behind armored vehicles .. the company never knew whether they were American or Viet Namese vehicles.  They they were hung by the neck on the cross-bars of the village for two days.  Nobody knew who hanged them, or what happened to them after they were hanged.

_________

Chief was required to submit his captured Tokorev to the company First Sergeant, who placed the pistol in the company safe .. along with the "excess earnings" of the company members who declined to carry their wages on their persons while the were in the field.

The First Sergeant was DEROSed ( "Date Estimated Return from Over Seas": went home) before Chief did.  Apparently, there was no oversight on either the First Sergeant or the company safe.  When Chief DEROSed, and the safe was opened, there was no Tokorev pistol to be found.  Also missing was approximately $2,000 in cash which was the property of various members of the company.

In April of 1970, the First Infantry Division was rotated home.  Those members of the Division who had more than two months left of their tour were not allowed to leave Viet Nam.  Instead, they were re-assigned to other Divisions.

Sarge was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division.  He started as a Tank Commander, but he didn't know how to shoot the Main Gun.  Then he was designated the "go-to guy" for forming protective security for tank elements.  After a couple of the booby-traps he had set up were touched off by the wind shaking the shrubs to which he had attached the firing mechanisms of his Booby Traps, he was retired 'by prejudice" from the field.

  He was assigned an administrative position in charge of "Indigenous Personnel" .. the Viet Namese laborers who maintained the bunker line, and who worked in the kitchen of the Administrative company .. for the Administrative Company.  He was almost replaced when he busted the First Sergeant's Vietnamese Girl Friend for "fraternizing with the friendlies". but they worked it out.

After that time, Sarge stayed up all night, every night, and learned that Mary Jane Was Not His Friend.  He never performed a productive day's work for the U.S. Army from that day.

Sarge is now retired and living in squalor in a small Western town in America .. and is likely to stay there.

He has not blown up any horticultural treasures for years and years!