Lt JAMES A. DeLONEY
Forward Observer: King 61
MEMORIES
UPON ARRIVING
When I first landed in Vietnam and was sent to Pleiku in August 1966, I was
assigned as a FO with the infantry. We made an assault into the jungle and
spent the next 89 days in the field, the longest sustained ground operation in
Vietnam in 1966, according to the Army Times. We had a gung-ho Infantry
Colonel, the Brigade CO, who wanted to make Brig Gen, and thought this would help
him with the promotion.
ALL WET
I remember being soaking wet for two weeks without drying out in the
mountains of the Central Highlands along the Cambodian border in late 1966.
At night the temperature would get down into the 40's. We (that
is, me and the infantrymen) slept one night wrapped around trees in the Central
Highland Mountains because the terrain was too steep to sleep any other
way. Insects were so bad in the Central Highlands that you
had to take your mosquito repellent and spray a circle around your C-rations
after you placed them on the ground to eat. Otherwise, insects would be
all over your food before you could eat it.
A REAL BEDBUG
After camping for the night one time in the central highlands,
we found an NVA grenade next to where I was to sleep. It was too late for
us to move again. We didn't know if it was a booby trap or not, so I dug
a hole next to the bamboo type grenade and carefully placed it in the hole and
covered it up to keep someone from stepping on it and setting it off (I don't
think it was rigged after all).
THE AIR WAS MINT-GREEN
One fight we had on 19 Nov 66, along the Cambodian border,
that was written up in the Army Times as one of the biggest fights in 1966.
Contact broke out about noon, and I called in artillery and air strikes until
7:00 a.m. the next morning. We pulled back and called in B-52 strikes on
the NVA bunker complex where the fight occurred on the border. Three days
after the strikes, the infantry went back in (I didn't have to go with them).
They found 166 NVA bodies that had been stuffed in the bunkers because the NVA
couldn't get all the dead bodies back into Cambodia. They had drug bodies
into Cambodia for three days before our infantry went back in. Small arms
fire was so intense during the firefight that a green mist rose in the air
from the bullets hitting the vegetation. One infantry ammo bearer for the
M-60's told me that when I walked in 105 mm artillery toward our positions, the
NVA would panic from the artillery and run toward our lines. The ammo
bearer said he shot them with his 45 pistol, like shooting ducks in a pond.
The next morning I led two infantry platoons back in to recover our dead (the
infantry BnCO asked me to do this because the infantry platoon leaders told him
that I knew the terrain better than they did). We did recover all the
bodies; however, while raking 105 artillery rounds with VT fuses through the
tree tops to flush out any NVA snipers, we had a short round. My RTO
caught a piece of shrapnel in the knee (took it off). He was about 3 feet
from me when this happened. Morphine would not ease his pain. We had
to evacuate the RTO, and I never saw, nor heard, from him again.
SURE BEATS "NO-DOZ"
One of our infantry CO's found an OP asleep on his outpost in
the middle of the night. The CO took the trooper's M-16, pulled the pin on
one grenade, gave it to the trooper, and told him not to go back to sleep the
rest of the night. He didn't go back to sleep.
ANOTHER TROOP LESSON
1st Lt Scott, our Infantry Company CO, had one of his flank points fire his
rifle to reestablish contact with us because he lost sight with the man next to
him while maneuvering in the Central Highlands (a real no-no). NVA were in
the area. We thought we were coming under attack. When Scott
unraveled the incident, he took the grunt's M-16, gave him a stick, and put him
back on our flank as a point guard and told him to fire the stick if he lost eye
contact with us again. He didn't.
MINUS THE PARACHUTE
One of the Infantry BnCOs was flying back on a Huey with two NVA
prisoners and a couple dead GI's. One of the prisoners gestured toward the
dead GI's and started laughing and making fun of them. The CO kicked him
out of the Huey at 1,600 feet, and then looked at the other prisoner and asked
him if he wanted to make fun of his dead soldiers. I don't think he
understood English, but he got the message anyway, and declined to make fun of
our dead soldiers.
EXCUSE ME, Mr MP... I CAN HANDLE
THIS ONE
When several of us were patrolling in a jeep in Pleiku to see
if any of the infantry troops were getting into trouble in the bars, 1st Lt Farmer,
an Infantry Platoon Leader, saw an MP starting to arrest one of his troops.
Farmer had the driver stop the jeep on a dime. He bailed out, ran to the
troop, grabbed him, and started yelling at him and kicking his butt, and threw
him in the jeep with us. The stunned MP never said a word. As soon
as we were out of sight of the MP, Farmer apologized to the GI for roughing him
up. The GI said that's OK, and thanks for getting me out of that mess.
Later, Lt Farmer was killed in action.
EXTENDING MY TOUR
I offered to extend my tour for six months if I were not assigned as a
ground FO. The new BnCO, Gerald Bobzien, declined to accept that
condition. If I were I Col Bobzien at the time, I probably would have
responded the same way. As BnCO, you have to assign officers where needed.
When I left Vietnam, I had been a 1st Lt a long time. I was a 1st Lt when LtCol
Holbrook sent me back out for the last two months in country. As BnCO, if
you have a problem, you don't send a green 2nd Lt out to fix the problem, so I
understand Holbrook's decision. With all the 2nd Lt's we had in the
battalion who had never served as FO's, it just seemed to me that they could get
their butts out there and learn the hard way just like I had to do. When I
arrived in Vietnam, I had never been assigned to a combat arms unit. My
artillery experience was all in OCS at Fort Sill. Fortunately, my first
Recon Sgt was Sgt Holder, who was a gunnery instructor prior to his Vietnam
tour. Holder taught me a lot very quickly.
Given that my replacement was killed two weeks after he came out, Bobzien may
have done me a tremendous favor. My replacement did spend a few days with
me in the field before they flew me back to Cam Rahn Bay to go home.
Unfortunately, he never realized how inexperienced he was, so he thought he knew
it all. Sadly, didn't seen too interested in learning anything from me.
At least I had enough sense to learn as much as I could from the likes of Sgt
Holder, and others more experienced than me when I arrived.
Honestly, I preferred serving with the infantry. It was where the real
action was. After all the time I spent as a Forward Observer, this was
where I felt most comfortable. After being in the field, serving in an
artillery unit just seemed too confining. That's why I turned Holbrook
down on two jobs he offered me to get me out of the field. The third job
he offered me was the AO job, which I accepted. Having the Air Force,
Navy, and Army ordnance at your disposal as an observer was a rather satisfying
responsibility.