A “BEAUTIFUL DAY” ON THE CAMBODIAN BORDER
It's
an intentional oxymoron; it wasn't
by
Lt Frank Herbick, FO, 1/14th
I had just recently arrived in-country.
Lt Dennis Dauphin showed up at the 2/9th Hq in Pleiku in
November, 1966 at the same time. I
drew the Ia Drang assignment; he got to go to A/2/35 to guard an Engineer unit
at a rock quarry.
To start
the "beautiful
day"
on the Cambodian border, the Company Commander Capt Stephen Childers (“C”,
1/14th), our Brigade Chaplain, one Platoon leader (Lt Jerry Orenstein) with his
platoon, and me and my RTO went for
a stroll; we were scheduled to return in a few hours. Enroute, our point man saw
smoke coming from rocks at the base of the mountain. The CO saw some openings
between the rocks, and asked a volunteer to try and see if he could squeeze in
enough space to check out the smoke. No sooner as the Private went down into the
hole, one shot rang out. The Platoon leader looked into the hole and saw the
Private dead at the bottom. Another volunteer was assigned to take our rifle
slings and tie them together and enable us to pull out the body. Some
troops held the legs of the rescuer, and down he went. Another shot, and
another dead body.
Capt
Childers said: “Enough!” He would not risk another life, so he went down.
Another shot, and now the CO was dead. So now we had a Chaplain in charge (by
seniority),
but,
as a Chaplain, he is regarded as a
“noncombatant”, plus, he was scared to death.
He was supposed to be out
sightseeing. Meanwhile,
the troops were roaming around the rocks to see if they could see or hear the
happenings down below. Someone found a hole where he heard the NVA talking, so
he dropped a hand grenade into the hole. Following
the explosion, heard the NVA hollering. The Platoon leader asked for more
hand grenades, and dropped them into the hole to distract the NVA while we
extracted our dead.
It was
getting dark;
we had no communication with our troops and I had none with the Artillery. We
huddled in a circle for the night, and I sent the RTO up higher on the hill
behind us to try
to establish commo. After a while he
returned saying he couldn't get commo with our battery, but flipping thru the
channels, he found another "Artillery"
unit. That turned out to be the USS
New Jersey, sitting offshore in the South China Sea.
This channel provided me with commo to “Sheriff
23” who said he was a “big boomer”. His big boomer was had 16 inch
guns. (That told me he was US Navy). He fired a few rounds for us during
the night which kept the NVA from attacking us. At first light, we were
greeted by the Americal Division and one other unit besides our 3rd Bde.
We stayed there for a month blowing away the mountain.
We heard the estimate was 3000 + NVA killed during our stay. For
us: just another day at the office.
************************************************************
Lt Dauphin responds:
“Well, Frank, regarding
our assignments,
you
were about 6’2, weighing 200 lbs. I
was 5’11 and weighed 130, soaking wet. You
got the “hot assignment”. But,
don’t forget…I was sent to the Ia Drang just a few weeks later. My very
first call for fire was refused because I spotted the enemy across the border!
Stupid me! From that day forward, I knew what kind of war we were in engaged in.
You let the enemy dictate the terms.
*******************************************************
Webmaster's
Note:
The incident captured
in this War Story took quite a few ugly turns.
Both fellow redlegs Danny Yates and Bob Wilson, Artillery Surveyors with
the 2/9th FA, recorded their actions and reports in the “Tour
of Duty/Memories” link. They
reported
on Engineers blowing the caves and a heavy bombing run to destroy/level the Hon
Noc mountains. (The enemy was known
to return the caves and tunnels once we moved on).
In the
final analysis, this is truly a
"War Story"; it reveals the
“horror of war”.
Dennis
Dauphin
Webmaster,
The Mighty Ninth
********************************************************************
From the Journal of the 1/14th
Infantry, Golden Dragons
On 19 January 1967, Steve’s company was
searching the Hon Noc Mountains for elements of the North Vietnamese Army as
part of Operation Thayer. One of his patrols saw a figure in a green uniform
dart by and disappear into a cave in the mountains. Patrol members further
reported hearing the voices of women and children in the cave complex. Once
inside this network of caverns, Steve reported that "There are women and
children in here." He then turned on his flashlight to get a better look at
them and had only an instant to shout a warning to the men following him. A
rifle emerged from behind the heads of the women, and a volley of shots was
fired. One bullet pierced Steve's forehead, killing him instantly. His concern
for the safety of women and children had cost him his life.