A frequently asked question is "Why?". Not the macro geopolitical stuff
that is presented elsewhere; but rather why ME?
Why TF 1/61, why B Co, why
Flame Platoon, why 3rd Squad, why me? We were there because we were told to
be there but for what reason? Why? Was there a down to earth reason for the
day to day operations of each of the units? Forget all the platitudes;
"Mom's apple pie", "Stop them here or they will be in San Francisco next",
"Your friends and neighbors have selected you...". What was our mission, our
job?
Good question. And at least for the time frame of 1969 and 1970 (and I
suspect the other years too) the below explanation is the best I can do.
First it has to be understood that the big picture reason drove all the
work that everybody was told to do. That "Big" reason was, simply put, to
allow a relatively new country to develop a democratic form of government
that would provide its people with what we consider basic human rights.
To do this meant financial support, organizational support and military
support to protect the developing country from its neighbors. Everything
and I do mean everything the US and its allies did during the conflict was
supposed to be needed to satisfy this purpose. From the 9 to 5 staffers in
Saigon to the advisors in the Delta to the Snake Eaters who knows where,
everything was directed at the goal of allowing the development of a proper
government. And that included the 1st of the 5th and TF 1/61.
More big words but why me? Why was I at A 4? What was the reason for
climbing 162 again? What did Phantom Lake have to do with any of this?
To answer this requires a review of the land around AO Orange. Directly
to the north was North Vietnam, the principal adversary of the South Viet
Nam government. To the east the South China sea. To the southeast the rice
patties and farmers that grew most of the food in the area, to the south
was Cam Lo and the Cam Lo resettlement village with over 1000 people that
had moved away from the DMZ and to the west the bad lands and Laos. North
Vietnamese troops just across the DMZ and around the Laotian border needed
rice to eat and young men to use as guerrilla fighters. The men could be
kidnapped from the villages and the rice could be stolen from the farmers.
TF 1/61 was where it was for the simple reason that a small force of
mobile combat troops
could form a shield that would prevent the NVA from getting into the
settlement areas and stealing both men and rice. The shield
linked with an Army of the Republic of Viet Nam unit at A 2 in the east
and arched around
to link up with other units of the 5th BDE near Camp Carroll in the south
west. Because there were many more of them than there were of us we
could not sit in numerous strong points and wait for them to attack. By
constantly moving, Hill 162 today, Phantom lake tomorrow and Rocket Ridge
the next day, the NVA had no way to plan a move without the chance of
meeting TF 1/61 units with their awesome firepower. And when they did meet
it was always the NVA that got the worst of it.
Sure the TF did other things. Guard the Navy Base at Qua Viet with a
platoon. During the bad weather season go pick up Tinker Bell and his
driver when their airplanes crash, protect the RRG and Arty folks at A 4
and C 2 but the prime reason, the real answer to
"Why?", was to provide a part of the protective wall around the populated
areas in northern I Corps.
And we did a pretty good job of it too.
How do you know we did a good job? Well there were a couple of ways to
tell if we were stopping the NVA in their attempts to get to the built up
areas. One sure fire indicator was the price of rice in the open markets.
When the priced stayed low then it was safe to say that the farmers were
getting it all to market. When the price went up then it was a good guess
that something had happened to the supply. And that something most likely
was a raid by NVA soldiers. I only saw one price "spike" the whole time we
were in AO Orange and that matched a report from the Recon Platoon saying
they had found tracks of a large group of NVA crossing our area. Another
indicator was the evidence of your eyeballs. If you were lucky enough to
have had a chance to visit Dong Ha or Quang Tri City or even Cam Lo you saw
people and stores and bright colors and heard laughter and music. Hard to
believe that people with little to eat and with kidnappers in their midst
would live like that. The ones I saw seemed to know they were safe and, in
their eyes, life was good.
But then we went home.