Days of Valor

by Robert L. Tonsetic

  The operation west of Tay Ninh took its toll on the Warrior and Cottonbaler battalions, and the rifle companies were in bad need of rest and refitting. Although no significant engagements with enemy forces occurred, the daily treks through the jungles, some less than a kilometer from the Cambodian border, were tiring and stressful for the troops. An outbreak of diarrhea and gastroenteritis swept through the brigade in March, resulting in a high number of medical evacuations. Replacements arrived in the battalions at a steady rate, but it took time before the men were ready to join their companies in the field. In early April, a fourth infantry battalion joined the brigade. The 5th Battalion, 12th Infantry arrived fresh from Fort Lewis, Washington. However, the battalion was untrained in jungle warfare and it took several weeks before it was fully combat ready.

  The officers and men of the 3/7th and 4/12th Infantry were promised a five-day stand-down at Camp Frenzell-Jones upon their return from Tay Ninh. They were more than a little disappointed when the stand-down was abruptly cut short one day after their return. The Warrior battalion was ordered to move to AO Columbus, east of Long Binh, on 13 April, and the Cottonbalers followed a day later.

  During the one-day stand-down, the men were issued a clean set of jungle fatigues, showered, and drank as much beer and whiskey as they could hold. The officer, NCO, and EM clubs were jampacked, and fistfights broke out between the grunts and the rear echelon troops. When the grunts saw all the amenities that the rear echelon troops enjoyed on a daily basis, they were soon fighting mad and it didn’t take much to set them off. The short stay at the base camp did morale more harm than good.

  AO Columbus encompassed parts of the Duc Tu and Cong Thanh districts of Bien Hoa Province south of the Dong Nai River. It also included portions of the Xuan Loc and Kiem Tan districts in Long Khanh Province. The mission of the 3/7th and 4/12 Infantry battalions was to interdict enemy movement from southern War Zone D into AO Columbus. The 5th VC Division had infiltrated troops along this same infiltration route during the January Tet Offensive

  During early April 1968, most 5th VC Division units were still north of the Dong Nai River; however, according to intelligence sources, the 274th VC Regimental headquarters and the 3d Battalion of that regiment were south of the river. It was fairly easy for these units to stay hidden. With the exception of an abandoned rubber plantation in the northeast portion of the AO, most of Columbus was overgrown with thick jungle. The few inhabitants in the area lived in villages along Highway 1 in the AO’s southern portion. Vehicular movement through most of the AO was limited. In the northern portion of AO Columbus, an unpaved road, LTL 24, followed the southern bank of the Dong Nai River, but only a few narrow unimproved logging trails crisscrossed the jungle to the west and south of the rubber plantation. Cross-country movement was also difficult, particularly in the Cottonbaler AO. A rifle company accustomed to this type of terrain could cover, at most, four kilometers in a day. Helicopter landing zones were few and far between, and little could be seen from the air due to the triple canopy jungle below. Therefore AO Columbus was an excellent staging area for VC and NVA units.

  The Warrior battalion moved to the area by convoy and CH-47 helicopter on 13 April, establishing a fire support base, FSB Farrell, in the northeastern corner of the rubber plantation, about 500 meters south of the Dong Nai River. On the following day, the Cottonbalers conducted airmobile assaults west of the Warrior battalion’s AO and established FSB New Orleans, some ten kilometers west of FSB Farrell, and about three kilometers south of the river.

  AO Columbus, FSB New Orleans—17–18 April 1968

  The first few days in their new AO were uneventful for the Cottonbalers. For three days the line companies of the battalion patrolled the jungle around the firebase without any significant contact with the enemy. Battalion commander LTC Ken Hall, and his S3, Major Jim MacGill, overflew AO Columbus on the afternoon of 17 February looking for signs of the enemy. On pass after pass, Hall and MacGill could see nothing below. The jungle seemed impenetrable from the air.

  Lt. Colonel Hall assumed command of the Cottonbaler battalion in late February, after serving as the brigade S3 for four months. Hall was a West Pointer, Class of 1952, and a highly regarded infantry officer. One of his lieutenants later wrote, “LTC Hall was in a class by himself. His tactical skill, ability to get his men to follow him voluntarily in combat, and his genuine concern for the welfare of his men set him apart…. I can still see him jumping out of the LOG bird in cut off fatigues, and a Swedish K slung over his shoulder. He would come into the company area and call all the NCOs by their first names.” Ken Hall was one of a rare breed of battalion commanders in Vietnam who was genuinely loved and respected by his men. He had only two months left to live.

  On April 17th, Hall’s rifle companies were deployed a few kilometers to the east of FSB New Orleans, while the battalion’s Echo Company continued construction and security of the firebase. After a terrain analysis and aerial reconnaissance, LTC Hall concluded that a hill mass three kilometers to the east of FSB New Orleans was an ideal site for an enemy base camp. The heavily forested piece of terrain lay two kilometers south of the Dong Nai River. A stream flowed north toward the river on the west side of the hill mass. Days before, air cavalry scouts and LRPs had spotted enemy troops in NVA uniforms moving in the vicinity. Hall decided to commit his ground troops to search the area.

  As dawn broke on 18 February, the Cottonbaler companies prepared to move out on their search and destroy mission. The sleep deprived grunts dragged themselves out of their hastily dug fighting positions, dusted themselves off, and groggily began their early morning routine. Some relieved themselves in hastily dug cat holes, while others brewed C- ration coffee or cocoa in their canteen cups, or wolfed down a can of ham slices or sliced peaches. Claymore mines and trip flares were retrieved from outside the perimeter and carefully packed in rucksacks. Rifles and machine guns were given a quick cleaning. For some it was to be their last morning in the “green hell.”

  Alpha and Charlie Companies were located a couple of hundred meters south of the unimproved road that paralleled the Dong Nai River. LTC Hall wanted the companies to move south on parallel routes up a long finger that led to a hill mass some 60 feet in elevation. Captain Tony Smaldone’s Alpha Company moved out around 0730 hours, followed by Captain Brian Sneed’s Charlie Company 45 minutes later. Captain South’s Bravo Company and Captain Zimmerman’s Delta Company patrolled the area between FSB New Orleans and the high ground to the east.

  Alpha and Charlie Companies’ progress was slow. The jungle itself changed subtly as the men trudged up a gentle slope. Patches of bamboo and coils of interlocking vines and undergrowth slowed the march. No breeze penetrated the thick vegetation, and even the morning air was oppressive. Insects buzzed around the unshaven, sweat-drenched faces of the grunts and they squinted to keep the gnats from their eyes. The point elements of both companies moved cautiously, and the columns halted every hundred meters to send out patrols in a cloverleaf pattern. Radios cackled as platoon leaders whispered instructions to their squad leaders and reported their progress to their CO’s. The men sipped water slowly from their canteens, careful not to spill a drop. Overhead in their C&C ship, Lt. Colonel Hall and Major MacGill tracked the rifle companies’ progress.

  A few minutes before 1130 hours, Sneed’s Charlie Company made contact when its point element approached the camouflaged perimeter of a 60-bunker base camp complex. The jungle in front of Charlie Company seemed to explode in simultaneous blasts of explosive devices, followed by a hail of bullets that flailed the foliage. The screams of wounded men and the cry of “medic! medic!” were heard above the crescendo of rifle and machine-gun fire. Ignoring a shrapnel wound, the Charlie Company commander quickly took control of the fight.

  In a 199th LIB newspaper article published after the battle, Captain Sneed told a reporter, “They definitely knew what they were doing. They went for the radios and machine guns from the start. Every time you popped smoke t
o identify your position for the air support, you invited a rain of grenades and automatic weapons fire. They were throwing everything they had at us. I didn’t hear anything but automatic weapons and rocket grenades going during the whole fight.”

  LTC Hall radioed Captain Sneed, telling him to mark his unit’s front with smoke so he could adjust artillery fire on the enemy’s positions. Then he radioed Captains Smaldone and South, directing them to move to Charlie Company’s support. Within minutes, the 105mm howitzers of Bravo Battery, 2/40th Artillery were firing marking rounds over the heads of the Charlie Company grunts. As his FO adjusted the incoming artillery fire, Captain Sneed maneuvered his platoons to place maximum fire on the enemy base camp.

  At 1230 hours, Captain Smaldone reported that Alpha Company was also in heavy contact. Smaldone thought that his company had hit another base camp a short distance away from Charlie Company. In fact, it was part of the same large base complex that covered several acres of ground. The Apha Company CO requested an urgent dust-off with a hoist capability. He had two KIAs, nine WIAs, and no LZ in the immediate area of the contact.

  Convinced that his battalion was in a major fight, the Cottonbaler commander radioed an urgent request to brigade for an airmobile company. He wanted to air assault Captain Zimmerman’s Delta Company into the area of Alpha and Charlie Company’s contacts. MacGill spotted a PZ in the vicinity of Delta Company and ordered Zimmerman to get there as fast as possible. In the meantime, Sneed’s Charlie Company had regrouped and was holding its ground. Therefore, LTC Hall ordered Captain South’s Bravo Company to reinforce the hard-pressed Alpha Company.

  Meanwhile, Alpha and Charlie Companies continued to slug it out with the enemy, desperately trying to gain a foothold in their entrenchments. Charlie Company’s Sergeant Mel Ballard was moving his squad near the front of the company column when it came under small-arms and rocket fire. Ballard brought his men on line to assault the enemy bunkers. The gallant sergeant was seriously wounded in a hail of automatic weapons fire before he was ordered to withdraw.

  The Company’s FO was directing artillery fires onto the enemy positions. Ballard passed the order to his men, but remained behind to provide covering fire for the wounded. Moving about the forward area, Sergeant Ballard continued to search for and treat the injured until he was mortally wounded by fragments from an exploding enemy rocket. The 23-year-old Californian was posthumously awarded the Army’s Distinguished Service Cross for his extraordinary heroism that day. Sergeant Mel Ballard was not the only hero in Charlie Company that day. There were many, but 19-year-old rifleman Jerry Boyles was another who stood out among the rest.

  The young Missourian was seen moving about the hottest areas of the fight, snapping off rifle shots at the enemy bunkers as he ran to pull he wounded comrades to safety. Even though painfully wounded himself, he repeatedly returned to the heaviest area of contact until he was wounded a second time. This time his wounds were serious. Frank Auer of Charlie Company wrote, “Jerry was full of life and just returned from stateside to see his very sick mom. We carried him out, and he was dying as we were trying to dust him off. The chopper pilot was nervous, saying there was too much fire in the area. Finally we just kept Jerry as he expired.” Jerry Boyles was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his gallantry.

  It was mid-afternoon before Delta Company air assaulted into the area to support the embattled Alpha and Charlie Companies. Bravo Company continued to move overland to reach the scene of the fight. Meanwhile, the casualties continued to mount.

  Captain Smaldone’s Alpha Company suffered the most. By 1600 hours, five Alpha Company men were KIA. Specialist Doug McCabe later recalled, “Captain Smaldone got us into a tight perimeter around what might have been a bomb crater and called in a medevac and resupply. During the medevac, the NVA hit us again…. I was on the perimeter when an RPG exploded a few feet from me knocking me to the ground with shrapnel in my neck and shoulder. I was very lucky as I was on the edge of the blast, but the artillery FO and his RTO were hit bad. The FO was hit in the head from the blast, and the RTO was shredded by shrapnel and his fatigues were on fire. We jumped on him to smother the flames. I think he survived, but the FO was dead.” Lieutenant Tom Carnegie died doing what he was trained to do.

  Twenty-five year old Ernest Vetter, a native American from Oklahoma, also distinguished himself that day. Specialist Vetter was in the vanguard of his company when the enemy opened up. Instinctively, he returned fire and began to move forward before taking a sniper round. He spotted an enemy bunker as he went down. Arming a hand grenade, he crawled forward, still in intense pain, and tossed it into the enemy bunker, killing its three occupants. Then reloading his rifle, he began firing into the aperture of another bunker until he was mortally wounded. Specialist Vetter was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.

  By mid-afternoon, Alpha Company had 19 men wounded, seven of whom were in serious condition. Making matters worse, the Company’s indomitable CO, Captain Tony Smaldone, was among them. The Captain had suffered a painful gunshot wound to the lower forearm. Tony was still directing the fight, but he knew that his wound required hospital treatment. For the moment, however, there was way to evacuate Alpha Company’s casualties. The company’s positions were too exposed to enemy fire to lift the wounded out by hoist, and there was no suitable LZ in the vicinity.

  Charlie Company was more fortunate. With a gunship team providing covering fire, a dust-off ship landed on a small LZ and evacuated seven of the company’s most seriously wounded. Nineteen of the less badly wounded had to wait. Most ignored their wounds and returned to the fight after they were patched up by the company medics.

  Captain South pushed his men up the high ground, arriving in Alpha Company’s vicinity at around 1700 hours. South had pushed his men hard on their 2,700 meter trek to reinforce the hard pressed Alpha Company, but there was no time for a rest. Bravo went quickly into the fight. One Cottonbaler recalled that South “literally ran” the company to get there. The Captain, who carried Army Field Manuals on tactics in his rucksack and studied them each night, was moving with his command group directly behind his lead platoon. When the platoon was pinned down by enemy fire, the Captain skillfully maneuvered his 1st and 3rd Platoons to the left to take the pressure off Alpha and Charlie Companies. After repositioning his platoons, Captain South led an assault along the crest of the hill, driving the enemy back and moving his company into the gap between Alpha and Charlie.

  Ron Whelan, one of South’s RTOs, described Bravo Company’s link-up with Alpha Company. “Captain South never stopped to take cover as we were dancing through machine-gun fire all around us, while jumping over our dead and wounded soldiers. We arrived at a large bomb crater and jumped in to join the Captain of Company A [Smaldone]… he had been wounded. There were many dead bodies from the fighting prior to our arrival.” Captain South’s other RTO, Glen Pagano, recalled that he had to struggle to keep up with his CO. In addition to the radio, Pagano was carrying an M79 grenade launcher and a basic load of 40mm grenades. Pagano temporarily lost sight of Captain South as the command group sprinted forward. He later recalled that he was following two grunts when an RPG struck the ground a few meters to his front. Both of the grunts were peppered with shrapnel in their torsos and faces, but Pagano, partially shielded by a tree, took only a few fragments in his arm. Despite his wounds, Glen Pagano continued to advance until he caught up with his Captain. The Captain and his artillery FO were pinned down by enemy fire from a bunker that they’d passed. Pagano began firing M79 rounds at the bunker until he finally put a 40mm round through the aperture, killing the occupants. Glen Pagano received a Bronze Star for Valor for his heroic actions.

  While Captain Smith fought his way into the beleaguered Alpha and Charlie companies, Captain Zimmerman’s Delta Company was approaching the enemy positions from the northeast.

  Platoon Sergeant Roberto Rangel’s platoon was first to make contact, running headlong into the bunker complex. During the initial conta
ct, four of Rangel’s men were seriously wounded, but Rangel continued and led his men in an assault deep into the bunker complex, killing a number of enemy. When he saw his commander’s RTO fall fatally wounded 15 meters in front of an enemy bunker, Rangel charged the bunker and destroyed it with a hand grenade. Then Rangel grabbed the CO’s radio and continued to engage the enemy. The VC quickly counterattacked the penetration of their perimeter. After realizing that the rest of the company was withdrawing under enemy pressure, Rangel gathered his men about him, including the wounded, and fought his way back out of the enemy base camp, leaving no one behind.

  With the arrival of Bravo and Delta Company, the Cottonbalers began to gain control of the situation. The Cottonbaler commander also requested that another rifle company from the 5/12th Infantry be flown in to reinforce his battalion. The 5/12th was new in country, but Hall knew he needed to get as many men on the ground as possible.

  As dusk settled around them, the embattled Cottonbalers began to dig in. Intermittent firing continued as the enemy traded shots with the grunts. The men dug and scraped as hard as they could, ending up with fighting positions barely deep enough to lie down in.

  Ron Whelan wrote, “I remember digging in…we had no sandbags and had to stack bodies in front of our positions as defenses to stop incoming bullets.” The grunts made sure to reload all of their magazines with ammo and laid them out beside their grenades where they could reach them. After crawling forward and placing Claymores and trip wires in front of their positions, the grunts laid down in their shallow holes facing out, their M-16s pointed in the direction of the enemy.

  It was full dark as the commanders crawled around to each of their platoons to check their perimeters and get an accurate count on their losses. There were a total of 12 KIAs and 58 WIAs in the four companies. Twenty-one of the wounded men remained with their companies awaiting evacuation. Dust-offs were put on hold for the night. The LZ was too small to risk a night landing, but it was used to drop supplies into the companies. Ron Whelan wrote, “The resupply ships, with no lights turned on, would hover at treetop level and kick out full boxes of ammo and drop bladders of water that came crashing down through the trees.”