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ChristmasOn Christmas Day, 1966, Third Squad, Aero Rifle Platoon, went up a hill north of Blackhorse base camp.The hill was round and steep, covered with jungle growth — banana bushes and vines and tali trees; a perfect place for VC to set up mortar tubes and drop rounds and send the rounds onto Blackhorse.The hill was higher than any part of base camp, and from the hill you could see the entire camp — helicopter revetments and tents and tail radio antennas on command bunkers.Six soldiers from K Troop went with us up the hill. We were to recon the hill during the day, find places Charlie might set up mortars.'. We; wobWrettife 10 baseA' camp-in the afternoon? then go back up the hill at night and set upambush.The guys from K Troop joined us at our platoon’s tents, and we got on a deuce-and-a-half and rode to the perimeter wire. The day was hot and dry. Dust lay several inches thick on roads across base camp. The truck took us near the wire on the northwestside of base camp.The camp garbage dump was just outside the wire. That part of base camp was open during the day, and only a couple of ACAVs(Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicles) covered it at night. VC never attacked through the garbage dump, though. If they had, officers would have ordered the dump closed and more concertina wire strung, and that would have shut down part of the VC supply system.During the day, civilians came to the dump and sorted through stuff there. A lot of wood was dumped, and civilians could always use another piece of lumber. Food was dumped, too, sometimes whole, sometimes cooked but not eaten, just thrown away. There were empty cans, too, and when the cans were cut apart and hammered flat were just as good as lumber for making a house.We got off the truck and went through the wire — a single roll of concertina stretched so tight a man could step over it — and headed for the hill. Grass was tallcin country styleBob MerrimanNews Columnistoutside the wire. A trail led through the grass and to the hill. One of the guys from K Troop took point.At the base of the hill, the sergeant from K Troop said he would take his men to the northeast side of the hill. They had been there before. The sergeant said we could find a good spot on|with’tfees*big:,eh'pu^hTtddfeanagainst. 's ’ ■ *Staff Sgl. Boeher checked out the clearing and said, “This looks good enough.” I sat down and the rest of the squad sat down and leaned against trees. The hill dropped off right in front of us, making a cliff about 10 meters high. There was a small garden at the base of the cliff.Back at base camp, I had asked acting Platoon Sergeant Brocks, “If there’s a truce, how come we’re going on a recon today and an ambush tonight?” “Because,” Brocks said, “die truce applies to offensive actions. An ambush is a defensive action.” Brooks always had an official answer.So we went out and sat on the full and went to sleep, everybody but Sgt. Boeher and me. An hour after we settled in, a woman came to the garden at the bottom of the hill. She had a hoe, and she started chopping at grass in the garden.When I saw the woman, I crept over to where Sgt. Boeher rested. “There’s a woman in the garden.” I whispered. Sgt. Boeher had been in the Korean War and was a little jumpy when we were outside the wire.Sgt. Boeher raised up on an elbow and Iqoked over the cliff.“Sure is.”“What are we going to do?” Nothing,” Sgt. Boeher said, and he closed his eyes and settled back against a log.“Shouldn’t wefdo something? I mean, call in a report and say we see a woman?”Sgt. Boeher said, It’s hot. It’s Christmas. There’s shade trees here. If we call in, what’re they going to say? They’re going to say ‘Keep her under observation.’ We save ourselves a lot of trouble by just watching her. So watch her.-If she pulls a mortar tube from her pants, let me know.”It was hot, even under the trees. Besides, a woman hoeing her garden wasn’t all that unusual. She was probably VC, though. Somebody saw us going up the hill and they told the woman to go hoe (he garden and watch us. If we did anything unusual, she’d ( probably act like, her hoeing was ' done and go back'-to'her viliage : and make a report. I watched her, and she watched us. You know how I know she watched us? Because she never looked up toward the hill. Not once.We left the hill around 3:30 that afternoon. The guys from K Troop waited on the trail. Their sergeant grinned and said, “Merry Christmas.” We walked down the trail, through the wire, and the truck came and we got in to the truck. We bounced down a dusty road and returned to our platoon area. In a large clearing near the helipad, Hank Snow was on a wooden stage. He sang Wabash Cannonball. The GI audience stared at us as our truck bounced by. Red dust drifted up from the truck tires and across the grassy area, settling on Hank Snow’s audience.We went back up the hill just before dark. The VC didn’t come that night, but three months later, when there wasn’t an ambush on the hill, they set up mortars and recoilless rifles and fired on Blackhorse for about 15 minutes. A soldier from K Troop died while silting on his cot and pulling on his boots so he wouldn’t have to walk barefoot to his bunker. A mortar round came through the top of the tent and exploded on the wooden fldor, right beside the soldier.A few days after the attack, engineers went up the hill with bulldozers and chain saws and Zippo tracks and cut down and burned all the trees and bushes.
Newspaper Details
Paris News
Paris, Texas, US
Wed, Dec 10, 1997
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
John E.
MO, USA 01 Jun 2019
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