Forsaken Warriors by Robert Tonsetic

Author:Robert Tonsetic
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: US Army, Vietnam, eBook, ARVN
ISBN: 9781935149637
Publisher: Casemate Publishers and Book Distributors, LLC
Published: 2009-12-10T08:00:00+00:00

The 44th Ranger Battalion departed the base on the Trem Trem River on 22 December 1970. I bid Marty Tovar farewell before we marched off into the wetlands. He was still concerned about my frame of mind and my remarks about resigning my commission. I told him not to worry about it; I’d see this thing through to the end.

The battalion moved to the northeast over the next two days without making contact with the enemy. Christmas Eve was more of the same. On Christmas day, Lieutenant Colonel Witek, the Ranger Command Senior Advisor, flew into our area to visit all the battalions. When he over flew our battalion, I popped a smoke grenade and guided his C&C ship into a LZ. The colonel jumped out of the chopper, his spit-shined jungle boots sinking into the mud. He was carrying a mailbag, and that made his visit worthwhile to us. After handing us our letters from home, he pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels and some Red Cross ditty bags out of the mailbag. After wishing us a Merry Christmas, he passed the bottle around. When the bottle came my way I said,

“No thank you colonel. I don’t drink in the field.” That was true, although I was far from being a tea toatler when we weren’t on a combat operation.

“But, it’s Christmas, go ahead. It’s just one swig.” The colonel said.

“Doesn’t matter.” I replied.

I think Witek recognized that I had developed a bit of an attitude, but he didn’t pursue it. Five minutes later, the colonel boarded his helicopter and took off. It was a nice gesture, flying all the way down from Can Tho to wish us a Merry Christmas, but none of us really had the Christmas spirit. Peace on earth and good will towards men did not apply to us that year, and if a Christmas truce was declared, we were not aware of it.

Once the colonel departed, we looked into the contents of our Red Cross ditty bags. These bags were made up by the Red Cross donut dollies and contained nice to have items, like candy, a sewing kit, a ballpoint pen, a penlight, a cigarette lighter, and things like that. It soon became clear someone had gone through our bags and removed the nice to have items. Apparently, the “stay at home Rangers” in Can Tho did not want to burden us with those trinkets.

As the old year slipped away, the 44th Ranger battalion’s participation in the U Minh operation neared its end. During the final days of December, we spent long luminous days searching for VC. The soldiers had one little firefight with a small group of VC during the last week of December, but the results were insignificant. I called in gunship strikes, and the VC broke contact. No men were killed or wounded, and I personally saw no enemy dead left on the field.

On the 29 December 1970, we were back at the Ranger base on the river. That same afternoon we boarded CH-47 Chinook helicopters for the flight back to Ca Mau.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.