Long Range Patrol by Dennis Foley

Author:Dennis Foley [Foley, Dennis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480472181
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-03-24T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

WORD MUST HAVE GOTTEN to Province Headquarters long before Hollister did. He was met by the colonel’s aspirant and told that Colonel Minh was away on an aerial reconnaissance. Hollister learned that the Rules of Engagement had been revised to account for disobedience of the Vietnamese civilians who appeared incapable of avoiding an area that had been put off limits because of the Viet Cong danger.

The aspirant also said that the LRPs and their supporting units could fire on any targets that they could identify as VC or on anyone carrying weapons or on any structures that were combat in nature—such as bunkers.

When Hollister left the Province Headquarters, he found that Colonel Minh must have left his command post without taking his gaudy jeep or his equally ornate helicopter; both were parked in the compound, and had been since Hollister’s arrival.

Hollister promised to himself never to trust another ARVN or Vietnamese official again. Not when it came to the lives of his people or innocent civilians—not again.

Hollister returned to the LRP compound, met with the detachment staff and passed on the new Rules of Engagement. In a meeting of all the officers and senior NCOs, Hollister noticed that Captain Michaelson was uncharacteristically abrupt.

“Okay, this is how it’s gonna be. You get fired upon—you return it. You eyeball bad guys—fire ’em up. If you’re in doubt and have the time—you do what you can to develop the situation and confirm the ID before you return fire. If you can’t—walk or fly away. Don’t fuck around—walk away! There’ll be other days.” Captain Michaelson raised his voice even higher and asked them, “Is that perfectly clear?”

“Clear, sir. Airborne!” all replied in unison as they got to their feet to leave.

“I need to see Hollister, Virgil, and Rogers,” the captain said.

The three lieutenants moved over to Michaelson and waited for him to speak.

“Sit,” Michaelson directed. “We are going to modify our insert schedule and go about this operation a little more deliberately. We have lots of new faces and we have this raw spot with Province that we don’t want to aggravate.

“I’ve decided that we’ll pull back on the saturation in the AO. I don’t want too many teams on the ground right now. So, we’ll only have two teams on the ground at any one time until we get the machine working a little bit better.

“Each platoon will insert the first team on its roster tomorrow morning—Captain Shaw has the details for you. We will only stay in the AO for four days per patrol unless a team makes contact or is compromised. They’ll come out and two more will be inserted in different locations on the same day.

“We’ll keep this up till we put some notches on our belts or until we confirm a dry hole.

“I’ll be alternating with Captain Shaw, briefing and inserting teams. So, while one of us is giving mission briefings, the other will be inserting teams. That will give us two fresh insert packages all the time if the chopper support can keep up.

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