Special Men by Dennis Foley

Author:Dennis Foley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Outloading to a new tactical location with an Airborne unit is one of the most complicated operations you can experience. But I was impressed with the battalion’s ability to size up its airloading requirements and match air assets to needs. I wouldn’t find out until later that the reason was because it was a particularly well developed skill of Major Hackworth’s. The battalion staff could not make a mistake in air movement with him checking their work. His ability to estimate loads, weights, and cube requirements was the best I ever saw in any airborne unit I served with.

Thus, the move itself went smoothly. In less than a day and a half we had cleared out of Phan Rang and closed on Tuy Hoa.

For reasons that escaped me, the brigade decided to set up the 1/327 on a ribbon of sand that ran for a few miles south of Tuy Hoa city. Bounded by the South China sea and Highway 1, the beach was a strange combination of sand and very dusty dirt. It was the only place I have ever been where you could swim or take a shower and before you had walked a hundred yards you were covered with a fine dirt up to your knees.

It was also hot and devoid of any terrain features or vegetation. But for us it was home—for a while. We were given an area and soon found out just how difficult it was to be put on a sandy beach. When we had heard we were going to be on the beach, all of us thought that would be a terrific idea.

On a beach, besides the obvious problem of having sand in everything you owned all the time, there were several other peculiarities that were bothersome. Tent stakes didn’t want to stay put, sunburn was a constant problem with the added reflections off the sand, walking became difficult when you had to do lots of it in the battalion area, vehicles got bogged down in the loose surface, and everything you ate had a gritty crunch to it.

The only thing that was easy was sandbagging.

Security on a beach had its own unique features that we had not anticipated, and the Tiger Force was given a local security mission as soon as we turned off the highway and drove to the battalion command post.

We were required to establish lightly armed and thinly manned positions around the perimeter of the battalion area. Our first problem was that there was virtually no defensive terrain. Everything was flat and sandy. There was no deviation in the elevation that could offer better observation and fields of fire, and there were no obvious positions to consider along likely enemy avenues of approach—the entire beach was avenues of approach.

Vegetation or terrain features to help conceal the friendly positions didn’t exist. So sandbagged emplacements for the machine guns and other crew-served weapons stood out on the beach like olive-drab pimples. We weren’t kidding anyone.

Local security extended to patrolling. The

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