Undaunted Valor 3: Lam Son 719 by Matt Jackson

Author:Matt Jackson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2020-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

First Signs of Trouble

“You have any idea what this meeting is for?” Major Klose asked Lieutenant Colonel Kirklighter as they walked from their aircraft towards the 101st Aviation Brigade TOC just off the Khe Sanh airfield. The last time they’d been here, they’d received the mission brief that had kicked off this operation. That had been about ten days ago, or was it twelve?

“All I know is that General Berry wants to have a meeting. Probably wants to pass on what General Abrams had to say when he was up here the other day,” Kirklighter said. “I heard that General Abrams wasn’t happy.”

“About the only thing I’d like to hear is we’re getting out of this place, and I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Major Klose said. They both chuckled as they went through the door of the TOC.

Inside stood battalion commanders of the major aviation units participating in the operation. Most had attended the previous briefing, so introductions weren’t necessary, but greetings, friendly jabs and some good-natured jokes were exchanged between commanders. A few of the junior officers knew others outside their immediate commands but mostly took up positions to the rear of three of the trailers that made up the TOC, the fourth being occupied by the 101st operations staff, which was still working.

When General Berry walked in, everyone started scrambling for seats, with those perceiving themselves to be the “golden boys” grabbing chairs in the immediate front and center. Egos were big amongst the 101st commanders, each vying for a good efficiency report from General Berry, their immediate rater. Lieutenant Colonels Kirklighter, Rutkowski and Norwalk weren’t within General Berry’s rating chain, so they didn’t have to play the game of kiss-ass and were seated in the second row. An empty chair was first-row center for General Berry to sit in when the briefing officer would be talking.

“Alright, let’s get started,” Berry said as he took center stage. “General Abrams was up here a few days ago, and he has concerns about this operation. The ARVN 1st Armored Brigade is still in A Loui and has not moved forward for several reasons, which will stay in this room. First, Route 9 to Tchepone is no more than a damn goat trail. There are several of what were thought to be shallow creek beds across the road, only to find that they’re about twenty feet deep and too wide for an AVLB, and the banks are too soft to hold a bridge. Second, the road is heavily mined. Every time a bulldozer goes forward, it’s blown. Third, the sides of the road haven’t been secured and the enemy has sniper teams out picking off drivers and mine-clearing people. Fourth, the gooks have the entire road registered for artillery and mortars from the surrounding hills. Fifth, there are trails that bypass those ditches on the road that the enemy knows about and is using to maneuver around the ARVNs. Bottom line is the 1st ARVN Armored Brigade ain’t getting to Tchepone anytime this year, if ever.

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.