Ranger: A Soldier's Life by Ralph Puckett & D. K. R. Crosswell

Author:Ralph Puckett & D. K. R. Crosswell [Puckett, Ralph & Crosswell, D. K. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, Special Forces, Biography & Autobiography, Veterans, Korean War, Vietnam War
ISBN: 9780813169330
Google: JtwdDgAAQBAJ
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2017-04-11T21:19:00.915229+00:00

Operations Hood River and Benton. From MacGarrigle, Taking the Offensive, 247.

Three days after I assumed command, we made our first combat air assault as part of Operation Hood River. Other than the precommand course at Benning and the orientation on commanding an air assault, I lacked any real experience. Turning to Maj. Skip Perrine, my operations officer (S3), I said, “Skip, I have never done this before. I am responsible for all that happens and accept that responsibility. You tell me what orders to give while we insert those companies, and I’ll give the order. I need your help.” That’s the way we made that first assault. It went smoothly, thanks to the outstanding people who served under me: Perrine, the Artillery liaison officer, Capt. Ben Melton, the company commanders and their troopers, and the air force pilots and Army gunship crews who prepped the landing zones before the troopers put down.

The fire coordination was particularly impressive. Melton flew in the command and control (Charlie Charlie) chopper and managed the fighter-bomber, artillery, and gunship support. The assault went like clockwork. The fighter-bombers arrived first, dropping five-hundred-pounders on all probable enemy locations. The jungle erupted with dirty orange-and-black explosions. Other aircraft then dropped daisy cutters (bombs with fuses on an extension to the nose of the bomb, causing the bomb to detonate above ground, spewing steel bomb fragments over the terrain) on the landing zone in the hope that the fragments would set off any land mines. When the air treatment finished, artillery blasted the entire perimeter and much of the landing zone. Immediately following the artillery, the gunships zoomed in, blasting away with machine guns and rockets. Within seconds the first slicks (choppers carrying troopers) set down. The troopers leaped out, ran across the landing zone, regrouped, and moved into the jungle. All in all, it was a beautiful, deadly symphony choreographed to split-second perfection. The operation went smoothly: the intelligence proved good, and the companies made contact with the enemy soon after landing.

I had been forewarned that Matheson always pulled a little joke on commanders conducting their first air assaults. No matter what time the commander would report, Matheson would tell the commander that his watch was incorrect. As I reported the insertion of the first company, he asked what time the landing had been made. I asked him for the time, and when he told me, I reported that the assault had been made at that time. Col. John Collins (code name “Cottonmouth”), the deputy brigade commander, told me Matheson got quite a kick out of having the tables turned on him. That was the only time that I would put something over on Iron Duke.

Hood River was a big operation involving two battalions from Task Force Oregon and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) troops as well as South Korean marines. An ARVN regiment acted as the blocking force while we and our sister battalion, the 2/327th, were inserted on the northern and western perimeters of

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