Pacifica Military History Free Sample Chapters.pmd

Free Sample Chapters 351
An Ontos was an ungainly tracked fighting vehicle mounting six
external 106mm recoilless rifles. It was not armored at all. In fact, a .50caliber
round could go right through it. As far as I was concerned, bad
things always happened to Ontos and the men around them.
It looked like our Ontos had been the victim of a command-detonated
mine, which usually amounted to a dud 500-pound bomb dropped by
our side and salvaged by the other side for use against tanks, Ontos, and
amtracs. This mine—thankfully something lighter than a 500-pound
bomb—had gone off beneath the Ontos and sheared the track, driving
wheels, and all three recoilless rifles off one side. When I arrived, the
two crewmen were sitting on the ground beside the trail, dazed but unhurt.
Everyone else was just standing around.
It was staring to get dark and we were still on the road. I was getting
concerned and the troops were, too. Finally, as we moved up and over
the hill, the battalion CP told me to move in on the right side of the road
and form a perimeter. As we got in, I saw that there was a large open
area right behind us.
Fortunately, I had an SOP worked out so we could form a perimeter
in the order of march. The lead platoon moved first, straight into the
nearest designated position, followed to the right by the middle pla-toon,
and then by the rear platoon. As soon as we got the word from Battalion,
I called the platoon commanders back and verbally sketched it in for
them. They each said, “Right,” and we literally started running the troops
in so we could dig in before the sun set.
I checked in with the platoon commanders, each of whom escorted
me as fast as we could walk around his platoon’s section of the line. As
we went, I checked the position of each fighting hole and particularly
the field of fire of every M-60 machine gun. I tightened up here and
there, but the platoon commanders had known me from my first day
with Lima Company, and they had trained their troops in my ways. It
took only a few minutes to check the entire company and make sure we
were tied in with the companies on our left and right flanks.
After dark, as my troops were settling in, without telling me, Battalion
sent its 81mm mortar platoon right into our company posi-tion. It was
full dark by then, but the mortar platoon walked in on us with flashlights