TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

A Tour of Duty in Vietnam
two friendly WIAs, and the Army quickly ended the mission.
The next day an investigating officer from division came to Ca
Lu and took my written statement. It was the last I ever heard of the
incident, except that just about every cannon cocker in the 12th
Marine Regiment was listening to the argument on the net and wanted
to give me kudos. From a leadership standpoint, it was a pure shame
that a senior officer, who was obviously not an artilleryman, could not
take the advice of a seasoned artillery officer, and overrule his ego and
back off his dangerous order.
An incident that is difficult to forget happened one evening
while I was in my jeep driving down Highway 9 trying to get back to
my battery before sunset after attending a meeting at Division HQ.
The road had actually been closed and oiled for the day. They sprayed
oil on the road to decrease dust but mainly to make it difficult for the
enemy to plant mines during the night that couldn’t be easily detected.
The clearing team in the morning could easily recognize any
disruption in the surface that had been oiled.
The road in this area was built up on a levy 12 to 15 feet high.
We saw an ARVN deuce­and­a­half truck speeding toward us in the
opposite direction. Suddenly the driver lost control skidding on the oil.
As the truck left the road, it started to turn over as it careened down
the side of the levy. The driver actually bailed out, kept his feet and
stayed ahead of the rolling truck. The passenger was not so lucky.
Gravity and momentum pulled him to the driver’s side, but he did not
make it completely out of the truck before the top of the cab crushed
his chest as it came to rest at the bottom of the levy. I ran to the
passenger who was still conscious. I started frantically digging dirt
from under his shoulders to try to remove the pressure of the truck on
him, but blood started running out of his mouth, and he died with his
head between my knees. I remember that after finally giving up trying
to save him, I noticed the driver calmly sitting on a stump and
smoking a cigarette. He had never even tried to help me with his
passenger. I was disgusted at the time. He seemed totally unmoved by
what happened.
From November of 1968 through to the next January, our
battery went on one operation after another with the 9th Marines.
These operations run together in my memory, but I know we were part
of operations Scotland II and Kentucky. We were OpCon (under
operational control) to 2nd Battalion, 12th Marines, the artillery direct
support battalion of the 9th Marines. I believe the reason for this was
that the other firing batteries of 3rd Battalion were embedded along
the DMZ along with plenty of heavy artillery such as the selfpropelled
eight­inch howitzers and 155mm and 175mm guns, as well
as the 155 self­propelled howitzers of the 4th Battalion. The 9th
Marines AO (area of operation) was the mountainous area of the
northwestern corner of I Corps along the Laotian border. Any firebases
in this area would only be accessible by helicopter. The heaviest
artillery that could be moved by helicopter was our 155mm towed
howitzers, and our battery, thanks to Lt. Ferrari, was the only 155
towed battery that had the logistic wherewithal and sufficient
personnel to participate in these aerial assaults. As it was, our big
howitzers could only safely be moved by an Army CH­54 Sky Crane,
the largest most powerful helicopter in the world at that time.
The first three months or so of operations were relatively
uneventful. The area had been flooded with NVA soldiers earlier in the
year during the siege of Khe Sanh, but now the NVA were obviously
A‐69