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The FReeper Foxhole Remembers Fire Support Base Ripcord (July 1970) Part I - Aug. 7th, 2004
see educational sources

Posted on 08/06/2004 10:40:05 PM PDT by snippy_about_it



Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.



...................................................................................... ...........................................

U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues

Where Duty, Honor and Country
are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.

Our Mission:

The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans.

In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support.

The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer.

If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions.

We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.

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click on the books below.

Fire Support Base Ripcord




Vietnam - Summer 1970


Rodger "Chip" Collins is a witness to hidden history. As a 19-year-old Army private first class, Collins fought at the heart of America's last major battle in Vietnam.

His unit - 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry of the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile), gave up 40 of the 77 soldiers killed during the siege of Fire Support Base Ripcord, a mountaintop artillery position deep in North Vietnamese Army territory, from July 2-23, 1970.

When you add the battles required to take the hill and establish the firebase, beginning in mid-March, the cost of controlling and eventually giving up Ripcord becomes 114 dead and nearly 700 wounded.

But almost no one knows about what happened at Ripcord - except for the survivors, a few others who fought nearby and a handful of military historians.

By the time the battle at Ripcord began, the vast majority of American troops could see the end of their Vietnam war in sight, and most American civilians were more than ready to forget that Vietnam even existed.

For 30 years, almost no literature existed about the 101st's significant role in 1970, as America's war petered out.



Now this gaping hole is about to get filled. With the help of veterans like Collins - who founded the Ripcord Association to maintain links between survivors - author Keith William Nolan has completed a book detailing the battle and its previously ignored importance.

"Ripcord: Screaming Eagles Under Siege, Vietnam 1970" was published in July by Presidio Press Inc. Among the most important sources influencing Nolan's decision to write, and filling in the story's details, was the "Ripcord Report," the association newsletter founded by Collins and continued by former 101st company commander Chuck Hawkins.

THE WAR NOBODY KNEW


Firebase Ripcord was a bald lump of dirt on a mountain jutting up in the middle of Thua Thien Province, near South Vietnam's extreme northwest corner.



I Corps, the military region including Thua Thien, was best known to the American public for three battlefield events.

One was the vicious battle for the provincial capital, the city of Hue, during the enemy's 1968 Tet Offensive.

Another, only a few weeks later, was the bitter months-long siege of a Marine base at Khe Sanh.

The third took place 10 miles south of Ripcord, in May 1969, and made international headlines. It was a bloody battle for a mountain called Dong Ap Bia, in the A Shau Valley, not far from the Laotian border. For nine days, the 101st, nicknamed the Screaming Eagles, tried to root North Vietnamese Army forces out of mountaintop strongholds before finally taking control, at the cost of 56 killed and more than 400 wounded.

Dong Ap Bia became known to the troopers and the American public as Hamburger Hill. The fact that it was abandoned almost immediately after being taken at such a terrible price came to symbolize the war's seeming futility.

Two months later, President Richard Nixon ordered the start of "Vietnamization," his policy of gradually pulling out U.S. forces and turning the war over to their South Vietnamese allies.

Only two events from the war in 1970 stick in the minds of most Americans - the April to May invasion of Cambodia, and the fatal shooting of four Kent State University students when an anti-invasion protest became a riot.

At the same time, the 101st was working its way back toward the A Shau to pound the North Vietnamese Army one last time before handing responsibility to the South Vietnamese.



But the division faced one key difference from a year before. Hamburger Hill had sapped the commanders' willingness to suffer terrible casualties and to do whatever it took to master the valley, which the North Vietnamese Army now owned completely.

Trying to fight the enemy in his back yard, but avoid casualties, was contradictory.

It backfired.

THE BATTLE


Chip Collins had barely arrived in Vietnam in March 1970 when the 2/506th was sent to help prepare Ripcord.

They walked into the fire right away, getting nailed to the hillside under mortar attack on April Fool's Day, as Collins chronicled in a 1986 Ripcord Report.

The 2/506th and related battalions were nicknamed Currahee, a Cherokee word for "stand alone."



The Currahees and other 101st units eventually carved out bunkers, artillery positions and communications complexes on the mountain. Ripcord would provide the big guns to support a push south into the A Shau as part of Operation Texas Star, the last mostly-American offensive of the war.

Or would it?

Collins notes there's evidence in the Texas Star operational plan that the brass may have never intended to go back to the A Shau's death trap.

Instead, they would set up an exposed firebase to draw the North Vietnamese Army like honey on an anthill.



Collins was among roughly 300 troopers who would alternate between providing security on Ripcord and venturing to look for the enemy among neighboring hills and valleys.

Meanwhile, the push to the A Shau never happened.

Beginning July 2, the Screaming Eagles were too busy trying to stop a nearly constant rain of North Vietnamese Army mortars and artillery shells smashing Ripcord.

The hilltop bristled with firepower and was ringed with an elaborate wall of wire - razor wire, concertina wire, barbed wire.



Commanders were certain this intricate maze would hold off full-scale North Vietnamese Army infantry assaults and infiltration attacks, Collins said.

As a squad leader, he explained, "I was the guy who had to fill the (perimeter defense) positions each night."

After days and days of relentless bombing, the troops were exhausted. "I know the NVA could come through the wire if they wanted to," he said.



The 101st also needed to secure two prominent nearby peaks the enemy controlled, Hill 805 and Hill 1000.

But after several failed attempts Collins had to help haul dead and wounded off Hill 1000.



Commanders put some troops atop Hill 805, but not enough to hold it.

Collins witnessed the firefights from Ripcord as the North Vietnamese Army mauled an undermanned unit on Hill 805 for days, because Brig. Gen. Sidney Berry was unwilling to risk more deaths and woundings to send reinforcements.

"I watched every night as a company got reduced to a platoon," he said.

Collins also was among those who, on the 18th day of the siege, were witnesses as the North Vietnamese Army shot down a giant Chinook supply helicopter. It crashed into an ammunition dump that blew up with such force it tore the top off much of the hill.

Ultimately, Ripcord was surrounded by North Vietnamese anti-aircraft artillery and mortar positions that could fire on it virtually at will, Collins said.

Down below were hillsides and valleys that hid endless enemy bunkers, which Collins only recently learned were all interconnected.

On July 21, one of Hawkins' riflemen shot a young North Vietnamese courier and found on him a map outlining plans for a massive ground attack on Ripcord.

Two days later, commanders decided holding the hill wasn't worth the cost. A seemingly endless relay of helicopters lifted the Eagles to safety a half-dozen at a time.



When everyone was gone, fighter jets and bombers smashed the abandoned firebase back to an anonymous pile of dust.

Collins later fought with a reconnaissance squad, unwilling to waste away the last months of his tour with undisciplined troops in the safer rear areas of the war zone.

He left in February 1971, but not before watching the buildup of South Vietnamese troops, assisted by 101st helicopters, preparing for the ill-fated Lam Son 719 assault on North Vietnamese Army hideouts in Laos.



The South Vietnamese got their tails kicked badly, hinting at the failures that would let North Vietnamese tanks roll into Saigon four years later.

As Nolan wrote, "Vietnamization had failed."




FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links




TOPICS: VetsCoR
KEYWORDS: 101stairborne; 2506; ashau; freeperfoxhole; fsbripcord; history; samsdayoff; thuathien; usarmy; veterans; vietnam
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To: SAMWolf

Mornin Sam

July 1970 I was 14 yrs old
Fire support base Ripcord doesn't sound like a good place to be.
Sounds more like another miscalculation that cost American Lives.


21 posted on 08/07/2004 7:14:30 AM PDT by The Mayor ("Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism." George Washington)
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To: SAMWolf

Have you seen this "The Purple Heart Hunter" It's a pdf file

http://humaneventsonline.com.edgesuite.net/UnfitCh3.pdf


22 posted on 08/07/2004 7:16:44 AM PDT by The Mayor ("Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism." George Washington)
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To: SAMWolf
I've just heard about this new thing, it's called...FOOD. Everyone says it's the coming thing, so I'm going to go try it.
23 posted on 08/07/2004 7:26:20 AM PDT by Valin (John Kerry: Dumber than Gore, more exciting than Mondale)
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To: The Mayor
Sounds more like another miscalculation that cost American Lives.

That just about sums up that entire war.

24 posted on 08/07/2004 7:45:49 AM PDT by SAMWolf (Warranty void if tagline removed.)
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To: The Mayor

Excellent! Thanks Mayor.


25 posted on 08/07/2004 7:49:24 AM PDT by SAMWolf (Warranty void if tagline removed.)
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To: Valin

I heard it's not all that it's cracked up to be.:-)


26 posted on 08/07/2004 7:50:34 AM PDT by SAMWolf (Warranty void if tagline removed.)
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To: snippy_about_it; SAMWolf; Professional Engineer; radu; Matthew Paul; PhilDragoo; All

Good morning everyone.

27 posted on 08/07/2004 7:59:28 AM PDT by Soaring Feather (I write the songs of sorrow.)
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To: SAMWolf

Yes it does..


28 posted on 08/07/2004 8:03:22 AM PDT by The Mayor ("Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism." George Washington)
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To: snippy_about_it; SAMWolf; Diva Betsy Ross

"Right Shall Rise Again!!
(To be sung to R.E.M.'s "So. Central Rain")

Clinton's gonna fall!! Dem Leftists try to stall...
Their Lib'ral mis-Directions...are driving RATS insane!!
Our Will shan't bend!! Slick Willie washed away...
The Evil of the Lib'rals...has forced Mudboy to sing.

I'm sorry...Slick's sorry...Left's sorry...Right's always...

Justice is our Right...Third Party calls...the RINOs frown...
The wise man wrote his words upon the rocks...
But MUD's not bound to follow suit!!
The Left shall bend...Slick's ConDamnation's Nigh!!
If Slick's Treas'nous Crimes YOU Condone...yer choice isn't mine!!

Slick's sorry...Left's sorry...

Med'yuh never called!! MUD waited for Left's calls...
Left's lies and mis-directions are driving US away!!
Then Limbaugh sang...Left's Brain-washin' washed away...
Left says that I should "Just Move ON!!"...that Choice isn't mine!!

I'm sorry...Slick's sorry...Left's sorry...Justice's RIGHT!!!

Ooooh...Ahhhhh...Ahhhhhhhhh-EEEEE...Ahhhhh-ahhhhhhh-uhhhhh...

{end very intensely on Am}

Heh heh heh...Mudboy Slim (15 January 2002)


29 posted on 08/07/2004 8:38:59 AM PDT by Mudboy Slim (Vast RightWing is Rockin'!!)
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To: snippy_about_it

"Trying to fight the enemy in his back yard, but avoid casualties, was contradictory. It Backfired."

THAT is what the brass desperately needs to relearn, that avoiding casualties isn't possible.
And we here 'at home' need to remember this as well.
No matter how the press plays it up.


30 posted on 08/07/2004 10:18:12 AM PDT by Darksheare (Tagline Abuse is an under-reported crime. Please help abused taglines today. Call 1-999-TAG-ABUZE.)
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To: Valin; SAMWolf

Sam's not likely to become an evil overlord.
U hear tell he's too much of a 'nice guy', except in that game "steel Panthers"...


31 posted on 08/07/2004 10:21:00 AM PDT by Darksheare (Tagline Abuse is an under-reported crime. Please help abused taglines today. Call 1-999-TAG-ABUZE.)
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To: Valin; SAMWolf

U hear = I hear..
*ugh*


32 posted on 08/07/2004 10:23:18 AM PDT by Darksheare (Tagline Abuse is an under-reported crime. Please help abused taglines today. Call 1-999-TAG-ABUZE.)
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To: snippy_about_it; SAMWolf
Second Batallion, 506th Airborne Infantry Regiment? I know those guys.

Currahee!
3 miles up,
3 miles down!


33 posted on 08/07/2004 10:48:27 AM PDT by CholeraJoe ("Bring Charlie Home. Bring Charlie Home!" Go Helena Brewers!)
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To: snippy_about_it; bentfeather; Samwise
Good afternoon ladies. Flying Flag-o-gram.


34 posted on 08/07/2004 10:55:48 AM PDT by Professional Engineer (The glass is neither half full, nor half empty. It's twice as large as it needs to be.)
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To: Valin
Birthdates which occurred on August 07:

Professional Engineer (vexillologist/smartass/father)

The Old Bug Guy (Professional Engineer's dad)

35 posted on 08/07/2004 11:08:47 AM PDT by Professional Engineer (The glass is neither half full, nor half empty. It's twice as large as it needs to be.)
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To: Valin; SAMWolf
If SAMWolf became an evil overlord...
MAKE SURE that your doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded!

#6 (Cu) minimum.

36 posted on 08/07/2004 11:11:08 AM PDT by Professional Engineer (The glass is neither half full, nor half empty. It's twice as large as it needs to be.)
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To: bentfeather

Hi miss Feather


37 posted on 08/07/2004 11:12:47 AM PDT by Professional Engineer (The glass is neither half full, nor half empty. It's twice as large as it needs to be.)
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To: bentfeather

Afternoon Feather


38 posted on 08/07/2004 12:02:12 PM PDT by SAMWolf (Warranty void if tagline removed.)
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To: Mudboy Slim
Afternoon Mud.

The Evil of the Lib'rals...has forced Mudboy to sing.

LOL! They just make me scream.

39 posted on 08/07/2004 12:03:18 PM PDT by SAMWolf (Warranty void if tagline removed.)
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To: Darksheare

Afternoon Darksheare.

This "avoid casualties at all costs" mentality doesn't work when you want to win.

Arresting, detaining, holding, avoid collateral damage, etc just puts our troops at greater risk


40 posted on 08/07/2004 12:05:09 PM PDT by SAMWolf (Warranty void if tagline removed.)
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