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Posted on 08/06/2004 10:40:05 PM PDT by snippy_about_it
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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 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. 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. 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."      |
"They're pacifists.."
For some reason I'm envisioning a bit from RedvsBlue..
One more proof that there is a God..and He LOVES ME!
Sounds like a old copy. The copy I have I bought in High School in the 60's.
FReegards...MUD
Hey! You callin' me a horse?
Sounds like a good day for a birthday.
We better ALL be out there or we're in big trouble.
*in Invader Zim voice*
We shall, oh yes.. we shall...
Well let's see, we both had hammers and nails today and guess who didn't smash her finger. LOL!
Well this would explain why...someone isn't typing very well tonight. :-)
LOL. Yeah, that's good for today and maybe tomorrow but what excuse will he use after that?
Good evening Victoria.
:-)
Ripcord: Screaming Eagles under Siege, Vietnam 1970 by Keith William Nolan. Presidio Press
(http://www.presidiopress.com), P.O. Box 1764, Novato, California 94948, 2000, 480 pages, $29.95 (hardcover).
At first glance, Keith Nolan’s Ripcord seems to have little to do with the Air Force other than to serve as a reminder of the importance the F-4 played in close air support and the B-52 played in the bombing campaign in Southeast Asia. After all, this is the story of Fire-Support Base Ripcord, an Army installation. The fight in the hills around Ripcord was an infantryman’s fight, holding little or no interest for an Air Force audience.
Although this is true, members of the Air Force, especially its leadership, would do well to read Nolan’s book. What it chronicles, beyond the horrific scenes of battle, is the story of several hundred men fighting a battle they have already lost. It tells how these troops, faced with an impossible mission, begin to mistrust their leadership and how their anger begins to spread.
Fire-Support Base Ripcord was established as the first part of a campaign to push the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) out of the A Shau Valley, an operation that never really came to fruition as originally conceived. The ridge on which Ripcord would be built was seized in April 1970 but reverted to the NVA only three months later, on 23 July. Because of political considerations, writes Nolan, “division headquarters proved reluctant to be drawn into the kind of bloody slugging match that would have been required to push the enemy out of their entrenchments around Ripcord” (p. 11).
Ripcord is especially powerful when it examines leadership, from the platoon all the way up to division level. Nolan expertly and evenhandedly dissects eyewitness accounts of both good and bad leadership in the field. The grunts who followed their leaders into battle often did so reluctantly, largely because of the overwhelming nature of the obstacles before them. In the interviews and letters Nolan presents, these soldiers’ impressions of platoon and company leadership are mostly positive. The questions surrounding leadership arise mostly at the battalion level and above, starting with Lt Col Andre Lucas, the battalion commander tasked with the defense of Ripcord, and with Brig Gen Sidney Berry, acting commander of the 101st Airborne Division. Each of their subordinates has a different opinion, and Nolan is careful to let readers make up their own minds about each man’s leadership qualities. Again and again, the book returns to the issue of leadership: what proved effective and what did not; whether a commander could have done more or less; who had responsibility; and what leadership could have done differently.
Beyond this case study in leadership is the fascinating story of several battalions of men who faced the horrors of war every day. Nolan takes his readers on patrol with the ranging platoons as they probe the jungles around Ripcord to test enemy strength. He follows them up nearby Hill 1000, from which the NVA pounded Ripcord with mortar and 55 mm fire. Nolan tells of the men on Ripcord who provide suppressing fire for the men in the field around the camp, and he walks with the men in the field who try in vain to knock out mortar and gun emplacements that threaten Ripcord. Finally, he follows the men off Ripcord as they evacuate the base while NVA troops victoriously swarm the hilltop.
Although the besieged men were happy to evacuate their living hell, they questioned the reasons for establishing the base if it was to be abandoned so quickly. Chris Straub, a retired lieutenant colonel who saw action during the Ripcord siege, wrote to Nolan, noting that the evacuation “confirms my view that from the start the 101st’s push into the Ripcord AO [area of operations] was not in consonance with what the U.S. was trying to accomplish in Vietnam in 1970” (p. 411). If Ripcord did not mesh with overall US objectives, one wonders why so many men died before it was abandoned. Again, the question of leadership raises its head.
Ripcord is a quality piece of investigating, and Nolan deserves credit for his dedication to revealing as many sides of the story as he can. His ability to humanize the men who fought is commendable. Most importantly, however, Nolan is able to provide present military leadership with a case study in effective battle management. We owe it to future conflicts to read and internalize the lessons Ripcord presents.
1st Lt Glenn D. Leinbach, USAF
Osan AB, South Korea
Dien Bien Phu deja vu.
Ripcord : Screaming Eagles Under Siege, Vietnam 1970 by KEITH NOLAN
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 2d Battalion, 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. place and date: Fire Support Base Ripcord, Republic of Vietnam, 1 to 23 July 1970. Entered service at: West point, N.Y. Born: 2 October 1930, Washington D.C. Citation: Lt. Col. Lucas distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism while serving as the commanding officer of the 2d Battalion. Although the fire base was constantly subjected to heavy attacks by a numerically superior enemy force throughout this period, Lt. Col. Lucas, forsaking his own safety, performed numerous acts of extraordinary valor in directing the defense of the allied position. On 1 occasion, he flew in a helicopter at treetop level above an entrenched enemy directing the fire of 1 of his companies for over 3 hours. Even though his helicopter was heavily damaged by enemy fire, he remained in an exposed position until the company expended its supply of grenades. He then transferred to another helicopter, dropped critically needed grenades to the troops, and resumed his perilous mission of directing fire on the enemy. These courageous actions by Lt. Col. Lucas prevented the company from being encircled and destroyed by a larger enemy force. On another occasion, Lt. Col. Lucas attempted to rescue a crewman trapped in a burning helicopter. As the flames in the. aircraft spread, and enemy fire became intense, Lt. Col. Lucas ordered all members of the rescue party to safety. Then, at great personal risk, he continued the rescue effort amid concentrated enemy mortar fire, intense heat, and exploding ammunition until the aircraft was completely engulfed in flames. Lt. Col. Lucas was mortally wounded while directing the successful withdrawal of his battalion from the fire base. His actions throughout this extended period inspired his men to heroic efforts, and were instrumental in saving the lives of many of his fellow soldiers while inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy. Lt. Col. Lucas' conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action, at the cost of his own life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit and the U.S. Army.
Thanks for the review. This sounds like it'll be a very good book.
Me????
That's cuz I was holding the nails. ;-)
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