I was Army Artillery. My CO was West Point, son of West Point. He was made an offer he couldn’t refuse. My unit was a bastard unit. My CO reported to nobody. We had no chain of command above this 2d Lt who quicky rose to captain.
We were a bastard unit due to the need for plausible deniability. Remember what the Kent State riots were about? Allegedly expanding the war from Vietnam into Laos and Cambodia. Well, 2 and 3 years before the Kent State riots, my unit was in Laos, throwing beach balls out of the 8” and 175 guns onto the “Ho Chi Minh trail”. But we could not get caught and if we were caught, the blame would stop with my CO as there was nobody above him. We were truly a bastard unit.
We had an XO Lt who probably was ROTC in a Cracker Jack college. Our guns were encamped near the bottom of a valley with steep hillsides. ROK forces were camped up the hillside.
A Laotian Forward Observer called in a strike. XO ordered the angle of the guns. The enlisted all objected and explained that they had to shoot up and over the steep hillside. The XO stated that he did the calculations and the ideal route with the least powder would be what he commanded... and gave a direct order for his angle.
The enlisted obeyed and hit the hillside and made a lot of ROK angry. Minor injuries, nothing serious. But the ROK could not understand why we were shootng at them.
A Laotian Forward Observer fled the the US, became National Chair of the Laotian Republican Organization headquartered with Family Tax Payer Network where I hung out. And he ran the largest Bhuddist Temple in NW Chicago Suburbs, delivering all those Laotian votes for Rauschenberger, Fitzgerald and the FAB 5. We shared some tales on life on the trail.
Even though Communist Vietnam trended less Communist later, Laos stayed very Maoist/Stalinist. The National Laotian Republican Organization was very disappointed that Republicans acted like Communism was not longer a problem. They felt written off.
The XO stated that he did the calculations
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I seem to remember a series of statements inre Junior Officers and when it is time for ‘us’ to run....
Young butterball——It has been my experience....
I tried to find them but couldn’t... oh well
As to your ‘location’, yes, it is believable, I was in SE Asia doing things that we weren’t there to be doing. Took them about 50 years to ‘come clean’.
About the only thing I believed coming from JF’nKerry was when he said he was in Cambodia around Christmas....the ONLY thing I figured was a truthful statement....of course ‘we weren’t there’....
One of the biggest disasters for the USAF in VN was the group that got killed in Laos when we weren’t in Laos.
I was aboard a ship that in 1959 visited Bangkok around the fourth of July. I was on the Henrico (APA-45) and we were accompanied by the Lenawee (APA-195) and James Keyes (DD-787).
It was during Ikes people to people program and around about 2004 or so we got ‘awarded’ an Armed Forces Expedition Medal with a Vietnam notation.
I had enough AFEMs to convert to Vietnam Service Medal. Turns out the reason we were probably there was to assist in the rescue of some US Army ‘teams’ that were trapped in Laos. This was prior to Special Forces/ie Green Berets.
Should be of ‘interest’ to you...
https://www.quora.com/Did-the-United-States-deploy-special-forces-in-Laos-during-the-Vietnam-war
If you google US Army in Laos 1959 you will come up with some ‘shockers’ since for YEARS we were never there.
Got my 2nd VSM in 61 while on the Terrell County (LST-1157) where we inserted some USMC recon and USN frogmen etc. Dropped them off in Gulf of Siam, had to spend a week in Bangkok and went back to pick them up.
Must have been a ‘rough’ exercise as I recognized NONE of the ones we picked up.
I know it was just a ‘training mission’ as we WEREN’T in Vietnam at the time.....(barf)