Okay, I'll play
It was the anniversary of my third year in the Army with six months time in grade as a CPT. I stepped off a Huey in the middle of the Central Highlands to take over A-246 in a place called Mang Buk, this was going to be the first of two A-Teams I was to command in Vietnam in one year. Each was going to be totally different and everything I knew was going to be put into play the first week on the ground. I learned more from those outstanding soldiers in my first month than I had learned from anyone or any other experience in my life up to that time. I cannot begin to even explain the awesome level of reponsiblity I felt having been given the command of a team with all that it entails and you know what my biggest fear was-letting any of these guys down in any way. The hardest thing for me to do was to not take out every patrol or participate in every recon. It took my Team Sergeant to grab me by the stacking swivel real hard one day to remind me that we all had a good working relationship and they did not want to have to break in another "new" guy after stuffing me in a body bag. I learned something new everyday where ever I was. I couldn't learn enough. I checked everything, fired everything, sent the daily sitrep, broke msgs, debred wounds. I stood back and let my NCOs do their jobs and had them teach me virtually everything about anything they could. We trained counterparts, worked with our indig, were indoctrinated into their tribes, participated in their ceremonies, we were not one of them but we were definitely part of them. The saddest day of this part of my first year on a team was leaving them because the Group Commander decided I needed to go straighten out another A-team because he was so impressed with my folks at Mang Buk. I told him that we were good because we were a team and if he really wanted me to straighten out another team he should allow me to take the team that we had built together. He said no, I said good bye, my wife didn't know I had been given another team until a heavy package came for her in the mail of Thai Bronze Ware that my team had sent someone to Thailand to buy for her as a thank you. So for the remainder of my first year I took command of A-244 in a place called Ben Het and that started off with me getting blown off the helipad the minute my feet hit the ground. This was a tough assignment for a different reason. While the Group Commander might think you are the team's saviour, a bunch of guys who were totally busted because of the death of one guy and the capture of another living in a hell hole are not likely to look upon you as anything other than just another officer who will probably also get relieved. This was one of those times when you just had to set the tone right off the bat, which I did that night by responding alone to a ground probe on one of our OPs by driving like a wild man up to the top of the OP, taking a 60 mm mortar away from the yard that was supposed to manning it and walking rounds down the gully where the intruders were making their probe. Came back to find a bunch of long faced folks wondering if I was nuts and it took about a week but things fell into place and the team came together. It was a different setting, with different challenges and different folks, but good soldiers all who were intially distrusting of officers in general. I continued my old ways of learning all I could, but this time I had many battles to fight with higher headquarters, my counterpart who was a NVA mole, the 4th Infantry Division who killed more of my folks then the NVA did, and that constant nagging fear of making sure that I did nothing that would let these guys down or get them killed. My year ended much the way as it started, with a Huey ride away from a bunch of guys that I knew were in harms way but now I could do nothing about it. A couple of months later tanks hit the camp, but were stopped by the mine field I had put in without permission. There was talk of courts-martial until the 5th Group realized that they had gotten credit for killing a PT-76 and no one wanted to admit that some no-necked CPT did not have persmission to do something that should have been authorized in the first place. Now I could fill in the blanks about both places, but that would take a novel that no one would really want to read and many would not understand because I am not skilled enough to paint the picture that pays the appropriate level of respect and honor I hold in my memories of some of the finest soldiers with whom I have ever served.
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