The Snake Platoon continued to pull missions in the same areas as they had from Pleiku – Bong Son, Phan Thiet, Cam Rahn, Qui Nhon, Tuy Hoa, Phu Cat, An Khe, Pleiku, Kontum, Dalat, Ban Me Thuot, Gia Nghia, and on rare occasion, even Nha Trang.
Soon after their transfer in from DSUs John Foster, Jim Graves, Mike Lenten, and Ed Lileikis were sent to Phan Thiet for a four-month mission supporting a unit of the 1st Logistics Command. They took a 3/4-ton with a hut on the back, but the road to Phan Thiet was not secure, so they had to fly. For a full week, they sat on the tarmac at Nha Trang Airbase waiting for a plane large enough and empty enough to take them and their truck in that direction. That’s exactly what they did – they sat in the sun, eating c-rations and working on their tans. On occasion, when they were certain their ride was not coming in soon, they’d slip over to the Air Force dining facility, and on day 5, they went back to the platoon area for much-needed showers. Finally, the Air Force told them to load up onto a C-130 which took them to Cam Ranh. They could have driven to Cam Ranh in 30 to 40 minutes rather than the seven days they had waited, but who’s to question either orders or progress. In Cam Ranh, they made a quick connection to Phan Thiet.
On leaving the air strip in Phan Thiet, the truck began to buck and act erratically, so they stopped at the 1st Log’s motor pool, where the motor sergeant said he’d take care of it. He took care of it, alright. Four months later, when they were leaving, they got the truck back, but it had to be towed to the docks and returned to Nha Trang by the US Navy. The motor pool had been augmenting their own supply system by using our truck for parts. To top it off, some Navy guy impaled the hut with his forklift.
Actually, that mission felt more like exile than a mission. The guys lived in a plywood and canvas structure called a James Way, about 20 feet from the perimeter wire on one side and 20 feet from Graves Registration (where they prepare fatalities for return home) on the other. They took turns working in the hut fifteen feet from the door. They didn’t meet very many people there. The second night after the team returned to Nha Trang, Phan Thiet was attacked and the perimeter was breached right next to the James Way where they had stayed. They knew better than to attack while we were there, I guess.
Monitoring tactical radios could be interesting at times, as well as exciting and even frustrating. Once, we listened as a young lieutenant transmitted a coded message to the field. It was coded perfectly, but the field responded shortly that they did not have the code he had used. So, the lieutenant sent them the code, on the radio, in the clear. No, no, no! On another occasion, an armored unit in the field radioed in to their troop HQ (cavalry has troops instead of companies) that they would be at a specific location in twenty minutes, and they gave the grid coordinates in the clear. We immediately alerted their 1SG of the problem, and he dismissed it with a, “Nobody’s listening but you guys.” When they arrived at those coordinates, though, there was an enemy ambush waiting for them. They did have casualties.
Steve Rollins recalls a mission to Dalat in July 1970. Rather than stay in the beautiful downtown area, though, they stayed with an artillery outfit on top of a mountain and lived in caves. He says that the artillerymen had big Ritz Cracker cans full of pot, and the 2nd platoon guys were glad when the mission was over and they could leave. If anyone in the Snake Platoon was involved with any drug other than alcohol, the rest of us were not aware of it. We had very high security clearances which we did not want to risk losing. Without the clearance, you could not stay in A S A, but you would stay in Vietnam.
On a lighter note, on occasion one or two platoon members would be in Cam Ranh without wheels and find there wasn’t a seat on an Air Force flight to Nha Trang until the next day. That was not a problem. Rather than spend the night on a wooden bench in the airport, they would walk a couple of miles to a helicopter pad, wait for a Huey to come in, and stick their thumb out. They’d be home in no time at all. The Snake Platoon didn’t always wait on the Air Force for a ride. Sometimes, they would fly on the CIA’s Air America planes and even on Air Vietnam once or twice.
Dave Wagner and Paige Sawyer flew into Cam Ranh from a mission to the south somewhere and were not able to book a suitable flight from there to Nha Trang. They decided to head out the gate and hitch a ride on a military vehicle headed north. It was getting late, and they still hadn’t managed to get a ride, so they flagged down a northbound Vietnamese civilian bus. It looked sort of like a school bus and was loaded with Vietnamese soldiers, civilians, suitcases, small goats and roosters. Not having any Vietnamese currency for the fare, Wagner pulled a pair of dress shoes from his rucksack and traded them to the driver for the ride to Nha Trang. They hopped onto a running board and held on. This bus was not the ‘express’ route but the ‘local.’ For the twenty-mile trip to Nha Trang, the bus stopped at every pig path and crossroad to let off and pick up passengers. Finally, it reached downtown Nha Trang and our boys got off. The found a phone somewhere and called the platoon area for a ride the rest of the way.
Return to the History Page.