(The hills of the An Lao Valley)

The Jesus Nut

If you were an Air Cav grunt in Vietnam you probably ate a lot of dirt while humping up and down a hill or two. There were hills that we fought for inch by inch while pulling ourselves upwards on our bellies to their summits with all weapons firing on full automatic. There were some hills taken by air assaulting into hilltop clearings that were only big enough to hold a couple of Hueys at a time. Jumping off into a hot LZ under fire while gun ships peppered the perimeter with rocket and machine gunfire is something you don't forget. There were some hills with no enemy at all except for the hill itself. A hill where you clawed and hacked with your machete a path to the top only to hack your way down the other side. We never kept the hills, we only took them. The hills themselves weren't really important, what was really important, was that we could and would show the NVA that they couldn't have the hill. In the immortal words uttered on operation "Nathan Hale" by Ranger Sergeant Duke DuShane, "high ground good, low ground bad".

LZ-Bravo © Illustrated by George Cook

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In 1966, Ed Polonitza was a platoon leader in A Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry (Abn.) of the famous 1st Air Cavalry Division. A platoon leader was the first officer an

In January 1966, I was reassigned from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina to the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). The 1st Cav's base camp and division headquarters was located at An Khe which is a small town about 300 miles north of Saigon. The previous fall, the North Vietnamese army began a strategic offensive designed to attack across the Central Highlands of South Vietnam and penetrate down Highway 19 which ran from the Cambodian border on the west to the South China Sea on the east. If successful, the Communists would gain control of a major staging area for further attacks against the population centers of South Vietnam. Our job in the 1st Cav was to defeat this offensive and destroy the North Vietnamese forces pouring across the Cambodian border.

When I reached An Khe, I was very pleased to be assigned to the division's 1st Brigade (Airborne). This unit was the successor to the 11th Air Assault Division which had been testing the Army's new concepts of airmobile warfare at Fort Benning, Georgia. The 1st Brigade, in addition to having the capability of being airlifted into battle by way of the 1st Cav's 400 plus helicopters could also parachute into combat if needed. My specific assignment was to A Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry where I was leader of the 3rd Platoon. During my assignment with the 82nd Airborne, I had participated in the US invasion of the Dominican Republic where we threw out a Communist leaning group attempting to take power after a vicious civil war. So I had some previous combat experience but was soon to find out the Dom Rep experience was a piece of cake compared to dealing with the tough and determined North Vietnamese Infantry.

During the month of February 1966, A Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry (Airborne) had been conducting search and destroy missions in Binh Dinh Province which is about 330 miles northeast of Saigon. Binh Dinh Province is on the South China Sea. Beautiful wide beaches give way to a coastal plain of fertile rice paddies. Water for the paddies flows from streams and rivers descending from mountains and ridges further to the west. These Central Highlands were an infantryman's worst nightmare, tough rugged terrain covered with triple canopy jungle. Throughout the war, those highlands were the background for the brutal struggle between the soldiers of the First Cavalry Division and the North Vietnamese regulars who used the mountains as a staging ground for attacks against strategic targets along the coast.

During February, we had been in continuous close contact with the North Vietnamese forces and had suffered a number of casualties. On February 24th, our company commander, Captain James Detrixhe and several other A Company soldiers had been killed in a fierce firefight.

On February 25th, Captain Tom Forman assumed command of A Company. Captain Forman was well known to the unit. He had commanded the company upon its departure from Fort Benning, Georgia the previous summer. A very gregarious, party loving man, Captain Forman had been relieved of command as the result of some over-exuberance at a bar in Hawaii during a stopover on the trip to Vietnam, but he was just what we needed at this point. An experienced company commander, he was both calm and cool and proved to be a top-notch combat leader over the next six months that I served with him.

Our first significant mission under Captain Forman was to find and destroy an enemy field hospital located in the mountains west of the town of Bong Son. On the morning of February 27th, we executed a combat air assault into a landing zone on a mountaintop in the vicinity of the suspected hospital site. As our UH-1 troop carrying helicopters or "slicks" were easy targets for enemy gunners, our goal was to get them in and out of the landing zone (LZ) in a matter of seconds. To do this, the lead trooper on each side of the slick stood on the landing strut and jumped into the LZ while the Huey was 10 or 15 feet in the air. He would be followed quickly by the rest of the squad. So frequently the choppers would not have to actually land and would be quickly out of harm's way.

We were heavily loaded with equipment and ammunition as we penetrated into the jungle surrounding the LZ. Most of my platoon were riflemen who carried an M-16 and 500 rounds of 5.56 mm ammunition. Each of the 3 rifle squads had two grenadiers armed with the M-79 grenade launcher and 50 grenades. They would also carry some buckshot-loaded rounds for close combat. Our weapons squad had 2 M-60 machine guns. Each gunner had an assistant loaded down with several thousand rounds. All of us carried fragmentation hand grenades, smoke grenades, claymore mines, c-rations, 2 canteens of water, bedrolls and other personal equipment. As we left the LZ, I noticed that unlike everyone else, Captain Forman's bedroll was square in shape as opposed to round. I would find out later what that was all about.

Our intelligence indicated that the hospital was located in a ravine formed by two ridgelines extending out from our landing zone. One platoon probed directly into the ravine while the rest of the company including my platoon advanced down the ridgeline above the suspected hospital site.

The heavy jungle limited visibility to just a few yards ahead of the point man and made our advance slow and difficult. That morning was uneventful, but early in the afternoon a burst of M-16 fire broke the silence of the jungle. Our lead platoon had made contact with several North Vietnamese, killing one. Almost immediately there was another quick firefight, then another. In each case, the enemy was either killed or ran down a small but recently used trail we were following. At about 3 PM our advance was stopped by several machine guns delivering accurate fire on the lead platoon. Captain Forman made radio contact with a scout chopper from the 1st of the 9th Cavalry which was over our position. The scout was able to deploy a helicopter gun ship that took out the enemy machine guns and we moved on.

As it was now obvious we were in contact with a significant North Vietnamese unit, Captain Forman directed 1st Platoon led by Lieutenant Marty Stango to maneuver to the right in an attempt to outflank the enemy position. Artillery fire began pounding our flanks and forward to cover our advance. During its flanking movement, 1st Platoon bumped into the enemy hospital. The 2nd Platoon, led by Lieutenant Gill Cochran, maneuvered quickly in support of 1st Platoon.

With two platoons on line and my 3rd Platoon in reserve, A Company began its attack on the hospital position. Both platoons encountered a wall of fire from well-concealed bunker positions extending up the side of the ravine. Any further assault into this heavily fortified defense would have resulted in heavy casualties so the two platoons could only hold their positions and continue the fight.

In an attempt to flank the enemy position, Captain Forman ordered my platoon to attack around the right of the hospital site. We began this assault but it too encountered heavily fortified bunker positions and intense automatic rifle and machine gun fire. Our lead squad led by Sergeant Isaac Guest had actually advanced into the enemy bunkers before being surrounded by North Vietnamese infantry. Seeing that Sergeant Guest's squad was pinned down and unable to move, the rest of the platoon threw smoke grenades into Sergeant Guest's position which allowed him to withdraw under cover of the smoke. One of my vivid memories of this day was Sergeant Guest and his squad emerging from this wall of bright yellow, red, green and white smoke and back into the relative safety of our position.

At this point, all of A Company was under heavy fire and fully committed to the fight. Realizing this, Captain Forman ordered the company to put on protective masks and requested a drop of CS gas that was delivered at approximately 6PM. CS gas is a powerful form of tear gas and once dropped, fire from the enemy positions fell off rapidly. As darkness was approaching and Captain Forman did not feel he had a complete evaluation of the enemy position, he ordered the company to pull back about 400 meters from the hospital site to evacuate the wounded and plan an assault for the next morning.

During the night, artillery pounded the enemy position relentlessly. Shortly before 10 PM we received an alert from Captain Forman's radio operator Specialist 4 Bill Garlinger advising everyone to keep their heads down. A U.S. Army Caribou flare ship was inbound to our position to illuminate the hill for a napalm strike by carrier based Navy jets. Shortly after the alert, flares started popping and igniting in the night sky above us. The hill and surrounding jungle took on an eerie glow as the burning flares drifted slowly to the ground. Garlinger and other members of the CP group fashioned together a half dozen flashlights with red lenses and pointed them skyward in a straight line toward the target. In a further attempt to guide the incoming jets Garlinger fired a full magazine of M-16 tracer ammunition towards the crest of the hill. Over the sound of the tracer rounds you could hear the growl of the low flying Navy F-4 Phantoms approaching our positions, then the roar of exploding napalm canisters bursting into sheets of hot white flame against the entrenched enemy. Many of the troopers exhausted from the day's fight slept thru the attack, too tired too notice. Those who were awake and on watch were too tired to cheer.

At 5 AM the next day, February 28th, we moved into position for a frontal attack on the hospital site. Artillery continued to pound the area. My platoon was on the left and 2nd Platoon on the right as we moved into position at the base of the hill ready for the assault. I passed the word to fix bayonets and the attack began. We attacked abreast and well spread out. Marty Stango's 1st Platoon provided flank and rear security. 75 meters up the hill, we made our first contact with the fortified enemy positions. We threw grenades or fired directly into each bunker and one by one, the North Vietnamese bunkers were destroyed. Several of us carried LAWs or light anti-tank weapons and these proved very effective in knocking out the dug-in enemy. For several hundred meters up the side of the ravine, the fight continued. In some instances, our riflemen crawled into the bunkers and ripped the enemy virtually in two with their M-16's firing on full automatic. Specialist 4 Jim Rockwell and Specialist 4 Leonard Lawrence teamed up as they assaulted the hill. Rockwell would fire his LAW anti-tank rocket into the enemy bunkers and as the rockets exploded against the defended positions Lawrence would rush forward and finish off the entrenched enemy with automatic weapons fire. They repeated this maneuver as they fought their way up the hill. The defending NVA put up tough resistance but these two paratroopers of A Company proved themselves far tougher killing numerous enemy soldiers as they advanced.

Specialist Juan Fernandez, an 18 year old rifleman, recalls:  "I remember moving up the hill in a crouched position, moving from tree to tree and boulder-to-boulder. Jim Rockwell and Leonard Lawrence were to my left front, Dave Dement and I were slightly behind them. Sergeant Guest was right behind all of us hollering for us to get up that hill. I really wasn't sure what scared us the most, the enemy automatic weapons fire or Sergeant Guest pushing us forward. Once we started to advance all hell broke loose, you could see NVA soldiers all over the place. Their heads were popping out of their holes as they fired down on us. We were throwing hand grenades and firing our M-16s at the bunkers as we advanced. Each time we passed a bunker one of us would unload a magazine into the opening and then would move forward, bunker by bunker.

We then advanced to the left and moved into the actual hospital site. The enemy had little huts set up for their wounded. The wounded were lying inside the huts in what looked like shallow graves. Lawrence and I entered one of the huts to check for booby-traps. A couple of NVA wounded were lying flat on their backs in their holes; they looked terrified. I think they thought we were going to kill them. Instead, we carried them to the top of the hill where Captain Forman had set up his command post. There, two of our company medics, Garry Bowles and Bobby Elkins, provided them medical aid and fed them some of our famous c-rations. Sergeant Guest then ordered my squad halfway down the slope of the hill to set up defensive positions against a possible enemy counterattack. As we took up our new positions, I thought we were probably as glad as the wounded enemy soldiers were that it was over, and that we would all live to see another day.

The intensity and ferocity of the attack completely overwhelmed the North Vietnamese. Having experienced 18 hours of pounding by the 1st Cavalry artillery, the CS drop, napalm strike and now this well executed and determined infantry assault, the NVA had had enough. After several hours of fighting we reached the top of the ridgeline and set up security in the event of a North Vietnamese counter-attack. We were soon joined by Captain Forman and the company headquarters group who had been following the lead platoons. I will always remember his after-action comments that day. He said, today he had witnessed the best infantry attack he had seen since leaving Fort Benning. With that, he unrolled his square bedroll and passed around a bottle of Jack Daniels with which we drank a toast to the defeated enemy who had fought courageously if not particularly wisely that day .

A Company's attack on this hospital position resulted in its complete destruction as an enemy stronghold, numerous enemy soldiers were killed, many more wounded and we captured large amounts of equipment and supplies. On our side we had only a few wounded and thankfully no one killed. We enjoyed the payback for our comrades who had fallen in battles the past month. For the infantrymen of A Company, 2nd Battalion 8th Cavalry (Airborne) the celebration was short lived. This was just another day in a long year of slogging the jungles of the Central Highlands of South Vietnam.

I recently learned that Captain Tom Forman, who proved himself to be a great combat leader during this action, died in 1992 still a relatively young man. All the members of A Company who went up the hill that day will always remember his skill, courage and calm leadership under fire.