If you are speaking from personal experience
Thanks Dave,
That made me laugh. Thank you.
Yup I was the guy calling in all those dustoffs. But what I was really doing was attaining high ground advantage and calling in air strikes on those attacking us and leading patrols to find and destroy them.
I'll leave my offer to provide contact info to the others who were with me on the table for now. I have not cleared it with them, but I know they have a wonderful story of incredible personal heroism to tell..and they might do that given the chance. It will not be Kerry like stories of leaving the war zone early, I assure you.
My name here, unclewest, was born at Ben Het. The camp call sign was polo uncle. It consisted of three hills. The main camp was polo uncle, The North hill was unclenorth. The West Hill, where the brunt of the fighting occurred, was unclewest. I was A Team XO and OIC of the west hill and was assigned unclewest as my radio call sign everyday I was there. BTW the West hill was no more than 100 meters long and at most points about 20-25 meters wide or less (may have been smaller than a football field). We had a very small force there...But man where we effective. The night of March 3-4, 69 we stopped an attack of up to 6,000 NVA regulars spearheaded by 10 Soviet tanks with less than 60 American troops and a small contingent of Montagnard tribesmen. But we tricked them, there were two Green Berets on the West hill that night. I was one of them. My teammate, our team junior medic, kept all of the wounded alive with the exception of those who were killed instantly and he ran into the enemy fire to try to save them.
I always tell the guys who were with me, "We won our part of the war."
My stories are not unusual and they reflect only a few days of the over 10 years I spent overseas in combat zones and other high risk areas. Stories of far greater fortitude are waiting to be told both from nam era vets, Gulf War I Vets and current active duty folks. Kerry is a legend in his own mind with his silver star for killing a fleeing wounded enemy soldier and purple hearts for scratches...but real heroes walk softly among us every day. I was glad to hear some of them spoke up today.
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