A Troop, 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry 25th ID - Veterans

Personal Experience Narratives (War Stories)

Ambush
by
Lonnie Dotson
     A troop, 3/4th Cav, 25th Inf DivMy Troop (A Troop ¾ Cav) was operating in an area southeast of what was commonly called the Hobo woods in III Corps. The area was a staging area for the North Vietnamese Army making their way down the various trails. They would move down the hundreds of trails cross the border from Cambodia and stage into larger units before making attacks in the general area.

     What the real name of this place was is anyone’s guess. GI’s seemed to nickname everything. The Hobo’s as we called it, was a rather large area of thick trees and forest that Charlie loved to stage in. It was vast area and composed of many miles of forested terrain. with heavy undergrowth. The NVA and local VC used this area often, they would sneak into the south in small groups and meet at certain locations, resupply, rearm and plan for large operations in our area. Someone told us in our troop headquarters group that it was the home of the 101st NVA Regiment. They seemed to follow us or at least that’s what the brass would say in our briefings. This whole area was one of the few that we considered cowboy country, “no mans land”. One of the few area’s we could shoot first and ask questions later. There were no villagers or farmers just cowboys.. I’m sure the locals knew this and stayed as far away as they could.

     Our job was to conduct mounted patrols or sweeping missions to keep the enemy from forming into large groups to launch large scale attacks on Saigon or any of the military bases and villages.

     A mechanized unit like the Cav was perfect for this type of interdiction operation. Due to our mobility we could move fast and keep the NVA jumping and off balance. We would try and stay on line and bust bush all day pushing trees over and having every red ant in Vietnam find us. I could never figure-out why we just didn’t form a fire support base in the middle of this hell hole and run small operations from it rather than come from miles away and bust around then leave. Strange very strange way to fight a war, we let Charlie have it at night and we had in daylight. We did have some special operation that took us into the center of these woods at night that I’ll mention later.

     Many years after we pulled out of this country and stupid war we found Charlie had massive tunnels, hospitals, and complexes that we never found and just rolled over them day after day. It still gives me the webbie gebbies.

     Right outside the Hobo’s was an area someone called the “Mushrooms”. The “Rooms” were Northeast between the Hobos and a large river. This general area was great for tanks, it was flat. Mostly flat rolling hills were we (and Charlie) could move rapidly. Charlie would move rapidly thrugh these areas from staging points to launch attacks on Saigon. For this reason we were seemingly in and out of this place.
   
     After what seemed like weeks instead days busting thrugh hedgerows and knocking down trees, rolling over anthills we stopped in an area on a slight rise. It was relatively a flat area, somewhat on high ground.

     Several clicks away I noticed a large river, the ground we were on seemed to drop-ff all around so the river was very visible. We stopped for chow and reconstitution; refuel, re-ammo and clean weapons. The troop commander had pulled us into a Night defensive position (troop in a circle pointing out), which hinted we would be spending the night here. The knoll we was setting on gave us a good command of our area. Third platoon had our backs to the Ho Bo woods and to our front was the sloping terrain to the river . I didn’t have a map or they did trust me wit-out a map so I didn’t have a clue what the name of this river was. It was large so I assumed it was the Saigon river. 

     I was alerted that we had a new platoon leader in our troop. He was a strange looking fellow or it was just that he seemed out-of-place in this environment..

     After being in country for more than a few weeks we all seem to take on similar physical characteristic; the uniforms became a lighter shade of green, and many of us dropped tons of weight. We all seemed to look similar, officers, NCOs and enlisted, after all most of were about the same age. (I often wondered where all the older NCOs went and hid). I was a ripe old age of 19 and had been in the Army for 2 years and seemed like an old man. All of our platoon leaders were a year or two from ROTC or West Point and about my age.

     This Lt was somewhat plump, and his uniform was new. He wore the 5th Mech Infantry Division as a combat patch on his right shoulder, which meant he’d served in combat with another unit. Now the fact he was wearing a combat patch and was still a 2nd lieutenant was the oddest thing. Most of the company grade officers only served 6 months in a field position and rotated to staff.

     Now this in it’s self was odd, like why was he here? I’m told that some officers were doing second tours and asked for a Cav assignment since were considered a great unit with a low KIA rate, a 2nd lieutenant?

     I was called on the platoon frequency to report  the to platoon command track (A30). 30 was sit-up 50 feet or so behind our platoon’s center sector of the perimeter. When I arrived I noticed a small group of our platoon standing around as well.

     This new platoon leader called us into small group and explained that Charlie was using a path at night to our front ferrying supplies from the river to a point in the Ho Bo’s.. We were going to put together a troop combined foot ambush. Now we had mounted ambushes but never a ground ambush. Most of us were not regular infantry, but mounted Infantry, Scouts and Tankers.

     The patrol was to be lead by this new LT., who we just met. He conducted a meeting of all the troops who were selected for this patrol including myself. We went thrugh the dance of determining who would do what and the various weapons and equipment we would carry. I volunteered t hump the M-60 machine gun since I was one of the biggest guy, and would be able to hump more ammo. I loved carrying this gun, it put out lots of fire power and packed a wallop.

     None of us really had a lot of experience in dismounted patrols of this type, even though many of us had been on many listening post (early warning).

     The plan was to clean our weapons, eat and get our equipment ready. We’d wear boonie hats, no flack jackets, personal weapons, two hand grenades and one claymore mine each.

     I carried 400 rounds of M60 ammo which was 4 belts. Each man in the squad would carry 100 rounds as well. This way when and if the crap hit the fan they could pass down the belts of ammo and  I'd have about 1000 rounds or so. There would two of us 60 gunners.
     After we ate, we had to be sure not to clean up so Charlie wouldn’t pick-up our clean scent, soap, after-shave etc.  I hadn’t taken a bath or shower in a few weeks so I’m sure I was nice and ripe. We all went thrugh the slow methodical process of taping down or removing anything that would rattle of make noise. I also covered any thing that was white or might show-up and blackened it up with muffler soot.

     The troop would conduct a mad minuet right after dusk. This was done frequently, all line tanks and ACAVS would blow main guns and crew served weapons in a 360-degree arc for about a minute. The hope would be that Charlie would be caught of guard and maybe catch some with their pants down. Once in awhile we’d hit a few who would try and sneak in to get a look at us.

     We formed-up near our exit point by my tank since it was in the direction we would leave from. We didn’t want to be observed getting in ranks and columns so Charlie would sit-up an ambush of his own. After the troop fired the mad minute, we moved out.

     The movement plan was for us to move in two spread-out columns with about 10 to 15 feet between us. This way Charlie wouldn’t see all of us and we would try and be stealthy. The right side of the column was to provide security for the right flank and the left the same the on their side.

     The terrain we would move thrugh was grass about 12” or so and bushes shoulder level height and spread-out. Very few real trees of any height, But it would become a thicker growth as we would move closer to the river. Most of our trip would be down a gentle slope for a click or two (click, = one thousand meters) we were briefed that the ambush would set-up in dense foliage since Charlie was using this for cover and concealment.

     After we had traveled a few hundred meters I heard a pop off in the distance like arty was firing some place in the distance. We dropped to one knee and was in total shock to find ourselves in total daylight. Someone decided to have illumination fired to help the LT find his way. I was blown away. I couldn’t believe this. After all the most important element in an ambush was surprise! Every person in South Vietnam would know where we were, walking down from this high ground with 155 mm illumination firing off. I heard someone tell the LT to call it off and how stupid this was, as well as a few curse words.

     I should have known I was in deep “doo-doo” from the get go! Here I was nervous in the first place by being on the ground without the protection and firepower of my tank. I was used to busting thrugh this area with a 17 ton Tank with a 152 mm main gun and two browning M2 50 Cal Machine guns mounted on top. Now it was me and my jungle boots and this M60 squad machine gun.

     Here was a squad of troops being lead by this “butter bar” trying to hide our movements being illuminated all the way. Each time an illume round went off we had to drop and stay still the whole time. Needless to say that wasn’t the funniest way to spend the evening. As we approached, the site scouts were sent out ahead to insure the site wasn’t occupied. We had to insure Chuck hadn’t set-up there himself and was waiting to pop a bush on us!

     We got the all clear and we moved in single file to get into our site and the pre-determined position in the formation. We had agreed to set-up a L shape formation and I would be in the center of the formation while the other gunner would take the right flank.

     By now, I was more pissed than scared. I wanted to kill this fat Lt!  We settled in to our ambush and prepared our area for the night. One of the tasks was to set-up claymore mines. We could fire these off without giving away our location. Since an electrical detonator and wires would fire them. Every other man would crawl out and set-up our claymores. Our plan was to throw hand grenades and pop claymores so chuck wouldn’t see muzzle flashes and be able to shoot back. Basically to confuse him or anyone that stumbled our way. (We’d charge the area if need be, so says the LT!) The plan was for every other man to sleep for a few and then wake-up the man to his right.. I was awoken about 3:00 and I soon noticed some strange smells… some “turdbird” was smoking pot! Geesh, wonderful, we’ll have a guy high on dope while trying to carry off this ambush.
     I soon heard this ear shattering noise coming from behind me and I couldn’t figure what it was until I soon realized the LT was snoring. Man, here I was waiting for an enemy infantry column to walk thrugh and we had the racket from Rip Van winkle and someone all doped-up! I ever so gently crawled over and whispered in the LT’s ear if he didn’t shut-up I’d slit his throat. That got his attention real quick.

     We saw what we hoped was an advance party or scouts for a (what we hoped) larger unit. We let them pass and I guess we were wrong; they were alone needless to say I had a super case of butt pucker. I had never seen these little guys up so close and alive. We went ahead and popped the bush just so we could return back to the troop. We blew the claymores threw the grenades and fired a few burst of machine fire. In the morning the troop commander sent a mounted patrol to see what kind of body count we had and all they could find was a dead wild pig. This was the first pig to die in an ambush, but not the last.

     We found-out soon found out that this new platoon leader had been relieved of his command and sent to us for a second try at command. Wasn’t that just grand!


Lonnie Dotson
3rd Plt 69/70

Stories can be freely used by former members of 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry who served with the unit in Vietnam. Use is granted for personal use only. Use on any other web site or in commercial publications is prohibited unless permission is obtained from the story's owner.  Contact us by email for information on ownership of these stories.

 Go to Personal Experience Narratives page.
A Troop, 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry 25th ID - Veterans

Personal Experience Narratives (War Stories)

Ambush
by
Lonnie Dotson
     A troop, 3/4th Cav, 25th Inf DivMy Troop (A Troop ¾ Cav) was operating in an area southeast of what was commonly called the Hobo woods in III Corps. The area was a staging area for the North Vietnamese Army making their way down the various trails. They would move down the hundreds of trails cross the border from Cambodia and stage into larger units before making attacks in the general area.

     What the real name of this place was is anyone’s guess. GI’s seemed to nickname everything. The Hobo’s as we called it, was a rather large area of thick trees and forest that Charlie loved to stage in. It was vast area and composed of many miles of forested terrain. with heavy undergrowth. The NVA and local VC used this area often, they would sneak into the south in small groups and meet at certain locations, resupply, rearm and plan for large operations in our area. Someone told us in our troop headquarters group that it was the home of the 101st NVA Regiment. They seemed to follow us or at least that’s what the brass would say in our briefings. This whole area was one of the few that we considered cowboy country, “no mans land”. One of the few area’s we could shoot first and ask questions later. There were no villagers or farmers just cowboys.. I’m sure the locals knew this and stayed as far away as they could.

     Our job was to conduct mounted patrols or sweeping missions to keep the enemy from forming into large groups to launch large scale attacks on Saigon or any of the military bases and villages.

     A mechanized unit like the Cav was perfect for this type of interdiction operation. Due to our mobility we could move fast and keep the NVA jumping and off balance. We would try and stay on line and bust bush all day pushing trees over and having every red ant in Vietnam find us. I could never figure-out why we just didn’t form a fire support base in the middle of this hell hole and run small operations from it rather than come from miles away and bust around then leave. Strange very strange way to fight a war, we let Charlie have it at night and we had in daylight. We did have some special operation that took us into the center of these woods at night that I’ll mention later.

     Many years after we pulled out of this country and stupid war we found Charlie had massive tunnels, hospitals, and complexes that we never found and just rolled over them day after day. It still gives me the webbie gebbies.

     Right outside the Hobo’s was an area someone called the “Mushrooms”. The “Rooms” were Northeast between the Hobos and a large river. This general area was great for tanks, it was flat. Mostly flat rolling hills were we (and Charlie) could move rapidly. Charlie would move rapidly thrugh these areas from staging points to launch attacks on Saigon. For this reason we were seemingly in and out of this place.
   
     After what seemed like weeks instead days busting thrugh hedgerows and knocking down trees, rolling over anthills we stopped in an area on a slight rise. It was relatively a flat area, somewhat on high ground.

     Several clicks away I noticed a large river, the ground we were on seemed to drop-ff all around so the river was very visible. We stopped for chow and reconstitution; refuel, re-ammo and clean weapons. The troop commander had pulled us into a Night defensive position (troop in a circle pointing out), which hinted we would be spending the night here. The knoll we was setting on gave us a good command of our area. Third platoon had our backs to the Ho Bo woods and to our front was the sloping terrain to the river . I didn’t have a map or they did trust me wit-out a map so I didn’t have a clue what the name of this river was. It was large so I assumed it was the Saigon river. 

     I was alerted that we had a new platoon leader in our troop. He was a strange looking fellow or it was just that he seemed out-of-place in this environment..

     After being in country for more than a few weeks we all seem to take on similar physical characteristic; the uniforms became a lighter shade of green, and many of us dropped tons of weight. We all seemed to look similar, officers, NCOs and enlisted, after all most of were about the same age. (I often wondered where all the older NCOs went and hid). I was a ripe old age of 19 and had been in the Army for 2 years and seemed like an old man. All of our platoon leaders were a year or two from ROTC or West Point and about my age.

     This Lt was somewhat plump, and his uniform was new. He wore the 5th Mech Infantry Division as a combat patch on his right shoulder, which meant he’d served in combat with another unit. Now the fact he was wearing a combat patch and was still a 2nd lieutenant was the oddest thing. Most of the company grade officers only served 6 months in a field position and rotated to staff.

     Now this in it’s self was odd, like why was he here? I’m told that some officers were doing second tours and asked for a Cav assignment since were considered a great unit with a low KIA rate, a 2nd lieutenant?

     I was called on the platoon frequency to report  the to platoon command track (A30). 30 was sit-up 50 feet or so behind our platoon’s center sector of the perimeter. When I arrived I noticed a small group of our platoon standing around as well.

     This new platoon leader called us into small group and explained that Charlie was using a path at night to our front ferrying supplies from the river to a point in the Ho Bo’s.. We were going to put together a troop combined foot ambush. Now we had mounted ambushes but never a ground ambush. Most of us were not regular infantry, but mounted Infantry, Scouts and Tankers.

     The patrol was to be lead by this new LT., who we just met. He conducted a meeting of all the troops who were selected for this patrol including myself. We went thrugh the dance of determining who would do what and the various weapons and equipment we would carry. I volunteered t hump the M-60 machine gun since I was one of the biggest guy, and would be able to hump more ammo. I loved carrying this gun, it put out lots of fire power and packed a wallop.

     None of us really had a lot of experience in dismounted patrols of this type, even though many of us had been on many listening post (early warning).

     The plan was to clean our weapons, eat and get our equipment ready. We’d wear boonie hats, no flack jackets, personal weapons, two hand grenades and one claymore mine each.

     I carried 400 rounds of M60 ammo which was 4 belts. Each man in the squad would carry 100 rounds as well. This way when and if the crap hit the fan they could pass down the belts of ammo and  I'd have about 1000 rounds or so. There would two of us 60 gunners.
     After we ate, we had to be sure not to clean up so Charlie wouldn’t pick-up our clean scent, soap, after-shave etc.  I hadn’t taken a bath or shower in a few weeks so I’m sure I was nice and ripe. We all went thrugh the slow methodical process of taping down or removing anything that would rattle of make noise. I also covered any thing that was white or might show-up and blackened it up with muffler soot.

     The troop would conduct a mad minuet right after dusk. This was done frequently, all line tanks and ACAVS would blow main guns and crew served weapons in a 360-degree arc for about a minute. The hope would be that Charlie would be caught of guard and maybe catch some with their pants down. Once in awhile we’d hit a few who would try and sneak in to get a look at us.

     We formed-up near our exit point by my tank since it was in the direction we would leave from. We didn’t want to be observed getting in ranks and columns so Charlie would sit-up an ambush of his own. After the troop fired the mad minute, we moved out.

     The movement plan was for us to move in two spread-out columns with about 10 to 15 feet between us. This way Charlie wouldn’t see all of us and we would try and be stealthy. The right side of the column was to provide security for the right flank and the left the same the on their side.

     The terrain we would move thrugh was grass about 12” or so and bushes shoulder level height and spread-out. Very few real trees of any height, But it would become a thicker growth as we would move closer to the river. Most of our trip would be down a gentle slope for a click or two (click, = one thousand meters) we were briefed that the ambush would set-up in dense foliage since Charlie was using this for cover and concealment.

     After we had traveled a few hundred meters I heard a pop off in the distance like arty was firing some place in the distance. We dropped to one knee and was in total shock to find ourselves in total daylight. Someone decided to have illumination fired to help the LT find his way. I was blown away. I couldn’t believe this. After all the most important element in an ambush was surprise! Every person in South Vietnam would know where we were, walking down from this high ground with 155 mm illumination firing off. I heard someone tell the LT to call it off and how stupid this was, as well as a few curse words.

     I should have known I was in deep “doo-doo” from the get go! Here I was nervous in the first place by being on the ground without the protection and firepower of my tank. I was used to busting thrugh this area with a 17 ton Tank with a 152 mm main gun and two browning M2 50 Cal Machine guns mounted on top. Now it was me and my jungle boots and this M60 squad machine gun.

     Here was a squad of troops being lead by this “butter bar” trying to hide our movements being illuminated all the way. Each time an illume round went off we had to drop and stay still the whole time. Needless to say that wasn’t the funniest way to spend the evening. As we approached, the site scouts were sent out ahead to insure the site wasn’t occupied. We had to insure Chuck hadn’t set-up there himself and was waiting to pop a bush on us!

     We got the all clear and we moved in single file to get into our site and the pre-determined position in the formation. We had agreed to set-up a L shape formation and I would be in the center of the formation while the other gunner would take the right flank.

     By now, I was more pissed than scared. I wanted to kill this fat Lt!  We settled in to our ambush and prepared our area for the night. One of the tasks was to set-up claymore mines. We could fire these off without giving away our location. Since an electrical detonator and wires would fire them. Every other man would crawl out and set-up our claymores. Our plan was to throw hand grenades and pop claymores so chuck wouldn’t see muzzle flashes and be able to shoot back. Basically to confuse him or anyone that stumbled our way. (We’d charge the area if need be, so says the LT!) The plan was for every other man to sleep for a few and then wake-up the man to his right.. I was awoken about 3:00 and I soon noticed some strange smells… some “turdbird” was smoking pot! Geesh, wonderful, we’ll have a guy high on dope while trying to carry off this ambush.
     I soon heard this ear shattering noise coming from behind me and I couldn’t figure what it was until I soon realized the LT was snoring. Man, here I was waiting for an enemy infantry column to walk thrugh and we had the racket from Rip Van winkle and someone all doped-up! I ever so gently crawled over and whispered in the LT’s ear if he didn’t shut-up I’d slit his throat. That got his attention real quick.

     We saw what we hoped was an advance party or scouts for a (what we hoped) larger unit. We let them pass and I guess we were wrong; they were alone needless to say I had a super case of butt pucker. I had never seen these little guys up so close and alive. We went ahead and popped the bush just so we could return back to the troop. We blew the claymores threw the grenades and fired a few burst of machine fire. In the morning the troop commander sent a mounted patrol to see what kind of body count we had and all they could find was a dead wild pig. This was the first pig to die in an ambush, but not the last.

     We found-out soon found out that this new platoon leader had been relieved of his command and sent to us for a second try at command. Wasn’t that just grand!


Lonnie Dotson
3rd Plt 69/70

Stories can be freely used by former members of 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry who served with the unit in Vietnam. Use is granted for personal use only. Use on any other web site or in commercial publications is prohibited unless permission is obtained from the story's owner.  Contact us by email for information on ownership of these stories.
 Go to War Stories page.

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