by Morris Ray
Later, Montez met with his new supervisor, Air Force Captain Groth, and he told Montez why he’d been assigned. FAC missions were always over enemy territory and there were no backups—and few airstrips; a dirt road and the plank-sized metal strips called PSP, would be the best they would find in “Indian country.” Montez would go along each time a FAC was airborne, to operate air-to-ground communication to the Recon guys. Groth handed him a long list of supplies necessary to keep their two aircraft operational, and he told him to memorize their SOPs. That was his introduction. Montez would spend the next two years in Project Delta and leave a changed man.
After he’d been out on a few operations, what hit him the hardest was learning that someone with whom he’d had a beer, shared a family story or joked, was lost and wouldn’t return. Everything, gone in the blink of an eye. After each mission the Delta group seemed to shrink, with fewer returning than had started out. They shared some good times, but those seemed shallow measured against thoughts of who had been killed or wounded. At first Montez worried little about dying— until A Shau. He’d flown in a few birds that had taken small-arms fire, but it was in the A Shau Valley where he got his first look at a Chicom 12.7 anti-aircraft round coming straight toward him. Like quartersized footballs tossed toward his fragile craft, some seemed close enough to catch. It wasn’t until one of the pilots told him what they were, and about their destructive powers, that he felt scared—then terrified. Once he understood how much damage they could inflict, he realized what would happen if one ever hit him. He’d seen choppers, and even a few fast-movers that had taken on 12.7 rounds, and there had been nothing left. From a thousand feet away, he once watched a chopper vaporize in an orange-black smoke cloud. Each of those scenes became personal; made him feel vulnerable. Knowing the men who died in those choppers left him disheartened, numbed beyond pain; when praying, he made promises to a god he no longer fully believed in.
Montez claims that living among these men and flying for Project Delta was the highlight of his life. He said he has never met braver or more gallant Americans, including the TACP personnel. They were responsible for keeping the birds safe and in the air, and often the 125-hour flying deadline had to be stretched to 150-hours due to mission requirements and not enough aircraft to cover all the operations. The pilots trusted him and he did his best; they all knew the rules had to be broken, but that he did so with the best of intentions. Once the 81st Rangers had been inserted, the non-stop action required them to frequently fly eight to twelve hours daily; most missions involved close-air support. He learned to recognize the voices of the men on the ground. With the sounds of battle in the background, some remained cool, while others yelled, cursed, and threatened the FACs if they didn’t place the ordnance exactly where requested.
Montez says, “Our pilots were the best in the world—the Special Forces guys had no equal. I am deeply humbled and proud to have known such soldiers. Never before or after my time with Delta have I known such men.”
He went on to say that personally working with those legends was unimaginable, yet gratifying. After coming home, when he would speak to civilians of their fearless deeds, his remarks were often met with a you’re-full-of-shit look, so he eventually stopped talking about them altogether. He says he learned much from the men he served with in Delta—not only about war—but about dedication, character, loyalty, devotion to duty and America.
“These are qualities I’ve tried to teach my children,” Montez said. “Today, I just feel great when I think about the little things; like the only words Doc Simpson ever spoke to me. Early in the a.m., after I’d walked into a room full of Recon men shooting holes in the ceiling with a mini-flare gun, he came in and said, ‘Montez, get the f_ _ k out of here! Everyone else go to bed!’ Well, that was Doc—he didn’t talk to you if you weren’t Recon—I guess you just had to have been there.”
Project Delta’s “state-of-the-art” Forward Air Control (FAC) aircraft and communication jeep. (Photo courtesy Steve Adams)
John Young (right) and USAF Airman Al Montez (left) fueling up at Nha Trang, Vietnam, 1966. (Photo courtesy of Steve Adams)
* * * * * *
In August 1966, Delta sent twelve U.S./VN Recon Teams, one USAF FAC and elements of the 81st Airborne Ranger Battalion (minus), north to support the 196th Infantry Brigade in War Zone C, near Song Be. The teams were comprised of thirty American and thirty Vietnamese Special Forces personnel, three USSF and three VNSF per team; however, many names have been lost to history. Some names of those documented: SFC Norm Doney, SGT Joe Alderman, MSG James Shoulders, SGT Eugene Moreau and SGT Vincent O’Connor. Lieutenant Colonel William C. Norman was the assigned Delta Commanding Officer. Another twelve USSF Delta advisors accompanied the 81st Airborne Rangers reaction force.
On August 11, Recon Teams 11 and 12 inserted at last light. The following day, Teams 6, 8 and 10 also were dropped into their assigned TAOR. By that evening, it was evident the local VC and NVA troops had absolute control of the operational area. The teams called for continuous air strike sorties; countless enemies were reported KIA and supply and equipment stockpiles destroyed. The 81st Rangers were inserted, and despite heavy opposition, conducted a successful search and destroy operation. Another two recon teams were inserted on 15 August and the remaining teams inserted the following night.
Across the board, radio contacts confirmed the teams were making heavy enemy contact. Team-1 had been hit by at least a company-sized element, one of their VN members had become separated, another wounded by grenade fragments, a third hit in the ankle. Requesting extraction, they had to be lifted out by McGuire Rig as there were no suitable LZs in their area. Team-9 reported they sighted two enemy platoons, but since they’d been too close to back off, they requested gunship support, air strikes and immediate extraction. As their extraction chopper went in, it took on heavy automatic weapons fire and crashed. Fortunately, the crew and pilot were able to evacuate the downed chopper and join the team on the ground; a U.S. Recon member was reported as seriously wounded.
Teams continued to be extracted and reinserted throughout the next week, all reporting heavy enemy losses due to the air strikes and prompt reaction by the 81st Rangers. At one point, the Commo-Relay pilot couldn’t establish radio contact with Team-2. Lieutenant Colonel Norman, the out-going Delta CO nearing the end of his tour, went along with Delta’s new Commander, MAJ Robert E. Luttrell. As they circled, they observed the flashing of a signal mirror, then an orange panel and smoke. The FAC flew over and reported two men lying in the elephant grass; one face-down, the other, face-up. The CO immediately ordered an evacuation chopper to rescue the team.
Special Forces medic, SGT Timothy O’Connor, accompanied the medivac chopper into the LZ. Upon landing, O’Connor jumped out and ran through a hail of bullets to the wounded men. Sergeant Johnny Varner was seriously wounded in the chest and leg, and SGT Eugene Moreau lay nearby; Moreau didn’t appear to be breathing. Still under heavy fire, O’Connor carried Varner to the chopper. Another VN team member reported missing had found his way to the helicopter and jumped inside through the opposite door. Sergeant O’Connor, convinced Moreau was dead, still tried repeatedly to retrieve him, but intense enemy fire drove him back. Finally, he was forced to give up during his last attempt after being wounded in the leg.
Recon Team-2, Aug 1966, Tay Ninh (Operation 10-66 Phase III). L to R: VN Tm SGT (captured),VN team Leader, VN Radio Op (KIA), VN Pointman, Senior Advisor SGT Eugene Moreau (KIA), Ass’t Advisor SGT Johnny Varner (WIA). (Photo courtesy of Norman A. Doney)
Lifting off as enemy fire poured across the LZ, they spotted another VN team member waving frantically to them, and the pilot hovered long enough to hoist him out by McGuire Rig. During all this activity, the hovering helicopter remained under intense fire from concealed enemy positions. The 4th Ranger Company, 81st Airborne Rangers were alerted and deployed to recover Moreau and look for other scattered team members. American advisors, 1LT Hamilton, SSG Munoz and SGT Hagg
ard, accompanied them when they recovered Moreau’s and Corporal Mo’s (VN) bodies. Although the team had suffered one USSF soldier KIA and one WIA, one Vietnamese recon soldier KIA, another MIA and presumed captured by the North Vietnamese, Delta- initiated air strikes inflicted heavy damage on the VC and their infrastructure.
* * * * * *
Continuing well into September, twenty-eight recon operations were conducted, with intense enemy contacts, hair-raising escapes, continuous air strikes and scores of dead and wounded enemy accounted for. From a village hut, one team recovered two typewriters, a stack of intelligence documents and, much to the delight of higher command, a healthy VC prisoner. With the lack of suitable LZs, sixteen teams had to be extracted by McGuire Rig or rope ladders, many under direct enemy fire; ten extraction choppers received hits. It soon became obvious the recon teams were in the bivouac area of several battalionsized units, with their carefully prepared defensive positions concealed so well that the teams often came within ten meters before being aware of them.
The morning of 14 August, 1LT Deaton, SFC Winder, SSG Musselwhite, SSG Raines and ninety-four soldiers from the 2nd Ranger Company, entered the village of Phuc Hanh. All the huts had been heavily booby-trapped, and fighting bunkers had been constructed beneath their structures. An aged Montagnard couple informed them that the NVA, normally 150 strong, had quickly left as the Rangers approached. Many others came and went on a regular basis. Armed with this information, the Rangers knew an NVA regular army regiment was operating in and around Phuc Hanh. Searching the village, they came across numerous tunnels and supply bins, along with a human arm, two dead VC soldiers and Soviet-made weapons—but no VC or NVA soldiers. Bloodied by air strikes and artillery barrages, it seemed clear the enemy didn’t want to engage the aggressive 81st Airborne Rangers, and had hastily fled.
As the Rangers followed the path of their fleeing enemy, they began to receive heavy automatic weapons fire from an estimated platoonsized element left behind to slow their advance. The firefight lasted thirty-five minutes, diminishing only after the Rangers called in close-air support. While two Rangers were killed and eight wounded in the exchange, their scouts observed that many enemy soldiers were being carried off, leaving only three dead behind. From the old woman’s information, they were certain the enemy must have had advanced intelligence concerning the Ranger’s operation; it was possible they had a spy in their ranks.
* * * * * *
Major Robert E. Luttrell took command of Project Delta from LTC John Warren, and teams continued to conduct operations in support of the 196th Infantry Brigade at Song Be, War Zone C. During the operation, MSG James R. Shoulders was seriously wounded and was evacuated; Eugene Moreau was killed. Lieutenant Colonel William C. Norman, SFC Norm Doney, Sergeants Joe C. Alderman, Vincent D. O’Connor and Eugene R. Moreau were all awarded Silver Stars for valor in combat.
27 Brigadier General John Flanagan, USAF Retired. Vietnam Above the Tree Tops: A Forward Air Controller Reports. NYC: Praeger Publishing, 1992,.
TWELVE
Brotherhood
BILL RODERICK WAS ON HIS SECOND TOUR with a job he really enjoyed— radar technician testing new GPS ground radar systems. He’d been assigned to Dak Pek previously, so when they requested the radar system for a nearby hilltop, he was selected to set it up. While completing the project, a radio message instructed him to report to Pleiku with “bag and baggage.” After he met with Henry Gold and Alvin Young, they informed him he’d been “volunteered” for Operation Blackjack 21, Special Forces’ newest classified project, the Mobile Guerrilla Force. When Blackjack 21 ended in late September, Roderick was “volunteered” again—for Project Delta. This time they requested him by name.
Initially, he’d been paired with SFC Willie Stark, who soon left for Khe Sanh; he was killed in December 1966. Roderick’s next roommate was SFC Allen H. Archer; Archer was killed three months later. After that, no one wanted to be his roommate. He roomed alone until rotating to the States a year later. Archer was a heavy smoker and was nursing a bad cough when he left Nha Trang on his last recon mission. Many felt he shouldn’t have gone, but the managers either didn’t know about his cough, or he BS’ed them into believing he was fit.
By all accounts Delta’s most experienced recon man, Doc Simpson, had been assigned as One Zero for the mission; SFC Archer and SSG Parsons were the other two Americans. All day they’d been navigating through difficult terrain and were exhausted by the time Doc Simpson called a halt, unaware that they had paused just beyond the perimeter of a large NVA encampment. Cigarette smoke can be detected a great distance in the fresh jungle air and many Recon One Zeros didn’t allow cigarettes on a mission, so it’s uncertain why Archer knelt behind a tree to light up. Doc Simpson recalled that Archer never had a chance to lower his hands; he just keeled over, dead from a single round through the left eye.
All hell broke loose. The team executed Immediate Action Drill (IAD), firing off a full magazine as they backed into the jungle. Simpson carried the radio and immediately called for artillery and TAC air support. Although temporarily separated after the initial burst, the team was successfully extracted without further injury. After the target was bombarded throughout the night and well into the next day, Doc Simpson personally led the Nung force back to recover Archer’s body.
Maurice Brakeman recalled that back at the Delta Club that night, many drinks were tossed down in Archer’s memory. The air was permeated with a deep sadness as Archer had recently married a British woman just before his current tour. As Archer’s roommate, it was Roderick’s task to pack up his personal affects. It hadn’t been all that long since he’d packed up Willie Stark’s belongings. It was one of the toughest tasks he ever had to do—it was going to be a very long year.
Roderick had been inserted with recon teams north of Khe Sanh earlier, in the same area where several of their guys had been killed. Before going in he was briefed that it was a hot spot for enemy activity. But after his first trip, he believed the remark substantially understated the facts.
On a three-day mission with Team-3, they noticed some peculiar vehicle tracks and followed them. During the team’s debriefing, Team-3 reported tracked vehicles operating in A Shau Valley—namely, enemy tanks. Nobody believed them.
He laughed, “They looked at us like we were nuts.”28
“I’ve mostly forgotten about many of our combat operations,” Roderick recalled. “Or perhaps I’ve simply blanked them out. But what I do remember most was the strong camaraderie and bond between all us guys. They always stepped forward, regardless of the consequences, to save another.”
His tone changed and his eyes grew misty, continuing, “There were disputes—of course. We gambled a little, and didn’t always think some of the others were particularly honest, but even if you weren’t part of that and you saw it, the best thing was to keep your mouth shut, or else you’d have us all to whip. We developed this special relationship—particularly within Recon— we were closer than brothers.”
Roderick is a strong man, one not easily affected by sentiment, yet in his life the impact of those close relationships remains powerful and enduring.
* * * * * *
Intelligence reports all indicated the area around the Special Forces camp at Khe Sanh (eventually occupied by the 1st Marine Division) was heavily populated with VC and NVA regulars; precisely in the midst of the main supply route, the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Recon teams discovered an extensive storage area just south of the DMZ near the Laotian border. They called in air strikes and observed numerous secondary explosions as ammunition and fuel supplies went up in smoke. The NVA High Command couldn’t let the U.S. military forces remain for long to disrupt those supplies, and poured troops into the area to dislodge them. Within only a few months, the Marines at Khe Sanh would be attacked by five crack NVA divisions, and the bloodiest battle of the war would ensue. The enemy would suffer more than 100,000 casualties before retreating into Laos.
It was on a recon miss
ion into that same area, near the small village of Bong San, that Roderick’s team had been cut off and nearly overrun. Recon Team-3 consisted of three Americans, Roderick, Gary Budd and SFC James W. Smyth, and three veteran Montagnards. Loaded aboard a “Slick” supplied by their reliable 281st AHC, they first made an attempt to infiltrate on their primary LZ, but were driven off by a barrage of enemy gunfire. Reviewing alternative courses of action, they spotted a clearing, another potential LZ, high on the side of a mountain. Wind currents were strong and space was scarce, but the 281st pilot finally got them close enough to be inserted. Exiting from a height of about six feet, they quickly melted into the jungle then headed due west. Advancing only one hundred yards, they came across a platoon-sized VC force. The VC were startled, the team alert and ready – the point man firing off half a magazine as they broke contact. Backing off, they evaded until dark, trying to avoid further enemy contact. The next morning, backtracking and traveling east, again, they encountered another substantial force. It quickly became obvious they were in the midst of a large enemy encampment.
As a strategy, both the NVA and VC were known to establish two defensive lines; an outer-perimeter and inner-perimeter. By making contact in both directions, the team concluded they had landed between the two. That left little choice but to return to their original LZ and request extraction. As it became evident they wouldn’t make it before nightfall, they searched for a concealed spot to hold up until daylight. With their backs against a thirty-foot drop-off, they set up a night defensive position in a bamboo grove—and waited. In the blackness of night, they detected torches as the VC combed the mountainside searching for them. The buzz of a generator indicated either a regimental- or division-sized headquarters element was nearby. The team got very little sleep that night. Just before dawn, an enemy patrol stumbled upon their position in the thicket, a fierce firefight broke out and one of their Montagnard soldiers was killed instantly. The fight persisted for more than an hour with heavy firing on both sides, but repeatedly the recon teams’ deadly accurate fire held them off. The team leader was well aware they were in serious trouble; they couldn’t hold out for long with their backs against a steep ravine. It seemed as if they had few options; they were low on ammo and hadn’t made contact with the FOB to request reinforcement or extraction.
