CPTAUSRET
10-17-2005, 11:11
This is the follow up to the thread below.
http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8630
Warrant Officer Bodell's body was taken away by the MD, everyone was standing around with their hands in their pocket, looking to me for guidance. I got on the horn and contacted the other fire team, I believe I had the heavy team and the light team was working the same area, they had already heard the news.
I requested that when they finish what they were doing, they meet up with the rest of us at Rach Gia I told them that I wanted one aircraft loaded with 17 lb PD's, and the other one to load up with WP. "White Phosphorous, 72 of em"? "Roger that, we are going to do a Flyby". My team had already re-armed and refueled and all were loaded with 17 lb PD's. For those who don't know a 17 lb warhead is about the equivalent of a 105 Howitzer. The other team was just about finished, and the wingman stated that he could easily salvo his load on his next suppressive fire run down the LZ, so that he could load up on WP.
Shortly after that I was informed that my CO wanted me on the horn, When I contacted him, he wanted to know what I was doing, since the entire platoon was going to be at Rach Gia. I told him that I did not want to bring all these "fire breating cobra jocks" home without some payback. He said "What do you intend to do"? I said "We were going to do a platoon flyby". He asked where?, I stated that "There was only one place that that fire could have come from." I had flown over that area for a couple years, and we had a pesky "one shot Charlie" who would fire one at us from time to time, we had returned fire a couple of times, but we always had bigger fish to fry, so we didn't ever root him out. Evidently this time he got lucky. Company ops had the coordinates where we had taken fire, they coordinated with higher to confirm that there were no friendlies in the area.
My 6 wanted to know why I wanted to do a flyby in that area, I told him that were going to do a fly by and "LIGHT THAT AREA UP", there was a long pause on his end, and he finally came back with "Roger on the flyby, the rest of your transmission was garbled. "Roger that"!
When we lifted off I contacted any FAC's in the area to insure that there were no friendlies where we were headed. We were cleared, and when we got there I pickled my rockets off a pair at a time, as did everyone else, when we blew away the hooch a bunker was visible inside it we took that down, and dug a hole in the ground with all the PD's. the trail aircraft put his WP's into that hole.
We may not have accomplished anything that day, but I never heard of anyone taking fire from there again. Everyone returned to CanTho feeling that they had accomplished something. Maybe we did.
Terry
http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8630
Warrant Officer Bodell's body was taken away by the MD, everyone was standing around with their hands in their pocket, looking to me for guidance. I got on the horn and contacted the other fire team, I believe I had the heavy team and the light team was working the same area, they had already heard the news.
I requested that when they finish what they were doing, they meet up with the rest of us at Rach Gia I told them that I wanted one aircraft loaded with 17 lb PD's, and the other one to load up with WP. "White Phosphorous, 72 of em"? "Roger that, we are going to do a Flyby". My team had already re-armed and refueled and all were loaded with 17 lb PD's. For those who don't know a 17 lb warhead is about the equivalent of a 105 Howitzer. The other team was just about finished, and the wingman stated that he could easily salvo his load on his next suppressive fire run down the LZ, so that he could load up on WP.
Shortly after that I was informed that my CO wanted me on the horn, When I contacted him, he wanted to know what I was doing, since the entire platoon was going to be at Rach Gia. I told him that I did not want to bring all these "fire breating cobra jocks" home without some payback. He said "What do you intend to do"? I said "We were going to do a platoon flyby". He asked where?, I stated that "There was only one place that that fire could have come from." I had flown over that area for a couple years, and we had a pesky "one shot Charlie" who would fire one at us from time to time, we had returned fire a couple of times, but we always had bigger fish to fry, so we didn't ever root him out. Evidently this time he got lucky. Company ops had the coordinates where we had taken fire, they coordinated with higher to confirm that there were no friendlies in the area.
My 6 wanted to know why I wanted to do a flyby in that area, I told him that were going to do a fly by and "LIGHT THAT AREA UP", there was a long pause on his end, and he finally came back with "Roger on the flyby, the rest of your transmission was garbled. "Roger that"!
When we lifted off I contacted any FAC's in the area to insure that there were no friendlies where we were headed. We were cleared, and when we got there I pickled my rockets off a pair at a time, as did everyone else, when we blew away the hooch a bunker was visible inside it we took that down, and dug a hole in the ground with all the PD's. the trail aircraft put his WP's into that hole.
We may not have accomplished anything that day, but I never heard of anyone taking fire from there again. Everyone returned to CanTho feeling that they had accomplished something. Maybe we did.
Terry