Luck, it plays a part in a part in everything. You train, you plan and prepare but in the end Lady Luck always has her say.
The mission was a sniper mission. Or you might say a sniper escort mission. We were to take out a newly minted sniper and he was going to pop someone. It sounded interesting..... but for real recon people it sounded damned stupid. Just go out there and announce your position... great idea. Anyway ours not to question why...
OK we get the sniper, neat weapon. Being an Alaskan I grew up shooting. It was an everyday deal and I got pretty good at it. So this intrigued me. A real sniper! I am envisioning 1000 yd head shots. ONE SHOT ONE KILL. Hoorah... So I ask him the range he works at. He says 300-400 yards. 400??? That is about 600 yards short of where I want to be when he starts popping people. Man I used to shoot sheep farther out than that... OK but I smile politely and say nothing.
So the sniper lectures us on his capability. He and the rifle are one. If the rifle breaks they both go back for repair. Damn a real weapons system - didn't know the Army had them..
Well time to get down to business. We start training, have to get this guy integrated in the team drills. Then one day he decides to show us how his part of the mission will go. We go out to a bunker and pick a head size rock out about 300 meters. Sniper lines up - baam - misses the rock. OK maybe he is a little rusty after all it has been a couple of weeks with no practice. Baam - Misses again! Baam - misses again! No problem go for center of mass on the real target - NO HEAD SHOTS!
Then the sheep faced sniper (Later nicknamed DEADEYE) asks the 10 to try. So he (Billy Van Meter) says always wanted to try one of these weapons out. Lays down Baam - hits the rock. Gets up says "nice weapon".. My turn Baam - hit the rock. Now our interpetor/indig team leader trys it. Baam - Hits the Rock! Enough of that don't want to embarass him too much.
Ok time for mission. Way down south (forgot the target number but it was a CCC target area. Well southwest of the Ashau. Helos had 15 mins to play with at the target. Army Hueys and Marine guns for the insert. Target area was a large EW valley with a large trail/road right down the middle. We were inserting in the east side and the plan was to set our sniper up on an area overlooking the intersection of several trails and let him pop someone. Don't know if it was anyone in particular. But I doubt it. We could go in either side of the valley so it was too loose a plan to get "someone".
Doing a map study and VR we decide we want to insert high on a ridgeline and clear the high ground before decending in the valley. Didn't want those sneaky boys getting the upper hand on us.
So insert day, we are going in high and hot. Max 4 to a chopper. Ladder insert (gotta hate that when you have 120 lbs of gear on you). 10's chopper gets in OK. We go in. 10 grabs the bottom rung of the ladder and I start down. Halfway down the chopper can hover any more. So off we go for a grand tour. I am hanging upside down with 120 lbs of gear adding to gravity. Wonderful - great view fresh air. Look at those trails.... not much cover either. Coming back in we fly along side the mountain we are going to insert on. Trail up the side of the mountian with little rest huts built at intervals. We pass within a 100 meters of one. Great - some old tribal guy with a musket will propably blow me off the ladder. Come into the LZ and Billy grabs the ladder. I start down. Just one problem. My hands were asleep! I go down a rung and fall the remaining 10 or so feet. As a fall I kick away so I don't get tangled in the ladder. I fall back on the pack. I am thinking as I am falling. "The blasting caps are in the outside center pocket". I have visions of hitting the ground and being blasted straight back up through the rotor blades. Thud... well get up and take a quick piss beside the trail. I earned it.
Ok it is off we go. Damned hot - vegetation is midly dense but not as dense as I like it. But we get to RON. I have the RPD - put in a 500 belt and bed down. Suddenly a hand touches mine - danger sign. I open my eyes and carefully look around without moving my head. There he is.... a guy standing there and COUNTING the team. Shit. What to do. Well either he is completely crazy, stupid or he has a lot of friends. Do nothing and let him go. OK the GAME IS ON now.
Looking at the maps prior to the mission we saw one spot where we thought they might hit us. So as we come up on the place we are real cautious. Klack KLack Klack. They were a little jumpy. They knew we were coming are got nervous. We weren't in the killing zone yet. Bru point man is a cool dude. Does a 180, team turns on que and we walk out of the ambush. Never fired a shot. Guess they were scratching their heads and cussing the stupid newby that thought he saw us....
So OK what to do. We are definately blown now. And if we go down we got the bad guys above and behind us. Not cool. About that time covey comes over and we say. Ok send us a couple of Cobras and we'll knock these guys off and see what the response is then we will try to get on with the mission. Couple hours later the cobras show up. Cobra lead turns into the gun run. KLACK Klack Klack. Boy they never learn. Hey cobra your taking fire - rodger I see it. Major rocket attack. Nails everywhere. 15 mins of fun and fireworks and no more shots. Just one small problem. Top of hill is on fire from rocket motors hitting the ground burning. OK well this isn't going to work anymore. So let's pull out of this side of the valley and reinsert on the other side of the valley tomorrow. So covey calls for the birds.
Meanwhile we are sitting there, not moving. We are in a bamboo thicket about chest high. But no one can sneak up on us either. So we decide that when the choppers are 1 minute out we will blow the claymores. Just in case some of those sneaky boys are there waiting for the choppers. Ok 1 minute. Blow claymores. FIRE major fire.... One claymore doesn't blow. Sniper goes to pick it up - we may need it now. FIRE zooms in between us. Shit now we are seperated. OK keep moving away from fire. Damn we're dragging the two packs that are hooked together with the radio umbillical cords. Damn again. Meanwhile get up on the URC 10 and make contact with the sniper. He is OK. Good presense of mind - ran into the area that the Cobras burned out ealier and found the only living tree in the area. He was safe. I inform Covey. He is confused, finally get him to come up guard and talk to the sniper. Meanwhile the fire is eating up the hill behind us. We run into green elephant grass but it is tall. So we beat it down and flash panels. Choppers are everywhere looking for us but everytime we say BINGO they don't know which chopper we are indicating. Major clusterf**k. FINALLY they just use one chopper. They spot us. Choppers are VERY low on fuel now. Ladders out the slicks come in. OK I hook uo with half the team and we are off. Just lift clear and I see the sniper. One guy in green suit with orange panel in the middle of 300 black burned out acres of hill top. I shout to Billy and point to where he is. I wave on the way by - but we are fully loaded. Billy get on the next ship and snap links the our packs onto the ladder (still hooked together because COVEY wouldn't let up come off of secure voice). He lifts off and they move over to pick up the sniper. PIlot sets Bill and the ladder in the only tree for 200 meters. Crew chief sees it andthe pilot pulls max power to get free. Sets down again and gets the sniper. By now we are really low on fuel so we divert to FSB Birmingham to get fuel. LONG Cold ride right over the Ashau. I am thinking the Golden BB wlll reach up and get me. This is a bad AA area.... Land at Birmingham for fuel and get drug across the ashapalt. All the tourists are out taking our pics. HEY MAN look at that - cool who are those guys? I give them the one finger salute.. I am really pissed off.
Get back to the launch site and we discover that all of gear is gone. When the chopper sat down in the tree and pulled out again, the snap links on our gear broke. Everything gone. FUBAR Major panic. KY38 gone in the AO. Launch sites calls in the Spads and bomb the shit out of the area. Now the COVEY wants us to run the mission tomorrow. OK but we got no gear! Really Bright guy - want to get us back to Danang, then reissue all our lost equipment and run the target in the morning. We say get real. Give us one more day then ok. But to fly down in the middle of the night get equipment issued then fly back and insert again in the morning is a bit much. He just gets hyper, so we say if you want this mission run in the morning then you put in the backup team. (Some priority missions had a back up team). He goes beserk. Put in the Backup team! Yeah, why do you think there is a back up team? If you can wait one more day till we can get new gear (and one nights sleep) we will run it, otherwise use the backup team. OK major fuming, fussing and threats. REAL Asshole, not your typical Covey. They decide to run the backup team. The sniper has all his gear so no problem.
Next day backup team inserts on the other side of the valley. Late insert. Next morning they awake to 200 pissed off bad boys coming down the hill online. Major fight but they get out OK. Never did know who that sniper was supposed to pop, but guess it really didn't matter.
I think it was just a bad luck valley for missions - but hey we all got out alive. So maybe Lady Luck was on our side after all..
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