Credit to the " Little People".
 

Reading "Secret Commandos" and the section on "Toe Poppers". reminds me that sometimes we get all of the credit for our recon operations.

The montagnards were more than just extra guns. They were, in many ways, my teachers. I was on the ground for less than 24 hours when I became an instant 1-0. When it came to moving and surviving in the jungle I was a willing student.

The Yards would survey a site/trail and place a toe popper where someone just had to step. They would even rearrange the landscaping to channel someone to the "proper spot". Their success was evidenced by the sound of the detonating mines.

I think they actually had one of them assigned to keep me straight. If I touched a tree or limb he would correct me and then demonstrate how the vibration of the leaves could indicate our presence.

They covered our trail constantly. If someone in front bent a twig or grass, the next man would bend it back the other way. Like deer or other wild animals their senses were much sharper than mine. They could hear and smell things long before me. While I heard nothing, they would tell me how many people were approaching. They even got me to smoking montagnard tobacco.

I would show my 0-1 where I wanted to go and he would get us there, usually departing 180 deg off track and arriving by a circuitous route.

Even with the 1-0 school (before my time) we learned the technical skills of communications, insertion/extraction, etc. but we were still the rookies. Most inherited teams of indig with years of experience. The most important phase was building up a mutual respect and raport with one's team. Mine even followed me to town and stayed outside the bars in case I overloaded my mouth and needed bailing out.

One evening the White Mice confiscated my 0-1's .45. I led the team, loaded for bear, downtown to the station and took it back.

I believe that in all honesty, I may not have been so successful and maybe not even be here if it weren't for the skill and loyalty of my "Little People". :lifter

Great post Terry

As always I love reading the stories and insights of the Quiet Professionals here. Thank you for sharing them.

Maybe one of the Mods/Admins can move this to Briefback so it doesn't get "lost"?

Great story and lesson.

Thanks Terry!

TR

Great reading Terry! Better than the History channel!

And that's a fact. We had a series of indigenious rations we used to issue to the little people, one of which was dehydrated rice in a hermetically sealed plastic bag.The usual method of carrying the days ration was in one of the cargo pockets on the tiger fatiques and right before you crossed the last stream (we were in the mountains of the central highlands) they would punch holes in the bag and let the water run thru the cargo pocket and rehydrate the rice. Our standard procedures on our patrols prior to holding up for the day consisted of a recon of the RON, putting out ambushes and claymores and ,weather permitting, cooking up some water for chow after we were sure no one was anywhere near enough to pick up the scent of the smoke . The little people slit open their rehydrated rice, ate what they wanted and rather than trying to tie off the top of the plastic bag they would take a small piece of bamboo, slit it lenthwise, slip the top of the open plastic bag thru the slit and then, with another piece of burning wood, heat seal the bag closed for the next day.

They also, as Terry stated, could read the jungle like a book and could tell you what as going on long before we could detect it. I cannot begin to even count the number of ambushes, booby traps and unfriendly critters we avoided. They also could be over protective. During the first fire fight I got in I found that I was dragging two yards up the hill behind me as they we hanging on to my web gear holding me back to ensure that I did not get shot. Damn near got a hernia trying to carry them with me. Of course, you also had to understand that they were animists and had some serious gods with which they dealt as well as customs and beliefs. Moving thru the undergrowth towards an target site we had reconned from the air I noticed a lot of dead bamboo vipers sort of mangled and hanging out of the branches of the small trees. They were all on the left side of the route we were following and none on the right. I caught up with my recon leader, Beaucoup Kilo as he was known to us, and asked what the hell was going on. Beaucoup, without breaking a stride, told me that snakes on the left side of the line of travel were number 10 but the ones on the right were number one. Sure as hell, there were just as many on the right as on the left, however the ones on the right were very much alive.

Great people, thanks for bringing back some things I haven't thought about in years Terry. I think I could fill up the website about the little people. And you are absolutely right, a lot of us are alive today in spite of ourselves thanks to the yards.

Jack Moroney

An excellent charity and info site.

http://www.montagnards.org/

What is "number 10" and "number one" if you don't mind my asking?

I could read a whole website about "the little people", especially by skilled storytellers such as yourselves.

Team Rosters
 

The team members were numbered so we could refer to them in the clear if necessary.
The U.S. were numbered 1-1, 1-2, 1-3 etc. The 1-0 being the Team leader, 1-2 his asst. and 1-3 the RTO.

The indig were numbered 0-1, 0-2, etc, 0-1 being the indig TL and on down the chain of command.

In addition the indig gave approval ratings from one to ten. I only heard two used: Numba fucking one (outstanding) or numba fucking ten (bad). :D

LOL. Even better.

edit to add: since I have seen those signifiers before, I'd better fill out an ID-10T form.

Great thread. Thanks.

Thanks for the link, TR. We participated in a fundraiser back in May 2002 to help a group get set up here in the US. I lost track of them.

Like the others, I love reading these stories. Thanks for sharing them with us.

Little People
 

Damn you had to love the Little People. The only time I had any little people under me was an HF Co. on the border. I only had 2 weeks left in country an went on an ops with the Co. I was on the first chopper into the LZ! Platoon interperter saw me and ask wasn't I going home soon,yes in 2 weeks. He said"Pop Top" no worry you go home. We moved out and occuppied a patrol base and 1 platoon crossed the border.
Seems like anytime I moved outside the perimiter I had atleast a fire
team that needed to do what ever I was doing.
Small tiger tripped a claymore one night and I was almost killed by 6 Cambodes trying to protect my position.
We were given 200 lbs of rice per month on the launch site to feed them and $1.37 a day to buy meat,veggie's and bread. Hooked up with 2 Mess Sgt's from the 1st Cav and got all the extra meat and veggie's. One of our civillian workers brought in fresh bread every day. The O-1's would tell the 10's to ask for Quan Loi targets. The 10's would say "you crazy too many VC" and the O-1 would say"many many VC number 1 chop chop."

RT Nail had a 'Yard whose wife had a baby. The 'Yard ask his 10 what did GI's do when their wife had a baby, 10 explained about giving out cigars. After he had given out all his cigars the 10 ask him did he save one for Pop Top. Poor guy also freaked out and said no, 10 went to the PX an got 6 Dutch Master to calm him down.

BMT

Myself, having grown up on the Texas Gulf Coast, was quite at home in the "Bush" !! The Yards were rather impressed with the way that I could move and navigate in a "Stealthy" manner.

I liked the Indig Rations and had a rather startling expierence with them.
We were about 2-3 days out and I mixed some water with the rice before we moved out at first light. Come chow time, I remove the bag of rice from my ruck and it was the most brilliant PURPLE that you can imagine !!! The water that I had used had been treated with Iodine, to purify it, and that reacted with the starch to give it the WILD coloration.

The Yards qot a chuckle out of my reaction to it.

Great thread!!

Terry