Cav-Dog Search and Destroy

By Roger B. Thurman

True story of the firsthand account of my tour of duty. From March 7, 1970, to January 30, 1971, with the First Cavalry, a rifleman with Charlie Company, First Battalion, Fifth Cavalry. Beginning with the pacification program to the May-and-June invasion into Cambodia, combat assaults and search-and-destroy missions into enemy sanctuaries. Next, my unit followed along the Ho Chi Mihn trail in search of COSVN headquarters for the NVA Army. This involved capturing enemy caches. One in particular, nick-named The City, capturing a major rice cache while being pinned down for a week. We operated out of two dozen firebases during my tour of duty with Charlie Company, and continued search-and-destroy operations in several provinces in III Corps Vietnam, including Tay Ninh. I was dealing with booby traps, ambushes, snakes and crocodiles. The casualties continue to mount up as Charlie Company continues search and destroy operations.

Members of the Nixon Task Force to Southeast Asia report that the Cambodian invasion is the “most important single military achievement of this whole unfortunate war.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781648010019

Book preview

Arriving In-Country

March–April 1970

Indoctrination

The air base at Long Binh was bustling with activity as I stepped off the Boeing 727. It was about 110 degrees and the humidity was high. I had just arrived in Vietnam. I just turned twenty years old, and I was green and I was scared.

After almost passing out from the blast of heat and the strong smell of jet exhaust, I followed the other new guys off the aircraft and over to where we would be welcomed in-country.

We soon found ourselves on our buses heading for an army processing center in Bien Hoa. The buses were caged with thick steel mesh wire that was to protect us FNGs from getting blown away by a frag or something from the locals. Since a lot of them were locals by day and VC by night, you couldn’t tell since they all looked alike.

The air had a foul odor to it, like something awful had been burned. The smell was everywhere you went. We soon found out that there were no sewer systems in Vietnam. That human waste was burned in steel drums with fuel oil.

A few days later, a bunch of us were loaded up on buses again and my bus headed for First Cavalry headquarters. There I spent about a week learning advanced jungle tactics which was involved with detecting land mines and booby traps that the VC and NVA Army’s would use against us as well as the enemy’s weapons and terrorist tactics.

Another part of the indoctrination was being familiarized with the different support fire we would come to depend on in our field operation. One of the most awesome of these was the Cobra gunship which could put a maximum firepower with maximum air maneuverability. We were taken to a (larger than football-field size) field, and after, we blew up a couple claymore mines and fired a couple LAWs rockets, etc. They had us sit off to the side where this Cobra came in out of the blue and, with one quick pass over the center of the field, put a round of mini gunfire in every square foot of that place. That was a very impressive demonstration.

One other part of the jungle training was rappelling out of a helicopter for the initial training. But it was all just as real in the sense that it was still a long way to the ground once you got up there—and getting up there was an experience all by itself.

As I remember, there was a built-in ladder that angled up to the top of the tower. Then once on top, you had to step up onto and stand on a flat deck where the only things to hold onto were one of three or four rappelling ropes that were anchored down the center of the deck. The guys on the ground looked really small from the platform as I took hold of the rope and then looked over the side to make sure the guy that just went down before me was clear.

I stood up and wrapped the rope around the D-ring that was on my harness. Then I stepped backward, taking a strain on the rope until my heels were on the edge of the deck and then, taking a big deep breath, dived off a platform about as high as a water tower. I then jumped off backward, letting the rope take me to the ground. Boy, what a rush! I thought to myself. As I walked away from the rope and rejoined the rest of the group, I was relieved to have made it through such an exhausting ordeal. Then came the order for everyone to line up and do it again.

The second time wasn’t so bad because you at least knew what to expect. Then after the group finished their second jump and some third, a