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I grabbed a chair in the back, and in a few minutes Ordway walked in and stood before his anxious audience. The tension-filled tactical operations center (TOC) was packed when I got there. “Do you know what’s going on?” I shouted.

You go to the battalion tactical operations center and wait for a briefing.” There was no longer any doubt that we were embarking on a massive operation we just didn’t know what or where it was.Īs we jumped out of the helicopters, the executive officer on the ground, squinting through the red cloud, yelled at me over a cacophony of engines: “You are the last company to come in, Six! I’ll take the men back to the company area. The sound of helicopters finally broke through the quiet at about 10 a.m.ĭuring the 15-minute flight to Song Be, we could see a giant red dust cloud rising from Fire Support Base (FSB) Buttons, created by swarms of C-130 cargo planes and CH-47 and Huey helicopters landing and taking off.

The heat and humidity were unbearable even this early, but we were pumped and got there 15 minutes before the scheduled extraction. “Is the war over?” “Are we headed for a major battle raging somewhere?” We all tried to sleep, but with the nagging uncertainty of what tomorrow would bring, we had little success.Īt sunrise we wolfed down C-rations, packed up and started humping two miles through the jungle to the pickup zone. The mysterious call ignited a wildfire of speculation among the troops. It was almost 4 p.m., so I had the men unsaddle and prepare to bed down for the night. We’d spend 25 to 35 days on search and destroy missions in the jungle, and then return to the battalion firebase to pull security for seven days before hitting the jungle again. As one of four rifle companies in the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), we settled into a routine that seldom changed. I had taken command of Charlie Company in January, and for four months we operated along the Cambodian border in Phouc Long Province, a sparsely populated jungle area 75 miles northeast of Saigon.

“I’ll brief you when you get back to Fire Support Base Buttons tomorrow.” This must be big, I thought. “What is this all about, sir?” I asked, curious why he wanted us out after only three days.Įven with secure voice transmission, Ordway wasn’t talking. “The company is to be picked up tomorrow morning at 0800 hours,” Ordway said. My radio operator (RTO), Specialist Merle “Denny” Dentino, inserted a KY-38 encryption device into his PRC-77 radio, which turned our conversation into gobbledygook to any eavesdroppers. He told me do something I didn’t often do: “Go to the green box”-code for secure voice communications. When Charlie Company crossed the border, its troops couldn’t imagine they would be the very last unit out-or the fate that awaited them.Īfter three days beating the bush in Bu Dop and finding nothing but deserted jungle, I got a radio call on April 29, 1970, from battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Rick Ordway.