Tiger Tiger - Bill Feight 1965-66

   It was hot that morning, but then it was always hot, or at least it had been since we had gotten in country.  We had been in Viet Nam for a little over a month and with the exception of a couple of snipers, (that turned out to be no more than kids not yet even teenagers) we had yet to see any real action.  Captain Ketterly had been our company commander state side.  He had been an enlisted man in WWII and also in Korea, but had worked his way through the ranks in the reserves. When reaching 2^nd Lt., he requested full active service.  Now he was in S-2; that was Army Intelligence.  Most of the enlisted men considered that moniker, a misuse of the English language, or at the very least a contradiction in terms.  Today we would consider it an Oxy-moron.   None-the-less, every man in the company, if not battalion, held him in high regard.  

   We really were not in a hurry to see any real action, but that would come soon enough whether we wanted it to, or not.  LZ Xray and LZ Albany was still a couple of months ahead of us.  We were the Black Knights and supposedly, the sister battalion to the Seventh Calvary, General Custers battalion.  There had been some friendly rivalry between the 2 battalions but I don’t think anyone but the officers took it too seriously.

   I was a radioman (RTO) and usually the first man the enemy looked to kill or wound.  That made sense because if a leader cannot communicate with his troops, he has nothing to command or lead.  Each company has its own call sign, and the battalion has its own somewhat related call sign.  Screaming Eagle might be the call sign of a battalion that had bird names under it.  Something like Red Hawk, or Owl Hunter etc.  We had been trained to lay wire for telephones and keep the wire out of sight of the enemy.  We were never trained in Morse code or anything like that, but we had the Prick 25 (PRC 25) radio that we carried, and most communication was done through that.  There was also the PRC 10 but that was old.  Most of those were left over from Korea and did not work well.  They only had a range of about 2 or 3 miles at the best.  You could talk in plain English on the Prick 25, and it had telephone type hand set that was simple and easy to use.  The frequency was set with 2 knobs on the top and anyone with a 2^nd grade education could set them.  If there was a problem with the Prick 25 it was that it weighed 25 pounds and was rather bulky to carry around.  It could adapt to several types of antenna, but the one we used the most was about a 3-foot whip antenna that stuck up behind you on your right side.  That usually made a good target for any enemy soldier or sniper.  On an earlier patrol through Happy Valley (Song Cong Valley) the first man in our company to be shot was the radio man of the 2^nd platoon.  I was the 3^rd platoon radioman, and my antenna had disappeared from view before he finished his message.  All he said was “6 this is 2-6 India. I’m shot over”

   Let me explain that message.  We were on our own frequency that day and could not call in Med Evac without changing frequency. As a unit, we had to get permission before an individual radio could be taken out of the system and put on a separate frequency.  Almost every unit over there had their own frequency they operated on. (Those changed daily or weekly.)  If you were working in a platoon unit you would have one frequency and if you were operating as a Battalion you would be on a different frequency.  Think about it. It just makes sense.  Six (6) designates the commander of the unit, and anything before or after that designates something under the command.  At that time we were the only company on that frequency therefore, 6 was our captain or command.  Two (2) indicated the 2^nd platoon, and India indicated that particular command’s radio operator.  Everyone in the company knew that the 2^nd platoon radioman had been wounded.  It was really a simple system.

One nice thing about the Prick 25 was that you could get almost any frequency of any unit in the whole country and listen to what they were doing.  That could be a bad thing also, because “Charlie” (Victor Charlie, Viet Cong, NVA [North Vietnamese], Enemy) could also listen in if he had a captured radio and frequencies. Often, they did.  Now you can understand why we changed frequencies so often.  The other thing the Army did, was talk in codes.  Instead of asking for a hamburger and fries you might say I need some cats and dogs.  Instead of hand grenades you might ask for tulips.  Those codes changed daily and weekly also.  I think you can understand why.

Back when we had been in country less than a week, the radio personnel from the company had a meeting with the company XO (executive officer).  While we were waiting for Lt. Strong, we got a call from 2-6 India requesting some ammo for the M16s and M60’s.  We did not recognize the voice, but he had all the codes right, and was using proper radio rules.  Problem was that I was looking at 2-6 India and his radio.  That meant it was Charlie calling wanting some ammo or just setting up an ambush for some newbies.  We had the 4^th platoon radioman with us also.  The 4^th platoon was a mortar platoon (a mortar is a tube 2 to 5 inches in diameter into which you drop a self-propelled grenade round that explodes when it comes back to earth. An experienced mortar squad can hit a 50-gallon drum over a mile away. They are very heavy and a platoon will have 3 or 4 tubes and as many base plates, which are heavier yet.)  After getting the co-ordinates of the fake 2-6 India the 4^th platoon simply sent a mortar round to that location.  There was an explosion some distance away, and we never heard that voice on the radio again.