It was a typical Viet Nam morning, hot and muggy. My Platoon had been working an area just north of QL19, along the base of the mountains near the An Khe pass. The area was pretty open for the highlands, small hamlets and rice paddies dotted the area. We had only been in country since Sept '65' so we were still learning the lay of the land, without any clear objectives yet. Being in the field for 30-45 days was not uncommon.
On this particular day we were suppose to check go check out an area about 14 clicks north of our position. We had been moving about an hour when the Lt. Got a radio call that a Ch-47 had made an emergency landing a couple of Ks east of us. We changed directions and moved out smartly. It didn't take us long to find the bird, they had landed next to a small ville, we could hear the excitement long before we could see anything.
As we broke into the clearing, we could see the crew standing near the tail ramp, weapons in hand, cautious but not real concerned. We threw a perimeter around the aircraft while the Lt. And the Plt Sgt. went to talk to the pilots. As it turned out, the aircraft had a hydraulic system malfunction and the crew was going to try to fix it, we were going to provide a little security for them while they did the work.
The area wasn't known to be 'hot' and we had not made any contacts so the Lt. decided to go on 50% alert. Some of the guys went over to the ville to see if they had any cokes (and probably any '33'). As the day wore on some of the guys amused themselves by chasing a pig around. The villagers got a real kick out of it and the flight engineer got out his 8mm camera and filmed a bunch of dumb-ass grunts trying to tackle the pig (they got close but never caught it, that pig could run like a UFO flies)
The pilot came over and informed the Lt. that they couldn't fix the aircraft until their maintenance people brought them a part, and that wasn't going to be until morning, so the Lt called the Co. and told him that we needed another plt. so that we could extend the perimeter out around the ville. About an hour later, another platoon was airlifted in and we expanded the perimeter.
Because of the nature of the area, we didn't dig full foxholes, just prone fighting positions. We carried everything that we needed to set up a night position, claymores, trip flares, empty c-rat cans, and commo wire, C4 etc. Rocks for the cans we could get anywhere. We had a guy from Guam and one from American Samoa; they went into the ville and borrowed a huge kettle. We pooled all the C-rats, our appointed cooks mixed everything with the rice they were cooking. They fed both platoons, the A/C crew and invited the village to help themselves to the leftovers, its no damn wonder I gained 35lbs before I DROSed, heaviest I have ever been.
Everything had pretty much settled down. The village was quiet and dark except for a couple of lights, everyone was relaxed but this was soon to change.
At about 0200, something set off a couple of the trip flares forward of the perimeter. The parachute flares followed, then the whole damn perimeter opened up with every weapon we had, small arms, MGs, claymores, frags. More trip flares went off and the firing intensified. Finally the plt sgt call cease firing. No more flares went off but we stayed at 100% until dawn
At dawn the village started to wake up, people moving about, cook fires lit. Suddenly there was a lot of yelling from around the back of the village where part of my platoon was. The Lt. sent out a squad with a radio to investigate. Well, it seems we had made contact, the squad counted 30 KIAs, we had killed the whole damn village water buffalo herd. They weren't just dead either, they were tenderized and ready to eat!

 

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