Memories of an Alpha Regular Part 1

1st Battalion 22nd Infantry

Memories of a Regular from 3rd Platoon Alpha Company

1968-1969

by Al Ballard

Part One

I was 20 years old when we landed in Cam Ranh Bay on 3 Nov 68. Andy Anderson, Bogett, PSG Hopper, and myself
were assigned to 3rd platoon , A 1/22. By the time we got processed in at Pleiku, got our weapons and target range taken care of,
it was probably around 10-14 November when we joined the company at the Oasis. Lt Jack Butler was also on the convoy,
but since he wasn't assigned to our platoon, I really don't remember him. Also, there was a buck sergeant leaving to go home -
he was from Perryville, Mo, which was about 80 miles from my home town. More about him later.

The company had just been thru some rough contact when we joined them.
As it was getting late, the three of us were invited to go on LP -(Andy, Bogett, and myself). They teamed us up with 3 old timers
that had been there since September. We didn't go outside the wire, we went right down in front of the firing positions and set up.
They broke us up into 2 man groups and told the ones of us who would be on guard later to get some sleep.
After I figured out the rock that was poking me in the ribs was a claymore and I got resituated, it was dark as hell - no moon -
you know how deep the dark is over there.
I tried to doze when I heard the guys all whispering about movement to our front. I didn't see anything but agreed with them anyway.
One of the old timers said when he opened up with his M-16 to haul ass back to the perimeter. He opened up, we hauled ass,
and the whole hill came alive with machine gun and rifle fire, looked like the 4th of July!
After things settled down and it was decided there wasn't any thing out there we had to go back out .
I didn't sleep the rest of the night - everything was moving!
Next morning as daylight was breaking I saw some tree stumps right in front of us that we had shot the hell out of.
I found out about pucker power real quick! Welcome to Viet Nam!

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As previously stated, I joined the company at the Oasis around 10 Nov 68. After a few days we were taken to some place
way out in the boonies, never did know where for sure. We were on a firebase that was pretty high up. All the trees on top were dead.
Someone suggested we were by the Cambodian border, but nobody ever said for sure.
Ran patrols and green eyes but nothing eventful happened.
From there we were taken to Dak To and spent New year's guarding a bridge. Nothing eventful happened while we there either
except for some trip flares going off at night. We attributed it to small animals because no contact was ever made.
We left there for the firebase with a hill number. Other than those events that happened on the green eye patrols it was pretty uneventful also.
We left there humping for Dak To airstrip for a few days to pull airstrip security.
3rd platoon was sent to relieve a platoon of LRRP's outside Dak To up on rocket ridge.
From where we were we had a bird's eye view of Dak To airstrip and at night watched the nightly fireworks.
The tracers from our guys being red and the NVA's being green made a pretty good light show.
We were into March now and we were sent from Dak To to Plei Mrong about the middle of the month to build a firebase.
We were about 10 klicks from LZ Bass. We must not have been too far from Pleiku because we had the red dirt like was around there.
We were next to a blue line, and there was a road going to LZ Bass. When we started digging in it was like digging into concrete.
Engineers finally had to blow holes so we could get our bunkers started. There was a village of Montagnards by the blue line.
One day I had a little boy come up to me and say "1 little, 2 little, 3 little Indians in very plain English.
This just stuck in my mind because of where we were. Everyday a tank with a mine sweeper would patrol the road to Bass checking for mines.
Our main job was to flank the tank on both sides and pull security to Bass.
One day the tank didn't show up and 2 of us were handed handheld minesweepers, so that day me and the other guy was the tank!
I sweated twice as much walking that road than I usually did.
On 2 April we were CA'd to Plei Trap Valley for Operation Wayne Grey.

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Al Ballard with his M-79 grenade launcher

After spending Christmas 68 and New Year's 69 guarding a bridge at Dak To, we were CA'd out to a hill with no name about 10 klicks from Dak To Airstrip.
We had a battery of 105's with us while we were there. The hill was huge - you could have fit 2 companies on there easy,
so we were spread pretty thin on perimeter guard. We stayed there until approximately the end of Feb. 69.
The time spent there was uneventful except for the green eye patrols. I had decided I wanted to be a grenadier so carried the M-79.
Going out with just 3 guys was not my idea of a fun time. On my very first one, the first night after we got set up we had a tiger that circled us all night long,
I could hear him breathing like he was only about 3 feet behind me at times. With the M-79, I couldn't fire while it was that close.
Luckily for us he decided to do something else about daybreak and left us alone.
As we moved out I was designated as point as we moved to another AO.

Shortly after we started I saw a log laying across the trail, I told the other 2 to hold up while I checked it out.
I stepped around the log and the next thing I knew I was in the middle of an abandoned NVA bunker complex
( key word being it was abandoned)! The way their bunker complexes were set up you were in the middle of one before you even knew it.
I froze, hoping it was empty when I noticed some bamboo hutches straight in front of me.
I called for the other 2 guys and we checked everything out finding that it was, indeed empty.
We called it in and was told that it had been used during TET 68. We went on to our new location and set up for the night.
Just as we got set up one of the guys had a skunk crawl into his bedroll with him, which he didn't appreciate but, at the same time,
we started having movement all around us.
Finally, we heard Vietnamese voices and they were coming right in on us. We called fire support from the base and things finally settled down,
the skunk had left during the fire mission. Next morning we found blood trails and bloody bandages
and it was decided it was time for us to go back to the firebase.
During our stay on this hill, there were a few times we heard truck engines and even saw some elephants move by at the base of the hill,
never found out what it was.
After the end of Feb we humped into Dak To Airstrip to pull security.

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continued on next page...................

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