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This same Battalion Commander (whose name escapes me after all these years) was a Major with other imaginative ideas. We mounted a hand-operated siren on the wing of an L-19 and cranked it over the jungle in an effort to frighten the water buffalo into disclosing the location of the hidden VC camps.

He was also reported to have used his Light Observation Helicopter (LOH) to collect water samples from streams hoping to find heightened levels of urine that might disclose VC presence. As I recall, he also requested a “sniffer” unit that could be attached under the wing of an L-19 to “smell out” the enemy. None of these activities resulted in much success but they were entertaining to the troops and thankfully, no one was killed during their execution.

I returned to Phuoc Vinh from Xom Cat after about a month (November or December of 1966) and after a short time in the Battery, I was assigned to provide liaison support for re-supply convoys between Long Binh and Phuoc Vinh. My driver and radioman, Private First Class Williams and I were loaded with our Jeep and trailer into a double rotor Chinook helicopter and flown to a South Vietnamese camp located on the re-supply route on the banks of the Song Be River.

The camp had a lighted tennis court that the base commander used each night. Private Williams and I slept on cots under our ponchos and maintained a radio link with the convoy but we never fired a round.