Jim Thayer - Tango 1-1: 9th Infantry Division LRPs in the Vietnam Delta

TANGO 1-1

I dedicate this book to my family and friends who inspired me to write it. To my children and grandchildren. To my brother LRPs who were killed in action while serving with our unit. A special thanks to my wife Maria Angeles Galan de Thayer, who has been an inspiration in my life and who has helped me in so many ways.

9 TH INFANTRY DIVISION LRPS IN THE VIETNAM DELTA

JIM THAYER

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

PEN AND SWORD MILITARY

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Limited

Yorkshire Philadelphia

Copyright Jim Thayer, 2020

ISBN 9781526758583

eISBN 9781526758590

Mobi ISBN 9781526758606

The right of Jim Thayer to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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The men I am writing about could well have been the boy next door or the gentle blond-haired kid from the corner supermarket of not so long ago. The boys are bound together by their trade. They are all volunteers. They are in the spine-tingling, brain-twisting, nerve-wracking business of Long Range Patrolling. They vary in age from 18 to 30. These men operate in precision movements, like walking through a jungle quietly and being able to tell whether a man or an animal is moving through the brush without seeing the cause of movement. They can sit in an ambush for hours without moving a muscle except to ease the safety off the automatic weapon in their hand at the first sign of trouble. These men are good because they have to be to survive. Called LRPs for short, they are despised, respected, admired and sometimes thought to be a little short on brains by those who watch from the sidelines as a team starts out on another mission to seek out the enemy. They are men who can take a baby or small child in their arms and make them stop crying. They share their last smoke, last ration of food, last canteen of water, kind in some ways, deadly in others. They are men who believe in their country, freedom, and fellow men. They are a new kind of soldier in a new type of warfare. They may look the same as any one you may have seen in a peace march, draft card burning or any other demonstration, but they are different. Just look in their eyes. Better yet, just ask them, for they are men. These men stand out in a crowd of soldiers; it is not just their tiger fatigues but the way they walk, talk and stand. You know they are proud because they are members of the Long Range Patrol.

Article from Stars and Stripes

Early 1968, author unknown

My name is Robert Hill, and I served in the 9th Infantry Divisions Long Range Patrol Company from November 1968 until late February 1969. I first served as Platoon Leader, then Commanding Officer of D Company, 6th Battalion, 31st Infantry. On 20 November 1968, after an interview with Captain Dale Dickey, E Company, 50th Infantry (LRP) Commanding Officer, I transferred into the unit. E Company was the organic long range patrol unit for the 9th Infantry Division.

The LRPs used different tactics, different weapons and had a completely different attitude than what I had experienced with the Infantry. LRPs worked in small teams of four to six men, far from any other friendly units, often out toward the edges of the Divisions Area of Operations. All LRPs were volunteers, highly-trained, self-motivated, and if not totally without fear, nearly so. LRPs did not remain in a landing zone when they were inserted on a patrol. As the lift ship departed the LZ, the team would sprint for the cover of the nearest tree-line. They didnt smoke at night, they didnt sleep very much in the field, and when they spoke to each other or talked on the radio, it was always in a hushed whisper. Hand signals replaced verbal commands. Their actions were those of warriors who wanted to find the enemy, and when they felt they had the tactical advantage, would kill or capture them. Needless to say, I was very impressed with the way they operated.

I first met Sergeant Jim Thayer when he returned to the unit from R&R in Hawaii. I was the OIC (Officer in Charge) of the LRP unit stationed at the 3rd Brigade base camp at Tan An. We got to know each other well over the next few weeks. Jim had a Vietnamese soldier, a PRU (Provisional Reconnaissance Unit) who went everywhere that Jim went, which meant that Jim always had an interpreter with him, someone who knew the terrain, the people and who was acutely knowledgeable of the enemys tactics. This proved to be a huge advantage to Jim and his team, since so few Americans ever understood the enemys methods and operational tactics.

A major who I knew from the 6th of the 31st Infantry asked me one day if I had anyone in my command who could interrogate a VC prisoner. The Brigade Intel people had no luck getting any information out of him. I told him that I would find somebody and went straight to see Jim Thayer. I asked him if he and his PRU would agree to have a talk with this POW. To this day I have no idea what they did or said to him, as he was unmarked at the end of the interrogation, but suddenly he became a wealth of information, giving up the location of a regimental-sized NVA unit well outside Tan An. Jim Thayer swore to me that they never touched the guy.

Brigade wanted us to check out the Intel and insert one of our teams to verify the location of the enemy. I asked Jim Thayer to go in with his team and he agreed. The enemy was there alright, and immediately Jims team came under heavy rifle, machine-gun and RPG fire. Jims RTO, Specialist Fourth Class Richard Bellwood, was killed. Jims wristwatch and wrist compass were shot off his arm and his canteen took a round causing water to run down his hip and leg, which at the time he figured was blood from a bullet wound. I was at the Brigade Tactical Operations Center monitoring the radio and as soon as Jim called in a contact, I called for helicopter gunship support. The gunships gave a medevac helicopter the opportunity to get in and extract Jim, who had sustained a severe shoulder wound, the dying Bellwood, and the remainder of the team. Richard Bellwoods name is on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC with those of many other brave men.

Sergeant Thayer was transferred to the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon where doctors performed surgery on his shoulder wound. The next day he was scheduled for transfer to a hospital in Japan. But first, Major General Julian Ewell, Commanding Officer of the 9th Infantry Division, along with Captain Dickey and myself watched as Jim was awarded the Silver Star, Purple Heart and a promotion to Staff Sergeant E-6.