Kenn Miller - Six Silent Men, Book Two

But not all of the NVA on that slope were still alive. By that time, the dead probably outnumbered the living, and the Lurps slipped in the blood, almost tripped over bodies and parts of bodies.

Lurps! yelled Tony. Were Lurps!

Very briefly, the enemy fire increased, and up on the bloody knoll, Gary Linderer felt something slap him on the thigh and didnt realize that it was a bullet. Someone was hollering down by the LZ, and that fool Walkabout was hollering back.

Walkabout! You idiot! Shut up! Linderer wasnt sure if he said it or just thought it, but then the realization hithim that he was the fool, not Walkabout. After all this fighting, the enemy already knew eractly where they were. And those were Lurps down there by the LZLurps!a reaction force of Lurps!

Walkabout began to shout again, and so did Linderer. Lurps! Lurps! When no one else could be bothered, their brother Lurps had come to their rescue and were there at last!

A Presidio Press Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright 1997 by Kenn Miller

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Presidio Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Presidio Press and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-307-55975-3

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This book was originally intended to be the middle section of a much longer book about the LRRP/LRP/Ranger units that served as the eyes and earsand sometimes the talons and teethof the 101st Airborne Division during the Vietnam War. As originally conceived, Rey Martinez was to write the first section, covering the 1st Brigade 101st Airbornes Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol detachment from 1965 to early 1968. I was to handle the Division LRP company, F Company, 58th Infantry (Long Range Patrol), from the time of its formation at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in the spring of 1967, until it was redesignated L Company, 75th Rangers at the beginning of 1969. At this point, Gary Linderer was to take over and tell the story up through 1971. Because the resulting manuscript was too long, our publisher decided to split it into three books and publish them separately. This book is the second of the threeand if you read one of them, you should read all three books in the Six Silent Men series.

Not every mission pulled by F Company, 58th Infantry (LRP) is covered, or even mentioned, in this book. Part of this is due to my failings as a researcher and interviewer. Part of it is due to the fading memories of the men I interviewed, and part of it is due to the fact that certain activities of the 101st Lurps seem not to have been declassified yetwhich is due almost entirely to bureaucratic sloth and not to any sensible considerations of national security. Human memory is fallible, but anyone writing about Vietnam War Lurps and Rangers is better off trusting the memories of the men involved than in trusting official records.

When it comes to the activities of Vietnam War long-range patrol and Ranger units, official Army records are often unreliable and inaccurate. Lurp and Ranger units in Vietnam were bastard units, commanded by officers without the rank to always assure that the men under their command received full credit for their accomplishments. Lurps and Rangers often worked in conjunction with artillery, aviation, intelligence, and infantry formations commanded by field-grade officers, and it was not at all unusual for these officers to give their own men full credit for operations in which Lurps and Rangers actually played the crucial part. Depending primarily on official records, one of the most prominent military historians of the Vietnam War wrote a book about Green Berets at war that seems to have been accepted as an authoritative source by Special Forces veterans. He followed this work with a book about Rangers at war that most Lurp/Ranger veterans whove read it consider an embarrassing failure. The reason for this is clear to me: Special Forces had a measure of command autonomy and record-keeping capability that Lurp and Ranger units sorely lacked. This is not to make excuses for any oversights or mistakes I might have made in this book. There are sure to be someand Im sure to hear about them for the rest of my life at unit reunions.

One final note: If you find it strange that the author refers to himself in the third person in this book, it is not because I am modest. It is because this book isnt about meits about the 101st Airborne Divisions long-range patrol company, in which I had the privilege of serving.

Kenn Miller
September 1996

In the early summer of 1967, shortly after the cadre of the 101st Airborne Divisions famed Recondo School returned to Fort Campbell from training cadets at West Point, Brigadier General Frank B. Clay, the assistant division commander, and Lieutenant Colonel Charles Beckwith, the division G-2, paid an unexpected visit to the school, bearing the news that General Westmoreland had ordered all the divisions and separate brigade-size maneuver units then conducting operations in Vietnam to organize long-range patrol (LRP, pronounced Lurp) companies. Since the 101st Airborne Division was scheduled to join its 1st Brigade in Vietnam at the end of the year, it was to organize such a company within the division. And though there was no shortage of talent in the division, it seemed only natural that the Recondo School cadre become the nucleus of this new company.

General Clays visit was brief, but after his departure, Lieutenant Colonel Beckwith remained behind to go over some of the details. Having previously commanded the 5th Special Forces Groups Project Delta, Colonel Beckwith was more than familiar with the organization and duties of a long-range patrol company. And as he was the G-2, such a company, at least in theory, would be working for him. Wasting little time, Beckwith had already made up his mind to put the new company under the command of Captain Peter Fitts. Fitts, a mustang officer with plenty of enlisted time (and an array of tattoos to prove that most of his service had been as an enlisted man), had a prior tour in Vietnam establishing and running long-range recon teams for Special Forces.

Colonel Beckwith knew what he wanted. The Table of Organization and Equipment (TOE) called for a three-platoon company. Two of the platoons would be patrol platoons, each running four to five six-man reconnaissance teams. The third platoon would be a headquarters platoon with a strong communications section. Beckwith made it very clear to the gathered Recondo School cadre that the company was to be a volunteer unit with standards that would exclude all but the most qualified. There was no disagreement.

When Beckwith had taken over Project Delta, it had been with the understanding that he would be given free rein to hire and fire anyone he wanted and that 5th Special Forces Groups entire roster would be open for recruiting his people. In taking over Project Delta, Beckwith had made a lot of enemies, stepped on a lot of toes, and maybe wronged a few good men. But then, Charlie Beckwith had never been the kind of man who worried about stepping on toes.