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Part 2
Introduction- by 1Lt Collier, Recon, E, 2/1 196th Infantry Brigade, Republic of Vietnam, 1971
What follows are accounts of the battle of Kham duc from different points of view. The first story is from a book about Green Berets and tells the story from their point of view as they were down in the valley in the main base camp but you have to wade through the first battle which occurs five miles down the valley at Ngok Tavak. The second and third newspaper story is more from the families’ points of view. I post this story because I later commanded this unit and admire and respect the memories of the brave men of Recon who had the kind of courage it takes to go to certain death. This is the story of a brave young infantry Lt, his RTO and his men who all died on the mountain tops surrounding Kham duc. Actually, the going to your individual death is not such a hard thing. It is looking in the faces of your men and giving them the op order briefing and having to tell them that there is very little chance of coming back. These are men who are in your care and every day you have tried your very best to keep them alive and now you must stand in front of them and inform them as kindly as you can that they are going to die. I assume one or more of the recon members would have asked for an hour to write a letter to be left with the 1st Sergeant and mailed if they did not come back. I do not know what Ransbottom did if one of his men asked the question, but I would guess he just nodded his head and looked at the plt sergeant as an indication to give all the men an hour to get their personal lives squared away. Giving assignments of what team would be on what OP and where he would be and where the Plt Sgt would be an making sure he placed himself squarely in the area of most danger and the team that would be lead by only the buck sergeant was in the least danger. There is little doubt in my mind that Ransbottom understood that the OP’s on the mountains had to be held and that the NVA would hit them first in order to control the high ground. Infantry officers school makes it very clear that the OP’s are vulnerable to be encircled by the larger attacking force and either you run for it at the first sign of the enemy or else you will be killed. Very little doubt that the Recon teams were surrounded and then just overwhelmed. The last that is known of Ransbottom is he is doing what an infantry officer is trained to do – simultaneously give orders and fighting. He is on the radio communicating with his men as he is killing NVA coming into the bunker door.
The 2/1 was the “swing battalion” and was sent wherever things were hot. We never had a home AO like other battalions but were moved all over to wherever there was a special need. Echo (E Company) Recon as we were known, consisted of about 18-25 men. There would be a Plt Ldr, Plt Sgt, RTO, a medic, three team leaders, pigman, asst pigman, 4-6 snipers with scoped M-14’s, and the remainder would be infantry men with M-16s. Typically, the platoon operated as three individual teams and a team was about 5-7 men. The Plt Ldr and his RTO would be with one team and the Plt Sgt and the Medic would be with another. Recon members were volunteers from the regular rifle companies and had no special training, they were just draftees who had the courage to volunteer for dangerous duty. After the Special Forces Groups left Vietnam, then SF qualified officers and NCO’s who came to RVN would be asked to volunteer to run Recon which we did. In 1971, me and another Lt from 10th SFG volunteered for RVN at the same time and he ran Recon for the 1/46 Inf Bn (and got shot up and sent home) and I ran Recon for 2/1. It appears that during the battle of Kham Duc that 2/1 Inf Bn was reinforced with one or more units from the sister Bn, 1/46. There were some Marines, Australians and special forces, helicopter units and the Air Force involved. Whether Colin Powell was Ass’t S3 for the 23rd at that time I do not know.
I would note also that following the battle of Kham Duc, the Recon Platoon was rebuilt and then was nearly wiped out and the platoon leader killed again in early 1970. The platoon was rebuilt again and the next platoon leader was killed. Then in early 1971, once again the replacement plt leader and about a third of the platoon was either wounded or killed up on the DMZ. It was at this point in time that I became the Recon platoon leader for E 2/1.
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This is the story of my unit and its leader and RTO a few years before I took over. Lt Ransbottom was awarded a Silver Star but it is hard to convey the amount of courage it takes to lead a small unit mission that is almost certain death and to face that death and continue to fight and command to the last drop of blood.
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