The Saigon Post
August 30, 1971
ETCETERA
Defiance at O'Reilly
by
Daniel Cameron
Part I
Fire Support Base O'Reilly, Central Highlands, South Vietnam
[He was the youngest Colonel in Vietnam, in or out of combat.]
Two Vietnamese mortar teams of the 1st ARVN Division fired at points in the
surrounding mountains.
Eardrums hurt. Inside his command bunker, Lt. Colonel Le-Huan lit a
menthol-tipped cigarette.
"Let everybody know. We hold this hill. If enemy come, we have big
victory."
Le-Huan, 26, is the youngest Colonel in Vietnam. He is small but sturdy,
intense, in constant motion, and has a flat, reddish nose. His eyes can be
stern and emotional. He has spent too much time in jungle fighting---about four
years---to know Saigon well. He is brave, non-political and has learned the
cunning of his opponents. Men like him are unsually dangerous for Hanoi. They
are perhaps symbolic of a new trend in the South Vietnamese Army: military
leadership.
Lt. Huan's command post, Fire Support Base O'Reilly, is an embattled jungle
edge of hilltop, hovering high in these dangerous mountains which you can see
extending into Laos and North Vietnam. The panorama is vast. Even on a fairly
cloudy day you can see the DMZ (De-militarized Zone), the Gulf of Tonkin and
that sandy stretch of what the French knew as the notorious Street Without Joy,
running along the South China Sea. That dim hill in the sea is Con Co, an island
belonging to North Vietnam.
Lt. Col. Huan's defiance is not based on any US ground troops. None are
here. He has only a couple American advisers and one Australian. Everybody
here is sitting right on top of a major NVA infiltration route and knows it.
Helicopters in this area often receive ground fire. Some have been shot down.
You can almost see the infiltration route by facing Laos, turning your head
slowly across the valleys, peaks and ravines till you see the lowlands down by
the sea.
In "O'Reilly's" neighborhood is Fire Support Base Ripcord, evacuated
recently by US troops after taking heavy shelling and heavy casualties. That
episode only makes Lt. Colonel Le-Huan try harder. He has never been to the US
for training, but his English is rapid.
"After the Americans withdraw from Ripcord," he said. "the enemy plan to
take 'O'Reilly' between August 5 and August 19. They think they finish us off
easy, no sweat. They choose August 19 because it big holiday for them. But our
troops and US air support break their plan. We still here."
While the NVA is probably not planning a big drive into the lowlands at
this moment it undoubtedly could gain an important political and psychological
victory by doing to this Vietnamese O'Reilly what it did to the American
Ripcord.
Lt. Col Huan says that the NVA 321 B Division, which used one or two
battalions against Ripcord, may decide to throw five or six battalions against
O'Reilly. The Americans left Ripcord under heavy enemy fire because they decided
not to accept a continued high casualty rate there. But it appears that the
First ARVN Division (often called the country's finest) will not follow this
example. Lt. Colonel Huan has served notice that O'Reilly will not be
abandoned. In fact, he has a message for the enemy.
"I want to tell them. We are ready. Bring two or three battalions right
now. If you only bring two or three companies, that mean we only get about 60
body count."
One reason that enemy body count is not easy to get, according to the
Australian advisor, Warrant Officer Ray Oliver: "When artillery or air strikes
hit them, there's usually nothing left except pieces in the trees."
When you learn a little more about Le-Huan's past and Communist methods in
Vietnam, the man's almost fanatical drive becomes more understandable. His
background helps expain why, despite a milieu of politics and corruption, he is
one of those ARVN senior officers who will fight with a grim determination
perhaps unmatched even by North Vietnamese who have been indoctrinated all their
lives.
"During '68 Tet," Huan said, (referring to the big anti-Saigon
offensive),"the Communists kill my 70-year old father. My father never harm
them. They push bayonet through his head. He die after 1 1/2 months. They kill
him because me, his son, was ARVN Battalion Commander."
Most military men who live, fight and sometimes die at these hauntingly
beautiful, dangerous, ugly outposts, have commented on the conventional press.
Lt. Colonel Huan is no exception. He tried to find words for his
disappointment.
"Newspaper reporter write true about us, but not complete. They say 200
mortars fired at O'Reilly. Sure, true. But not complete. They no tell how our
men fight out in the field."
I was not going to explain, I would not tell the young Colonel in this
stark outpost that the big news media have decided that the world in general and
the US public in particular do not want to hear about it anymore. I would not
tell him that the way these men ar living, fighting and dying in three or four
dimensions is not considered very newsworthy by the Media Establishment. I would
not quote for him the veteran American correspondent who told me:
"All they want to hear about now is, how do we get out of here?"
I would not tell him that the media were more interested in the
politicians and demonstrators. They paid their people to get statistics,
analyses, trends, controversies, opinions and so-called battle reports. They
reported how everybody was concerned about the boys and men who were doing it in
Vietnam. But they rarely ever gave you the real life of these men and boys,
except by accident. That would not be 'objective,' It would not be 'newsworthy'
either. It was more 'objective' to let people remain statistics, trends and
dummies for somebody's armchair opinion of the war. It paid better too. Ask the
media.
(to be continued)
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