Firefight on the Mountain — June 24, 1971

Summary

On June 24, 1971, D Company, 2/8 Cavalry was pulled off planned base-security duty at LZ Fanning and sent up a mountain near old LZ Fontaine on short notice. A Pink Team reconnaissance aircraft had taken fire from a redoubt on the mountain the day before, answered with CS gas, and called in artillery; the company's orders were to climb up and flush the position out. The men had just returned that morning from R&R in Vung Tau — many were badly hung over — and the company had a brand-new Battalion commander, LTC Blagg, whom Capt. Bill Neal had not yet met.

The company moved up a steep climb in a "V." Near a particularly sharp pitch the lead platoon's point opened fire, and the whole platoon went to "rock 'n roll." Neal called in contact, set the FO for a fire mission, and asked for a situation report. What followed was a cascade of supporting fire spinning up around an enemy nobody could actually see — two Pink Teams, inbound ARA, four sorties of F-100s diverting to the location, a FAC inbound — while Neal, climbing toward the front, slowly realized he hadn't heard a single AK round or grenade.

At the crest he found half the platoon standing in a circle, looking at the ground: the "enemy" was two monkeys, shot to pieces. The contact was false. Neal had to call off the air assets and report the truth to his new CO — "to tell the truth, we killed two monkeys" — and absorbed a serious ass-chewing in front of the whole battalion net. There were no casualties.

The day was not wasted: the assault had put the company onto the position the enemy had been protecting. The next day, Range Platoon swept the area and found the bunker complex and supply cache — B-40 rockets, small arms, rice, bolts of black pajama cloth, and four Singer sewing machines. That discovery is recorded as the related Bunker Complex Sweep contact.

Capt. Neal's full first-person telling is preserved as the account "Firefight on the Mountain."