Direct Mortar Hit on a barracks in the 5/16th HSB AO at Camp Radcliff. Our AO was just across the basecamp road from helicopter revetments, The Choppers were favorite targets of NVA mortar squads and sappers. I watched one night as a particularly reckless NVA mortar team took the time to walk their rounds 4 rounds abreast, until they finally got the range for the choppers.
This is a photograph of a dog handler and his dog who worked with our team. I don't know the name of either, but the dogs came over on temporary assignments whenever the Battalion intelligence officer decided we needed one for a mission.They came from one of several source units, and I do not know if I ever knew the unit origin of those who served with us, but, the 4th ID fielded the following Infantry Scout Dog & Combat Tracker Platoons:
4th War Dog Company (Provisional)
33rd IN (Platoon), Scout Dog
50th IN (Platoon), Scout Dog
64th IN (Platoon), Combat Tracker
The handler functioned as any other soldier, with rifle and pack and basic load, but he also caried water (lots of it) for the dog and had to carry the dog's food. A dog spooked a huge deer about 20 feet from me. We were walking a trail in broken terrain and I saw him break from his handler, who released him when the dog alerted to something. We ate that deer (but that's another story...).
Photograph of John Puzzo, taken outside of our hooch on the Bunker Line.
4th Infantry Division
Camp Radcliffe
An Khe
Republic of Viet Nam
1970
This photograph is the only know picture of Thinh, the NVA Chu Hoi who was assigned to our team as a Kit Carson Scout. He helped with translation when we came across any Vietnamese in the AO, mostly woodcutters or people moving from one place to another on the many trails around Camp Radcliff, which had one of the largest base camp perimeters in Viet Nam, some 15 kilometers or so around, as I recall. I shudder think what happened to this man after the collapse of Viet Nam. He was a good guy, never any trouble to anyone. The other guy in the picture is Lynn Ives, who is from Wisconsin.
This photograph shows our team exiting the bunker line for a mission, which could last anywhere from three to five days. I always walked rear security. Sometimes we took Dog Trackers with us. We had two PRC-25's, two M-79's, one M-60, and the rest of us had M-16's. We were assigned one medic, Andrew Kravitz of New York City. We had around ten or eleven guys at any given time. The Battalion gave us three buildings on the bunker line, which we used as housing and one that we sandbagged served as our ammo bunker.
In Iraq 2004-2005
Iraq
John Puzzo