I was warned not to talk about the mission by the CIA.
We were inside Laos on a mission. I supplied the ammunition from camp Evans and was in HqCo.3/187th INF Rakkasans, the same unit that took Hamburger Hill.
I got there in August 1970, where the Green Berets trained us about counter insurgency and sapper. They hand picked about 20 of us from this unit and made us Green Berets. We had to pledge to keep everything secret. The group picture shows me on top of an M48 tank from 719 5th Mech, 101st Airborne out of Quang Tri. I am on the top row second from the right underneath the arrow. The guys were inside Laos after this picture was taken. The tank is still inside Laos buried under mud. I do not know if the guys made it out or not. No reporters were allowed near the border during this operation until it ended on March 29, 1971. My friend John Seibert is standing with me on the left in the next photo and the single picture is of me with a boonie hat, both at Camp Evans.
I didn’t know we would be on this mission into Laos until we got sent up to Khe Sahn and at the beginning of Dewey canyon they let us read the orders at the sahn from Nixon giving us permission to go into Laos. We got double crossed because they were helping the north and told them we were coming up into Laos at 4:00 am so things went wrong. They got tipped off we were coming. My buddy got hit at camp Vander Griffith doing my job because he didn’t know how to drive a truck and because I did, he asked me to switch jobs.
I was supposed to be hooking up slings under Chinooks with supplies before this ever happened. About one month before he came and told me God came to him in a dream and told him he was supposed to die for me. I asked him if he really saw God and he described him to me and said he would ask me to do him a favor and I should say yes. I said no I don’t want that to happen and it really came true. He asked me to drive truck for him because he couldn’t. I knew how so I had to go to Evans for mail ammo and creations. I tried to get back quick as I could before dark and just as I got to the bottom of the airstrip at Vander Griffith the shelling started from the NVA artillery.
I drove to the top of the hill and a shell hit on the airstrip. Someone yelled my name saying I was hit. I got out of the truck and went to the aid tent and he was laying on a table with a tracheotomy down his throat. I ran in and told them I was not the one lying there and watched for 5 minutes. He tried to sit up and saw me. I saw his legs jerking. I felt so bad that he died for me. I didn’t realize it at the time but they radioed it in to the rear area that I was killed in action. But it was my buddy John J. Fish back from Coral Gables, Florida. I told them later and they had a hard time straightening it all out.
There was about 1,000 guys inside Laos with no ammo. Two days later I got hit in the truck bringing up ammunition from Evans and was knocked out cold. My hands got scorched on top and my face from the flames coming through the windows of truck. I went over the top of a shell and I saw it go under the front of my right front bumper but it didn’t go off until hitting the rear back axle. I heard it thump and blow up. I had three flat tires but made it through two walls of artillery fire to the base camp.
I killed a lot of NVA and they are all buried between two horseshoe mountains by two bulldozers. I was in charge at end of the mission lam San 719. I was on a hit list I saw also from North Vietnam with our snipers. A yellow dot is by my name and is in the national archives at Fort Lee, Virginia.
I never heard from any of these men I served with and will forever have an awful lot on my plate.
~ David Redmond, Vietnam Veteran
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