On the 30^th, Volume One Number Three of Spurs & Lightning was published. This issue was prepared by 1LT Brad Jones, Jr, Information Officer, PFC Thomas Baker, Editor–writer, PFC Ronald A. Pahnke, illustrator. The following article appeared in this issue: 

A Day in the Life of C Troop – Polei Kleng – Crew and gunners wiped the dew from the front, side, and top Plexiglas of Hueys, mounted their 50 calibers, checked oil levels, while Warrant Officers and Lieutenants readied their LOHs and Cobras for flight. Pilots and crew climbed in and turbines began the familiar whine, as the rotor blades began slowly to turn, circling over the heads of the pilots, a black blade sweeping overhead, casting flashing shadows. Pilots watched the needles on the dials of the panel of instruments as the while became a scream, then a roar, and the blades whirled faster and faster, becoming invisible. They lifted themselves up, and another day in the life of C/7/17^th Cav had begun. 

The AO for March 24^th was to be northwest of Polei Kleng, near, almost on, the Cambodian border. For the past month, enemy concentration had been heavy, and contact with them had been frequent. This particular AO was a prime point on the route into Vietnam of enemy men and supplies. The Cambodian border and Ho Chi Minh Trail were same-same here. Indeed, activity was heavy. The 4^th had greatly increased its manpower concentration in the area, the whole of Kontum Province, to thwart whatever objectives the NVA had, with the 7/17^th playing a vitally useful role in gunrunning kills, destruction of enemy positions, and providing intelligence information. 

MAJ Jerry G. Ledford sat head down, concentrating on maps in his lap as his pilot, 1LT Richard D. Sherman scooted truck-top high along the highway to Kontum. The road turned away to the right and C&C took altitude, passing over a team of tanks with high, thick trails of red dust following them like race driver’s silk scarves. There would be a briefing for MAJ Ledford and other commanders of the day’s missions at Polei Kleng. 

The morning was still softly hazy and cool. The four Cobras and four LOHs were already headed for Dak To, where they would rearm and refuel as needed periodically during the day. The fast Cobras, heavily armed with rockets and miniguns, had two man crews, a pilot and observer. The LOHs, low observation helicopters, with room for four, would be carrying one pilot and two observers. Armed with miniguns and the observers’ light weapons they were covered by the Cobras, which the enemy fear. Both were in teams of two which would alternate duty, keeping constant pressure on whatever was below. Riflemen rested in their Hueys, which would take them to the area in which they were to be inserted if they were needed. 

All choppers were parked in a single line, nose in. They would lift up and back out when it was time to go. MAJ Ledford arrived at Polei Kleng, still resting after a wary night in a light gray haze. There were holes in the runway, bordered by twisted pieces of pierced steel planking, arching straight up, several feet high. The NVA had not mortared the base in several days, the last and most serious having come March 10^th, two weeks ago. Apparently, strength of 4^th Infantry Division had moved effectively keeping the enemy away. C&C set down and all disembarked. The crew chief and gunner stayed with the Huey while the other passengers took care of their business there. The Liaison Officer and his assistant set up shot outside a van under a roof of sandbags. 

MAJ Ledford attended a briefing held in the van, grabbed a cup of coffee, made some notes about the information, marked his map, strolled back out to his airship, and took off for Dak To. It was as sunny there as it had been hazy at Polei Kleng, ten minutes south. 

Picking an arbitrary setting in the middle of the parking ramp, MAJ Ledford dispensed essential information, sharing familiar facts, observations and occurrences with his pilots. “Were you all out there when we had two damage assessments northwest of Swinger? Yesterday they found APC, tank tracks heading west.” 

He gave coordinates from the map of sighted enemy happenings, encounters, and places they were looking at today. 

“We’ll return to that area and see if we can find the tracks,” they had run an assessment on twice before. He directed the gunships to go in first and then the slicks if called on. It was all SOP, only difference was what particularly to look for. The tracks and a suspected 105-mm howitzer position 1000 meters, a little over a half mile from the Cambodian border, was to be checked. Not far from that spot a Mohawk and Huey had gone down, crashed. C Troop had rescued the pilots and crew. 

The briefing was over. The men stood and began moving to their birds, smiling, laughing, noise hushed by wind of other helicopters. The LOH team, 1LT Mitchell with SP Slagle , WO Rice with SP Wesley and SP Yaminitz , escorted by the Cobra team, 1LT Latshaw with WO Harrington and WO Schuler with CPT King , chased each other under the watchful eyes of MAJ Ledford and 1LT Sherman in the C&C ship. MAJ Ledford intentionally flew Cobra-high, just above the LOHs, to the AO. Flying so low makes his bird pop up and quickly by any enemy elements. Over the AO, C&C would stay high for the same reasons, to make himself a target harder to hit. The jungle was extremely thick, like a massive carpet thrown carelessly, viciously onto the ground, with peaks, ridges, ripples, plateaus, hills, and valleys all over it. C&C flew contour, rising along the side of a ridge which suddenly stopped, blocking sight of all on the other side, except for another distance wall-like ridge. 

The NVA were all over the province. Conversations monitored over the airship’s radios told of several fights in process already. During the night, 4^th Division artillery and Air Force B-52s had assaulted spots and they still smoldered as C Troop flew by. Elements of 4^th Division’s 1^st and 2d Brigades were camped out, sweeping the province, fighting NVA soldiers, cornered and fighting like trapped tigers. C Troop arrived at their AO. C&C took altitude making lazy, wide circles as MAJ Ledford peered down, radio mike in one hand, maps in the other. The LOHs hovered in tree tops, reconning the area while Cobra hung just outside of them, ready to scramble to their aid should they be needed. This area was a suspected 105mm howitzer site, judged by the angle of the shells’ strike. But, the area looked not at all recently used. It was sprayed with bomb crater holes, a maze of devastation. 

Convinced that no use had been made of the area, the team moved on to the second AO, the one they had VRed twice before. But where were the artillery shells coming from? The others side of the Cambodian border? 

“It’s happened before,” said 1LT Sherman. The second site had also been hit by 4^th Infantry artillery and Air Force earth-shatterors, fighter and B-52s. At one time, the first time C Troop had been there, the foliage was thick, triple canopy. Now it was quite clear. Bunker complexes could be seen, charred to gray, and tree stumps protruded. CW2 Mitchells made a hasty check before cutting speed, hovering over the area for scrutinized reconnaissance. WO Rice, with his two observers, hovered about the perimeter where hard vehicle tracks were reported to be. They saw them, two sets. One moved to a crater, stopped, moving from crater to crater, like parallel lines spotted with huge dots. The second set moved around the craters. 

Mitchells made a second sweep, slower, then suddenly stopped, pivoted, and let fly with his minigun, then forward, firing again. The roar, convulsing roar of the gun, could be heard all the way up to the C&C, over the vibrating rumble of the Huey’s engine and the rushing air. 1LT Latshaw scurried to Mitchell’s side, firing rockets. 

“We saw four NVA dodging for cover. I expended and got three, maybe a fourth. Cobra got one,” reported CW2 Mithcell. “They didn’t fire on us,” 1LT Latshaw said. “Probably under strict orders not to. They’re hiding something.” 

WO Harrington said later that it wasn’t unusual for them not to fire, for to do so would expose their position, “letting us know for sure that they are there. This way they have reason to hope they weren’t seen at all.” MAJ Ledford was on the radio to “Snider,” the code name for the Air Force FAC, who was flying above C&C in a light, twin-engined Cessna. Snider marks the target precisely and then guides fighter-bombers in. “Spads are on the way with lots of nap-nap,” he said. 

“Spads” are propeller-driven fighters of World War II vintage. Not as fast or exciting as jets, they pack a wallop same-same, and did leave the AO in towering, billowing clouds of black. The second teams were on the AO, piloted by WOs McMills and Everhart, Hugert and Robinson. 

They made a quick assessment and moved on to debriefing, then the second AO. It was a valley surrounded by peaks and clouds of smoke were all around, like mythical towers holding the sky over Grecian ruins, when, actually, they were earthling officering of penance. And the smell of burning wood and flesh filled the area. A large bunker complex lay gray and desolate. LOHs moved south along the ravine, dropping grenades in targets, foxholes. 

The sun was dropping to the other side, casting exhausted shadows, and the haze was grayer, tireder. And anther day in the life of C Troop had yawned to a close.