Salute!
I shall try to keep this short, but was about worst orders I ever got.
So we had quit the N. Viet thing early 73 and our POW's were coming home, many of my friends. But HHQ decided to bomb Khmer commies and our unit flew from Korat and hit "enemy" covoys that carried ammo to use against "friendly" forces. We didn't have U.S. ground units there officially and I wasn't sure about who was in charge of the "country". Nevertheless, we had our orders,
So on patrol our tactical control tells us to contact so-an-so FAC, which we did. I was flight lead that day. There was a small convoy moving ammo along a no nothing road and we were gonna destroy it. OK. Get our briefing from the FAC and then he tells us the bad guys are booking to a close grove of trees we could easily see. He then says that civilian labor was chained to the carts and wagons and such, but the enemy had booked to the grove of trees.
He tells HQ the situation and they say to hit the convoy. He repeats that the bad guys are in the trees about 200 meters or so from the road, and there are only innocent folks tied to the carts and wagons. HHQ says "no matter, hit the convory vehicles". The ROE dictated we couldn't hit further than "x" meters of a road. FAC says, "but, but, but....then tells Blue Chip he is marking the target for us with his willie pete.
About 15 seconds later a puff of smoke rises from the grove of trees where the enemy had hunkered down. "Hit the smoke". Heh heh heh. Guess we were following orders, and our SLUF's dropped about 16 Mk-82's on that grove,leaving only splinters.
Question is? Did we follow orders?
Gums sends...
Last edited by gums; 3rd Jul 2022 at 22:31.