Troops who refused to advance replaced

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32562, 23 March 1971, Page 13

Troops who refused to advance replaced

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) QUANG TRI (Vietnam), March 22. A United States officer was relieved of his command today after two platoons of his armoured cavalry troop refused to go forward along Highway 9 near the Laotian border, the Associated Press reported. ,

A United States military spokesman here identified the officer only as Captain Pavilla, commander of B troop, First Squadron, First Cavalry, of the Americal Division.

There was no immediate indication whether disciplinary action would be taken against the men themselves. The troop was pulled out of the battle zone between Lang Vei and the border and replaced by another unit. The America! Division unit had been hit at least twice in two days by mortar and rocket-propelled grenade fire and had suffered three or four men killed, several wounded and several tanks and armoured personnel carriers damaged. The troop had been ordered to secure equipment in the area. One report said that the equipment included a downed helicopter and some armoured personnel carriers. The new unit moved in and secured the equipment. A similar incident occurred in the Americal Division in August, 1969, when an infantry company refused to go forward in battle. An earlier report quoted the soldiers of the unit saying that they were ambushed on Saturday afternoon and fought their way out with the help qf air and artillery support after two hours of heavy

fighting against a force of North Vietnamese which crossed the border and had cut the road several times in the last few days.

Specialist Four Johnny Jeter, aged 21, of Denton,

Texas, said that a volunteer party returned to the ambush site to rescue their troop commander but left behind valuable coding documents and maps. Early yesterday their squad commander, LieutenantColonel Breeding, commander of the First Squadron of the First Cavalry Regiment, ordered them to go back to the ambush site and set up a night defensive position around an abandoned armoured personnel carrier containing the documents. Exhausted after several days of fighting after nearly three months in the field and complaining bitterly that they had no adequate weapons, ammunition, or support, they refused, Specialist Jeter said. In the two platoons there were only two men who wanted to go. “The colonel said: ‘Ser-geant-Major, take down the

names of these mutineers’,” Specialist Jeter said. “He said, ‘I thought this was a good unit’,” Specialist Jeter said. “We said, ‘You get us weapons and support and we’ll go in there’.”

Specialist Jeter said ,that the North Vietnamese ambushes were taking place in broad daylight. “They just run up the road and R.P.G. (rocket propelled grenade) you. Those sons of bitches ain’t scared of nobody down here.”