Hog Wild

Staff Sergeant Patrick “Tad” Tadina looked out the cabin of the UH-1D “Huey” as the greenery surrounding Tuy Hoa slid underneath the aircraft. Tadina and Delta team of the 74th LRRP detachment had just drawn a mission to conduct reconnaissance north of the 173rd Airborne’s new home at Tuy Hoa, just across the Da Rang river in mid-January 1968. Tadina looked at the ground underneath the helicopter, he and his assistant team leader Sergeant Lazlo Rabel had seen the area on a reconnaissance overflight a few days prior. Abandoned fields and dilapidated rice paddies dotted the foothills of the Central Highlands mountains. Villages sat vacant, their occupants relocated elsewhere. S-2 had told Tadina that there had been light to medium NVA/VC activity in the region, but that intelligence indicated an NVA regiment may be moving through the region. Tadina felt ready for the mission, already a legend in the LRRPS, he had started out with the 173rd Airborne LRRPS in 1965 and no man under his command had gotten so much as a scratch in that time. Standing at 5 foot 5 and weighing 130 pounds with a frag in his pocket, Tadina would often walk point in Ho Chi Minh sandals and a captured Czech VZ58 assault rifle, making enemy patrols pause for a precious moment in a chance encounter and allowing his team to turn the tables. His VZ58 sat across his lap in the Huey now. The rest of the team also carried extra firepower, PFC Greg Olson was weighed down with an M3 “Grease Gun”, 1911, a Smith and Wesson .357, and a chopped down M1897 he carried strapped across his chest with cotton webbing. PFC Fletcher Ruckman carried a CAR-15, 1911, and a chopped M1897 under the top flap of his rucksack. Peterson was armed with a captured AK-47. 

Their helicopter was one of three “slicks” escorted by four Huey gunships. The “slicks” leapfrogged across the reconnaissance zone, making false landings to confuse the enemy. Team Delta’s chopper touched down at the edge of an overgrown rice paddy and the team tumbled out and bolted a full 50 meters into the nearby woods before dropping into a defensive perimeter. After making radio contact to give a team sitrep, they laid dog for a half hour to allow themselves to acclimate to the environment and become attuned to the ambient noises. Tadina led the way and Olson walked slack as the team moved northwest. The team encountered cut footpaths with numerous old sandal tracks. No fresh activity was present, but it was clear that large numbers of enemy had been in the area. Fading light forced the team to start hunting for a remain overnight site. The team settled into a position that gave good sightlines around them with ground sloping away from the team in all directions except to the northwest. Claymores were set, word was passed of the rally point the team should meet at if they were blown out of the RON, and a guard schedule was established for 50 percent security throughout the night. 

2130 hours, movement on the crest of the ridge to the northeast. Sounding like a large group of people moving through brush. Tadina thought the sound was an enemy force hunting the team down and after standing the entire patrol on alert, radioed for extraction. He was denied. After a few hours the movement died down and Tadina put the team back on 50 percent security. Over the next three hours the team heard the noise start and stop two more times, and the team stood to full security. Someone was beating the bush looking for them and was not giving up. At midnight the sounds faded away again and the team made their regular sitrep and stood back down to 50 percent security. Sleep in the field was always at a premium. 

0200 hours, Ruckman and Peterson were exchanging guard shift when the movement began again. Ruckman and Peterson turned towards the sound, eyes open wide to gather any light and listening to try to determine the direction of movement. The brush beating was now dangerously close and headed directly towards the team. The LRRPs turned to awaken their sleeping teammates. Before they had a chance, the brush beating turned into a roar as it crashed through the undergrowth. One of the trip flares laid by the team popped and burned a dull orange glow to the northwest and a silhouette crashed into the team’s perimeter. Peterson and Ruckman faced the intruder and fired on full automatic, the lances of muzzle flash from their AK-47 and CAR-15 robbing them of their night vision as they pumped a fusillade of fire into the figure now crashing into them. Ruckman’s CAR-15 ran dry, the bolt thumping back to the rear. Peterson had expended most of the magazine from his AK-47 when it was wrenched from his hands and the stock shattered. Ruckman and Peterson knew their strings of fire at point blank range had struck home, but whatever had crashed through their perimeter continued on another six feet past their RON before finally succumbing to more than a dozen gunshot wounds. 

The team stood up at 100 percent security and searched for targets. Tadina reached into his webbing and drew his red lensed flashlight. Clicking it on, he saw what had just crashed through his team and compromised his position. A large wild boar.

In Vietnam, danger could walk on two legs, four legs, six legs, or no legs at all. From humble but pervasive insects like the weaver ant that would swarm as a colony to cover the victim in painful bites and were impervious to the military issue insect repellent. The ever present mosquito that passed on malaria that made you shiver with chills in the middle of the sweltering jungle. Snakes were also a threat, with 25-50 American troops being bitten each year. The king cobra was one of the venomous snake species indigenous to Vietnam but the most feared was the bamboo pit viper, also called the “two step snake” as that’s about how far a victim usually got after being bit. Larger animals were also a threat. Elephants could charge without warning, crocodiles could lurk in waterways, and wild boar could rush and gore. The most fearsome animal to stalk the jungles of Vietnam was the Indo-Chinese tiger. A nocturnal hunter, tigers plagued patrols of NVA/VC and American troops at night. Larger animals posed double danger. They could cause direct damage by biting, stomping, goring, thrashing, or clawing. They could also cause harm by forcing a team to compromise their position to defend themselves. An animal attack would kill you just as dead if it tore at you in the night or if you fought back and alerted an NVA company to your location. Welcome to the jungle, everything here wants you dead.