Incident on Route 9

The force of the Communist counterattack in Laos was felt as far as the South Vietnamese side of the border, where U.S. troops were struggling to keep Route 9 open. At Lang Vei, near the border, TIME Correspondent David Greenway came upon Bravo Troop, an armored cavalry unit of the Americal Division. Fatigued, red-eyed and black with dirt and dust, the troopers had the comatose look of men pushed beyond their limit.

During one run down Route 9 toward Lang Vei, Bravo Troop stumbled into an ambush, and the company commander's armored personnel carrier (APC) was stopped by a mine. "We called in air, artillery, 500-lb. bombs, napalm," said one G.I. "But they climbed right back up." The troop broke away, then returned six hours later in a mad "thunder run"--top speed, all guns blazing--to rescue their commander, Captain Carlos Poveda.

Later on, Poveda, a slender Puerto Rican considered an able troop commander, asked for volunteers to try to retrieve the crippled APC and a helicopter that had been downed near by. Nobody stepped forward. Word got back to squadron headquarters, and the commander, Lieut. Colonel Gene Breeding, arrived on the double. The men told Breeding that the area was just too hot to secure. He thought otherwise. One trooper told Breeding: "You must be

out of your f mind."

With that, the colonel lined the men up and ordered the sergeant major to take down the names of all who would not go. Two said they would; 53 refused. "So we had one track and one bird down on the road," one trooper said later. "So what? Why should we die for an APC? It's just a piece of junk." The brigade commander, Brigadier General John G. Hill Jr., decided that, although he was "not going to give them any medals," the men did not deserve to be disciplined. But true to an old army tradition (there always is a scapegoat), he replaced Poveda with a "more experienced" officer.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.