Burrow's Bastards: Welcome to Vietnam

 

Burrow, now a major, was deployed to the Republic of South Vietnam and assigned to B Troop, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division 9AM) as their new executive officer (XO) in 1967. He eventually took command of the troop which adopted a name fitting for its commander and his sheer grit: 'Burrow's Bastards.' The troop commander, Major Lew Beasley, was a no-nonsense kind of soldier, a detail-oriented man who focused on the mission and typically steered clear of making any close attachments. Burrow on the other hand saw the benefit in bonding with his men. His wit was sharp enough to split hairs and he was always ready with a joke. B Troop was based out of LZ Poazzo, an airbase located in central Vietnam. Chu Lai housed elements of the United States Army, Marine Corps, and South Vietnamese Army. Beginning in October 1967, Operation Wheeler/Wallowa began as two separate operations before being combined for logistical simplicity. The objective of the mission was to blunt the 2nd North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Division and to drive them out of the Bong Son area while also allowing elements of the 1st Marine Division to be redeployed from the area to Da Nang.

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Burrow's Bastards: "Six is Down"

 

A Huey flies over the Bong Son plain in search of prisoners, a squad of men inside. Talk of dead NVA and smoke of cigarettes from the Blues (the infantry component of B Troop) was interrupted when one of the door gunners breaks the marital tranquility. "Six is down! We'll rendezvous with the other bids and secure him! They have a prisoner!" What was initially met with smirks and a hopeful thought of doubting the new commanding officer had gotten himself shot down was quickly dashed as they flew above the downed gunship, NVA anti-aircraft guns and small arms fire rip through the air; American M-60s returning fire as the helicopter comes in hot and fast.

 

On November 13th, 1967, during Operation Wallowa, the First of the Ninth took severe losses, with 27 Hueys shot down by six Soviet-produced 12.7mm heavy machine guns and small arms fire. Major Burrow, flying with the Blues, oversaw a 'snatch' operation to capture NVA soldiers for interrogation. Before noon, Burrow's operation produced 12 prisoners of war, including a Vietcong company commander, two Vietcong platoon commanders, and an NVA assassination team commander. The afternoon section began at 3 PM, and by 3:20 it had gone from a simple 'spot-and-grab' to a massive firefight. At 3:20, the NVA heavy machine guns opened up on two helicopters, one piloted by Major Burrow. Due to the sheer ferocity of the guns, Burrow's helicopter was severely damaged, and was forced to crash land in a rice paddy. With the belly of the bird sporting "Fuck Communism" in paint, it was likely a juicy target for the NVA. All of the helicopters carrying the Blues then converged on the crash site, hovering 10 feet above the paddy to begin securing a perimeter around Burrow's Huey and secure him, his crew, and a prisoner (a supposedly heavily drugged NVA solider whom Burrow attempted to capture). When the inserted Blues notified Burrow of dug-in in the treeline but were not visible on the ground. Burrow, taking a radio set, remarked "We'll have the gunships hit it." Then, two Huey gunships roared overhead, lighting the treeline up with rocket fire.

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Then, he made another radio call: "Saber Relay, this is Saber Six. I just had my bird totaled by a recoilless rifle. Over."

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After a brief pause, a voice answers from the other side of the radio. "Rodger that. Out."

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Hearing that Burrow had been shot down, all of the troop's pilots rushed to their helicopters, 'jumping' off of LZ Poazzo to support the Blues and Major Burrow. By 5 PM, due to the unrelenting NVA AA fire, not only was the troop commander shot down but a platoon leader and multiple other helicopters. Only one gunship, two 'Lift' Hueys, and two scout helicopters were left flyable, the rest of them lodged in mud in a rice paddy. Until the Bastards were rescued in the morning, Burrow ran around the perimeter with his .38 revolver and his captured AK-47,  checking on the crews and keeping morale up. When they finally were recovered, Burrow checked his sidearm, only to find out it had jammed prior to the crash and was inoperable. He pulled the trigger a few times at the firing range to no avail.

 

One of the Bastards, Bert Chole, left a note on the company bulletin board reading 'the thirteenth of November, a day to remember.' Years later in 1994, Chole called Burrow to reminisce on that day, which he recorded in his book Flashing Sabers writing: 

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"George asked me why I was calling. I replied, 'It’s the thirteenth of November, a day to remember.' There was a pause, and he said, 'What the hell does that mean?' I responded, 'Don’t you remember this day in 1967 when we all got shot down, and you spent the night on the ground in a rice paddy?' 'Bert,' he said, 'you son of a bitch! You’re calling me from Germany to remind me of the worst day and night in my life?' I started laughing; and before I knew it, the intervening years vanished, and it was as if we were sitting in the operations tent again, and that old familiar banter started."

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Around November 21st, Burrow's Bastards returned the favor of being shot down so many times while fighting at Bong Son. Two of Burrow's pilots had located a massive NVA weapons cache belonging to elements of the 2nd NVA Division. 60mm mortars, recoilless rifles, machine guns, and other crew-serviced weapons and munitions were stashed in trenches hidden with banana leaves. What gave this position away was where the leaves were harvested. The NVA had recently come off the Ho Chi Minh trail and while in the mountains had harvested the leaves used for camouflage, resulting in an off coloring of the foliage. The pilots began tossing grenades into the trenches to disable some of the weapons before returning to base, reporting the location of the find. When they returned to base, Burrow marches up to them and asked them "what a recoilless rifle or a mortar looks like."

Begrudgingly, the pilots took Burrow back to the weapons and one tossed a grenade in a hole and uncovered a recoilless rifle, now with a nasty dent in the side. The pilot sarcastically said over the radio "I don't know for sure, but the last time I was told, this was called a fifty-seven reckless rifle." An airstrike and artillery was called in on the position, destroying the stockpiles of munitions and arms as well as a tunnel network extending to a nearby village. While most of the NVA in the area escaped, their equipment most certainly did not.