Roger Thompsons memories of the 198th MP Platoon

(Roger Thanks for this great bio Please also see his images on our image page webmaster)

Caution: these “War stories” and reminiscences are 37 years old and as I can barely remember where my glasses are these days, there are no guarantees. We also had some casualties but I have chosen not to stress them.

I was assigned to Ft Hood Texas in early 1967 as the Platoon leader of the 198th Infantry Brigade Military Police combat support unit. It was supposed to be a reinforced platoon of 70 men, with a number of its own vehicles, to include 1/2ton and ¾ ton trucks and a bunch of jeeps. Each jeep had a pedestal mounted machine gun and we had some 50 cal. Machine guns and a number of M-79 grenade launchers and a few 90 mm recoilless rifles as well. When I got there, I found myself and another guy were the first ones there, and most of the people at Ft Hood weren’t even aware that an independent Brigade was to be formed. Things then began to happen quickly. Whole trainloads of equipment began to arrive, and whole units showed up looking for places to stay. As one of the earliest arrivals (and one of the most junior), I was assigned to be the property book officer for all the stuff as it came in, and needless to say I didn’t have the slightest idea where some of the stuff really was. At one time there were two complete trains sitting on sidings waiting to be unloaded, 30 brand new helicopters that had been delivered and were sitting on the tarmac at the Ft Hood aviation facility and numerous truckloads arriving from all over the country. I may have been the only Lt. in the Army signed for 400-500 million dollars worth of property. The NCOs from the platoon came from various units all over and just about all the MPs came straight from the MP school at Ft Gordon. None of us had been to Vietnam before and nobody knew what to expect. I had visions of some intense combat type training, but the reality was we spent nearly all the time at Ft Hood getting our equipment together and getting the MPs organized. One of the big problems then and later was a lack of experienced NCOs. The few we had were great, but a lot of new MPs right out of school were asked to pick up a lot of responsibility.

I guess I should say here these were the best bunch of guys I ever served with, first of all, just about all were volunteers, and they ALL wanted to be MPs with the higher standards that entails. Everybody was apprehensive about Vietnam, and as the troops dribbled in, we came together quickly and everybody worked their butts off. We never had any of the morale and discipline problems that some units had in those days. I later made a career of the army and commanded several different MP units, and none was better than the 198th MPs.
One part of the time at Ft Hood was kind of fun though. Some of our equipment was drawn as used items from the 2nd? Armored Division to include all our jeeps. We were given the authority to go into any unit in the armored division, ask for a vehicle, and they had to turn it over to us. Of course we wanted the best and newest ones, and a big game developed. They would try to hide the good ones inside their motor pool buildings or move them around between motor pools, if they thought we were in the area. The first ones we always went for were the commanding officers assigned jeeps , some of them had special paint jobs and were very fancy with elaborate radio racks , since the radios went with the jeeps at that time , we got some great radio equipment which served us well later in Vietnam . When we took the commander’s (most of them Colonels) vehicles, the gnashing of teeth and wailing were something to behold, and finally the division commander had to put his foot down and tell them to quit screwing around.
We finally got it all together (sort of) and the Brigade was, shipped out. The brigade was assigned to two different MSTS ships at Oakland Ca, The MPs all on the “Gordon”. Like troopships since time immemorial the ship was crowded, stinky, and boring. As the senior MP on the ship, they made me Provost Marshall on the ship’s staff. There really wasn’t much to do and I was wondering why they even had such a position. The naval officers on ship would laugh and say,” wait till you get to Subic Bay in the Philippines”

All troop ships would stop at the naval base there for refueling before entering Vietnamese waters. There was a layover of one or two days, the troops were allowed to debark and use the Navy facilities and we received radio messages that the base shore patrol would furnish us all the support we needed. When we arrived at Subic Bay, I got off with the advance party and went to the shore patrol headquarters. I found one clerk to keep the office open and that the support consisted of a delivery van for our use. The Navy had seen many troop ships headed for Vietnam and when one put in, the Shore Patrol would head for the hills! There was an enlisted and NCO club and the famous sin city of Alongapo outside the base, and as soon as the troops debarked a pre-combat zone orgy ensued. I had released our MPs as I had expected the shore Patrol to be able to handle things and was standing there with my finger in an unusual orifice, knowing that if the troops burned down a Naval Base, I would be frowned upon.

I was able to find a couple of platoon NCOs and a few MPs and we spent that night loading up the van with passed out 198thers and assorted crazies, and returning with them to the ship . We literally had them stacked like cordwood in the van. Things worked out ok though, as the Navy clubs were used to the whole thing and had a number of really big Filipino bouncers. As guys would pass out they would stack them outside the front entrance of the clubs and when fights would break out, the bouncers would conk a few and have them waiting outside for us. I had always thought the Filipinos were small people, but some of the bouncers looked like King Kong. It was an interesting night and as everyone had to be on the ship by 0600, we were frantic to find the laggards. We found one guy naked laying in the bushes and others staggering around the streets, but most every one made it to the ship. About 20 or 30 didn’t make the departure however. Just about all of them had managed to sneak into Alongopo which was off-limits, and as the Marines had a very tight perimeter with towers every 50 yards around the base at night, they weren’t able to get back in,. I don’t know what happened to them but missing movement to a combat zone is considered very serious. All of the MPs made it back fine. The whole thing reminds me of the liberty scene in the movie “Mr.Roberts”

We got into the Port at Da Nang Vietnam and were transferred into Large Navy landing ships and put ashore at Landing points on the beach and several docks at ChuLai . The Brigade was formed up and was reviewed by General Westmoreland.. I remember thinking what a pain in the butt it was to have a parade when everyone just wanted to get on with it. LZ Bayonet South of ChuLai, had already been established and much of the Brigade’s equipment was there waiting for us. The operational area that was to be taken over by the Brigade was under control of units of the 101st Airborne and as we moved in they moved out. For our first month in Vietnam We organized, got the equipment together and did a lot of perimeter guard duty.

The Brigade Provost Marshall assigned to the new unit, had come over in the advance party and had a Provost Marshall Office set up. Our big problem at that time was that nobody at Brigade knew what to do with us. The Provost Marshal, who was on the Brigade staff, had visions of us being a Post, Camp, and Station unit just like in the States, and began assigning MPs to be gate guards etc,. The Brigade Commander had different ideas and thought we should be used, outside the base camp as highway control on Highway 1 which ran right by LZ Bayonet, particularly as we had a bunch of jeeps. The first Provost Marshal was a good enough guy, but was not very aggressive, hadn’t been much help at Ft.Hood, and for the rest of the time he was with the Brigade seldom left the base camp. This caused some problems later, as we were spread out all over the place. He and I never got on well, and luckily after a few months he was transferred somewhere else, and the PM position was vacant for some time which suited me just fine.

Several squads were organized right away to patrol Hwy 1, with the mission of controlling contraband and enemy movement up and down the North-South Hwy which was the main (and only) highway to traverse the whole country. It could be dangerous, as the VC were fond of planting mines and ambushes, and our mission determined that we seldom traveled in convoy as most of the troop movements did .We were responsible for the highway to the South down to the District Hqs, a distance of about 20 kilometers, and to the North of Chu Lai for about 10 kilometers. To the North we had a permanent check point at an important bridge on the highway. We had a few vehicles hit mines and a lot of guys shot at, with a few wounded, but thank God nobody killed. The highway interdiction mission continued all the time I was there, and I believe was continued? When the198th became a part of Americal division and the MPs became a part of the 23d MP Co.

The mission I was most involved in and which later became the 198th MPs “claim to fame” were the river patrols. Since we were patrolling Highway One, why couldn’t we do the same for the two major rivers which started at the Laotian border and passed west to East right through our AO? It was known that the VC used these rivers to transport supplies, weapons, and troops around at will. The 101st and later the Brigade ran “search and destroy’ missions all the time around the river drainage system and the intelligence was pretty good about VC use of the rivers. There were even a few boats in place at the mouth of the Son Tra Bong, the most important of the rivers. I went out with the brigade operations officer and found 3 Boston Whalers and a platoon of guys from the 196th Inf Bn securing a hill top at the South side of the rivers mouth. Below the hill on the seaward side was a re-settlement village of maybe 800 souls . The 196th had the mission of protecting the village and had occupied the hilltop, put in some foxholes, and were using the boats to ferry people back and forth across the river. They also had a set of water skis and were having a good old time.
I can’t remember the name of the re-settlement village, but it had been built recently under the re-settlement program. The program would move whole villages and families out of VC controlled areas into supposedly “safe “ areas and help them re-establish farming, give them animals and so forth. Many of the resettlement villages were also havens for the families of South Vietnamese soldiers who were off fighting the war. It was common for the VC to kill the wives and children of Soldiers whenever they could. The village also had a platoon of Regional Forces or as we called them Ruff-Puffs. They were rag-tag group of militia mostly composed of Old Guys and teenagers. They were armed with carbines but really weren’t able to defend the village. They were quite useful later as a few knew English and served as interpreters. The 196th Infantry had the job of looking after the village, and it was felt if we could occupy the site a platoon could be freed up and the MPs could do the security, as well as patrol the river .
The big problem was where to get enough boats and motors.

It was discovered that the Navy “Recreational Services” at Da Nang had 14 boats and motors which were being used for fishing and water skiing. The brigade commander set out to get them and after a fight we had them. . We ended up with 15 Boston Whalers and two Kenner “ski barges “. We had an assortment of 85 hp Evinrude engines and a couple of 90 hp Johnsons plus some spare parts. While we were waiting for the boats we set out a few ambush patrols and started building bunkers and putting in a proper defensive perimeter at the base camp. For many kilometers North of us and all the way South to Quinhon a sort of “Hwy ,“really a trail, was used by both the VC and the locals. The trail mostly followed the beaches and coastline and ran right past the village. We set up several night patrols on the trail and the second night ambushed some VC couriers . None of us had heard a shot fired in anger and didn’t really know what we were doing, but we all wanted to be John Wayne and we had a bunch of claymores set up. We killed all four of them and were able to recover the packs they were carrying which were full of thousands of leaflets and pamphlets printed in English, as anti American propaganda. I had some of them until recent times but lost them in a move. The ones I remember had pictures of various Hollywood stars at anti-war rallies condemning the war. One of them, Vince Edwards, who used to play on one of the doctor shows, saying particularly hateful stuff about Americans being “baby killers” and so forth. I don’t know if he really said those things but I suspect he did along with a bunch of others at the time. More importantly it was the first time we had seen the enemy and dead enemy at that, and it made us a lot more serious.

I was able to get the 555th engineers to come out and build us a small dock at the river side of the base camp and they cut a road up the side of the hill so we could haul the boats up when needed, and got the aviation section to transport a couple of jeeps by Chinook. As soon as they brought the boats out we started patrolling, inventing our tactics as we went. I went out on a number of the early patrols, and we only got shot at a couple of times, It wasn’t until several weeks later that the doodoo hit the rotator, I suppose it took that long for the VC to figure out what we were doing.
The Son Tra Bong had dozens of fishing villages lining its banks and the fishermen would come from as far as two days upriver to fish in the South China Sea, and there was a constant coming and going. There were also a number of trading boats carrying stuff up and down the river .After a few weeks, when the enemy got it together; our boats began receiving heavy fire to include mortar attacks. The VC didn’t like us being there at all. Prior to our coming they merely commandeered any of the fishing boats they wanted, and used them on the river as they saw fit to transport troops and supplies, all they had to watch out for was any American units operating in their immediate vicinity. The locals were used to it and didn’t resist.
What we finally worked out seemed to be effective. Each patrol consisted of two Boston Whalers going up river in echelon, one supporting the other. Each had an m-60 machine gun on a tripod in the bow and each of the 3 man crew in each boat had an m-79 grenade launcher. When a boat was sighted we’d signal it to stop for inspection, if they didn’t, we’d fire at it, if it still didn’t stop it would be sunk no questions asked. On the early patrols the fishermen were confused and we had to fire in the air to get them to stop. They soon got used to it however, and many were appreciative as most of them hated the VC and our patrolling cut down the boat appropriations drastically..

One boat would lie off and cover the other with the machine gun while the other boat did the search. The cargo would be checked, the occupants would be given the once over, and we would try to glean what intelligence we could. A lot of the stuff they told us was useful. My best buddy was an M.I. officer in Brigade and he told me that not only was the enemy infuriated when we took control of the lower river, but that they had to change their whole strategy in the AO. Our boats were the fastest thing on the river and our chief defense when receiving fire from the riverbanks was to put down suppressive fire from the machine guns, if the source could be located .The big thing however was to get the heck out of range. A Boston whaler made out of multi-layered fiberglass and dense foam will stop a 30 cal. Bullet. The crew would lean down behind the gunwales and be pretty well protected, meanwhile getting away. Once out of range they had several options, if they knew the source of the fire they could call by radio and we could have a pre plotted artillery barrage on the location in 4 or 5 minutes. If we were lucky and had a gunship in the area we could call them in. I put a tremendous amount of work into pre plotting artillery coordinates all along the riverbanks where we operated. We usually had several artillery batteries at forward fire bases that could reach our pre-plots; I don’t know how many of the VC we got that way, but my buddy in intelligence said there were some , and it certainly made us feel better.

We could operate up river as far as about 15 kilometers, past that point we were limited both because the enemy were much stronger and our little patrols were too vulnerable. Another reason was the river spread out there and was much shallower. We had plenty of problems with shallow sand bars on the lower river as well but generally the river was operable. Running up on a hidden sandbar would oft times break a shear pin, not a good thing when you’re immobilized in the middle of the river in front of God, the enemy, and every body, and running the aluminum props in the sand long enough, would grind down the props diameter until it was unusable. Each boat carried a tow rope and as time passed and our engines began to wear many a boat had to be towed in.

The other portion of the riverboat operation was at riverboat “North” (The Son Tra Bong was Riverboat “South”) I cant remember the name of that river North of ChuLai but the MPs there had a different mission, and were under the control of Brigade Operations .An important steel bridge on highway 1 crossed the river at that point and a large guard tower had been built to protect the bridge Below the tower on the banks of the river, we kept four boats. The river spread out to a large estuary at that point and the boats mission was not so much to patrol upriver, though they did that too, but patrol the approaches to the bridge through the channels in the estuary making sure the VC didn’t get explosives up to the bridge. The MPs also operated a check point on the bridge. The operation always had some infantry there who manned defensive bunkers around the bridge’s approaches, and the MPs and the infantry lived together, The MPs under the control of one of the platoon NCOs. The bridge was later destroyed by the enemy pretty much putting an end to riverboat north.

My job was to be commander of Riverboat South and keep the operation running. The brigade commander ordered me not to go on any more patrols and so I ended up in our base camp trying to keep the boats running and stewing about the guys on patrol. I guess I can say after all these years it was hard to do. The MPs were the best guys I knew. Most of them came right out of MP school. They were young, brave, and smart. Other units in Vietnam may have had trouble with attitude, drugs, and such stuff but we never did. We never had many NCOs (though the ones we had were terrific) and just about all the patrol leaders were spec 4s. There were a couple of “duds” but we managed to get rid of them eventually. The guys were not perfect but they were the best in my eyes and still are. Before I left Vietnam on my first tour, I wrote all of them up for every decoration I could think of and recommended most for promotion. I don’t know how many, if any were approved, as I was only a first Lt and a small detachment commander and all the decisions were made at Brigade against a quota, but they deserved the best.

The boats were almost indestructible, but there was a real problem keeping the engines running, they were great engines but had a few weak points. They all had for some reason both a coil and magneto and either one could go bad if moisture got in .we spent a lot of time blowing out ignition systems. The other problem was, as I have mentioned, shear pins. They were made out of tempered aluminum and of course were designed to break rather than tearing up the engines drive train. We ran out of them early on and the supply system just didn’t respond . We tried everything. The closest we came were iron nails but one by one the drive links would give up the ghost. It got so bad, we were often able to put out only one patrol in a 24 hr period and I thought we were going to have to shut down. The supply system wasn’t very good on boat parts, but I did have a couple of guys who were natural born mechanics.

We were able to find four 75 hp Mercury outboards which came from an interesting source. Just south of the 198th AO was an area controlled by the Koreans; I believe it was the 27th “Whitehorse Regiment”. . They had the reputation of being good fighters but were much more interested in getting American equipment and sending it back to Korea, They had a large base camp with its own airstrip. They had several C-123s of their own and used them to ferry stuff back to Korea. One of the Brigade staff used to go down as liaison and told of seeing huge piles of stuff piled by the runway waiting to be shipped everything from pallets of booze to vehicles. He mentioned we were looking for outboards and they said they had access to some. I don’t know what was traded but we ended up with the Mercs. I did hear that when the exchange was to be made that the Koreans brought the motors out to highway 1 in a ¾ ton and when our guys showed up they wanted to sell the truck also for Cash . Our guys refused and took the motors at gunpoint and a fire fight almost started.

Every thing was not work. Since we were right on the river we could fish, (using grenades) swim, and we had water skis. I must say most of the troops, after bobbing around in the boats all day didn’t feel like doing any of those things and the most popular activities were a beer (if available) and sack time . We were also able to get most everybody out to R&Rs both locally at DaNang, and out of country. Most of the troops wanted to be on the river , I think, as it was more interesting than hanging around the base camp and it was a great way to get away from some of the heat

I received word in early summer that my father had died and I immediately went home on a compassionate leave. They were able to send the Provost Sgt out from Base camp to take over for me. My home at that time was in Anaheim CA, and near the time to return to Vietnam, I went to Anaheim Marine Co. figuring I would buy as many shear pins as I could afford and carry them back with me. They only had a few and I asked the salesman if he could get more fast, at that point the owner, Barney Whitworth, came out and asked what I wanted them for and I told him the story. It just so happened that his son had just come back from Vietnam, a Warrant officer Helicopter pilot , who had crashed ,been seriously injured , and won the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was very proud. He told me to come back in two days and when I arrived had 200 shear pins, dozens of coils and magnetos, and a box of drive shafts and extra couplers, every thing I had complained about, plus two brand new 90 hp Johnsons In crates.
I was flabbergasted. He had had called all over LA to find the stuff and sent out his truck to pick it up, and he donated it all . He had told his son what he was up to, and his son, who was receiving therapy at the Naval Hospital, suggested I go out to The Marine Corp Air Base at El Toro and see if they would ship the stuff. I talked to the Base commander, he said OK, and the stuff was delivered by Barney to El Toro and they put it on a direct flight to DaNang.. Our S4 sent a helicopter up to get it and we were back in business! As many of us remember, it wasn’t the best time to be a soldier back in the states, but when I remember Barney Whitworth, all of the small minded people who despised us seem very insignificant.

The daily life at riverboat south settled into a routine, though for a while we got quite a few visitors, many to see the re-settlement village, which was considered to be a kind of showpiece, and some to see the riverboat operation. We slept in our bunkers, ate mostly C-rations but were able to get quite a few hot meals brought to us in mermite cans by helicopter. We had a water trailer once a week and gasoline for the boats and jeeps, all brought out by Chinook. If I was lucky I could get whole pallet loads of beer and soft drinks delivered. At one point, we had a navy landing craft assigned to the mouth of the River to act as a ferry and we were actually able to drive into DaNang and get stuff. We were also able to rotate some of the guys into local R+Rs at DaNang for a few days. there was a big PX and it was comparatively secure and civilized. The Navy LCU had a crew of 4 who slept on the boat. During the day they lay out in the middle of the river mouth for security reasons until some body needed to be transported and at night they pulled up to our dock under the protection of our guns. One of the things that made our daytime patrols effective was a total curfew on the river at night. We had the river mouth covered with .50 calibers, and artillery pre plots, and the rest of the river system was routinely patrolled by gun ships. Anything found was blasted .We had several incidents of boats trying to sneak in and out.

Speaking of visitors, one day I got a radio message that a distinguished visitor was on the way. We had a heli pad cut out of the side of the hill on the village side of the perimeter, and as we were in the rainy season it was a swampy quagmire. Several hueys came out, one with the Brigade Commander, Col Waldie and some others , and the other one a white A.I.D.helicopter with Sen.Ted Kennedy aboard . He had on some nice slacks with creases, which we hadn’t seen in awhile, and when he went to jump down out of the Huey, I stretched my hand out to make sure he didn’t fall, he ignored it, and stumbled to his knees in about 6 inches of muck I guess he didn’t want to be seen in dirty pants , as he cancelled the inspection of the village and they flew away. To see that particular guy go into the mud was one of the fond memories of my Vietnam experience.

The village was given a lot of attention and we often had Civic Action teams and medical teams down there. It was necessarily off limits to our guys, as the base camp was off limits to the villagers. But we had two kids, nicknamed “Doc” and “Thompson”, who would come up every day, and who were our gophers. They were sweet kids and every one liked having them around. The village was later to be destroyed by the VC. They came in one night when a stiff wind was blowing in off the Sea and set the seaward side of the village on fire with flame throwers, meanwhile raking the village with automatic weapons fire. Many of the villagers had constructed holes and shelters under their huts and crawled into them to escape the gunfire. As the fire swept across the flammable houses many were roasted as the houses fell in on themselves The VC then went to work with machetes killing the village chief and elders and committed many atrocities , for example they killed Docs mother by cutting off her hands and she just bled to death. Somehow the numerous atrocities like that never seemed to get into the papers at home or the consciousness of those who sympathized with the North Vietnamese and VC. Doc and Thompson both escaped and I have often wondered where they are today.

Another unusual thing I remember was the Marine Amtracs. DaNang , as a Marine base, had units of armored landing craft called Amtracs they looked like big A.P.C.s and were designed to bring troops ashore on amphibious landings crawling up the beach like tanks . They had no use in Vietnam, but some body had the bright idea that since they floated they might be used on river patrol. They proved completely useless and we made bunkers out of a couple of them.

After 10 months I myself got knocked out of the river patrols. We had gone through a particularly intense time and I had been getting very little sleep and was pretty rundown. I was sitting in the command bunker and began to feel strange. We had 8 or 9 PRC25 radios on a shelf near the ceiling which we used to communicate with the boats, and they had coiled cords which hung down with the mikes on hooks above the map tables.
I began to notice that the cords were writhing around by themselves and then my wife and little daughter began to talk to me over the radio loudspeakers.

I of course was hallucinating – I told the NCOIC I was going to get some sleep and wake me up in a couple of hours or if anything happened.
I laid down on a folding cot in the back of the bunker and when they tried to awaken me, I didn’t respond. They eventually called for a med evac and I was taken to the field hospital in DaNang. When I finally woke up, two weeks had passed and I had turned bright yellow. It turned out, I had Malaria, and a form of parasite called liver flukes, both very debilitating. In those days there was a new anti malarial drug which was considered to be preventitive against malaria, and taking your daily pills was something I constantly nagged the troops about. I always took mine and couldn’t figure it out. It is now known that while that drug is very useful in preventing malaria it is not foolproof. The most serious thing proved to be the parasites, they were able to knock out the malaria right away, but it took a month and some pretty obnoxious medicine to get rid of the flukes. Meanwhile I was so blooming weak I could barely get around. It was coming up the time to rotate home and I had just been promoted to Captain, so I didn’t return to duty on the river. The time in the hospital taught me several things, first that operations on the river went on just fine without me, and secondly that that I was not Superman and had better learn to pace myself. When I was released I went back to Bayonet and was assigned as an assistant article 32 officer to Division Hqs. Americal Division. I became involved in some of the preliminary investigations of the My Lai massacre which had happened the previous March and was present at some of the first interviews with Calley and Medina.

By November of 1968, I and the 198th MPs were no more, and on our way back to the states. Since we all came at the same time we all left about the same time. By the time we left Vietnam the 198th was no longer a Separate Brigade but part of the Americal Divison , there had always been resistance in certain quarters to the MPs being out on the river boats and when we left I guess they won out. The River Patrols had been pretty much the idea of the Brigade commander and when he left the impetus died. I heard later that under Americal the boats were turned over to the Marines but don’t know If this is right or not. I do know that our successors, the 23d MP CO had a good reputation in MP circles and I later talked to guys who remembered the river boat daysI went on to make career of the Army, retiring in 1980. After retirement, I went back to college, retrained, and went into the aerospace industry and retired again. In 1990, I and my wife went as missionaries to Peru for our church, and when we returned settled in Tucson AZ where we now live. Roger K Thompson