Spike Team Alabama, Oct. 5th, 1968

[Straight Shooter]

I think it was in Plaster's book, but one Spike Team in Laos was essentially wiped out: two of the three Americans and all the 'Yards were killed. The last American, a Spec4, watched in horror as the NVA disemboweled the Team Leader right in front of him. About that time an extraction chopper flew overhead and dropped in a Jungle Penetrator (a thing to get into and be pulled up through the trees to safety). The NVA strapped this Spec4 into the Jungle Penetrator and let him live.....so he could tell the tale and spread the word. He got back, white as a ghost, and never pulled another mission "across the fence" again.

Reminds me of the Gen. Pershing story during the Philippine Insurrection where he supposedly had a bunch of Moro's executed by bullets dipped in pig's blood and let one free to spread the word.

Wow. That'll be on my mind awhile now.

[SteyrAUG]

In my youth I actually knew two guys who were on SOG RT but I don't know which ones specifically. I knew they were green berets but I didn't fully understand what MAC-V SOG was even know I had read about them in Soldier of Fortune a few times. Wasn't until I read Plaster's books that I really had a fuller understanding of what they did...and yeah...the casualty numbers, MIA and other "never heard from again" stats were pretty sobering.

That anyone went out a second time is kinda amazing.

[chuckman]

In my youth I actually knew two guys who were on SOG RT but I don't know which ones specifically. I knew they were green berets but I didn't fully understand what MAC-V SOG was even know I had read about them in Soldier of Fortune a few times. Wasn't until I read Plaster's books that I really had a fuller understanding of what they did...and yeah...the casualty numbers, MIA and other "never heard from again" stats were pretty sobering.

That anyone went out a second time is kinda amazing.

My neighbor growing up, became my mentor after my dad died, retired from the army in the mid-70s around the time my dad retired from the Marines. He spent almost all of his time in SF, and was in RT Tarantula. He never talked about it, and the only reason I knew about it at all was one day I was at his house and saw a pic of of him with a group of guys in VN, with a hand-painted sign in front of them with "CCC-RT Taran." I asked him what it meant, he told me, said they were some of the best men with whom he served, and said he could not talk about it.