Trick Or Treat For The Woodcutters

Both of my tours in Vietnam were spent in units that worked extensively with Long Range Recon Patrols (LRRPs). A LRRP team would normally consist of six or twelve men. We would drop them off with troop helicopters and they would move to a nearby trail and set up reconnaissance. Typically they would watch the enemy activity for about four days and then they would ambush a group coming down the trail and gather intelligence from the soldiers they had ambushed. To protect both themselves and to be ready for the ambush, the LRRPs would put “Claymore” mines around a spot on the trail. Claymore mines are anti-personnel mines and send a great deal of small material out in front of them. They are pretty nasty things for a person to be on the receiving end.

One of the challenges that was posed to the LRRPs was that the Viet Cong wanted to know where they were, therefore they were looking for the LRRPs. Some of the Viet Cong went about pretending to be local civilians so it was tough to know who was who. In that part of South Vietnam there were folks who went out in the woods or jungle to cut trees (woodcutters) for selling. There were times when we inserted the LRRPs and the “woodcutters” drove up and down the trails all day long. They weren’t really looking for trees to cut – they were trying to figure out where the LRRPs were. Some of the “woodcutters” were Viet Cong or Viet Cong sympathizers.

One of the mind-boggling things about our government and how we operated with the South Vietnamese was that most of the woodcutters drove Army trucks; United States Army trucks!! The South Vietnamese were constantly stealing trucks and Jeeps. They would grind the serial number off the truck and the engine and then the US couldn’t prove it was stolen from them. US Army trucks only come from the US Army! We might not be able to identify which stolen truck it was but there was no doubt where it came from and to whom it belonged. But, if there was no serial number on it, we, US troops, were not allowed to take it away from the Vietnamese! It was very frustrating!
It was like stealing a car and if you grind the identification number off of it you can drive it past the owner all day long.

One day after inserting a LRRP team, a truckload of “woodcutters” starting driving back and forth the trails in the area. They knew the LRRPs must be there some place so they spent the entire morning driving back and forth looking for them. They never stopped to cut a tree in the entire morning. The LRRPs knew what was happening because they had been found on other occasions and it looked like another compromised mission.

After about three or four hours of having the woodcutters driving back and forth by them, the LRRPs called for us to come out near their location and “standby”. We all knew we would have to take the LRRPs out because their position would soon be discovered. When we made radio contact with the LRRPs they said, “Just be ready to pick us up because we are going to blow our Trick or Treat.” “Blowing the Trick or Treat” was the term the LRRPs used for when they blew the Claymore mines and did the ambush.

In only a few minutes the LRRPs called again and said they were ready to be picked up. They stated that their position had been compromised. The funny thing was that the radio guy on the LRRP team was laughing like crazy. I asked him what was so funny because after they blow their “Trick or Treat” on a group of enemy soldiers there isn’t normally anything to laugh about. His reply made me laugh too! He said they got tired of the woodcutters giving away their position so the blew their “Trick or Treat” on them. The woodcutters were all up in the truck so none of them were hurt but they ran off scared to death. The LRRPs had also fired their machine guns over their heads so they really had scared them off.

The woodcutters had taken off on the run and left all of their equipment, to include the truck. There were axes and chainsaws left in the truck. The truck had a few flat tires and oil and antifreeze running out of the engine. They weren’t going to be able to use that truck for a while! We left the truck there but the LRRPs took the chainsaws with them. Sometimes they were in spots where they needed to be extracted but trees were in the way. Now they had chainsaws to chop the trees down so the helicopters could come in to get them. It looked like things had worked out great to us.

We picked up the LRRPs and returned them to our base camp. Then I returned to the spot where the LRRPs had been with a scout pilot. I had him go down and look the situation over. He confirmed the flat tires on the truck and the fluids running out of it. Then the scout started looking up and down the trail. The trail was muddy and so the woodcutters had left tracks. The scout said one of them ran right out of his sandal and left it behind. He also said he wished he could have seen them run because the length of their stride was impressively long – especially for short Vietnamese.

Things went well for the next couple of weeks and there were a couple times the LRRPs used their new chainsaws. Then the call came asking if the LRRPs had attacked a group of woodcutters and stolen their equipment. The version of the story the LRRPs and we told was quite different from the story the woodcutters had to tell. The truth was that the woodcutters weren’t there to cut wood –they knew it and we knew it! Higher-ups knew it too but because of the political situation we were the bad guys.

A day or two after that we were ordered to take a group of soldiers out to fix the woodcutter’s truck (a stolen Army truck) and to return all of their equipment. We flew about twenty-five US soldiers out to the truck and remained overhead to protect them while they installed a new radiator, engine oil pan, and several tires on the truck. Then they drove the truck to where the woodcutters were waiting. The chainsaws were delivered by the LRRPs some place else. So not only did we turn a blind eye when our equipment was stolen but we repaired it for them, even when they used it for enemy purposes. Is this a generous country or what? But the woodcutters were not so bold for quite a while.

If you don’t want “in” a fight then stay out of it! If you are in a fight - then fight and don’t cry when you get hurt! There are people and countries that want to play on the edge of things that aren’t any of their business and then when they get their nose bloodied they cry about it. If you belong in something and are going to be in it - then be in it! If you don’t belong in a thing, then stay out of it. Most of us know the places and things we belong in and the places and things we don’t belong in. It’s always best to be where you belong and not where you don’t belong!