Posted on Jun 28, 2015
50 years ago today, June 28, in sunny Vietnam-land - Where were you?
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28–30 June
In the first major offensive ordered for U.S. forces, a battalion (3,000 troops) of the 173rd Airborne Brigade – in conjunction with 800 Australian soldiers and a Vietnamese ARVN airborne unit–assault a jungle area known as Viet Cong Zone D, northeast of Saigon.
The assault began with an artillery barrage and located very few Viet Cong.
The operation was called off after three days when it failed to make any major contact with the enemy.
One American was killed and nine Americans and four Australians were wounded.
The State Department assured the American public that the operation was in accord with Johnson administration policy on the role of U.S. troops.
An observation of an Australian on the operation was:
"Our patrols do not fire off ammo or shoot up flares like the Yanks--they listen and move quietly, we haven't fired a shot or sent up a flare yet.
The Americans think we are mad. It seems to me though, that all they're doing is letting the Viet Cong know where they are.
I guess we have a bit to teach them."
The Australians had experience in jungle warfare in the Malayan Emergency.
In the first major offensive ordered for U.S. forces, a battalion (3,000 troops) of the 173rd Airborne Brigade – in conjunction with 800 Australian soldiers and a Vietnamese ARVN airborne unit–assault a jungle area known as Viet Cong Zone D, northeast of Saigon.
The assault began with an artillery barrage and located very few Viet Cong.
The operation was called off after three days when it failed to make any major contact with the enemy.
One American was killed and nine Americans and four Australians were wounded.
The State Department assured the American public that the operation was in accord with Johnson administration policy on the role of U.S. troops.
An observation of an Australian on the operation was:
"Our patrols do not fire off ammo or shoot up flares like the Yanks--they listen and move quietly, we haven't fired a shot or sent up a flare yet.
The Americans think we are mad. It seems to me though, that all they're doing is letting the Viet Cong know where they are.
I guess we have a bit to teach them."
The Australians had experience in jungle warfare in the Malayan Emergency.
Posted in these groups: 
Vietnam War
Military History
Vietnam War Military History
Edited 9 y ago
Posted 9 y ago
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June 28, 1965: Just reported into my first assignment after graduating from Artillery OCS with the 9th Inf Div at Ft Riley, Kansas. Six months later I would be on a troop ship en route Vietnam with the 3rd Bde.
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June 28, 1965, three months after graduating from Artillery OCS, I'd just finished the Artillery Survey Officer Course at Ft. Sill, OK, and was packing to go to Airborne School at Ft. Benning. From there, I went to an artillery unit in Hanau, Germany, where I served a year, came back and did six months as an XO of an OCS company at Benning, then after language training, Special Forces training, and a lot of other schooling, in August 1968 began my first tour in Vietnam in MAC-SOG.
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