Rapidstrike III

Rapidstrike III
101st Divisions Operations to Reclaim the Area K14

Friday, 15 April 2016

Correspondance BG Duke Zias & LTC Eyles

CLASSIFIED

To: Brigadier Melvin Zias Commander 101st Division
From Col Eyles 2nd Bat 502nd Inf

Private and Confidential

Hey Duke,

How's the new desk fitting? Well I hope. I overheard a two star saying that he'd seen a man digging a big hole in the 18th green at Cam Ranh Bay Officers Club with a 9 iron the other day. Sure sounded like it fitted your description.

How are Peggy and the boys? Two West Pointers Melv, you must be so proud. I had three wonderful days with Betty in Honolulu the other week. Seems like a long time ago now. I sure miss her and the kids.  Buck's in his sophomore year. Can you believe it. I sure hope he stay away from this mess.

I don't mean to use back channels Duke, but I guess if you can't ask your old foxhole buddy to do you a favour, then who can you? It's nothing much.

On my way back from state side I happened to get talking with a old pal of mine from my Germany days. He's S2 over at the 1st Air Cav. Seems he was with the 1/42 ARVN when they went into the An Loa Valley back in '67. He says Colonel Lu Yong Dat is a stand up guy. French educated and a good fighter. Seems he lost his parents to the Vietnam Minh sometime around '53. Has no love of Nathaniel Victor. Thing is, this feller Ged says that during the operation they got to thinking there was a rat on Dat's staff. Says it seemed like a virtual conduit to the Gooks. They ran some kind of false trail and mis-information stuff and the whole thing went quiet. Operation ended and that was that.

Now you know my feels about our indigenous friends after Lam Son. I'll go along with having ARVN along for the ride of course, but I just don't trust them. What I'm asking for Melv is for you to cover my ass when I keep them in the dark about certain things. We've got to many dicks swinging in the grass on this one to have Ho Chi's brother in law along with us. I'll tell Dat what he needs to know but no more. I hope that's ok old friend.

Say hi to Peggy and the boys. And, if you ever want to loose your shirt Melv, bring your clubs over and we'll do the Bien Hoa back nine for old times sake.

Col Charlie Eyles 2/502

From: Melvin Zias. General Commanding 101st
To: Lt Col Alan Eyles 2/502nd
Private And Confidential

Good to hear from you Al
It wasn’t my bad golfing skills….I'd heard they were going to drop some mortar rounds on us so I thought I'd dig a fox hole... the ground keeper didn't like it and I realised the 9 iron wasn't really up for the job.
Yeah the boys are doing well... west point is great though I'm  just glad they weren't the pointer sisters. Though pegs not best pleased... more men in uniform...
Thanks for the heads up. I hear what you are saying. Not all of the apples in the barrel are bad but once you've tasted a rotten one it kind of spoils it for the rest...
To be honest this is a PR exercise... we do the donkey work and Washington can send in the the press to film Marvin 'doing the job and taking over'.
You run the show as you see fit... we know that most of their set ups have more leaks than a sieve.. just try to make sure that you don't end up with egg on your face and not making the locals look too corrupt... the chiefs have been on my neck about improving the image of the locals so we don't seem to be holding dicks  and shaking off the drips over here...
I'll do what I can from my end and give me a shout if you need something extra...
Get this thing wrapped in good time and maybe you can get back to the islands again soon.
Take care old friend
Yours

Duke

EYES ONLY

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