GOTCHA, YANK By Brett Wilson, D Coy 5/7 RAR
On K89, on a night recon patrol where I was the 2IC and the patrol commander was Steve King, we busted a US Special Forces patrol in an LUP waiting for the other half of their patrol to come back from conducting a recon of a nearby bush airstrip, which we later found out was their extraction point. We could see these three guys sitting in the LUP through our PVS 5s, and we could also see what looked like three other packs. After a quick discussion with Kingy, we decided to approach the LUP in single file. Our plan was to get close in and then rush them. Kingy led the patrol in, until he was challenged by the first SF guy facing out toward us from their LUP. He challenged us until Kingy got right up to the end of his M16 and parried his barrel to one side. We all rushed him and the other two guys in the LUP, where a massive wrestle ensued with five of us against three of them. We ended up overpowering them and were in the process of tying them up when the other three SF guys entered from the night and then there was a massive blank ammo firefight followed by a lot of verbal abuse and pushing and shoving. By that time we had 4 APCs and a platoon of dismounted soldiers sweeping around through the bush. In the wash up of it all, we had captured their signaller with all of their comms gear which was so advanced at that time. I had never seen anything like it before, and we also captured and confiscated all of their codes. The five other US SF guys ended up pissing off to their extraction point and we took their six-foot odd brick shithouse signaller back to our CHQ for interrogation.
Quote!
All-weather close air support doesn’t work in bad weather.
