One Man's Memory

One Man's Memory of Cambodia
by Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Pickett (Retired)

Notes & Other Stuff

Note 1: The 1-14 Battalion Commander was always just referred to as The Dragon.

Note 2: Company Commanders also had codenames. Delta Commander was Satan, the XO was Lucifer, !SG was
Devious, Platoons were Devil, Demon, etc.

Note 3: Before 1-14 moved out of Camp Radcliffe, LTC Naylor was replaced by LTC John Quinn, who retired as
a Brigadier General and was Asst. Division Cammander of the 1st Infantry Division (Mech.). I remained Commander
of Delta Co. until late August, 1970, when I rotated after 375 days in-country.

Note 4: I referred to the Black Book in Chapter 2. At that time this was a Black three ring notebook prepared by the
ASA Radio Research Platoon that contained translations of low level voice intercepts of NVA radios. This capability
was very new at the tome of Brigade Level and protected so the enemy would not know how successful we were
being in breaking his codes. One of the target units of the 3d Brigade Radio Research Platoon was the B-3 Front
whose headquarters was in Area 707 in Cambodia, just south of the Laotian border. The capture or destruction of
this headquarters was one of the primary objectives of the 4th Infantry Division's Operation Tame the West into
Cambodia.

I have not answered a couple of your questions. First, who were the platoon leaders? I have evaded this for as long
as I can, hoping that I would recall a couple of names, but I have not remembered. At age 68 and after almost 38
years, some names are just not there ay more. Here is the best I can do:

1st Platoon Delta was 1Lt. Robert E. Szigethy. Bob was a good strong platoon leader and that is the reason he was
the first platoon on the Combat Assault. He had SSG McCormick as his PSG. Bear, as SSG McCormick was called,
had led the platoon for a couple of months before the 1Lt. arrived. Bear was a draftee who went to Shake and Bake
School and came out an E-5. He was the Honor Graduate of his Ranger Class so was promoted to E-6. I tried to get
him a direct commission, but he said no. He liked one year graduating from Law School, and all he wanted to do was
get out of the Army so the GI bill would finish getting him through school. Bear was married with one child when he
was drafted.

2d Platoon, Delta was a 2Lt. whose name I do not remember. He had not been with us long and was a retread from
another battalion. I do not really want to remember his name, as on the next stand down I caught him smoking pot
and took him to the Battalion Commander and said I do not want to see him again, and I didn't. His PSG was
SFC Breidinger, a good NCO and sometimes served as my Field First Sergeant.

3d Platoon, Delta, had no officer. They were led by PSG Bill Funderburk. A super NCO and a good friend. Of the
seven months I had the company, Bill was the platoon leader probably five months. He had a Platoon Leader once
who was injured in an accident and evacuated back to the states.

Mortar Platoon had no officer the whole time I was there. They did have a couple of very strong E-5 Shake and Bakes
who were also gun crew chiefs. I had the mortar platoon travel with me all the time. I am an old 11C so I took care
of them.

First Sergeant was Gene Lusk. Top Lusk was an old timer who earned a Combat Medic Badge in Korea and his
Combat Infantryman Badge on his first tour to Vietnam. He was on his second tour and retired after that tour was over.

My XO was 1Lt. William (Wild Bill) Cody. I have already discussed him. He stayed in the army and sent me an
invitation to his Change of Command Ceremony, where he took command of one of the 4th Division Aviation
Battalions at Fort Carson.

I did meet one of the other 1-14 Infantry Company Commanders years later. Jerry Roberts was the Commander of B
Company in Cambodia. I ran into him in 1988 at the Infantry Commanders Conference at Fort Benning. He was the
Senior Advisor to the 45th Infantry Brigade (Separate) of the Oklahoma Army National Guard. I was at the Senior
Advisor to the 39th Infantry Brigade (Separate) of the Arkansas Army National Guard. It was funny as the guest
speaker that year at the Infantry Commanders Conference was Gen. Volney Warner, our old 3d Brigade 4th Infantry
Division Commaner. Gen. Warner remembered both of us and bypassed the line of Division and Separate Brigade
Commanders waiting to greet him to talk to Jerry and myself first.

The other item I have not directly addressed is how many helicopters were used to do the insertion. I really cannot tell
you. I was only worried about mine and perhaps that there were enough for the next company. It did seem that there
were fewer on 6 May than on 5 May. Or, as I stated above, perhaps our priority was just lower once 3-8 Infantry
started their Combat Assault. There were lots compared to what we were used to, we did three or four ship company
size combat assaults before and after Cambodia.

Elsewhere on the 1-14th website, you will find some pictures of me, my NCOs and of New Plei D'Jereng. The latter
pictures were taken when we used New Plei D'Jereng as our point of entry into the Chu Pa/Chu Pong mountains in
October/November 1969. Jim Wheeler and I were the Task Force S-2 and S-3 for this operation while the regular
brigade S-2 and S-3 handled the details of closing out the Brigade Fire Support Base at LZ Oasis and moving the
brigade back to Pleiku.

Robert L. Pickett
Lieutenant Colonel, Infantry (Retired)

One Man's Memory of Cambodia: Index