When I left my office aboard MCB Quantico on Friday, I did so armed with the material to write a very different blog this weekend. There are times when the truth is stranger than fiction, and it was my intention to write the strange story of a young Marine who served with the Haitian Gendarmerie. The best laid plans sometimes go awry, and mine did when I received an email from an acquaintance who asked if I had ever heard of the Song Da Krong, a river near the South Vietnam-Laotian border. I had, indeed, heard of the river. It was in this area that elements of the 9th Marines conducted Operation Dewey Canyon in the first months of 1969…and it was a new kind of war.
So what was the situation faced by the Marine Corps in January 1969? Enemy activity in Northern I Corps was described as “light” and “sporadic.” Along the DMZ, units of the 3d Marine Division faced elements of six North Vietnamese regiments. Enemy activity was generally limited to occasional rocket and mortar attacks on allied positions, ground probes by squad and platoon sized units, and attempts to mine the Cua Viet River. In the central portion of Quang Tri Province, units of the NVA's 7th Front and the 812th Regiment had largely pulled back into jungle sanctuaries for resupply and replacements. Further south in I Corps, the situation was similar. NVA units had withdrawn into the A Shau Valley and Laos.
Read Full Article »