"NVA tanks, refugees and other problems"
March-April-May 1972

          We rotated the duty for the Lai Khe ammunition convoy escorts between the companies. At times it was as needed and when you could see the NVA T-55's (tanks) parked on Highway #13 between Lai Khe and the Thunders (Old 1st Infantry Base Camps between Lai Khe and the border) it got to be daily.

From the Easter offensive on everything moved south and east. 1LT Danny F. Dent, was the Battalion S-4. He had been a Rifle Platoon leader in the 101st. Airborne Division. One day, a college classmate of his, 1LT Griswold, and his Commanding Officer, a LTC showed up at our officers' hooch area driving a jeep and looking for a place to rest and get clean. They were the advisors to the ARVN Airborne at Da Nang which was in full retreat. Good soldiers with no supplies, no leadership, way out manned and gunned. They were enroute to Saigon to regroup at MACV.

The refugees were right with them, on the run and totally disorganized. One of our MP's found a bunch of them - maybe 25 or 30 - in a field east of Long Binh Post and we adopted them. They had found an empty building, possibly an old school. I Can't remember. We took food, doctors, medicine, blankets, cots and tables, whatever we could get away with. We took food regularly and took the Doctor once a week. He gave them shots and treated injuries and sickness. We tore down a Quonset hut in the company area and rebuilt it at the camp. The got a home and we got a paved volley ball court. A few Military Payment Certificates probably found their way into some refugee pockets. And, "Woodstock" got in a cook pot.

Things were dismal. The 1st Cavalry Division had a brigade left in country. Other than that, the MP's were the only ones who could move, shoot and communicate. We openly wondered if we would have to fight through the ARVN to get to ships on the coast at Vung Tau to get us out. The S-3 had a plan such as it was. The NVA was going through the countryside like grain through a goose.

On a trip to the refugee camp in May, my jeep burned up the coil and quit. Waiting for a new coil, my driver and I found ourselves in the center of the kill zone set for an ARVN convoy carrying 155mm artillery rounds, fuses and powder bags. We were lucky. The convoy lost all 19 trucks. Quite an afternoon.

CPT David O. Wright, Commanding Officer, B Company, 720th MP Battalion, October 1971 to June 1972.