If I remember correctly Bao Loc was the honeymoon resort for South Vietnam, and it was high up in the mountains. We had to go through some very beautiful country with waterfalls that came down on the road, and at one point travel through an orange pekoe tea farm before we got there. The village itself had a very strong French influence with it's architecture.

        It was a beautiful village. However, that night we had to go on yellow alert because of some enemy activity in the area. We all took turns with guard duty that night. The next morning we had a Cobra gunship escort off the mountain until we got to the valley floor. It wasn't long after we loss our escort, and started down Highway QL-13 that they closed the road because the enemy had taken the road ahead.

        We held up in a small town just before that point to wait for the road to clear. That is until the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) found out we're in the area and request our support to engage the enemy. We left the V100's behind and advanced to that point with in our Armored Personnel Carrier's (APC's) to help the ARVN's.

        Once there, we left the road and started to move into the swampy jungle. We advanced about 200 feet off the road before we stopped. The ARVN's were pulling back at that point so some of us jumped off the APC's to help pull out the dead and wounded. We carried the bodies back to the road. We're told at that point to back off and set up position on the road. Someone popped a smoke grenade and moments later two Air Force jets dropped napalm on the jungle in front of us. The heat was so intense that some of us had to hide behind something just to avoid the heat. We hung around for a short time, help clean up some stuff, and then went back to get the V100's (mine was the Ugly Duck )so that we could head back to Long Bihn Post.

        I don't think we ran that convoy that much. I only did it the one time, and from what I can remember there wasn't all that much there. Our convoy was smaller than usual. I don't even remember there being a fire support base there. We stayed in a empty store or apartment in town while some individuals we had with us moved on to another destination. It seemed kind of strange from the convoys I was use to, but it wasn't mine to question. I just really remember Bao Loc being a beautiful French resort town.