ChuMoor Mountain

ChuMoor Mountain (see map) is located about 5 miles from the Laos and Cambodia boarders. It's in this area that the NVA is known to enter Vietnam from the Ho Chi Minh trail.

To stay hidden from U.S. forces, the NVA live and hide in under ground bunkers that were made in the 1950's when they were fighting the French. These bunkers can be on low or high ground.

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I served as a RTO in HQ with Delta Company 1/22th Inf. 4th Inf. Div. from 6/67-6/68.

Headquarters had 3 RTO's. One RTO carried the company radio, another carried the battalion radio, and the other RTO carried spare batteries & antenna's. The RTO's rotated everyday. The company & battalion RTO's were always next to the Company Commander.

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As Delta company moved out from their night postion, I had the day off. I was going to be the spare RTO for the day. This in a way was my birthday present. It was a lot less weight to carry or as we Grunts would say "Hump"

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From our last postion it was only about 3 clicks to ChuMoor. Usually we would hump about 7 or 8 clicks to every new location, so this was a cake walk. After we walked down from our last postion, the walk to ChuMoor was flat and open. At the bottom of ChuMoor we took a break, then started our climb to the top. At about half way up, we took another break. I remember telling the guys, that I hoped there was an Italian deli up there, cause I could sure go for a genoa salami & provoline hero and wash it all down with a ice cold beer. The guys laughed.

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The word came down through the ranks to get ready to saddle-up and move out. As we humped up ChuMoor, it was about another 15 mintues that we heard gun shots and we all got low. Since I wasn't carrying the radio that day, I had to wait for word from one guy to the next. The word was it was recon by fire. That meant that the lead team was at the top of ChuMoor and always will spray the area with gun fire. We all stood up and started going up the hill to the top. Then more shots rang out, this time, word came back, that we were getting return fire. Everybody hit the ground and spread out. I remember looking around and not seeing anybody close to me, but I knew they were there. At this time it started to rain.

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As we waited for word on what to do next. I saw this gook comming towards me and stopping at a big tree that fell and he was kneeling on one leg, he was about 40 feet infront of me, signaling his men to come his way. I moved my selector switch from semi-automatic to Full-automatic, held the rifle as tight as I could and let out a burst of 10-12 shots at him. I hit him in the chest and face. His his hands covered his face and he went down. I yelled out, there has gooks coming on my side and Mike Schumacker of the weapons squad opened up with his M-60 machine gun, then everybody else started shooting. It was like a dream. A very bad dream. It was hell.

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Finally, we got the word to drop our packs and head on up to the top of the hill as fast as we could. At the top of ChuMoor, Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie platoons took there postions all around the edges of the primeter, with Headquarters in the middle. They were in the trees, shooting down at us and trying to over run us at the same time. Our Forward Observer (FO) called in artillery as close to us as possible, so close we were getting hit with schrapnel.

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ChuMoor Mountain 1968

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