From David Rucker
| Carlos Arzeta, in the center, got up in the morning and stepped down the hill from his position to take a dump. He dropped his pants and squatted down just as two gooks walked up on him. The first one tried to shoot him but the gun didn't fire. Carlos grabbed him and kept the man between him and the second one so he wouldn't shoot. He wrestled the gun away and I seem to remember that it wouldn't fire for him either. Somehow he got ahold of the second guy and got his rifle and shot them both. When he went back up to the position they hadn't heard a thing. He had to take them down the hill and show them the bodies. Unkown on the left, Carlos in the middle, and David Rucker on the right. |
From Bob Muth
From Travis Skaggs
| Operation Oklahoma Hills The blue dotted line was drawn by myself shortly after the operation so it should be reasonably accurate. The red 1 is Hill 22 where Golf kicked off the operation March 31. It was about dark when we left, we were to hump all night. I think the idea was for us to get into the hills before sunup without being seen. There were two companies that left Hill 22. I don't remember who the other one was but they went first and Golf followed. The 2 is where we crossed a river. The first company got across okay. But by the time they finished the path out of the river was muddy and slick. When some guys moved over a bit to get firmer footing they tripped a booby-trap. I think 2 or 3 were hurt. Mark Romander was one, don't know who the others were. I think they all eventually came back to the company. We were held up there for a couple of hours because of this. The 3 marks Hill 270 where we ended up the morning of April 1. By the time we got there we were out of water. There were a couple of bomb craters there filled with stagnate, misquito larvea infested water. I was pretty thirsty so I filled up. Everytime I drank out of it I would take my filthy tee-shirt and fold over the canteen to filter out the bigger chunks. There was also an old helicopter, gunship I think, there that had been shot down. The 4 marks a long, long, long hump up hill. It really kicked my ass, barely made it up. Along the way we passed 3 or 4 brand new graves. Some men were left to dig and see if any ammo, rockets, etc where there. Turned out to be nothing but some EXTREMELY bad smelling bodies. We had a man fall out due to heat about that time also. The wait for the medivac chopper gave me some time to rest or I'd have probably been on my ass too. The 5 marks Hill 502, LZ Buckskin. We held up there for 3-4 days while an artillery base was set up. It was there, on April 3 that my son was born. I didn't see him until February 23, 1970. It was also here that the rockets exploded in the bomb crater. The 6 marks Hill 785 where the company stayed for a few days. It was here that Carlos Arzata killed the gooks that interrupted his morning dump. It was also here where the choppers picked us up when the operation was over. Okay, I know there are 2 6's and no 8 (due to excessive beer consumption) but we are going to pretend the second 6 is a 7 and the 7 is an 8. Everyone got that? The 7 marks a large NVA base camp we found on April 14th (or so). On the night of the 15th they hit us. Clifford Labombard was killed by a satchel charge that pretty much blew him in half. David Rucker told me about a black Marine that had been wounded in the foot and ended up losing it because we couldn't get a medivac in for a few days and gangrene set in. The base camp was large. There were bunkers and stuff dug into the hill everywhere. They had left all the trees of any size so it would have been invisible from the air. The 8 marks a fairly sharp firefight. I know we had some casualties but don't remember who or how many. From here they sent us back to Hill 785 to be flown out. |
| Bob Muth on Oklahoma Hills carrying popups. |