Commander wanted a very large tree trunk removed

[Dan Longley]

One of the strangest experiences I had in Vietnam was while stationed at Long Thanh AAF with the 210th CAB. Our Company Commander wanted a very large tree trunk removed from the area behind the OR and instructed the unit Armorer to see to the task. The Armorer was to use plastic C4 to accomplish the task. The Armorer spent most of the day digging out the sandy soil from around the trunk but would not admit to anyone that he did not know much about C4. So to hide his lack of knowledge he asked an old Vietnamese guy we had around to burn our crap how much to use. This old Vietnamese guy always boasted that he fought with the French back in the 50s and knew all about C4. He told the armorer to use one kilo. That's right, one kilo. Well the armorer carefully placed the one kilo of C4 under the stump and after making sure no one was close by, set off the charge. The ensuing explosion set off all kinds of alarms because our first thoughts were that it was a 122 rocket impacting. No one had bothered to alert anyone that this trunk was to be blown. I was outside approximately 200 meters from the explosion and was looking right at it. From my angle of view it looked like a direct hit on a hooch that billeted my platoon. I ran through the shower of splinters toward the hooch then noticed it was not the hooch once the smoke cleared. Believe you me my pucker factor was pretty tight at this point. Instead I found one very scared and embarassed armorer behind a bunker. He told me what he had done. I looked around and there was a jagged hunk of our battalion headquarters missing. When it was all over we were all releived that the only casualties were stained OD drawers. They wash. It was one of the healthiest explosions I had heard in my three tours of Vietnam. The stump was now toothpicks. A gaping hole was all that remained. We all got a good laugh from that one. The old Vietnamese guy never returned to burn our crap. We figured that he was probably telling the truth when he said he fought with the French. I believe they were called Viet Minh then, weren't they? He probably got a medal from his VC leader because if their news sources were anything like ours, they probably reported that there were 50 killed and 7 buildings destroyed. Does anyone from the 210 Avn Bn remember this which happened sometime in early 70?