Actually I was assigned to an' armored cavalry troop an' our mortar tracks were spread out amongst the line platoons.
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@mortarman I am no authority at this,given that my total exposure to armored units was watching them pass by our camp in convoys,or passing them on the road from Kontum to Pleiku as they escorted the daily artillery shell resupply convoy to Kontum. Not positive they were armored Calvary,or just MP's in those little "tanks with wheels",though.
In SF you didn't get a CIB unless you got into gun fights face to face with the enemy,and were both fired on and returned fire.
Our camp commander was a LTC who had been an armor officer during the Korean War,and had even won a SS and Purple Heart there. Then he switched to SF in the late 50's,and was one of the few officers you would see running around without a CIB.
So he decided to fix this problem by going on a recon mission into Laos with a recon team,and asked SSG Joe Walker if he could go on a mission with him and his team. Joe told him "Ok,but you have to carry the radio,follow my orders,and agree that it is ok for me to kill you if it looks like we are going to be overran." I know this because Joe told me about it.
I happened to be on radio watch on our remote radio relay site on a mountain top in Laos that was named "Leghorn" when the Colonel made an emergency radio call for air-cover stating "We are under......",and was then drowned out by AK fire and explosions. Joe's team had made point contact with a large NVA element,and were obviously under fire and on the run.
I called in the emergency to our base camp,and the panic began. They ended up being in a running gunfight with the NVA for two days and part of another before they could be pulled out.
When they got out I found out why the conversation had ended so abruptly. The Colonel hadn't been killed,but the handset HAD been shot out of his hand.
Let's just say the Colonel earned his CIB.
When you consider he was already in his late 40's or so and already had a SS and PH and had nothing to prove to anyone,you can see how important a CIB is in SF.
I actually had a couple of friends on other recon teams that went on missions in Laos and Cambodia that were fired on by the NVA,but couldn't return fire without giving away their positions. Because they weren't able to return fire,they left VN without a CIB.
CIB's are a VERY big deal to infantrymen.
BTW,I AM aware that there were genuine infantrymen attached to Armored Cav units to provide security and deploy on attacks. I would sometimes see them riding around in those armored things that IIRC,had open tops and a big door in the rear that dropped down. I do think it was a slight exaggeration to call them "armored",though. IIRC,they would repel AK fire,but a B-40 would turn one into a smoking hulk. I wanted NO part of riding around in a steel coffin.