BTW,there was a USMC General in VN that flat refused to go to the aid of a SF A-Camp along the Laotian border that was being overran by the NVA,aided by tanks. My memory sucks,so I hesitant to name the A Camp. It was obviously one near the North Vietnamese and Laotian borders,though.
The USMC General in that area HATED Special Forced for a number of reasons,the prime one being they weren't under his command,and he had tried to order them to form recon teams to serve as his intelligence assets. He was politely told to go piss up a rope after ordering them to report to him,but the buttcrack did not seem to realize there was a REASON he couldn't have these teams under his command. One of which is they served as an early warning system that major enemy elements were moving around in his AO,and helped the damn fool prepare for enemy attacks. He wanted them all inside his compound where he would keep any eye on them and make sure they were wearing the proper uniforms and only carrying issue weapons.
Anyhow,the camp was being overran,so they radioed the USMC base for help,and this USMC General refused to even answer their call. By that night parts of the camp had already been overran,most of the Yard women and children relatives of the strikers that worked for us had already been murdered,and most of the SF team was in the jungle playing "escape and evasion" as individuals. IIRC,the only station still under US control was the commo bunker,and by daylight there was a Soviet Tank tapdancing all over top of it,trying to get it to collapse on the few wounded survivors still holding out in there.
SF Command in Nha Trang was well aware of what was happening at the camp though,and asked Central Command in Saigon WHY the Marines and their armor had not shown up to help break the siege.
Shortly after sunrise,General William Westmoreland hissef showed up in person at the USMC compound and relived that General of his command on the spot,and ordered the USMC XO,the new commandant of that base,if there was going to be any problem sending the Marines out to relieve the camp,and there suddenly seemed to be no problem at all.
Kinda late,though. By that time the SOG operation at Da Nang had already decided they needed to do something,so they got together a volunteer recon team,loaded them on a SVN Kingbee helicopter flown by SVN pilots,and landed on the airstrip there at dawn to see if they could help any survivors. They had USAF an USN fighter-bombers providing air cover because they could order that up themselves without having to ask that asshat USMC General.
IIRC,2 members of the original A-Team there who had been commanding perimeter defense during the battle,emerged from hiding in the jungle outside the camp,and were rescued. I THINK they also managed to rescue the wounded from the commo bunker.
IF I remember correctly that camp was shut down right after that. The plans were already being made to send US troops back home,and it would have cost too much and taken too long to rebuild and get operational.
I think to this very day there are still two or three SF NCO's from that camp whose remains have never been found.
