Vietnam War Timeline

82
15 April 1970
Bravo 2/35th
Submitted by: Jim "Doc" Hall

At 1500 on 15 April 1970 1st platoon Bravo Co. was CA\'d off of FSB Challenge to secure an area where FSB Raquel was to be built. (Vicinity of coordinates 502899) The area was an unlikely looking site on a flat thickly wooded plain. There didn\'t seem to be any of the usual tactical advantages for the site as it was no higher than any of the ground around it and it was so heavily wooded that a heck of a lot of clearing had to be done so that the enemy couldn\'t just walk up to us under cover. The area where we CA\'d to was a large sort of clearing. It looked as if some farmer was beginning to clear an area for a \"Potato\" field. All the brush was cut down for a large area but was laying in place. This made for quite a tangle of an LZ. The birds never really landed but hovered a couple of feet off of the ground while we dismounted. Someone in the platoon suffered an eye injury in this mess (though today I can\'t remember who) and was medivac\'d by a colonel in a loach. The next day, April 16, elements of D Co and engineers with a mini dozer came in to begin the real construction. The dozer was able to clear the cut brush from the clearing and there were an awful lot of cries of \"Fire in the hole\" as bangalor torpedo\'s were used frequently to clear back the woods outside of the perimeter. FSB Raquel was used for the balance of April and the first couple of days in May. At that time 2/35th was called in to begin preparations for Cambodia.