{"id":69819,"date":"2023-10-07T13:00:32","date_gmt":"2023-10-07T18:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/?p=69819"},"modified":"2023-10-07T06:44:45","modified_gmt":"2023-10-07T11:44:45","slug":"know-your-vietnam-war-history-remembering-rt-alabama-macv-sog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/07\/know-your-vietnam-war-history-remembering-rt-alabama-macv-sog\/","title":{"rendered":"Know Your Vietnam War History: Remembering RT Alabama (MACV-SOG)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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5 October 1968 – RT Alabama (MACV-SOG)<\/a><\/h1>\n

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On this day in 1968, RT Alabama was inserted into Laos with 1-0 Jim Stride, 1-1 Steve Engelke, and 1-2 Lynne Black<\/p>\n

As the helicopter was coming in, Black noticed an NVA flag flying which told him there was a large NVA base camp nearby. Stride ignored the request to abort (1\/6)\"From<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The team was on the ground with the point man Hoa leading the way and 1-0 Stride not far behind<\/p>\n

While walking along a low spot, they were caught in the middle of an elevated L shaped ambush. Stride was killed along with the point man Hoa (2\/6)\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

1-2\u00a0<\/span>Lynne Black was forced to take over the team as it seemed the 1-1 was also killed in the ambush<\/p>\n

While he was getting the team ready to charge through one side of the ambush, Lynne notice the 1-1 was still alive. He was curled up in ball begging God to take him home (3\/6)\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On his first mission in SOG, Lynne and his interpreter Khanh Doan, were able to organize his team and break the initial ambush<\/p>\n

As they made there way through, several of the indigenous team members were wounded including Khanh, they all continued to fight (4\/6)\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Lynne and RT Alabama would come up against a total of roughly 10,000 NVA soldiers who came wave after wave constantly throughout the day of October 5th<\/p>\n

As they killed wave after wave, they would drag the bodies back to their perimeter and use them as sandbags (5\/6)\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The team would eventually extract from the area thanks to the 37th ARR who sent 2 Jolly Green Giant HH-3E helicopters<\/p>\n

One was shot down on the 2nd extraction attempt, 2 men were killed and were never recovered. The remaining crew was taken out with RT Alabama (6\/6)\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

This story is covered in detail in Lynne\u2019s book, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. It\u2019s my favorite SOG book and would recommended to everyone.<\/p>\n

Read the alt caption to the picture to get all the names of the indigenous men who were on Alabama that day.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

For Further Reading:<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Interview with Lynne M. Black Jr: RT Alabama and RT Idaho<\/span><\/a><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot<\/a><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5 October 1968 – RT Alabama (MACV-SOG)     On this day in 1968, RT Alabama was inserted into Laos with 1-0 Jim Stride, 1-1 Steve Engelke, and 1-2 Lynne Black As the helicopter was coming in, Black noticed an NVA flag flying which told him there was a large NVA base camp nearby. Stride…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2280,2004,5944,475,6096,1286,5946,5016],"tags":[8798,16597,16595,16572,763,16594,16596,2742,3276],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69819"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69819"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69827,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69819\/revisions\/69827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}