GIs At Pace Say Hell No To Night Patrol

Firebase Pace is one of several forward area artillery firebases built with taxpayers' money within firing range of the Cambodian city of Krek. Krek is a town on the Cambodian border famous for the many rubber plantations that surround it. American GIs are forced to fire endless rounds of howitzer fire across the Cambodian border in support of the illegal US war effort in Cambodia. The continuous shelling not only kills people and destroys their land, it also turns artillery crews into sleepless, walking zombies.

Not content with these, tactics alone, the Brass have a special kind of operation called the night patrol. On a night patrol you go stumbling off into the darkness, amid the booby traps, with the intention of finding other soldiers to shoot at. Presumably, the Brass, flying over in helicopters, can tell if the other soldiers are "friendlies" or "enemies." With many ARVN troops in the area, it isn't surprising that 15 were killed recently by an "errant" US air strike. At any rate, it is your duty to stir up afirefight.

Firebase Pace falls under the command of Maj. Gen. Jack J. Wagstaff, commander of US forces of the 3rd Military Region, and this pig has found himself with a fight on his hands. It should be pointed out that rubber plantations are plantations in the same respect that cotton plantations were (and still are) plantations, with rich, greedy plantation owners and superoppressed workers. When armies of these oppressed people rise up and rebel against the oppression, pigs
like Wagstaff are sent to meet this resistance with crushing force.

All was not going well for US forces and the puppet ARVNs and so, as the battle for Krek entered its second week, the men of Co. B, 1st Battalion 12th Cavalry, of the 1st Air Cay. Division were ordered onto a night patrol. This time the men refused. Specialist 4th Class Walter Wernli was quoted by national press as saying, "This patrol was completely senseless -senseless suicide."SP4 Albert Grana wrote a letter of explanation and protest to Sen. Edward Kennedy saying in
part, "We want to draw the attention of the American public to the situation ...we are almost forgotten here, getting shot at from Cambodia and shooting into it, and a patrol would have possibly gone into Cambodia." The letter was signed by 66 men, read onto tape and taken out by Richard Boyle, a freelance writer.

After that the base was closed to newsmen and Company B was moved to another firebase. Wagstaff insisted that no refusal of orders had taken place (only a "small misunderstanding"), transferred the company to a less forward base and ordered an "investigation," called for by none other than Kennedy. The American Servicemen's Union knows what the fascist Brass mean by an "investigation" and will support the rankand-file Gin who so courageously refused the orders against any frame-up charges the Brass may bring down on them.

Our first demand is for the right to refuse illegal orders, such as being in the war in the first place. END THE "INVESTIGATION!" END THE WAR!!

The Bond, vol. 5, no. 10

Library - Reading Room

GIs At Pace Say Hell No To Night Patrol