Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols – LRRPS
Interviewer: What were the LRRPs? And what did they do? Well the letters stand for Long Range Reconnaissance patrols. And it’s a form of reconnaissance where you work in small teams of five or six people, sometimes with what was called in the 1st Cavalry Division a “kit Carson scout”, which was a North Vietnamese or Viet Cong soldier who had defected and they acted as scouts for us sometimes on the teams. You were taken, usually by helicopter, several miles or kilometers behind the enemy lines in the jungle, in an area that was generally known to be active with enemy. And you were dropped off there and you would patrol that area for three to five days depending on what the mission was. You carried all your supplies with you because you couldn’t be resupplied. And you wore camouflage uniforms and you painted your face camouflage. As a matter of fact that was what the North Vietnamese, what the enemy, called us – “the men with painted faces”. And sometimes you’d see a notice warning their people “beware of the men with painted faces”. And actually we were so effective that the North Vietnamese had a standing bounty of 75,000 piasters for anyone who could capture a LRRP.
Interviewer: How was being in the LRRPS different than being in the regular infantry? Right…as I mentioned before [in the infantry] you never saw the enemy unless they wanted you to or unless you might encounter them on a small patrol. In the LRRPs we saw them all the time and they never even knew we were there. It was really funny – ya know they’d just go walking right by and later on after they were gone you’d just [call on your radio] and say “we just had six guys go by and they’ve got a machine gun and seem to be carrying mortar rounds and this kind of thing”. There were a couple of cases where teams – you’d sit there and there’s a whole enemy battalion that walks by. We spotted some really large units and the enemy just had no idea we were there. You had to be very quiet, very stealthy. After the LRRP units were all converted to Ranger units, which was in February of 1969, they formed the 75th Ranger Regiment at that time. So I’m one of the founding members of the 75th Ranger Regiment. I’m very proud of that. [Anyway] when they converted to the 75th they wanted us to take a more aggressive attitude towards the enemy. Until then the main emphasis was totally on reconnaissance. They’d have rather had you just watch the enemy, follow them, report like that. But when we became Rangers they wanted us to start doing more ambushes, planting mines and things like that. I think the last person I shot in the LRRPS [was after we became the 75th Ranger Regiment]. There was this little tiny trail and we’d set these small anti-personnel mines on it. Early in the morning here come three VC, I assume.
Interviewer: Were they armed? Oh yeah! All three of them were armed. The first one stepped on one of the mines and it blew part of his foot off, he stumbled forward hit another one, then stumbled forward and hit another one; he was really hurting and he was lying there. The second guy came up and started trying to help him; and I shot him with a “grease gun”, M3 Submachine gun. Actually that was probably the closest person I ever shot. He was probably no more than twelve feet away. And the third guy just totally panicked just started spraying the area and running away. And that was kind of the effect that we had on them. For once it was them who could be hit from nowhere, who never knew where we were, never knew when they were going to be hit. There was a sergeant, who actually was the one who was training us, he was our training sergeant when we came into the company; his name was Barnes. One of the things he was famous for, he used to carry two .45 pistols. He actually climbed into a tree, above a trail. And when some VC came through he jumped on them, out of the tree, and pistol whipped them into surrender [laughs].