Verbal Account — CPT Henry Colavita on the LZ Rita Listening-Post Incident
Verbal account — CPT Henry Colavita, on a listening-post incident at LZ Rita, D Company, 2/8 Cav
Excerpt from Colavita's memoir, "Company Grade: Memoir of an Angry Skipper", ch. 8, "Angry Skipper." Quoted in full and as written; page number in the print/Kindle edition not yet cited.
"We had three listening posts out in the tall grass about fifty meters or so off the LZ in front of each platoons section of the perimeter. I know I promised not to use LPs in the field, but we were not in the field. We were still on the battalion LZ and it was the battalion commander's call. He wanted LPs out. For their own safety, the LPs had to be absolutely motionless and silent. They had radios to communicate in an emergency. In the absence of an emergency, they were to break squelch twice on this radio rapidly every half-hour. This told the soldier monitoring their radio that they were awake and all was well. When we approached the bunker where the soldier was who monitoring the radio for Wild Cat's LP got up and announced, "Sir, I'm getting worried. The LP is ten minutes late breaking squelch."
I told the soldier, "You break squelch on your radio and see if they respond." He did but the LP did not respond. I was contemplating speaking to them on the radio when Sergeant Adams said, "Sir, I got a better idea."
He picked up an M-79 grenade launcher from a bunker, loaded it, aimed in the general direction of the LP and then fired a single 40mm round. A split second after the grenade went off, the LP radio broke squelch wildly. The next morning when those guys came in, Jim Nix, a big guy and a truly excellent soldier, had a vertical slice right in the center of the tip of his nose. (Good shootin,' Bruce!).
It's a fact of life that soldiers can sleep anywhere, even in situations where they might never wake up."
