![]() ![]() We often wondered whether or not we’d make it,” Bridges remembered. “We went up and down that hill four times that day and night. We got the bodies out under fire and started filtering out the wounded to the bottom of the hill.” There were 3 bodies left behind and our job was to get them. The LRRP commander had survived, but the other six men had been killed. “We moved up and as soon as we got to the crest of the hill, all hell broke loose. ![]() His team was dropped into scrub brush on the side of the mountain. Bridges’ A Company platoon was to support the now-besieged B Company platoon. “We became involved in something later called the Battle of the Ridges,” he said.Ī light infantry platoon from B Company had been sent in to rescue an LRRP team (long-range reconnaissance patrol) of seven men who were under fire and fighting for their lives. We’d run 50 feet, walk 50 feet, run 50 feet, walk 50 feet.Īt daybreak Bridges platoon was transported by helicopter to a mountain in the A Shau Valley, a narrow, 25-mile long arm of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which funneled troops and supplies toward Hue and Danang. One night, we were called back in by our company commander, who told us we had to get to a designated point by daybreak. “We were doing a lot of night ambushes and combat sweeps every day, walking through mine country and taking occasional casualties. We slept in our boots so we could move quickly if we were hit at night.” We didn’t wear socks because of trench foot and we took our boots off at least twice a day to powder our feet. For three days we moved night and day, 100 miles total. They had tried to cut off the enemy’s supplies going into Hue and we had to get to them in 3 days. “We were moved north to Camp Evans and were attached to the First Cav. “We weighed it out one time and we carried 100 pounds of equipment, sometimes running.” According to Bridges, his platoon averaged about 10 miles a day, depending on the mission.īridges recalled one occasion during the Tet Offensive in 1968. “You’d carry enough junk so that sometimes when you got tired, you’d put your pack down and slide in it and crawl on your hands and knees,” Bridges said. Bridges’ personal combat load included a trenching tool, a 45, 2 combat knives, 50 rounds of ball ammo, 3 clips for the 45, an M16 and 30 magazines, 400 rounds of loose ball, 5 c-rat meals, poncho, poncho lining, canteens, towel, shaving kit, 6 hand grenades, 6 to 10 smoke grenades, trip flares, extra batteries for his radio operator, signal flares, and sometimes extra rounds of machine gun ammo. Moving through rice paddies and jungle terrain, never an easy task, became substantially more difficult due to the load each soldier carried. ![]() Often we weren’t looking for the enemy as much as looking for food.” A day’s worth of food was 3 cookies, hot chocolate, a can of fruit, a can of meat and a can of bread or crackers. So we’d break it down to just one meal a day. Each man would receive 15 meals (3 a day), but that weighed more than 25 pounds, a lot of weight for an infantryman. “During search and destroy missions, every five or six days, a helicopter would bring us a change of clothing, more ammo, mail and c-rats. Once the troops were transported to a specific location, “they tended to walk to war, rather than to ride to it.” In Vietnam, Light Infantry Brigades were units of soldiers with no attached tanks or armored personnel carriers. Later he was responsible for search and destroy missions as a foot soldier. However, upon his arrival, he was reassigned to the 196th Light Infantry Brigade, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment in I Corps, the northernmost provinces in South Vietnam.Īs a platoon leader, Bridges originally oversaw the team’s primary mission, protecting fire support bases (FSBs). In mid-October 1967 he was sent to Vietnam, attached to the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, based near Saigon. ![]() That was my mindset and it served me well.”īridges prepared for the harsh terrain of Vietnam at Jungle Operations Training School in Panama. “I knew from talking to my dad that I should listen to my sergeants and other seasoned NCO’s. “A lot of guys fresh out of OCS thought they knew it all,” remembered Bridges. “My dad was in WWII and I felt it was my obligation to go into the service.” Bridges attended Officer Candidate School (OCS) and was commissioned as a second lieutenant on March 7, 1967. “I’d wanted to be in the Army since I was six years old,” he said. Bridges remembered lying on the ground during a particularly bloody battle wondering to himself, “What the heck am I doing here? Why did I volunteer?”Ī native of Raleigh, NC, Bridges celebrated his 21st birthday on Februand enlisted in the Army the next day. Captain Ervin Bridges spent much of his time in Vietnam struggling through jungles and rice paddies. ![]()
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