Aug 25, '69 Dispatch by Horst Faas and Peter Arnett, A.P. in N.Y.TIMES Tues. Aug 26, 1969 pages A1 and A3.

(Webmaster Note: A.P.Photographer Oliver Noonan was killed with Bn's C.O. which may explain the press presence; this is the only August 1969 news article about a "Field Refusal" and no similar wire story for B/1/20 was found.)

TOLD TO MOVE AGAIN ON 6th DEATHLY DAY, COMPANY A REFUSES

SONGCHANG VALLEY, South Vietnam
"I am sorry sir, but my men refused to go-we cannot move out," Lieut. Eugene Shurtz Jr. reported to his battalion commander over a crackling field telephone.

Company A of the 196th light Infantry Brigade's battleworn THird Battalion had been ordered at dawn yesterday to move once more down the jungled rocky slope of Nuilon Mountain into a labyrinth of North Vietnamese bunkers and trench lines 31 miles south of Danang.

FOr five days the company had obeyed orders to make this push. Each time it had been thrown back by invisible enemy forces, which waited through bombs and artilery shells for the Americans to come close, then picked them off.

Colonel lost in Crash

The battalion commander., Lieut. Col. Robert C. Bacon, had been waiting impatiently for Company A to move out. Colonel Bacon had taken over the battalion after Lieut. Col. Eli P. Howard was killed in a helicopter crash with seven other. Since the crash Tuesday the battalion had been trying to get to the wreckage.

Yesterday morning Colonel Bacon was leading three of his companies in the assault. he paled as Lieutenant Shurtz told him that the soldiers of Company A would not follow orders.

"Repeat that, please," the colonel said without raising his voice. "Have you told them what it means to disobey orders under fire?"

"I think they understand", the lieutenant replied, "but some of them simply had enough-they are broken. There are boys here who have only 90 days left in Vietnam. They (con't on Page 3, Column 1) want to go home in one piece. The situation is psychic here."

"Are you talking about enlisted men, or are the NCO's also involved?" the colonel asked.

"That's the difficulty here," Lieutenant Shurtz said. "We've got a leadership problem. Most of our squad and platoon leaders have been killed or wounded."

BUNKERS BELIEVED EMPTY

The colonel told Lieutenant Shurtz:"Go talk to them again and tell them that to the best of our knowledge the bunkers are now empty-the enemy has withdrawn. The mission of A company today is to recover their dead. They have no reason to be afraid. Please take a hand count of how many really do not want to go."

The lieutenant came back a few minutes later: "They won't go, colonel, and I did not ask for the hand count because I am afraid that they all stick together even though some might prefer to go."

The colonel told him: "Leave these men on the hill and take you C.P. element and move to the objective."

The lieutenant said he was preparing to move his command post and asked: "What do we do with the ammunition supplies? Shall we destroy them?"

"Leave it with them," the colonel ordered.

VETERAN GIVEN JOB

Then Colonel Bacon told his executive officer, Maj. Richard Waite, and one of his Vietnam veterans, Sgt. Okey blankenship, to fly from the battalion base across the valley to talk with Company A.

"Give them a pep talk and a kick in the butt," he said.

They found the men exhaused in the tall, blackened elephant grass, their uniforsm ripped and caked with dirt.

"One of them was crying,"Sergeant Blankenship siad.

The soldiers told why they would not move. "It poured out of them," the sergeant said.

They said they were sick of the endless battling in torrid heat, the constant danger of sudden firefights by day and the mortar fire and enemy probing at night. They said they had not had enough sleep and that they were being pushed too hard. They had not had any mail or hot food. They had not had any of the little comforts that made the war endurable.

Helicopters brought in the basic needs-ammunition, food and water-at a tremendous risk under heavy enemy ground fire. But the men believed that they were in danger of annihilation and would go no farther.

Major Waite and Sergeant Blankenship listened to the soldiers, most of them a generation younger, draftees 19 and 20 years old.

Sergeant Blankenship, a quick-tempered man, began arguing.

"One of them yelled to me that his company had suffered too much and that it should not have to go on," Sergeant Blankenship said. "I answered him that another company was down to 15 men sitll on the move-and I lied to him-and he asked me, "Why did they do it?"

"Maybe they have got something a little more than what yu have got," the sergeant replied.

"Don't call us cowards, we are not cowards, " the soldier howled, running toward Sergeant Blankenship, fists up.

Sergeant Blankenship turned and walked down the ridge line to the company commander.

The sergeant looked back and saw the men of Company A were stirring. They picked up their rifles, fell into a loose formation and followed him down the cratered slope.