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Chapter 32
Operation Oregon
In early March ’66 rumors were surfacing that 1/4 was going to be headed North —there was a rumor that III MAF ( III Marine Amphibious Force )was being pressured by higher command to ‘retake’ the A Shau Valley Army /ARVN outpost that had recently fallen in a massacre. A Shau Valley was the ‘badlands’ of Thua Thien Province. We began to do some preliminary packing in preparation for appeared to be an inevitable move coming up.@40
On Mar. 12th the Col. received marching orders from III MAF to move 1/2 of the battalion ( two companies—A & B ) and a skeleton Battalion staff to Phu Bai and we would get there in C-130’s —where half of 1/4 would remain in Reserve—We learned later that this normally meant that III MAF or Division HQ was planning an imminent Operation of which 1/4 minus would be a part . The splitting up of Battalions and Regiments appeared to be a pattern from what I could see. Battalion Commanders often had to operate independently from their assigned Regiment. 2/7 had been detached from the Seventh Marines in Qui Nhon while Division HQ and the other two battalions were in Chu Lai. 1/4 and 2/4 operated in and around Chu Lai while 3/4 was in Reserve at Danang. 41@ The ninth Marines and the third Marines faced the same disjointed assignments by ‘higher
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