From the S&S archives:
Dak Seang: 'Scar' that fights back

TAN CANH — "They're crazy. You come in there in a gunship and they fire at you, knowing that they'll get a world of fire back, but they fire anyway."

That's how Spec. 4 Robert Barber, 24, who has been flying as a gunship crew chief into the valley where the Dak Seang Special Forces camp lies embattled, describes the North Vietnamese army troops circling the camp.

The Dak Seang camp, under attack was described by pilots as a scar-charred and flattened by shelling, littered with the green-camouflage canopies of parachutes that eased resupply loads to earth. A landing strip — unused since March — stretches just outside the thick perimeter.

Nearby is a burnt-out village that was once the home of relatives of Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) fighters who help man the camp.

The CIDG dependents are now underground in fortified bunkers. And there are others, including members of Vietnamese band and drama group who played an engagement there March 31 and never got a chance to leave.

Military sources here say the band, an extension of the Saigon government's political warfare campaign, now works as a first-aid unit. "They're working in their secondary MOS (military occupational specialty)," one American said.

Along the wooded ridges and in the tree-specked valley, Vietnamese forces are pressuring the NVA to take the pressure off the camp.

The NVA is fighting back. "You take fire from some trees and slam them with rockets," one chopper pilot said, "then you make another pass and they fire again. They're dug in. That's all you can say."

Though it was learned U.S. and Vietnamese intelligence sources showed some increased activity in the Dak Seang area before the beginning of the month, the April 1 eruption came as a surprise to some helicopter pilots.

"We got a call to go into the camp as support for a medevac," said 1st Lt. Pat Cooper, 25, who broke in as a gunship pilot over Dak Seang. "We just expected to go in, pelt the positions and never hear about it again. It didn't work out that way.

"When we got there the camp was taking heavy indirect fire and the medevac had to wait to go in. Finally, there was a lull in the shelling and the chopper set down. All hell broke loose. On the radio they were yelling, 'We're taking ground fire. We're taking automatic fire'. That's how it started."

Pilots say it's easier working near Dak Seang now. But as one crewman put it, "it is definitely not 'no sweat'."