We knew the Regiment as the Blackhorse Regiment for the single black horse that was the unit symbol.
It decorated the sides of our track vehicles and aircraft as well as being the shoulder patch worn by each Blackhorse Trooper.
Prisoners we captured told us that they were told never to fire on a Blackhorse vehicle “…because the Blackhorse never breaks contact.” We fought until the enemy was dead or captured and we owned the battlefield.
My presence had been requested by the Regimental Commander. The Regimental Operations Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Dozier, had received a request from the Province Chief for helicopter support for a raid by a combat patrol of the Provincial Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) on a communist village.
The Province Chief wanted the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment to conduct the helicopter support mission.
The Province Chief had received a clandestine message from a senior Viet Cong officer, who wanted to defect.
The officer was the executive officer of the K4 Battalion of the Dong Ngai Regiment.
The defection had to appear to be a kidnapping or his family would be killed in retaliation. The PRU team was the obvious choice to conduct the combat patrol.
The Provincial Operations officer had contacted the Blackhorse Operations Officer requesting helicopter lift for the patrol to and from the communist village.
Articles
By Andrew P. O’Meara, Jr.
Colonel, United States Army,
Retired
Dec 17, 2011
The following article is a must read for every American. It was written by a former Vietnamese prisoner of a Hanoi Gulag. He shares bitter insights into the reality of life under Vietnamese Communism.
This article has been circulated on the internet by Bill Bell a student of Vietnamese culture.
A must read!
Autobiography of Nguyễn Chí Thiện
I was born in Hanoi on February 27, 1939. My natal village is My-Tho in the district of Binh-Luc, Ha-Nam Province, North Vietnam. My father, Nguyen-Cong Phuong, was born in 1898. He died in 1976. Before 1954, he was a low-ranking official of the Hanoi Tribunal. My mother, Nguyen-Thi-Yen, was born in 1900. She died in 1970. She was a little merchant.
I have two sisters: Nguyen-Thi-Hoan, who was born in 1923 and Nguyen-Thi-Hao who was born in 1925. Nguyen-Thi-Hao died in Hanoi in November, 2004. Nguyen-Thi-Hoan lives in Hanoi with her family.
When my parents died I was in a concentration camp called Phong-Quang in Lao-Cai Province. Once my sister Hao visited me there at the request of my mother before her death.
My sister’s visit for the purpose of telling me of the death of my mother was the only family visit that I received while imprisoned for fifteen years. This was not due to callous disregard on the part of my family; it was due to deliberate constant changes of prisons and camps by the regime.
Because I was not imprisoned with trials, they did not know where I was. They had to hear from released prisoners where I had been, but I would be likely to be moved by that time. Political prisoners were shuffled regularly by jailors so they would not form associations for rebellion or escape.
Please click on title to read complete article. thank you!
