Jim Bolen (pictured) talks about in detail his time with MAC-V-SOG while conducting operations in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
He recalls a mission where his team was roaming around Cambodia trying to locate a truck road used by the NVA. After several failed attempts, JB stayed zero and this is what he did: "The other teams had been trying to find this road for some time. My team just got back from a mission and they asked if I would mind going right back out, normally we get a few weeks off between missions. Of course I said we would go.
After a few days I was just tired of looking for this truck road. There were other teams also trying to find the location and direction of this road with no success.
We spotted this small trail leading into a Cambodian village and saw a lot of villagers moving on it. We watched the trail for a couple of hours and did not see any enemy movement at that time. I got my point man, who could speak the local dialect and who was dressed like an NVA, and he and I moved up to the edge of the trail, and waited for a villager. When we found one coming down the trail we stopped him and asked if he knew of the road.
It was funny the way the villager kept looking very nervously at me. My point man just told him not to worry because I was a French adviser helping the NVA. He bought that story and gave us the location of the road. He showed the location to us on our map, which was an old French map, and I understand the road was bombed with success.
The reason why I called this story 'The Wheelbarrow' mission in my book, is because when we got back to our FOB the crowd that came to meet the team was larger than usual. Teams not in the field always came to meet incoming units. The Commanding officer, LTC Earl Trabue, headed up the group and he was pushing a wheelbarrow.
I asked what the wheelbarrow was for, and he said: 'To put your balls in; they must be huge'. I remember that story fondly." JB is also the author of "No Guts, No Glory: My Life as a Brawler, Soldier, Mercenary, Bounty Hunter, Bouncer, Bodyguard, Businessman and All-Around Nice Guy." #bushlife #sog #stayzero #zerofoxtrot