The Trace/DMZ

[vance]

When and who built this cleared area from Con Thien to the coast ? It was not there when when we left the area in December 1966. It was rumored to have cost the considerable loss of life of Engineers and Seabees. Anyone know anything about the " Trace"?

[marine5]

Hi Vance... I believe it was better know as the "Macnamara's Wall".. or
"Leatherneck Square"...
It was supposed to be filled with listening devices etc...so that the NVA couldn't come across the DMZ...Yeppers he was going to stop them with electronics... 100% of it was with in range of the NVA Arty in NVN..
That is all I will say as it really gets my heart pumping...

[vance]

Thanks Marine5. Seems like in Nolan's " Operation Buffalo" July 1967 it was there in bad fight 1/9 was in . Seems a position called Alpha 3 was there between Con Thien and Gio Linh in 68.

[greybeard]

As I posted in the KheSahn thread, Mc's Wall was the stupidest of all the stupid things that happened in Vietnam. IIIMAF didn't want any part of it, but MACV, Westmoreland and McNamara forced it on em. When Abrahms replaced Worstmoreland, the dam*ed thing was pretty much scrapped and Abrahms wanted the Marines out of defense positions and they went on the offense a little more.
McNamara let a bunch of civilian scientists tell him the war could be won with electronics.
3rd Marines lost a heck of a lot of men trying to build the thing and fight at the same time. CMC, Gen Krulak, and Gen Thompson fought against it tooth & nail, but were outtgunned by the whackos in Washington. There's an online book about it somewhere. I'll try to find the link.

[greybeard]

If you haven't read "1968 The Definitive Year", read it when you're already p'd off. No sense ruining a perfectly good day.
http://www.ehistory.com/vietnam/books/1968/0021.cfm

[Mistergemni]

It was bad then I was there 68-69 Khe Sahn hill 881
would like to hear from anyone back in Aco.1/26

[jsc1345]

I was in the 11th engr. Bn, hqs.co and we built the trace or strip as we called it. We lost alot of equipment and people over that stupid ass job.If anyone out there is interested in more info, I'll be glad to tell what I know.

Jim Clark
hqs. co. 67-68

[DAVID MULLINS]

I was with Charlie 1/9 & landed on the Trace on the morning of July 3 1967 to go in to get Bravo 1/9 & then went into the Z to get & carry them out , Operation Buffalo by Keith Nolan covers it very well plus many other operations 1/9 was on

[BigPhil]

I was with Allfa Co. 1/4 we were security for 11th Engr. Bn. Yes it was a no braine idea. Build the strip so the NVA could be spotted. 8 May 67 after completing the strip we were hit at Con Thien by to NVA Battalions, we had 44 KIA and 110 WIA. 226NVA KIA 8 NVA were captured. 18 were from A Co. the rest from Delta Co. a nigth that I remember every night.
Semper Fi
P.C.