i repair rods and reels go fishing a lot i am just retired
Operation Prairie Fire
From Month/Year
January / 1968
To Month/Year
April / 1971
Description Cross-border recon and intel ops conducted by mixed Special Forces and LLDB teams beginning in September, 1965. Largest and most important SF strategic reconnaissance and interdiction campaign in Southeast Asia. SHINING BRASS renamed PRAIRIE FIRE.
Prairie Fire was a top-secret operation run by MACVSOG at Saigon to gather intelligence by inserting Special Operations teams into Laos along the "Trail". (These missions were code named "Shining Brass", prior to 1967.) MACVSOG was not under MACV but was under the command of and reported directly to the JCS! During the Vietnam monsoon (the dry season in Thailand & Laos), Army helicopters had great difficulty infiltrating / exfiltrating the teams due to weather. In 1968, the 21st was assigned the task of getting teams in and out during the Vietnam monsoon season. A MACSOG detachment named "Heavy Hook", was established at NKP to run the program.
The team to be inserted was flown into NKP on a "black" MC-130 from Nha Trang. Teams were normally comprised of two Special Forces troops (Green Berets) and four Montagnard "mercenaries". This whole operation was so covert that mission frag orders were top secret as were the mission briefings! Teams were inserted into very remote, small LZs which were usually in rugged high karst areas near the Trail. The high LZ altitudes and temperatures had a pronounced adverse effect on CH-3E performance that compounded mission difficulty. A Heavy Hook Special Forces member riding with a Nail FAC selected, reconnoitered and photographed the potential LZ's.
