CAPTAIN HOWARD "DUTCH" HUTSELL
(Deceased 8/4/2017)

Capt Hutsell served two tours: S-4 in 2/9th Bn Hq and 
Battery Commander of "C" Battery:
His 2nd tour was as an Infantry Tactical Advisor

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LETTER HOME REGARDING LT BILL FARMER (KIA)
Duc Pho
20May67  

Dear (wife),  

Well, the heavy contact is broken, but it was a pretty stiff one.  The 2/35 was hit pretty heavily and we lost another observer.  Lt Farmer, hit in the head and not expected to live.  

I was hazing him just yesterday afternoon about wearing his red bandana and no helmet.  He was one who had to "out-infantry" the infantry.  He had been a sergeant in the Paratroopers before OCS.  He had been XO of Bravo (battery) and volunteered to go out as an Observer again.  Well, that's the war.

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SECOND TOUR OF DUTY IN VIETNAM

This is a snap of me as an Infantry Tactical Advisor just after we moved {see Details Below} our Jump Command Post to The big US airfield at Dak To in Kontum Province in early 1972. Within a matter of two or three days after I rotated later on in the year almost every member of the Regimental Command group, Vietnamese or American, was KIA. The VC called their 1972 Easter Offensive “Dak Po Ko (the local river) will be Choppy”. They said that Campaign would decide the War. It certainly decided the fate of the 47th Bo Binh leadership!

Note that I am wearing the Tropic Lightning for a combat patch rather than the Ivy. 

Also note the Vietnamese Tuy  Ta (Major) rank badge on the button line and the Vietnamese patch of the 22nd Infantry Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) on my right shirt pocket. I am also wearing (you can’t see it) the patch of the 47th Infantry Regiment (Rifle) on my left pocket. Also note that I’m wearing crossed cannons as I invariably did.

I was after all still a Fau Bin (Artilleryman) I had a very close relationship with the Regiment’s Direct Support Artillery Battalion, a 155 mm Howitzer, Towed (Pig) Battalion. They didn’t have advisors and didn’t need them. The Colonel and the Major who was combination Bn XO and S-3 had been to the Officer Basic and Advanced Courses at Fort Sill just like I had. The Vietnamese Infantry leadership preferred and the DS Bn almost demanded that I control their fire whenever possible. Quality men and great Field Artillery.

Details from 1st Paragraph:

I was at that time Deputy Commander of the 47th Regimental Combat Assistance Team (47RCAT) which made me the Deputy Senior advisor to the 47th Infantry Regiment (Rifle) ARVN. The first months I was with them we were conducting operations in the vicinity of Pleiku and thereabouts but then moved the entire regiment, except the base camp where the families were, to Kontum Province. We had an attached Airborne and an attached Ranger Battalion (both ARVN) and control of the Special Forces camp on the Lao border and our area of operations extended from there to Tan Canh with Headquarters (Forward) at Dak To.

Their base camp was at Binh Tay Hai (the Great Westward Movement - the Cambodian Intervention Campaign) near Pleiku.

I had first known that installation as "Dragon Mountain Base Camp" and when the Fourth Division came, they named it Camp Enari.

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