The Jim Bolen SOG Interviews: Part 2 – Surveillance Missions to the Ho Chi Minh Trail During The Vietnam War.
Jim with his team, RT Auger, after a mission into Cambodia.
Huey unloads at an LZ (Major Derald Smith 174ahc.org)
PAL: What was it like once you’d been safely inserted and the chopper and the gunships had flown off?
environment and usually no enemy were around.
PAL: What was the closest an enemy soldier came to you in the jungle without you being discovered?
Russian military advisers at a North Vietnamese missile site.
fighters?
prisoner-snatch mission in Cambodia. What happened in that engagement?
We spotted a large road that was being used by trucks, plus foot traffic. We started moving along the side of the road hoping to make contact with the enemy. It wasn’t long before I spotted a couple of NVA apparently on break. As I moved closer to try and capture one of them, they saw me and open fire. They both were shooting at me but I was only hit once through my left arm. Apparently they were a tail element of a large force of 50 to 100 men. We killed the two NVA who were firing at me. Then the enemy unit quickly started to encircle us, and that is when I told my team to take off down the dirt road away from the enemy. I covered my team until I saw they were far enough down the road, and had moved into the jungle. This is when I took off running as fast as I could down the center of the road. The reason I ran down the center of the road was to get out of the area as fast as I could. I could not go into the jungle on either side because at that point I was not sure how far the NVA had encircled me. I will never forget that run. It seemed the whole jungle opened up with machine gun fire. I could hear the bullets flying by my ears and all around me. The bullets were tearing up the road and throwing dirt in the air. All I could think of was when was the bullet going to hit me in the back of my head as I was running. I remember they had one or two large caliber machine guns that sounded like cannons every time they fired. Once I got down the road far enough to rejoin my team, we made our way through the jungle looking for an LZ. About 6 to 8 hours later we were picked up. The only wounded was one of my indigenous personnel, Mang Bein, who had a bullet through his wrist and I was shot in my arm. I did the best I could to patch us up. Fortunately as a team leader I carried syringes of morphine; a couple of those and you feel no pain. The worst thing was my CAR-15 (rifle). Having been shot in my left arm, there was a small hole in front but when the bullet came out it had torn a large hole in the back of my arm, my blood ran down onto the red hot receiver and stained it. I still remember the smell of my blood cooking off my weapon.
under such intense fire?
Jim and Lt Kroske.
Jim with Nay Bunn.
North Vietnamese trucks on a ravaged part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Helicopter over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos (Fred Thompson 174ahc.org).
North Vietnamese squad ingeniously camouflaged as stacks of hay.
Kudos to Sargent Bolen. He actually was my squad leader in A co. In training group. A most hung ho troop but I didn’t know just how well he would perform as a recon man!
Sergeant Bolen is an AMAZING and HONORABLE and VALORUS Warrior! What an INCREDIBLE LIFE he had and THANK GOD he survived the war in Vietnam!! American will always owe you a GREAT DEBT for everything you did in Vietnam!!
Connie Piper
Wife of a Fallen Special Forces Warrior
P.S. I had the GREAT HONOR of knowing SGM (retired) Willie McLeod (MACV-SOG / CCC)