My Father in Law
On 25 September 1967, Company E (LRP), 20th INF (ABN) was activated and assigned to IFFV, commanded by Lieutenant General William B. Rosson. The unit was originally formed in Phan Rang by procuring combat veterans from the 1st Brigade (BDE) (LRRP), 101st ABN Division (DIV), along with personnel who were scheduled to join the Military Police BDE. Additional assets were also drawn from the replacement detachments. The Military Police soldiers were originally assigned because they were dog handlers and had some limited training in patrolling; however, once the company began its training the commander realized our type of missions would not use any dogs. However, there were a couple of missions that used dogs but they were special missions. So they decided that anyone who was an MP who made it through the training and was selected would change their job to Infantry.
Major Danridge M. Malone originally commanded company E. The unit was to provide long range reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition, and special type missions on a corp level basis. In addition, the company had the capacity to operate as a platoon (PLT) size force and conduct regular recon-in-force missions. They were known as Typhoon Patrollers, taken from the code word Typhoon, favored by IFFV Headquarters (HQ).
On 15 October 1967, Company E was placed under operational control of the 4th INF DIV and was relocated to the DIV's base camp at Camp Enari in the western Pleiku Province. The company trained through December and phased its four PLTS through ten day preparatory courses, followed by sequential attendance at the MACV Recondo School in Nha Trang, which was run by SF cadre, at two week intervals. Each PLT concluded their training with a one-week field training exercise outside the SF camp at Plei Do Mi in the Central Highlands. The first PLT completed its program on 1 December and the entire company was declared combat operational on 23 December 1967.
Company E was organized for 230 men, broken down into four platoons (PLTS) of seven six-man teams (TMS) each. A HQ section handled all the administration and logistics and a communications (COMMO) PLT was responsible for the vital radio contact with the teams.
