Although he had no special training before joining the platoon, the skills he learned in the woods of Alaska translated well in the jungles of Vietnam. He always carried a sharp knife and sometimes wore a feather in his hat.
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His dark skin often aroused the curiosity of the Montagnard minorities who lived in the Highlands. Harmon smiled a lot, was modest, kind and popular. He walked around in the jungle like it was his home. Michael Lapolla, who had organized the 2nd Brigade’s platoon and was its first commander, called him “a ghost in the field. Harmon and his siblings had learned to hunt and fish for the family’s survival, and he was so skilled at bushcraft that 1st Lt.
He had grown up fatherless, reared by a mother who struggled to raise him and eight other children.
That experience not only enhanced my respect and admiration for what LRRP soldiers do, but it added an extra dimension: affection, not only for the four men who shared their lives with me on that patrol and the other young soldiers in the 2nd Brigade I got to know, but also to all the Army Rangers I’ve met over the years.ĭanny Harmon was an Alutiiq Indian from a remote island near Kodiak, Alaska. Harmon was one of the LRRPs who helped me get home safely. We stayed hidden in the jungle, hoping the hot sun of the day would give way in the evening to cloudy skies and then a heavy rain, which would be loud enough to cover the noise we made as we tried to escape. We had set up a listening post near where North Vietnam Army (NVA) activity had been reported and soon found ourselves pretty much surrounded by the enemy. Miller did not want me killed on his turf, so he ordered the LRRP commander to handpick my team. I talked my way onto a mission by convincing the 2nd Brigade commander, Colonel Judson Miller, that the eight weeks of Army basic training I’d had 13 years before qualified me. I wanted to write about them and the best way to do that was to go on a patrol with them. When I learned about the LRRP units that had been or were being formed in all the major infantry units in Vietnam at that time, and the “behind the lines” missions they were being asked to undertake, they earned my respect and my admiration. I was a 30-year-old reporter for UPI then, mostly covering U.S. 4 Danny Harmon, had been a point man on a patrol I had been on with the 2nd Brigade just a couple of weeks before. The two veterans on the team had started their tour in Vietnam on the same day, July 21, 1966, and both were due to go home in six days. One of the four, the radioman, had never been on a long range recon patrol before, and the point man, also new, had never walked point before.
The two helicopters performed this leapfrogging dance four times before the insertion chopper finally dropped its payload-four heavily camouflaged soldiers from the Long Range Reconnaissance Platoon (LRRP) of the 4th Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade. Then the insertion ship rose suddenly and fell in behind the chase ship, which dropped into the next clearing to fake an insertion while the insertion ship flew past. With the gunships covering them, the insertion ship dropped into a clearing and hovered a moment, faking an insertion, while the chase ship roared past. When the formation of helicopters-a command and control chopper, two gunships, and the insertion and chase ships-neared its destination where Vietnam’s Highway 19 crosses into Cambodia, the insertion and chase ships dropped from the formation and began an elaborate pas de deux of deception. With four LRRPs exposed, clinging to the tank’s turret as it backed toward the NVA positions, Pfc Coon shouted, “This ain’t good. Life and Death on a Long Range Recon Patrol | HistoryNet Close
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