A Change of Guard

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Monday 27 October 2014

Hall of fame vet recalls invasion of Cambodia

Dave Phillips | Shelley Jones/for Sun-Times Media
Dave Phillips | Shelley Jones/for Sun-Times Media
ARTICLE EXTRAS
Updated: October 26, 2014 6:02PM


 


DEMOTTE--Dave Phillips has a case full of medals and was inducted last year into the United States Army Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame, but it is his record as a platoon leader during the Vietnam War that is his most prized reward.
In the nine months he led approximately 120 infantrymen in the 25th Infantry Division, all but one returned safely to the U.S.
Drafted in January 1968, Phillips was always the senior at the ripe old age of 23. He had been married, and therefore exempt from the draft, but upon his divorce he was promptly called to the draft. “They called me Pappy when I was in Vietnam,” Phillips said.
He had already finished Advanced Infantry Training, turned 25, gotten remarried to his wife Cheryl and fathered a fourth child before his deployment began. They’ve now been married for 46 years. His fifth child was born while he was in Vietnam and the sixth after his return.
“It was a good thing. I didn’t object to the draft. It was something I looked forward to all my childhood. Boys in the 1950s all wanted to go into the military,” Phillips said of the cache that carried over from World War II.
“For me growing up I had idolized the military. My heroes were the Audie Murphies and the Bill Mitchells. All the war heroes I read about growing up. I still enjoy reading about them.”
After basic training, Phillips expected to be sent into electronics, having attended Purdue for a while before his second child was born. But due to high math scores he was sent to mortar school. Non-commissioned Officer School followed and eventually Lt. Phillips found himself combat platoon leader in the 2nd of the 14th Infantry Regiment, 8th Company.

Phillips was sent to Hu Chi, near Saigon where he generally worked the Cambodian border and the area known as Hobo Woods, a North Vietnamese staging area, the goal being to stop the North Vietnamese from resupplying the Viet Cong over the border. There were many booby traps to avoid while working to secure the area from Saigon to the Cambodian border.
Phillips was part of the invasion of Cambodia in May 1970 in order to seize a North Vietnamese hospital and resupply complexes. “It was three weeks of hard fighting,” he said. “I lost my only man in Cambodia due to my own fault because I was expecting them to fight like the Viet Cong – I expected them to run after I hit them,” Phillips said.
Phillips worked for AT&T for 31 years. He ended his career as a lead engineer directly overseeing transfer of the AT&T network from analog wiring to digital fiber optics. He holds four Bronze Stars, three with the “V” device for valor, one Purple Heart, two Army Commendation Medals, both with the “V” device for valor and four Air Medals. He has also been inducted into the Order of Saint Maurice, a National Infantry Association honor.
The medal that means the most to him is a pin given to him by a village chief after Phillips assisted in rescuing his daughter, getting her airlifted for medical treatment after she stepped on a mine. “That guy felt that need to reward me for helping his daughter. That was a good feeling,” Phillips said. “The Cambodians were good people.

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