Vietnam 2nd battalion
Jim Wilson
B Company 1966 – 1967
When Capt. Ron Davis took command of B company in early 67, I don’t remember the exact month, he saw a need for a company recon team, he chose several men from different platoons, who had several months of in country experience, most of us were point men, or fire team leaders, and one was an RTO. Our job was not only recon, but to act as a small fast moving force that could cover a lot of distance in a short period of time. Usually when the company was inserted into an AO the company would go one way, and we would go another. We would check out particular or suspicious points of terrain, that would slow the company or an entire platoon down, we would sometimes lag way back and trail a platoon, we at times would take a position above or near a village, and stake it out, we sat up hasty day ambushes for the company, we could move quickly to reinforce a platoon involved in a fire-fight, in general everything we did was in direct support of B-company, however on a couple of occasions we did lend some recon support to our sister companies. Sometimes we thought we were more bait than anything else, but the concept was sound and I think we did a lot of good for the company. This was the only company recon squad in our battalion I believe. When Capt. Davis left country third platoon was short on men due to WIA, disease, and rotation, so we were asked to reinforce third platoon and the squad never operated as a recon/response unit again. Capt. Davis originally named the squad “Spotter 6 Bravo”, but the men in the company always called us spiders and that’s the name that stuck. I remember the guys in B company, when we would walk thru the perimeter, would say kiddingly here come those insects or get out the bug juice the spiders are back. As I said we weren’t just a recon team, sometimes we were sent out not to be seen or heard, and sometimes we were sent out to ” bite”, the spiders could do either. Sgt. Stanley Royals, was our squad leader, a black hat from Benning, that was one of my instructors at jump school, he was an exceptional NCO, and a natural leader, we were fortunate to have him. The team members were: John Sherwood, Ken Claypoole, Don Caldwell, Ron Paulsgrove, Paul Walker, Paul Ludtke, George Young, and myself Jim Wilson. Lt. John Plese traveled with us so much we considered him to be a team member, he was the company XO at the time I believe. We usually had more than six men in the squad to overlap rotations and training, so the number 6 in the name Spider 6 Bravo indicated the number we started with originally. We considered ourselves always just another squad in B company, nothing special. We had great respect for our company and hope they did for us as well. — Anyway that’s the story of Spider 6 Bravo the one and only.
No Slack — spiderjim
