With an encirclement featuring brigade actions in each of the two previous weeks, the 2d Brigade was getting a reputation. On 28 April the Quang Dien district chief remarked at a ceremony that, according to a recently captured NVA prisoner, his local enemy commander had told his unit that when they get in heavy contact with airborne troops they must make every effort to stop the advance of the airborne during the day and get out of the area during the night because the paratroopers will fight through the night and defeat them. And a message found on an NVA soldier killed in an ambush had said something like “if you make contact with the airborne, get out fast; they will surround you and kill you.” It was also at about this time that I passed by the interrogation of a captured enemy soldier whom I saw pointing at the Screaming Eagle patch on a nearby trooper. I asked the interpreter what the enemy soldier was saying. The reply was, ”He is saying that that little bird is real mean.” So we built an archway over the steps leading down into our TOC and placed on it a sign, “That Little Bird Is Real Mean.”

April 28 began the 2d Brigade’s classic cordon at Phuoc Yen. The 1st ARVN Division’s Black Panther Company, working with the 1/501, had received intense fire from an enemy force, possibly a battalion, at the north, or open, end of the “stocking” formed by the Song Bo river around that village. Brigade told the 1/501 to take advantage of the river to build a cordon around the trapped enemy, ordering that A/1/502 be inserted alongside the Black Panther Company to close the gap between its left flank and the Song Bo. The 1/501 moved its A Company overland to the Song Bo’s banks to the west of the village and brigade helilifted B/2/501 into a position from which the 1/501 could place that company on the river’s bank south of the village. To cover the east bank of the Song Bo, brigade arranged for three PF platoons from Huong Tra district plus a platoon of Catholic militia from a nearby hamlet. An encirclement was in place. Night-long illumination was called.

Before dawn on 29 April the enemy attempted three times to break through the A/1/502’s left flank, which was on the river bank. A Company stood firm and drove the enemy back. At 0800 that morning A Company attacked into the village but was itself driven back and the cordon continued that day and night. On 30 April B/1/501 replaced the Black Panther Company and that evening D/2/501 reinforced the cordon with one platoon alongside the hamlet militia at the river on the northeast corner of the encirclement and the rest of D Company reinforced A/1/502 and B/1/501 at the top of the cordon. That night the cordon was again sealed that under continuous illumination while the enemy was pounded with 105mm, 155mm, and 8 inch artillery fire. Again the enemy tried without success to find a gap in the troops’ line. In the early hours of 1 May, during a short break in the illumination, the enemy made an all-out attempt to break out in A/1/502’s zone, only to be driven back once more at a cost of 35 enemy killed; A Company suffered 3 KIA and 12 WIA in this action. A 1\502 lost 8 men killed and 33 wounded at Phuoc Yen. That afternoon B/2/501 took the place of A/1502 in the cordon, A Company was helilifted to LZ Sally, and the enemy was encircled one more night.

Shifts were made May 2 in the encircling line’s makeup. Finally, loudspeaker appeals to surrender, tear gas dropped from helicopters, continuous pounding by air strikes and artillery (including one “time on target,” the simultaneous delivery of massed fires of many battalions) had their effect. On May 3, after defeating a last enemy attempt to escape, the encircling troops (A/1/501, B/1/501, A/2/501, D/2/501) cleaned out Phouc Yen. Enemy losses: 429 KIA, 107 POW, 117 weapons, and a battalion’s full radio suite, plus its SOI. US losses: 8 KIA, 44 WIA. ARVN losses: 3 KIA, 12 WIA.