Photo Of A Small Montygnard Boy Riding His Water Buffalo

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My good ole buddy Tommy Routh sent me a CD today 5/19/2007 with a collection of his photos. Boy does this photo bring back ole memories.This Photo is of a small Montygnard boy riding his >2000 lb. Water Buffalo.You see they are a very docile creature to the Montygnard People. They would listen to every command for the "YARDS" and mind them but if a G.I. appeared before them would snort and get really aggressive toward them. It's as if they feared us as their enemy, and to a certain degree we were. I still remember our higher ups giving us orders to shoot & kill all of them that we would see out in the BUSH (away from the Montygnards Villages). We operated on the rule if anything moved around us to SHOOT it! You see any wild Water Buffalo's roaming out in the wild would often be taken by the Viet Cong or the North Vietnamese Regulars and used to carry all of their supplies from the Hoa Chi Minh Trail into the Pleiku Providence to supply their forces.I remember our M16 (.223 Caliber) bullets would only make them mad. We usually had to bring them down with our M60 Machine Guns (.30 Cal.). Then it took several rounds to bring one them down. NEVER-NEVER did we kill one of the "Yards" Water Buffaloes unless they were paid visits by the NVA. The NVA would often take the "Yards" food and rape their women and it is too awful to say what they would do to the Montygnards Village Chiefs and elders. Then orders would come down for a mass evacuation of entire Villages minus their Water Buffaloes and then we kill their Water Buffaloes. Our Engineers would build them new villages to settle in. I remember all of our relationships with the Montygnards. They are a POLYNESIAN people and not Asian. They were are most loyal Allies and what did we to them--WE PULLED OUT AND LEFT THEM TO PROTECT THEMSELVES AGAINST THE WHOLE NORTH VIETNAMESE ARMY. I have read all kinds of horror stories about them since then. We brought back a small % and settled them in down in Ashboro, N.C.