Chapter Five
Before dusk on 12 August, reinforcements moved into the vicinity of the Hot Dog: India Company, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines (Capt Robert A. Beeler), which humped in from An Hoa; and two platoons from Lima Company, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines (Capt Jon K. Rider), which choppered in from Hill 37. Lima’s 3d Platoon was on patrol when the warning order came, so Rider was attached a platoon from Kilo Company for this operation.
By nightfall, these two companies were dug in within sight of 1/7’s hillside of foxholes. The night was free of combat, but not of commotion. The 81mm mortar crews fired H&I most of the night, and some of it exploded too close for comfort near India Company. Captain Beeler had only recently lost some of his Marines to friendly fire—from misplotted 3/5 H&S fire in the Que Sons during Operation Durham Peak—and he was quickly on the horn to 1/7’s operations officer. The fires were shifted farther out into the paddies. Later, one of India’s listening posts captured a North Vietnamese. He was alone, presumably lost, and the grunts just reached out and grabbed him when he walked past their hiding place in the bushes.
At first light, the battalion came alive again.
The mission for 13 August was pursuit of the bloodied NVA regiment, and Lieutenant Colonel Dowd held a predawn huddle at his command post. His three company commanders were there, along with Colonel Codispoti, who stood in camouflaged fatigues, hands firmly on his hips, silver eagles shining from his collars and from his starched fatigue cover. The regimental commander had choppered in the previous day and now was going to accompany the sweep. Only the most cynical were not impressed by this style of leadership; but Lance Corporal Wells and the other radiomen on the fringe of the meeting were young and salty, and they hid their astonishment by mumbling among themselves how bad the colonel’s cigar stunk.
Codispoti was a definite piece of work. He had replaced a more calm—some thought a more professional—colonel. Codispoti himself was short and stocky; with white hair; enormous eyebrows; and a gruff, Brooklyn clip. He was prone to temper tantrums even over trivial matters, and he had many idiosyncrasies. He’d already been passed over for brigadier general, so he was not afraid to run things the only way he knew how—his way. Colonel Codispoti was there to kill communists. Period. He allowed himself little slack as he constantly helicoptered among his units, looking, conferring, writing orders on the backs of old envelopes; he hammered at his battalion commanders for results, pushed his grunts to the edge of exhaustion. Some understood that the only way to save American lives was to keep the Vietnamese on the run. Others were not so charitable towards him. One weary staff officer in 2/7, for example, wrote of an upcoming operation hard on the heels of the summer battles, “… regiment had a crumby scheme-of-maneuver designed to kill and wear out the maximum number of Marines. But we got it changed. It was another of those fight up the hill deals.”
But most thought Codispoti knew what he was doing. At one regimental briefing, the S-4 (supply) officer got up to report on the amount of food and ammunition each of the twelve rifle companies would have that night. He said one company was down to zero or one can of C rations per man, and Codispoti immediately stopped the briefing to ask why. The supply officer said the company hadn’t sent in a ration request form. Codispoti went apeshit, “I don’t give a damn if they don’t ever send anything! It’s your job to keep track of how many rations they have and make sure they have food to carry on and fight out there. And, goddammit, if this ever happens again, I’ll pack the rations on your back and you’ll walk ’em out to them!”
It made the right impression on everyone.
Not surprisingly, Codispoti and Dowd hit it off well and the regimental commander always smiled on 1st Battalion. The company commanders of 1/7 respectfully likened him to Vince Lombardi and referred to him as Coach Codispoti or the Bear. He was not a grandstander. He’d choppered in to see how his Marines were faring, and to be on hand to provide any outside support that might be needed.
It was still Dowd’s ball game, and they moved out as the boiling sun rose. The first skirmish line was formed with D/1/7 on the left, then C/1/7, I/3/5, and L/3/7 on the right. The CP entourage followed Delta Company. The rest of the battalion followed in a second line. The hastily sketched plan was to sweep south from the Hot Dog, then east through the bombed-out tree line. On the other side, they were to pivot north and continue until their hammer met A/1/7’s anvil on the banks of the Vu Gia. The artillery batteries at An Hoa and Hill 65 had their tubes up, and Broncos were on station overhead to direct the support fire.
At first, the battalion was like a hound against its leash. They kept stumbling into things in the tree lines—dropped gear, blood trails, an occasional NVA body—and the forward observers with the point platoons reconned each wood line with arty and mortars before the line swept in. They met only token resistance; the NVA were running north. Lieutenant Hord was stunned. He thought they’d kicked ass the day before and didn’t expect any resistance today, but the aviation net on his radio was alive with excited Bronco pilots. “They’re runnin’ all over the place, there’s gooks everywhere!” The NVA were breaking up into small groups, but the pilots kept the artillery on them. That was the view from the air. At ground level, it was not so well-defined. Although four Marine rifle companies were spread out on a line stretching for a kilometer, it was not like walking the parade deck. The intersecting tree lines and paddy dikes blocked the view and the enemy was invisible, pausing only to snipe and run. Most men just trudged along, dripping sweat under helmet, flak jacket, and pack; not firing a shot because no targets were visible; and taking some satisfaction in the abandoned NVA packs and ammunition bandoliers dotting their route.
The line finally paused in a tree line facing a large paddy. It was several hundred meters across, as flat and open as a pool table, and the artillery was processed into the opposite tree line. Battalion passed word to continue the sweep. Captain Fagan was wary: the paddy seemed a perfect ambush spot. It would have been wiser first to secure the flanks of the opposite tree line and clear it before walking right into the open. We’re in too much of a hurry, he thought. As the men resumed their advance, Fagan glanced to his right; for hundreds of yards, he could see hundreds of Marines materializing from the woods into the sun-blasted and wide-open rice field.
India Company was in the center of the line as it advanced, and Captain Beeler also had a headful of worries. For one thing, his men were exhausted. They’d spent the last three weeks humping the mountains and had returned to the An Hoa Combat Base only the day before; within hours, they were on the move again, this time into the Arizona. Additionally, Beeler didn’t know his platoon leaders: his only two experienced officers had to remain at An Hoa, one taking over the exec slot, the other assigned as pay officer. Consequently, 1st and 3d Platoons had untested second lieutenants. 2d Platoon had a career staff sergeant, but Beeler was wary of him; he seemed worn out to the point of being timid.
Their sweep had begun to get strung out almost immediately. 3d Platoon had lagged behind to police up a pile of enemy equipment; at the same time, the rear security of 2d Platoon tripped a booby trap. Beeler radioed 3d Platoon to drop the captured gear and secure an LZ for the medevac.
Only 1st and 2d Platoons entered the open paddy.
Halfway across, a pair of explosions burst near them, a harmless shower of shrapnel and dirt clogs. Everyone instantly dropped flat, looked around, then got moving again when nothing else developed. No one had seen the source of fire or heard anything except the explosions. Beeler figured it had been mortars, until he looked at the tree line facing them. RPGs? He didn’t like the way things were shaping up and requested 1/7 to shell the woods again. Forty meters from the trees, he could feel the NVA. The paddy rolled up a three-foot berm to the tree line island; a thick cluster of bamboo sat along the edge of the embankment. 1st Platoon was right in front of the bamboo screen, having just crossed the final paddy dike. Beeler suddenly ran to that dike, hollering to open fire.
Two grunts looked back at him quizzically, then the platoon line triggered a few bursts into the brush.
The next second, the NVA opened fire.
It was an instantaneous eruption, an RPD machine gun jackhammering from within the bamboo clump, a dozen AK47s joining the scythe. The eruption murdered 1st Platoon. The point man, LCpl James Norris, charged the bamboo but was shot dead in his tracks. The new lieutenant dropped with a round in his shoulder, and the squad leader was killed. A dozen others fell wounded, and the survivors squeezed into the ash. Rounds cracked the air inches above their backs. Only a few could or would raise their M16s to fire back. The platoon sergeant, Sgt John Valdez, had saved the day in a similar situation when India Company was in the Que Sons. Pitching smoke grenades to form a screen, he had been able to drag their casualties back under fire and won a Silver Star recommendation. He tried to repeat the success.
Valdez was shot to death as soon as he moved.
Sergeant Valdez had been on his second combat tour, but reportedly had not told his family. He wanted to spare them the worry. His completely unexpected notification of death was followed by posthumous awards of the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart.
In seconds, 1st Platoon had been decimated. 2d Platoon, however, had been out of the line of fire and had jogged into the tree line. Captain Beeler, huddled behind the last dike, radioed the staff sergeant in command to hit the machine gun position from the flanks. As far as he was concerned, all he got from the tired sergeant was a token effort. When the platoon got up to attack, a new man was killed and several were wounded, and the platoon hunkered back among the trees. That is where they sat the rest of the battle.
1st Platoon was pinned down, 2d Platoon was paralyzed, and 3d Platoon was far back in the last tree line. Typical, Beeler thought: the NVA can hide in the trees, but the Marines have to expose themselves in the paddies between the wooded islands. Then the NVA ambush you when you’re too close to them to call in supporting arms. Beeler reckoned there was only one NVA platoon in the tree line, a delaying party centered around the machine gun. They had excellent fields of fire, were willing to die in place, and they were accomplishing just what they had intended.
When the ambush began, Captain Fagan was very glad to be on the left side of the skirmish line. There was a tree line there leading to the enemy woods and narrow, shimmering Snake Lake. This lake formed the western boundary of the sweep and gave Delta Company a protected flank.
Delta was in the middle of the paddy when the shooting started, and they caught some stray rounds. Their response was to double-time down the dikes and into the trees, which was done without casualties. They were hastily securing in the wood line when Codispoti approached Fagan. The gruff, old colonel was a bit winded and excited from their run under fire and, not being very formal anyway, he asked for a report. “Holy cow, what’s going on?” Fagan was not at all sure, but with all the company commanders on the radio, they pieced it together.
D/1/7 had secured the left flank of the enemy tree line.
L/3/7 had done likewise on the right flank.
I/3/5 was pinned down in the middle.
C/1/7 had pulled back to the woods from which they’d left, joining B/1/7 and H&S/1/7.
Meanwhile, the battalion command post was pinned down in the paddies behind Delta Company. A couple of snipers fired on them from the trees on their left, and stray rounds from the hornet’s nest on the right also cracked past. It was the second time that day that the CP had come under fire; saddling up that morning, the NVA had dropped a few mortar rounds on them and SgtMaj Charles C. Awkerman narrowly escaped injury. He’d just finished a C ration breakfast in his foxhole and had moved away when the mortars hit; his pack left beside his hole had been punched through with shrapnel. Now, Sergeant Major Awkerman was down along a dike with Lieutenant Colonel Dowd. Word came on the radio that the CO of India Company had been hit. Dowd told Awkerman to get the CP into Delta Company’s position in the woods; then the colonel tagged his radioman and they scrambled over the dike on the right flank. Dowd had never even met the India CO, but such was his professionalism.
The bamboo clump in front of India Company had quieted down: the NVA let go only a burst when a Marine moved. Captain Beeler, still crouched behind the dike, saw a black-haired head pop from a spider hole within the bamboo. He appeared to be spotting for the machine gun. Beeler took an M14 rifle from a sniper—a Scout-Sniper team from 5th Marine Regiment had been travelling with his CP group—and sighted in on the spot. When the head popped up again, he opened fire but the NVA kept dropping back into his hole.
The exchange was going nowhere. The sun was blazing and wounded men were dying in the paddy. Beeler finally decided they’d have to rush the embankment, duck against it out of sight of the bamboo, and toss fragmentation grenades up into the machine gun pit. It was insanely simple: Captain Beeler and his radiomen, Corporal Valley and Lance Corporal Ray, dropped their backpacks and went over the dike, shouting, shooting, running as fast as they could. The RPD suddenly opened fire and Beeler dove to the bank, rolling flat against it. The burst had grazed him—a tear across his left hand, another across the side of his neck which permanently lodged a piece of his flak jacket collar into the wound. Beeler glanced to his right. Corporal Valley and a few others had made it with him and also hugged against the berm; Lance Corporal Ray was clutching his wounded hand. Beeler started lobbing grenades up into the bamboo; the response was a Chicom tossed down at him. It landed beside him and in a reflexive lunge from the prone position, he sprang five feet, then curled with his back to the grenade. The explosion kicked him in the butt—where he had an asspack full of C rations—but there was no pain and he rolled back.
The exchange continued. It was taking forever, and a grunt named Williams was going crazy. Top point man with Spanky Norris, who lay dead in front of the bamboo, he raged with grief and anger. Beeler could see two grunts holding him down to keep him from charging.
The Marines and North Vietnamese were within yards of each other, which is why there was no madhouse of firing. In fact, from a distance, little appeared to be happening. Lieutenant Colonel Dowd and his radioman hiked across the paddy right up to the shooting, until an India Marine hollered to get down because the machine gun hadn’t been knocked out yet. Dowd paused, but everything was quiet, so they popped over the next dike. A burst from the machine gun instantly knocked them back down. Lieutenant Colonel Dowd was shot in the head and chest.
He never knew what hit him.
With the battalion commander suddenly vanished from the radio waves, there were a lot of confused calls. Fagan finally got Major Alexander, S-3, 1/7, on the horn. Alexander said, “This is the Six.”
“Where’s the Actual?”
“He’s a Kilo. I’m the Six.”
That’s how the company commanders were informed that the colonel was dead. Lieutenant Peters, XO, D/1/7, was not very surprised when he heard the news. He’d always thought Dowd was too gungy for his own good. One of the first things Peters learned as a combat officer was to try to look like an enlisted man in the bush. He packed away his gold bars, wore simply an o.d. undershirt under his flak jacket, and traded his .45 pistol for an M16 rifle. One day in July, Peters’s platoon had been on an isolated hillock when, from out of nowhere, Lieutenant Colonel Dowd and Sergeant Major Awkerman had come walking towards his perimeter with two riflemen. Not only had the been walking through the Arizona with such a small party, but there had been Dowd in all his glory, cigar jutting from his jaw, walking stick in his hand, and a silver oak leaf on his cover. It had shone in the sun. As far as Peters was concerned, Dowd had been begging for a sniper to hit him. He wondered, with little sympathy, if the colonel had let his macho streak kill him.
Lima Company on the right flank was trying to push through the tree line to assist India Company. When the ambush was first sprung, Lima had been in the paddy with two platoons up and their attached platoon from Kilo back. Lieutenant Colonel Dowd had instantly come over the battalion command net to tell Captain Rider to press the attack into the tree line. Rider gave the order to his two lead lieutenants.
They made an assault right out of the book.
The forward observer crouched behind a burial mound with Rider, calling in more artillery, while the M60 teams jogged to the far right flank and pumped grazing fire across the company’s front. The reserve platoon was moved to refuse the right flank, while grunts in the paddy fired cover for fire team and individual rushes. From dike to dike, they edged towards the invisible snipers in the tree line. Everything was going so smoothly that Rider felt more like an observer than a participant, and he found himself standing atop the burial mound more closely to watch his Marines attack; he was beaming.
To understand why the company commanders in this battle were so proud of their riflemen, some background is necessary. In 1965, Rider was a platoon leader in the 7th Marines when they deployed to Vietnam from Camp Pendleton. At that time, most of the senior officers and sergeants had experience ranging from Gaudalcanal to Inchon. Almost all the staff NCOs were veterans of the Korean War, and most of the new corporals and sergeants had at least four years in the Corps. When Rider returned to the regiment in 1969, his company was a body of teenagers. The grunts were mostly new graduates or dropouts from high school, and most of his NCOs had been promoted early due to the manpower drain of Vietnam. He had sergeants who weren’t old enough to drink beer legally. His platoon leaders were all Rice Paddy Lieutenants, rushed through a shortened version of Basic School for only one use.
But now these young lieutenants and grunts—with bullets snapping over their heads, but with a tangible enemy finally materializing in this sweaty hell—were charging right at the North Vietnamese.
They were Marines.
Captain Rider was finally chased off that burial mound when his new gunnery sergeant, Gunny Martinez, shouted at him, “Goddammit, skipper, you better get off there or we’re going to bury your ass in that bloody mound!” Lima Company got into the trees without casualties, but then took several wounded as they cautiously advanced towards India and Delta Companies: the NVA were firing from spider holes and, with the arty turned off now, snipers had clambered up into the trees.
It was about then that Dowd was killed.
Soon after, Captain Beeler finally got a grenade into the machine-gun pit. The RPD was silenced and he brought 3d Platoon across the paddy to secure the area. They found a dozen dead NVA in the bamboo. The rest were retreating into a cane field behind the tree line, exchanging a few more grenades and rifle shots with Lima Company as they pressed right to left through the trees. Lima tied in with Delta and the firing evaporated. The battalion line consolidated in the woods and medevacs were called in. Captain Rider noticed in particular one wounded man. He couldn’t even remember the kid’s name because he was a cook at the battalion rear on Hill 10; whenever a company rotated to the base camp, he pestered its CO about going to the bush with them. Rider finally went to the BnXO and got permission to take him on one operation. This was the one and the happy cook accompanied the assault platoons; once in the bush, though, an NVA in a tree dropped a grenade which hit the cook’s helmet and exploded. Blood leaked from his ears and nose. When Rider saw the Marine heading for the medevacs, he was deaf, stunned, and looking rather pleased with himself.
Lance Corporal Wells usually carried the primary radio for Dowd. This morning, though, he’d been made the spare operator and a wireman from the comm section went with Dowd. The sweep had been easy going at first; the sun was warm, spirits were up, and a thudding of artillery led the way. Wells was feeling excited and he and a buddy humped along, laughing and humming the latest Beatles’ tune: “Happiness is a Warm Gun.” Things began slowing down when India Company tripped two booby traps. They paused while a Sea Knight dropped in; when they resumed the march, everyone closed into a file trying to walk in the footsteps of the man ahead. The rifle companies were moving too fast to collect all the NVA gear in their path, so Wells and a Marine from H&S supply were sent down a footpath to police up what they could carry. The CP kept moving as they ambled down the trail into some thick brush, getting a little lost but not too worried since the NVA were on the run. The small forest seemed deserted by the time they found the NVA 82mm mortar rounds; there were twelve of them, three tied to each end of two sticks to be carried over the shoulder. The men didn’t have any explosives to destroy the rounds and the water in the paddy was too shallow to sink them. Reluctantly, they shouldered the enemy ammunition and continued their casual, disoriented stroll.
They finally got to the edge of the woods and rested on a dike. Ahead of them, the grunts were already far into the paddies. That’s when the machine gun opened fire.
Wells and his buddy quickly rolled behind the dike as high rounds clipped the woods behind them. The noise was incredible as they watched the fight. Finally, they saw figures run into the trees. Wells was amazed at such bravery. It was the Marine Corps discipline, he reckoned, instilled from boot camp—don’t think, just do it! The firing petered out soon after; that’s when he noticed the NVA mortar rounds. They’d dumped them atop the dike when they first sat down and they’d laid there during the entire fight; one round could have disintegrated the two spectators.
They shouldered the rounds again and trudged up to where Delta Company and the Battalion Command Post were consolidating. Wells looked for Dowd but he was nowhere in sight. Grunts said he’d been shot. Wells kind of liked the Old Man and gulped, “Oh, Geez!” as he dumped the mortar shells and jogged to where the casualties were being collected. Dowd was right there among the other dead, a poncho over him and a hole in his head. The casualties were being carried to a clearing for medevac, so Wells took the poncho, rolled Dowd into it, then called for some guys to help. Wells toted the colonel’s pack and grease gun with the two magazines taped end to end.
In the LZ, Wells noticed the colonel’s radioman was waiting in the grass; his face was contorted in great pain from his machine gun wound. On the way back from the LZ to the CP, Wells passed a wounded Marine heading towards the medevac. There was dried blood on his arm and flak jacket, and he was holding his bandaged arm; but he was grinning broadly, “I finally got one confirmed. It’s all mine and I got him. I got an NVA to my credit now!”
Lieutenant Hord passed within yards of Dowd’s body as he brought Charlie Company into the wood line. His eyes teared. He loved the colonel and had to look away; he couldn’t go over and touch the body for fear he would break down.
Medevacs began coming in. There was no fire.
In India Company, corpsmen were finally getting to the men who’d been stuck for hours in the parched field. One, Cpl James Castor, was gravely wounded and they worked frantically on him. Besides him, four men from India had been killed and sixteen others wounded. Captain Beeler’s hand was bleeding and swollen, and he tucked it in his flak jacket so the troops wouldn’t see it as he moved about. He made sure their prisoner was still alive and had him placed aboard one of the medevacs. Then he turned over command to the new lieutenant leading 3d Platoon, the only officer left. He made sure to have a talk with 3d Platoon’s sergeant first, though; this staff sergeant was the only seasoned leader left and Beeler told him to stick with the lieutenant and make sure everything was okay until they got their two experienced lieutenants back in the field.
At 1800, Beeler went out on the last Sea Knight. Corporal Castor was also aboard and corpsmen kept up their efforts to save him all the way to the 1st Medical Battalion, 1st MarDiv, Da Nang, where he was quickly loaded onto a stretcher and rushed inside. The 3/5 Navy chaplain met them there, and Beeler handed him his asspack full of C rations; he was surprised to discover all the cans had been opened by the Chicom shrapnel. He also asked the chaplain to check on Castor—he died on the operating table.
A Navy surgeon gave Beeler a local, sutured up his neck and hand, then sent him to a ward. He didn’t feel too badly, at least not until a corpsman noticed he was still bleeding from the neck and had him rushed to intensive care. He lay on a gurney and noticed one of his men, Lance Corporal Stewart, beside him. Stewart had tripped the booby trap that morning, but Beeler had not seen him before the medevac came; he was shocked to see that the young man’s leg was gone. After surgery, the Division inspector general and a young Marine came through the ward with a Polaroid camera. The IG presented Captain Beeler with his Purple Heart and the Marine snapped a photo. The IG suggested he send it home as soon as possible to let his relatives see him smiling from a hospital bed. Hopefully, it would allay some of the fears the telegram would bring. Beeler thought that was a good idea and so did his wife; she still carries the photograph.
In the tree line, Major Alexander had assumed command of the battalion. He’d been with 1/7 only about two weeks, but was on his second tour; three years earlier as a company commander with the 4th Marines he had won the Silver Star. Compared to Dowd, he was a taciturn, businesslike man.
Colonel Codispoti, of course, outranked Alexander but, as was proper, Codispoti let the chain of command take effect. Codispoti was still an observer and a helper, and it was now Alexander’s ball game. He got on the radio to clear up any confusion and to get the battalion moving again. “Youth Six is Kilo. I am Oscar India Charlie. The plan is this: continue to march and we will make it to the river.” There was only token resistance. A few NVA were visible moving through the tree line and Lieutenant Hord, a student of military history, had thoughts of Dunkirk. Alpha Company was waiting for them on the banks of the Vu Gia. As it turned out, the conclusion of the chase more closely resembled one historian’s characterization of the cavalry pursuing the plains Indians: “… like an amoeba each band would divide, divide, and divide again, and again, and once again, leaving a less and less distinct trail, with the result that his blue-jacketed cavaliers never could catch anybody to punish.”
Captain Clark’s Alpha Company did not have the opportunity to machine gun the retreating swarm. In their three days as block along the Vu Gia, they had spotted the NVA only once: a party of six the morning after the initial attack. They killed one. Besides that, all they’d found were booby traps: one USMC KIA, one USMC WIA.
The 90th NVA Regiment melted into Charlie Ridge.
This was all the victory the North Vietnamese could claim against Dowd’s battalion; to kill fewer than thirty Marines, they had left almost three hundred of their own in the paddy fields. The five companies of the sweep consolidated with the one company along the river before dark. There they dug a huge perimeter. The grunts stripped to the waist to scrape out foxholes amid the high, bright green elephant grass; and there they hunkered down, spent, depressed, elated, glad it was over. Around them, the sky was a pale twilight blue, clouds streaked low on the horizon; and the river was a wide, crystal blue reflection of the green shore.
Fagan stood with Hord at dusk and said simply but, to Hord, very profoundly, “We’ll never forget this.”
However, it wasn’t quite over.
The night was a Disneyland of pyrotechnics. There was illumination from dusk till dawn, a constant succession of poppings and airborne spotlights floating down. In this stark, flat landscape of black and white elephant grass, an NVA sapper unit crept up to the perimeter. Sergeant Lowery of Charlie Company picked up his second Purple Heart in two days in the first volley: he was sitting with his lieutenant in their little poncho shelter when a Chicom thumped into the ground beside them. There was a brilliant flash, then the realization that almost everyone in the hootch had been peppered with little pieces of metal.
Charlie Company killed two NVA in front of their foxholes, but most of the shooting was on Bravo Company’s side of the line. Lieutenant Weh figured there was a platoon of NVA in the brush, but it was a relatively quiet fight. The NVA only threw grenades and Weh’s Marines sat in their holes under the continuing ilium, firing only single shots when heads or backs rose above the grass. Weh was impressed by his men’s cool marksmanship. So were the NVA. They pulled back and Bravo found seven of their dead at dawn.
On 14 August, 1/7 Marines crossed the Song Vu Gia without incident. The river was wide and shimmered fiercely under the sun, but it was only knee-deep and the grunts forded it in a long, snaking file. They rested their weapons over their shoulders like tramp sticks, let their flak jackets hang open, secured their helmets to packs, and put on covers or bush hats. They were headed home. A dozen Marines dropped their gear on the opposite side and helped their heavily burdened comrades up the bank. Behind them, a contingent from 3/7 Marines had secured Route 4 and was waiting with amtracs and trucks, and food and water. Among them were combat photographers from the Information Services Office, 1st Marine Division, and a dozen civilian journalists with minicams and microphones. By the time Charlie Company crossed the river, they had to file between two columns of Marines to reach the road. The reporters were behind that line, shouting questions about the number of casualties and the dead colonel, but word was passed not to talk with them until after debriefing.
Lance Corporal Bradley looked at the reporters as if they were vultures. He never saw one in the bush, and was convinced they twisted things to fit their own political perceptions. One kept shouting questions louder than the rest.
“Fuck off!” Bradley snapped.
The convoy on Route 4 deposited the weary battalion to Hill 55. It was time to unwind, rehab, and, for the officers at least, complete the administrative side of every battle. Witness statements for personal decorations were taken; there was talk of a Medal of Honor for Dowd. A score of other recommendations were typed up, and the battalion as a whole was submitted for a Meritorious Unit Commendation, which was later approved. Other duties were less pleasant; there were wounded to be visited.
The detail which came last was the most painful. On 17 August, the battalion held a formation in an outdoor ceremony honoring their dead. American and Marine Corps flags, a forest of battle streamers hanging from the standard, flapped beside a wooden platform. There was a row of M16 rifles in front of the platform, bayonets in the dirt. Twenty-two rifles, twenty-two helmets, twenty-two pairs of jungle boots. Sergeant Major Awkerman—whose father had served with the Marine Corps in WWI, and who himself had landed at Gaudalcanal, Saipan, and Okinawa—read the honor roll.
LtCol John A. Dowd (CO, 1/7)
Cpl John R. Constien (B/1/7)
HM3 Alan W. Brashears, USN (H&S/1/7)
LCpl Joseph G. Sands (B/1/7)
LCpl D. P. Quinlan (B/1/7)
LCpl Fred J. Delarenzo (D/1/7)
LCpl Charles J. Garity (C/1/7)
LCpl Harvey Peay (C/1/7)
LCpl James Cashman (D/1/7)
PFC James R. Rice (A/1/7)
PFC Charles A. Hood (B/1/7)
PFC Benjamin W. Stone (B/1/7)
PFC Joseph Colorio (D/1/7)
PFC Gerald Rios (D/1/7)
PFC Tilmen Bartholomew (D/1/7)
PFC James Braham (D/1/7)
PFC Phillip Guzman (B/1/7)
PFC Stephen Kelly (B/1/7)
PFC Ronald Ray (B/1/7)
PFC G. D. Tate (B/1/7)
PFC W. R. Wilson (B/1/7)
PFC Carlos Baldizon (A/1/7)
The next day, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines got what everyone who’d survived what they’d seen deserved: a rest. One company at a time, the battalion was rotated through Stack Arms, an in-country R and R center within the compound of the 3d Amtrac Battalion on China Beach north of Da Nang. Stack Arms had been opened in June exclusively for the infantry, a labor of love by General Simpson. His motivations were expressed on the wooden sign that hung above the compound gate: “… in recognition and appreciation of the tremendous load these Marines are carrying for Corps and country.”
D Company was the first to Stack Arms and Lance Corporal Wells went with them. They filed in, handed over their weapons, ammunition, gear, and faded jungle fatigues, and getting undershirts and tiger-stripe shorts. Then a gunnery sergeant herded them to an outdoor theater and mounted the stage. The gunny pointed to fifty-five-gallon drums filled with ice and beer and shouted, “Okay, everybody go get a beer!” Wells was swept forward in the pandemonium; then the men settled back onto the wooden benches. The gunny surveyed them tight-lipped. “What’s wrong with you, you’re not really Marines! You only have one beer! I want to see a beer in each hand!” The grunts exploded, shouting, spraying beer—laughing.
Stack Arms lasted three days, three whole days without any duties or lifer harassment. The grunts loved it. They watched movies all night. They showered and shaved in hot water. They played football on the beach. They telephoned home via a communications unit. Some got drunk. Some got stoned. They slept on cots. They ate steak, chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers, drank can after can of beer the first day and opted for soda the next two days. Most overdid it, but it smoothed out the wrinkles. Wells ate so much the first day, he barely ate afterwards. Bradley got drunk for the first time and his buddies dragged him to bed. He woke up, put his trousers on backwards, and ran into the ocean. He managed to wash up before the lifeguards had to dive in. Zotter watched a buddy careen drunkenly towards a general who was shaking hands and talking with the grunts. The kid stumbled and crashed at his feet. He looked up, “Goddamn, I never got to shake hands with a fucking general before!”
The officer reached down. “Well here’s your chance, son.”
They both laughed, everyone loved it, and the next morning, Zotter found his section leader, Staff Sergeant Gordon, passed out in the barbed wire.
The 1st Battalion, 7th Marines came out of the Arizona on 14 August and rotated its companies through Stack Arms from the 18th to the 25th; on the 20th, Delta Company led the incremental move south to LZ Baldy for another combat operation.
The Americal Division was in trouble.
The command had been trying to preempt this trouble since 20 July, the day Operation Durham Peak began. Three battalions (2/1, 2/5, and 3/5) had been sent into the Que Sons south of the An Hoa Combat Base to draw the 2d NVA Division into a fight. The op lasted three weeks and claimed the lives of fifteen Marines and seventy-six North Vietnamese. There were numerous important finds, including a large and hastily evacuated NVA hospital equipped with Swedish surgical instruments of the highest quality. The 5th Marines regimental report wrote it up as a victory: “… Although large scale enemy contact was not experienced, Operation DURHAM PEAK was considered highly successful in that it denied the enemy freedom of movement in his normally natural haven. The presence of a multi-battalion force caused the enemy to abandon his numerous base camps and flee to the lowlands north and south.… Numerous large base camps and caches were discovered and destroyed. In addition, valuable intelligence information was gained concerning the Que Son Mountains, e.g. trail networks, base camps, and caves.…”
General Simpson agreed, but had his reservations. The whole point had been to pin the 2d NVA Division, to cripple them before they could choose the time and place for their offensive. The enemy had not been pinned. Simpson was impressed at how quickly and completely the NVA could fade away; more than once, his Marines had found warm cooking fires in deserted camps.
Simpson was also frustrated. At the start of the operation, he had coordinated with General Ramsey, CG, Americal Division, whom he knew and liked, about providing a block south of the Que Sons. That was the AO of 4–31 Infantry, 196th Brigade; but tied down with the protection of LZ West, LZ Siberia, and the Hiep Duc Resettlement Village, they had been able to deploy only C and D Companies. Two companies to screen the eight-mile northern frontier of the Hiep Duc Valley.
The NVA walked right past them.
One of the Americal’s gravest problems was that they were stretched too thinly and simply could not afford the units and material required for every mission (the joke among the grunts was that an airmobile combat assault in the Americal was one helicopter making fifteen trips). In addition, the demarcation line between the Marines and the Army was right down the Que Sons, making neither division wholly responsible. U.S. units were instinctively wary of AO borders and the NVA knew this.
Then came the night of 11–12 August 1969, when the 2d NVA Division was able to bring the war down from the mountains on their own terms. While the 1st Marine Division was fighting around Da Nang and An Hoa, the Americal Division had been fending off another series of attack. Within days, Simpson and Ramsey conferred, and Ramsey then approached the commanding general, III Marine Amphibious Force; they wanted to expand the 1st MarDiv south to assume LZ Baldy, LZ Ross, and (finally) the whole of the Que Sons. That would take the pressure off the Americal and provide reinforcements for the counterattack.