I slung the Pig on its combat strap ready for action and we shuffled toward the CP, keeping a low profile to prevent displaying ourselves against the skyline for the benefit of some eager-beaver downhill gunner. Tony pulled up short as we passed a swarm of green shit flies buzzing over what remained of a fighting hole the enemy must have dug ahead of our occupying the ridge. Not much left of it except a trash pit of logs, dirt, and debris on top of which Marines were tossing our own garbage—C-rat cans, empty ammo boxes, and the like. The stench Tony had been complaining about seemed to emanate from this location. It was stronger than ever. I was in a hurry to get on past it.
Curious, Tony kicked aside some dead tree limbs and jumped back, clasping his hand over his mouth and nose to protect against the noxious odor released. He pointed. There underneath all the brush lay the withered and rotting corpse of an NVA soldier, a little guy sprawled on his back gazing with empty eye sockets into the sky at Buddha or Happy Valley or whatever. The face had turned black. A colony of warrior ants was busily stripping off flesh and crawling in and out of cavities. A bamboo rat dining on intestines through a hole gnawed in the dead man’s belly scurried off.
“Holy shit!”
“I told you something stunk, Maras.”
Everything out here smelled like death, so strong sometimes when the wind blew in the right direction from off the Wicked Sisters that eating became nauseating. This guy’s comrades must have overlooked him when they abandoned the ridge in favor of its opposing finger on the other side of the draw but still at the foot of 881N. The grisly sight made a hell of a send-off for a patrol venturing out there where this guy’s live counterparts lurked and prepared to turn us into bait for rats, ants, and green shit flies.
Per SOP, machine gunners marched with the point element. We were needed for rapid response to a situation. Lieutenant Mac’s 3rd Platoon was more or less home base for Tony and me. We were assigned to PFC Taylor’s 1st Squad.
Normally, a sergeant or lance corporal served as squad leader, but a PFC had to suffice in the absence of more stripes. Taylor would be relieved of the responsibility once his replacement arrived, which, he was assured, should be any day now.
I was as nervous as a dog crapping peach seeds as the platoon, in staggered battle formation, moved down off the ridge toward the creek. No way could an element our size push through shrubbery and razor grass tall enough to slash our faces without making a trail the size of a freeway and sounding like rush hour traffic or, more appropriately in this setting, a gaggle of elephants.
I felt vicious little eyes watching us. I carried the M-60 with my finger on the trigger guard ready to spray anything that jumped up. I kept picturing Lieutenant Sauer with his head cut off and his dick stuck in his mouth. Rage replaced my fear. I experienced a certain clarity unblemished by lesser emotions, like a predatory fever.
Grass thinned out down near the creek, substituted by Tarzan-like rain forest. The creek was low as it waited for the next rain to gorge it with water gushing through the valley like opening a giant faucet. Enemy sign was everywhere—machete trails hacked through thickets; grass beaten down; cook fires; piles of fresh human feces; discarded or lost equipment. . . . The NVA were out here all right. And lots of them.
In combat, an outfit on the move suffered a grave disadvantage over a stationary enemy force that owned the element of surprise. All senses alert for danger, Mac’s platoon moved slowly and cautiously, practicing noise discipline as best we could, looking around, sniffing the air. The platoon’s best point man, a Spanish kid named Ramirez, took the front. I was fourth man back, Tony to my rear, and a few steps farther back came Lieutenant Mac and his RTO.
Even when you expected to be hit, it almost always came as a total surprise. One moment I could hear the sinister chuckle of the nearby little creek, the strident call of a bird, the rustle of rodents in the grass, my own breath. . . . The next moment everything exploded in my face.
Puffs of smoke and flickers of flame from the surrounding jungle. The zip and snap of rounds coming my direction sounded like whips cracking. Marines yelling and screaming in surprise, fear, and rage, responding to training by returning fire, our M-16s sounding a thinner, more rapid counterpoint to the throaty Bark! Bark! of the enemy’s heavy-caliber AK-47s.
“Ambush left!” Lieutenant Mac sounding the alarm and a command simultaneously. “Near ambush! Move!”
SOP in a near ambush was to assault into it rather than go to ground, prolong the contact, and risk suffering more casualties. I wheeled toward the action, swung the Pig forward, and lay on the trigger, firing from the hip like John Wayne. Tony with his Mattie Mattel and me with the M-60 joined the mad charge into the very teeth of our unseen assailants. We functioned automatically, depending on training drills and raw adrenaline. Marines screamed and shouted like demons, every weapon on auto-fire. We crashed directly into the ambush, sending NVA soldiers fleeing for their lives. I continued pumping rounds into the forest, cutting down foliage until the gun clicked on an empty chamber.
“Cease fire, Marines! Cease fire!”
It ended as quickly as it began, my first combat firefight. I found myself breathing heavily from excitement. The pungent scent of gunpowder and exploding grenades hung in the air as our attackers got away, hauling ass uphill and disappearing toward 881S with no attempt at noise discipline. PFC Taylor and his point squad, Tony and I included, started to give chase. Lieutenant Mac called us back.
“That’s what they want us to do,” he warned.
When I stopped to think about it, this was not a classic ambush. These gooks were bait trying to lure us into chasing them into a trap laid by the real force. Fortunately, Lieutenant Mac was a combat vet and knew all the tricks.
“Good job, Marines! We kicked their asses. Now, let’s pull back out of here. Keep alert.”
The fleeing enemy left a dead man behind. Lieutenant Mac searched the body for intel before we withdrew. PFC Taylor appropriated the guy’s pith helmet for a trophy; the dead soldier’s buddies had already relieved him of his weapon and ammo to take with them.
Unbelievably, what with all the bullets in the air and grenades exploding, the platoon suffered only two casualties, one of them minor from grenade shrapnel, the other a young, new replacement private with a bullet flesh wound to his calf. Magilla Gorilla patched both men and fell into return formation with the wounded private hobbling and leaning on the corpsman for support.
“We were damned lucky this time,” Magilla said as he passed by Tony and me.
Once we returned safely to the ridgeline, Tony and I resumed our machine gun watch looking downhill toward the creek where we were ambushed. I was still coming down off the adrenaline high of one of the most surreal days of my entire life. A couple of hours ago I was fighting for my life. Now, everything looked green and idyllic down there. The fog had dissipated, while fleece clouds drifted across an otherwise clear sky, parrots flew over. When you’re nineteen, you think it’s always going to be blue skies and that you’ll live forever. It was a bit of a shock for me to realize I could have been killed, a reality I was going to have to get used to and accept.
Tony appeared to be considering the same philosophical riddle. Either that or thinking about Peggy. Both of us remained quiet and contemplative. Tony idly flipped pebbles toward the smelly dead guy in the rubble. A medevac chopper dashed in to pick up our young leatherneck wounded on his first day of combat. The chopper also flew in a replacement to take PFC Taylor’s place as 1st Squad leader, 3rd Platoon.
After the chopper lifted off, the replacement checked in with Lieutenant Mac and introduced himself to 1st Squad before he began wandering about looking things over as casually as if he were on a stroll through the park. He wore an air of smug condescension that caused me to take him for a lifer ass-kisser bucking for promotion. He still had creases in his utilities, for God’s sake.
“I am Lance Corporal D
ye,” he introduced himself. “You men look a bit lax.”
I ignored him.
He wrinkled his nose. “What’s that awful odor?”
“Dead gook,” Tony supplied, not missing a beat.
Corporal Dye blanched. Clearly he was unprepared for what lay ahead.
“Your name is Die, huh?” Tony mused. “Who the fuck would have a name like ‘Die’ out here in this shit?”
“D-Y-E,” Corporal Dye corrected tersely, and moved on.
Somewhat later, he returned with PFC Taylor to select a fighting position from which he might control his new squad. Unaware of the proximity of the dead enemy, he chose a vacancy near the corpse’s brush pile. He discovered his mistake right away. He jumped back from the partly exposed corpse with a look of horror on his face. For a moment I thought he was going to upchuck his spaghetti and meat balls.
After a supreme effort to recover his composure, he sauntered over to Tony and me.
“I don’t know your names yet,” he said, “but I need you two guys on a detail to bury that thing. I can’t live with the smell and the flies.”
Tony was in no mood for his shit, what with his Dear John letter from Peggy and our being ambushed at the creek. “Corporal, we’ve been humping the bush all day,” he snapped. “If you want that stiff buried, I suggest you take your little E-tool and bury him yourself.”
So Corporal Dye buried the body. Tony and I watched him bravely trying not to retch while he scooped out a shallow grave.
Next day, not twenty-four hours after his arrival, he went out and down the trail on his first patrol and got himself killed. His body flew out on the same chopper that brought him in. His death was something else for me to contemplate: Fate. Perhaps it was Corporal Dye’s fate to come all the way to Vietnam just to die. Perhaps it was also PFC Taylor’s fate to remain as 1st Squad leader.
“Maybe we should have buried the gook for him,” I decided.
Chapter Fourteen
A Good War
A Marine never admitted defeat. A rout was a temporary “strategic withdrawal.” DIs pounded that truth into us from the first day a bunch of grungy civilians showed up to stand on the yellow footprints at R&O—Recruiting and Outfitting—to swear the oath to become Marines. They always placed the emphasis on victory and on Semper Fidelis—“Always Faithful.”
“Today,” declared the DI commander the day we graduated from boot camp with our buzz haircuts, suntans, and new attitudes, “you are Marines. From this point forward no one is authorized to call you ‘girls,’ ‘pukes,’ ‘maggots,’ or ‘pussies.’ From this point forward until the day you die, you are Marines. Never forget it.”
Sir, yes, Sir.
The correct response always began with “Sir” and ended with “Sir.” Your ass got reamed if you forgot it.
My ass felt reamed now in the hills as we lived minute by minute, hour by hour, not exactly contemplating defeat but letting it sniff around in the backs of our minds anyhow. It occurred to me that President Lyndon Johnson himself might be fearing a disastrous defeat in Vietnam. Newspapers, TV, and protesters were beating the hell out of him every day back home while here in the hills, these dueling hills, NVA batted us around like redheaded stepchildren and stained the hills red with our blood.
By now, the Wicked Sisters and their brood of ridges, knolls, and knobs were as familiar to us as our muddy boots while at the same time they remained as foreign as Vietnam had been when BLT 2/3 hit Red Beach just more than a week ago. Existing on the edge of living and dying meant we no longer claimed a past or a future, only a continuing present. The universe centered here. Nothing beyond existed. I wondered if I would ever see my wife again.
“Good morning, Vietnam!” became weaker and weaker for Tony and me during our morning ritual piss.
“Maybe we should have banged our heads against the shower wall in Okinawa,” Tony suggested.
Mike Company 3/3’s movement to set up a base at the foot of 881S from which to launch an assault on that objective provoked a confrontation with the NVA that we witnessed from across the valley. The company’s three platoons started up the hill shortly after noon flanking each other in tactical combat formation. Apparently, they expected the North Vietnamese defenders to have either been crippled by prep air and artillery or to have fled. Instead, they ran into a shit storm when the NVA launched a furious first strike from all sides. It was not simply a head-butting skirmish with an exchange of shots before the gooks hauled ass. The ferocity of the fight echoed through the hills like the much-magnified sounds of a giant bowling alley. From the terrible cacophony of machine guns, mortars, RPGs, and small arms, Mike Company had poked up a large enemy element.
From 2/3’s ridgeline, we looked across the creek valley and watched smoke billowing out of the jungle from grenade, mortar, and rocket explosions. It looked like a raging forest fire with all the cracking and popping that accompanied it. Word we received through frantic radio transmissions had our side getting its ass kicked and suffering casualties.
Kilo Company 3/9 descended from 861 as a QRF (Quick Reaction Force) and crossed over our ridge on its way to rescue Mike from near-certain disaster. These Marines rushing into battle were a grim-faced lot with prayers and other messages and names recorded on their helmet covers:
God Protect The Wise and The Foolish
Vietnam: I’ve Spent My Time in Hell
Margie
Donna
Paula
One of the drawn-faced grunts slogging past looked anxious but prepared with an epistle that began on one side of his helmet with, Verily, Tho I Walk Through The Valley of The Shadow of Death, I Shall Fear No Evil. . . . It concluded on the other side with, for I’m the Meanest Sonofabitch in The Valley.
On my helmet cover I had drawn a cartoon tiger sitting on its haunches behind bare human footprints representing the gook meal he had just consumed. In combat you went out of your mind if you didn’t poke at the insanity that went on around you.
“At least they wrote their girlfriends’ names on their helmet covers instead of on their arms,” I pointed out to Tony. “You can always change covers.”
“Fuck you, Maras. And piss on her.”
Captain Jerald Giles and his Kilo 3/9 made the forced march to the base of 881S where the company joined the battle alongside Mike 3/3. In a brawl like this, you always wanted as many friends as you could get to show up with as many guns as they could get. Instead of retreating, the NVA maintained the initiative and kept up a steady pace of fire from several directions.
Marines crawled around in the bush on their bellies seeking cover. Bodies lay strewn all over the battlefield. It seemed someone was getting shot or fragged every minute. Screams of pain and fear counterpointed and accompanied the thunder of rifle and machine gun fire and explosions.
Orders came for Mike and Kilo to make a “strategic withdrawal.” Bring out the wounded but leave the dead. Fog with approaching nightfall provided some concealment for the retreat, while Captain Giles’s “danger near” request for supporting fires walked artillery directly up behind the horribly mangled Marines and kept the Viets from giving chase.
Kilo withdrew a few hundred meters and dug in for the night as the fog and darkness thickened. Captain Giles reported to his battalion CP that 881S was now clear of all living Marines. Mike Company, with a casualty rate that exceeded half the company, filtered on through Kilo to return to 861, carrying its wounded. This first approach to 881S cost 43 Marines killed in action and 109 wounded.
Mike Company had been decimated. Instead of stopping at 861, it had to be pulled off the line and sent back to the Rockpile via Dong Ha for an infusion of replacements. Foxtrot Company 2/3, which had been held in reserve, received a warning order to stand by at Khe Sanh for airlift into the hills at dawn. It would now be committed to the fight.
When I was a boy, I read the World W
ar II classic Up Front by Bill Mauldin. I recalled a passage from it that went something like, “How a war is going depends upon what is going on in your particular area. No matter what is happening elsewhere, it’s a good war if you’re not being shot at.”
Nobody was shooting at me for the moment. I had an uneasy feeling, however, that my “good war” was about to change.
Chapter Fifteen
The French Lady
While Mike and Kilo of 3/3 and 3/9 fought for their lives on 881S and withdrew, Echo and Golf of BLT 2/3 received warning orders to prepare to assault the other Sister, 881N. Hotel had withdrawn to refit after the fight in the draw, and Foxtrot in reserve would soon be assigned to rescue the units on 881S. Platoon battle briefings filled us in on what squads and individual grunts needed to know, no more. Our objective was the ridgeline and smaller hilltop on the other side of the draw where Hotel Company had been slapped back and Sergeant Crawford wounded. Take the little hilltop, consolidate, gear up to launch against 881N. Like everyone else, I was unabashedly apprehensive. I mean, hell, Mike and Kilo had employed an almost identical tactic against the other Twin. Should we expect a different outcome for Echo and Golf?
Two other items in the briefing stood out. First, for this action, however long it took, allotments of food and water must be cut to two C-rats and one canteen of water per Marine per day. Supply choppers were having a tough time getting through to us because of deadly NVA antiaircraft 51s staked out all over the hills. Taking a Marine’s chow away from him was some serious shit.
The second stand-out item in the briefing concerned the acquiring of enemy intelligence. What was the strength of enemy forces in these hills? What units were here? What was their strategy? How were they managing to live through devastating air and artillery strikes and still have fight left in them? Native Bru woodcutters in the area, who knew every anthill, trail, and tree all the way to Laos, had tried to warn our colored pin pushers of the enemy’s buildup. Marine brass sluffed them off. Now our strategists wanted more information, which meant taking prisoners. Captain Sheehan passed the word that Division was offering a five-day in-country R&R (Rest and Recreation) to any Marines who captured a prisoner for interrogation.
Blood in the Hills Page 9