Blood in the Hills

by Charles W. Sasser

  Tony’s “bad feeling” was right on again. Suddenly, a violent blast of AK-47 and automatic fire erupted from the vicinity of the knob, catching many of us in the open and cutting through our ranks like through a crop of field cane. Marines dropped, riddled with lead. I yelled at Tony to follow me to cover while other guys went to ground where they were.

  Bullets whip-snapped around my head. Some gook had spotted my machine gun. I hit the dirt only a few paces into the edge of the woods, but kept going, crawling on my elbows with the Pig cradled in my arms and Tony still in my wake, rounds snapping and whining above our heads and chopping off green foliage that showered down on us.

  Vlasek, Lieutenant Mac’s RTO, was one of the first to fall, a bullet in his temple. The lieutenant stripped the badly wounded and unconscious man of his radio and took cover among the gnarled roots of the nearest tree. PFC Tom Huckaba overheard McFarlane radioing Captain Sheehan, whose command element traversed back and forth between Golf Company and Echo.

  “Skipper, I got a number of wounded up here. My radioman’s down.”

  “Don’t worry, Mac,” came the calm response. “We’ll get you out. We’re calling up the sixty mike-mikes.”

  While a 60mm mortar crew moved up, Lieutenant Mac’s 3rd blasted back at the knob with everything we had, even though the brush and trees made it impossible to select targets. Still, anything was better than lying on the ground sucking our thumbs and waiting to be slaughtered. I let loose the Pig and kept squeezing the trigger to burp out three-round bursts that avoided overheating the barrel. I carried a spare in my pack, but this was no time to burn out a barrel and have to try to replace it.

  “Yeah! Yeah!” Tony cheered, blasting away with his M-16 in between feeding me ammo.

  While 3rd Platoon kept the enemy occupied, Golf’s other two platoons seized the opportunity to charge across the clearing to enter the fight. Lieutenant Hesser’s 1st Platoon moved into a nearby patch of woods on a rise off to my left that had been previously plowed up by artillery. Lance Corporal Bill Roldan’s Mattie Mattel jammed. Instead of dropping to seek cover, he bent over to work on the rifle’s cocking lever. An NVA shot him through the chest and he collapsed.

  Lieutenant Hesser darted forward and dragged Roldan out of the line of fire while shouting, “Corpsman! Corpsman up!”

  From the corner of my eye, I observed Magilla Gorilla, unarmed except for a .45 pistol strapped to his waist, spring from cover and head toward Roldan with his aid bag. At close to two hundred pounds on a six-four frame, he provided a prime target. A year ago he was playing high school football in Phoenix, Arizona. Now, he dodged through a hail of enemy fire clutching his bag like it was a football and he had goal to go. We regarded our Navy corpsmen as angels of mercy who responded to the sounds of guns while everyone else ducked for cover.

  Magilla skidded up to Roldan on his belly, already unsnapping the cover of his aid bag to get at his bandages. At the same time, Catherine the French photojournalist ran forward and dived into a shallow shell crater nearby from which she proceeded to capture on film a series of images that would become some of the most famous of the Vietnam War. They showed big redheaded Vernon Wike on his knees in the middle of a fierce firefight bandaging the unconscious Marine.

  The following photos showed him looking up with rage and sorrow etched on his face as Roldan died from the bullet that had pierced his heart and lungs. Wike grabbed his dead friend’s M-16 off the ground, cleared the jam, and, roaring at the top of his lungs, jumped up to charge the hillside.

  I happened to glance his way. “No, Magilla!” I yelled. “No! Get down! We need you!”

  Someone else noticed what was going on and bellowed a second warning, “Don’t do it, Doc. J.K.’s been hit over here and needs help.”

  That caused Magilla to pause. Duty came first over personal vengeance. Wike ran back to render aid to Lance Corporal J.K. Johnson, who lay crumpled and semiconscious on the ground while bullets cracked all around him.

  My attention returned to the ongoing battle, attracted by unnatural movement in shrubbery not one hundred meters to my front, almost down my throat. A bush appeared to open and close. I recalled the spider traps during Hotel Company’s bloody contest in the draw. NVA fighters were masters at the art of camouflage. But I had this guy dead to rights, with the operative term being dead. I felt a certain cold anticipation as I paused to wait for the bush to open again and its tenant to show himself.

  I hovered over the Pig, sights centered on the bush. Presently, the leaves parted. A pith helmeted head and shoulders appeared. In a rush of adrenaline and satisfaction, I laid on the trigger and burned through a half-belt of 7.62. The guy’s chest fluttered with black starbursts. His body launched backwards, electrified, his arms and legs flailing in what appeared to be attempted flight.

  Except he wasn’t going anywhere, ever again.

  This was my first confirmed KIA. In most firefights, everybody was shooting and no one was certain of who killed who. But this time, I was face to face with the guy. I saw scraggly hair on his chin, one of his eyes larger than the other, a small scar on his cheek—and I squeezed the trigger and watched him die.

  I felt nothing for his death except a slight elation that he would kill no more Marines.

  “I wasted his ass,” I said calmly to Tony.

  He was calm in return. “I know. I saw.”

  Time has no meaning in a firefight, is somehow truncated. A battle that lasts for an hour might seem two minutes—or two minutes feel like a day. This one ended in a series of artillery explosions before 60mm mortars could go into action on our behalf. Both the enemy’s big guns and ours opened up simultaneously and stomped geysers of fire and destruction all over the slope. Our artillery from Khe Sanh tried to kill the enemy out only a few hundred meters in front of us and save our asses. The NVA’s big guns from over by Laos attempted to kill us and save their asses. Our lines were so close, perhaps even mingled here and there, that it was difficult to tell whose shells were killing whom. What a fucked up mess this was turning out to be.

  I felt no fear. What I felt was sheer terror as deadly shrapnel buzzed and cut through the brush, indiscriminately seeking targets on both sides. Out front, exploding shells walked directly toward Tony and me, step by step. And like Nancy Sinatra sang about her boots, they were gonna walk all over us.

  I grabbed Tony. “Get the hell out of here. Follow me!”

  The look in his eyes—early signs of shock.

  “Tony? Damn it!”

  “Yeah, yeah. Go!”

  The two of us scooted through the grass like a pair of lizards on amphetamine, not knowing where we were going. Just going. Anywhere but here.

  Old soldiers and Marines always said you never heard or saw the round with your number on it. They were wrong. I heard the shell coming in like an elephant trumpeting and blistering as it hurtled from the sky. It thudded to the ground where Tony and I were lying not two seconds ago. It shook the earth when it exploded. I became like a flea trying to hold onto a dog shaking itself after coming out of the water.

  What felt like the blast from a furnace nearly ripped off my arm. Or so I thought. I yelped with sudden excruciating pain. Tony cried out in almost the same instant.

  “I’m hit!”

  My first thought was of the rotting dead gook I almost pissed on in the trees. Man, I hoped nobody saw me looking like that.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Get on the Chopper

  If it was your time to die, it was your time. Death could come right out of the sky and kill you in an instant. Apparently, this wasn’t my time. Nor Tony’s. We lay together in the grass where we had fallen and assessed our wounds while bullets and shrapnel continued to saturate the air over our heads. With overwhelming relief I realized I still had my arm and other parts.

  A shrapnel fragment had first struck my 781 web gear, slicing the st
rap, before it lodged just above my elbow. The piece of steel glowed red hot and cauterized the flesh around it, staying most of the bleeding. The wound still hurt like hell, and bled a little more when I snatched the fragment out of my arm, burning my fingers and prompting an involuntary stream of curses.

  Tony groaned. “This is no time to blaspheme God,” he warned.

  Surprising how calm a man could be when wounded, as long as it wasn’t deemed life threatening. Your poor body might be riddled from hostile intent, but fellow Marines weren’t likely to coddle you and let you stew about it. Man up. Keep a stiff upper lip, you’re not dying.

  Tony was hit in the outer thigh. It bled like a sonofabitch, saturating his utility trousers. We quickly ascertained, however, that no vital vein or artery was involved. I ripped open a battle dressing and applied pressure to the ugly gash.

  “I guess we got Purple Hearts coming,” I mentioned. “Peggy’ll change her mind when you come home a wounded hero.”

  “Piss on her.”

  Corpsman Lloyd Heath must have seen us take the hits. He rushed over. After patching us up, he decided our wounds were serious enough to warrant our going to the rear and a pre-designated casualty collection point. We slithered on our bellies to a thicket of trees that provided some protection near the clearing we crossed before everything started. A couple of other Marines were already there, one shot through the meaty part of his back, his torso wrapped in OD bandages, the other lying on the ground with blood oozing through lips already turning blue. Appeared he had a sucking chest wound and would have to be evacuated immediately if he was going to survive.

  Tony and I exchanged looks. These guys were our buddies since Okinawa. And now—?

  “Damn!” I exhaled, the expletive all but drowned out by the sounds of battle. “Damn!”

  Corpsman Heath looked me right in the eye for emphasis. “Maras,” he said, “you and Leyba get out of here while you can. It’s gonna get much worse in these hills before it gets better. Your wounds are enough to get you out. Here are your tags.”

  He affixed casualty “Get out of Dodge!” tags to our jackets. More cries for help rose from the direction of the hill knob.

  “I have to go,” the corpsman said. He dumped bandages in Tony’s lap where he leaned against a tree. “It’s a flesh wound, Leyba. Put more pressure on it and tie a knot in the crevette. You’ll be fine.”

  Then he was gone back toward the sound of guns. A few minutes later, while we were still contemplating what came next, Gunny Janzen crab-legged through the trees seeking volunteers to help bring out the other wounded and escort or carry them down the ridgeline to a clearing that we might use as an LZ for medevacs. Tom Huckaba and Dennis Johnson were with him.

  “We’ll go,” I volunteered. It just came out, no pre-thought involved. Afterwards, I chastised myself for being some kind of fool to go back out there after we had barely escaped with our lives.

  Tony shot me a “What the hell?” look.

  Gunny hesitated. “How bad?” he asked, indicating our injuries.

  “We can do it,” I said. “We’ll be flying out on the chopper anyhow. We need to make sure some of the other wounded guys go with us.”

  He nodded solemnly. “You’re good Marines,” he said.

  My elbow throbbed something awful and threatened to lock up. Tony was limping. Nonetheless, the two of us plus Huckaba and Johnson zig-zagged toward the knob where the ambush occurred and our company corpsmen had more casualties than they could cope with by themselves. Cries and screams for help resounded throughout the brush. It was a matter of picking out a cry and rushing toward it while at the same time dodging bullets snapping past our heads.

  Private James Golden was the first casualty we came upon. He had taken a round in the spine and seemed paralyzed. Tony and I took him while Huckaba and Johnson scrambled toward another summons for help.

  One of the corpsmen had already patched up Golden and left him for us to carry out. His eyes full of pleading and suffering stared inward as Tony and I, keeping low, rolled the private into his poncho, gathered up the ends in an emergency litter, labored to our feet, and headed for the collection point carrying the fallen Marine between us. Through the lead and steel hailstones, dodging and ducking. Not knowing if we would make it or not.

  Huckaba and Johnson brought in another casualty, whose face the poncho covered. I didn’t look to see who it was, nor did I ask. I didn’t want to know. Not now. Tony and I headed out again.

  Get past this. Get through this alive and we’re outta here.

  “Maras, I thought you’d have learned by now not to volunteer for anything in the Marine Corps,” Tony scolded.

  He didn’t mean it. If I hadn’t offered our services, he would have. Somebody had to bring the WIAs to safety. Besides, Tony and I were best buddies and partners. We did everything together—slept together, bitched together, fought together, were even wounded together.

  By the time we collected our casualties, Captain Sheehan was calling off the assault for the second day in a row. The enemy force apparently proved much larger and stronger than anticipated. First off, he called for our artillery to cease fire. Mixed together like everyone was on the battlefield, shelling might be doing as much damage to our own men as to the enemy.

  The company broke contact with platoons covering each other in another “strategic withdrawal,” leaving our dead out there where they fell. Four or five that we knew of. Maybe more. The urgency now was in getting our WIAs out. Elements of Echo Company had secured the LZ in the clearing. Medevac choppers were on their way in.

  PFC Vlasek, Lieutenant Mac’s radioman who took a round through the temple at the start of the ambush, was still breathing, but just barely. A hoarse, disconcerting sound. Magilla Gorilla had wrapped his head up like a mummy’s, leaving only openings for his eyes, nose, and mouth. Tony and I slung our weapons across our backs and hoisted him in his poncho and started back with him from the casualty collection point to the medevac LZ. By this time the fight at the knob was pretty much over, leaving only scattered rifle shots in residue.

  Storm clouds had been gathering for most of the day beyond the hills. Flashes of lightning stabbed out of the roiling skies as the column of walking wounded and those carried in makeshift litters wended our way across the clearing and down the slope and over to the ridgeline for medevac pickup. Golf Company guarded our rear in case the NVA might not have had enough and attempted to pursue.

  A light rain started falling, making footing even more precarious. Wind rattled in the trees, but wind was a big improvement over the previous rattle of bullets. The sky darkened to almost night. Thunder rumbled. Lightning struck the remains of forest giants on top of the hills.

  I figured the storm was God’s way of saying He had seen enough of this shit.

  My one good arm, Tony’s bad leg, the walking wounded hobbling along reminded me of the Yankee Doodle Dandy skit in school where kids bandaged like soldiers of the Revolutionary War shuffled along to the beating dirge of drums.

  Tony and I were breathing heavily under the weight of our load, the further awkwardness of our wounds and keeping Vlasek’s IV bag aloft on a stick and the line free and open. I slipped and fell on a wet upgrade, dumping our unconscious patient out of his poncho and into the mud. His mummy bandages slipped off to reveal his face as we lifted him back onto the poncho. Tony jumped back.

  “Oh, God!”

  I had witnessed unimaginable horrors in the brief time since 2/3 landed at Red Beach, of violence and madness, of men mangled, brutalized, and slaughtered. Sergeant Hard during Vietnam training in Okinawa had tried to prepare us.

  “You’re going to see things,” he said. “Horrible scenes. Dead men. Some of them your buddies. But remember one thing: You are Marines. Marines don’t quit. Marines can’t quit.”

  Lee Marvin the movie star, he said, was a Marine during World War II
. “I knew I was going to be killed,” Marvin said. “I just wanted to die in the very best outfit. There are ordinary corpses—and then there are Marine corpses. I figured on the first-class kind and hitched up.”

  Frozen in horror, Tony and I stared at what remained of Vlasek’s face, stared while thunder banged across the sky, lightning strobed, and a few guns still cracked from the bad place we left behind. Hardly enough remained of the young Marine’s face to recognize him. Just a red, gory mass of tissue and bone fragments from the temples down, a monster mask out of which breath rattled and blew bubbles of bloody fluids.

  Tony, all choked up, murmured, “Maras. . . . Thank God we’re getting out of here.”

  I heard a chopper coming in. “Let’s get him to the LZ.”

  Tony prayed all the way. So did I. “Lord, please? Let him die.”

  No way would he survive, not with gray brain matter dribbling from his skull. I wouldn’t want to live like this. A vegetable. Neither would Vlasek. A compassionate God would let him die.

  We got him to the chopper as it came in fast, whipping rain showers with its rotors, hovering a foot or so off the grass while we loaded casualties aboard. Magilla Gorilla was there.

  “Get on the helicopter,” the crew chief ordered, looking directly at Tony and me. “You’ve got your tags.”

  I hesitated. Magilla came over. “Get on the chopper,” he encouraged. “You two have done your part. Now save yourselves.”

  I had that fabled million-dollar wound. All I had to do was climb aboard that aircraft and Tony and I were out of here.

  Still, I hesitated. Tony looked anxious. Sergeant Crawford wouldn’t have left with such a puny wound. I thought of Captain Sheehan, Bill Rainey, Ramirez, Burnham and Kilgore, the Gunny, Lieutenant Mac, Magilla and Heath. All of them. Staying behind, being Marines while I bailed out on them. Semper Fi had to mean something.