Woods’s team had caught the overconfident NVA off guard. Woods pressed his push-to-talk switch and called for the air and artillery support. Then he signaled his men to withdraw to the south before the NVA commander could maneuver and squeeze them against the riverbank and a sure death in a cross fire.
The jungle fifty meters to the north of Woods erupted in a bright fireball and a heat wave reached out between the thick vegetation and slapped Sanchez’s face.
“Fuck! That’s hot!” He lowered the barrel of his weapon and fired at a movement in the bush. The fighting was constant as the NVA tried remaining close to the Americans so that they could escape the hellfire.
The small Marine team fought like a trapped congressman in a burning whorehouse. They were getting their revenge on the NVA and everyone had accepted the fact that they wouldn’t make it out of the fight alive.
Woods yelled: “BACK OFF A HUNDRED METERS!”
The team broke contact and started running and firing away from the NVA. Woods set the pace through the jungle so that he wouldn’t lose anyone. Sanchez acted as the rear guard along with the Marine carrying the M-60.
Woods guessed the distance and stopped running. “ALL RIGHT! STAND AND FIGHT!”
The team dispersed in a half-circle and waited for the NVA to catch up. Sanchez tossed the Marine machine gunner his .22 caliber pistol. The M-60 was empty and useless.
“What in the fuck do you want me to do with this?” The Marine’s voice wasn’t as deep as his build suggested.
“Shoot the fucking thing!” Sanchez changed magazines in his M-16.
The young Marine pulled his machete out of its canvas sheath and crouched down, waiting for an NVA to appear. Sanchez noticed for the first time that the Marine was bleeding from two different locations. The Marine stumbled and dropped down on one knee before regaining his feet again.
Woods had the artillery adjusted from the FAC flying above the team. The air turned green with tracers and the pilot gained altitude until he was out of range of the light weapons. He made the fatal mistake of entering the sight envelope of the waiting .57mm antiaircraft guns. The FAC pilot had called in Woods’s last fire request adjustments seconds before his L-19 burst into a ball of flames.
Woods heard the explosion but couldn’t see anything because of the dense jungle canopy. “Sounds like some bad shit! Let’s move … and hope we can make it to Arnason.”
One of Welburg’s flunkies spoke up for the first time. “Do you think he’s still there?”
Woods’s temper flared. “We’re not dealing with your team leader! He’ll be there!” Woods knew that Arnason would be waiting for him.
The sound of heavy fighting was drawing closer to Arnason’s position from both directions. He hadn’t wasted any time and had his men use their machetes to cut a small one-ship LZ out of the jungle. Arnason had plotted some additional defensive fires around his location and had sent them to Cloud Cover 22, but the FAC wasn’t answering his calls. A command and control aircraft with a call sign of Sack Jacket 3 had intercepted his calls and took control from the FAC.
The Marines broke through the jungle and almost took Arnason by surprise as he retransmitted his DEFCONs. Arnason saw the wounded and knew that they would need a MEDEVAC ship if they were going to save two of them. He cut himself off and asked for the MEDEVAC.
Warner started performing emergency first aid on the wounded while Koski remained on guard. The Marines who had been carrying the wounded men dropped down on the jungle floor, totally exhausted from the extreme effort. Arnason let them rest, knowing they were going to need all of their energy in a very short while.
Welburg broke into the clearing and saw Arnason. “Thank God, man!”
“Where’s Woods and Sanchez?”
“They volunteered to pull rear guard for us…”
“Are you wounded?” Arnason’s voice carried his suspicion.
“No, I was helping with the wounded.”
Arnason frowned; it didn’t make sense. The Marines had been carrying their own wounded. “Where’s your weapon?”
Welburg looked down at his hands and realized that he had lost his M-16. The look on his face explained everything to Arnason.
“Find a weapon and get ready to fight for your ass!” Arnason didn’t have time to continue his conversation with Welburg. The MEDEVAC helicopter could be heard coming in under fire from the east.
Koski popped a can of purple smoke and kicked it until it was at the edge of the cliff and wouldn’t interfere with the landing of the chopper in the very small LZ.
The pilot saw the smoke and didn’t waste any time confirming the location. He found the hole in the trees and dropped straight down on the ground.
Captain Youngbloode saw the chopper dropping from the sky and hoped that it was going into Arnason’s location. He urged the dozen surviving members from the southern teams on. They were carrying five wounded men, and Youngbloode wanted to get them on the chopper.
Warner was covered in blood up to his elbows, and the front of his camouflaged jacket was stained almost black from the thick, coagulated body fluid. He looked through the open chopper doors and saw Captain Youngbloode’s group break out of the jungle into the clearing. Warner pointed and Arnason followed his arm with his eyes.
There was no more room on the chopper floor. Bodies were squeezed tightly together, and there were still two more men who needed to get aboard. The pilot was signaling that he had to leave.
Youngbloode noticed that the side of the chopper was punched full of holes from their flight out to the site. The whole plateau was full of NVA soldiers. He looked at the soldier who had come in with the chopper and had loaded the wounded men. It was the staff officer he had seen back at the brigade headquarters during the briefing. The captain looked and saw that all of the space had been taken up. Without any hesitation he grabbed one of the wounded soldiers off the ground and strapped him in his own seat, with the remaining wounded man placed on his lap. The OCS captain ran to the front of the chopper and signaled for the pilot to take off. The crew chief was squatting in the small space between the seats and saw that the captain was going to remain behind on the ground. He reached over and untied the emergency weapon they had strapped behind the pilot’s seat and threw it out of the door along with a bandolier of ammunition. The pilot gave the chopper power, but he was overloaded. He knew that he couldn’t get enough lift to clear the trees to the east of the LZ, so he dropped his nose, went over the cliff, and banked to his right to fly over the river. He would find out later that he had made a very wise decision. The NVA had been waiting for the chopper to fly east, back to Lang Vei, and he would have been shot down easily. His decision to fly over the river was smart because the NVA on the Laotian side of the watercourse were not prepared to fire on a low-flying aircraft, and before they could lower their weapons, the chopper was gone.
Youngbloode grabbed Arnason’s shoulder and wasted the time to smile. “Deep shit … Sergeant.”
Arnason nodded his head in agreement. “How many men do you have left, Captain?”
“I brought out twelve, plus five wounded…”
Arnason looked at his open map. “I’ve already circled this spot with DEFCONs, but I’m afraid to call in anything until I’m sure all the Americans are here.”
“Well we damn sure aren’t going anywhere … Brigade is going to have to come and get us.” Youngbloode pulled his URC-10 out of his pocket. “Sack Jacket 6 … Mud Puppy 01 … Over.”
The brigade commander answered. “Sack Jacket 6 … Over.”
“Mud Puppy 01 … It looks like we’ve found the enemy … please advise.” The sarcasm in Youngbloode’s voice was lost in transmission.
“Roger … Puppy 6 … We are taking action to relieve your situation … Over.”
Arnason handed Youngbloode a small slip of paper with their location encoded. Youngbloode pushed the talk lever. “Here’s our position…”
The colonel listened and watched his o
perations officer plot the location on his battle map. The brigade had set up a forward operations base in the Lang Vei Special Forces camp, and two battalions of infantry were already in place. He was a very cautious officer and wouldn’t be forced to make a move until he was ready.
“Puppy 01 … Can you hold your position until morning?” The colonel lowered his handset and stared at the map. Youngbloode had formed up his unit at the most defendable site on the river.
Youngbloode looked over at Arnason and apologized with his eyes to the sergeant for the colonel’s statement. It was almost assured in a war, especially a war being fought like the Vietnam War, that higher headquarters rarely ever understood the situation of troops under fire. The colonel had made the mistake of assuming that because Youngbloode was a company commander, he still had a company to command.
“This is Puppy 01 … I’ve taken a lot of casualties…” Youngbloode didn’t want to give numbers over the unsecure radio.
Arnason left Youngbloode to talk to the colonel and started placing the remainder of the team around the area in a defensive perimeter. The OCS captain was way ahead of everyone and had selected four excellent fire lanes for the men.
Woods turned and saw the pair of NVA trying to duck back in the jungle. He fired a short burst from his CAR-15 and took out both of them. The NVA were closing in faster than they could move with the wounded men. Woods hadn’t realized it yet, but all of his team had taken hits, mostly flesh wounds and fragments from their own grenades because they had been tossed so close to their own positions.
Arnason heard the automatic weapon fire and could tell instantly that it was a CAR-15. He alerted his men to be ready for Woods and his team to come through their lines.
The first two men in the clearing were Welburg’s flunkies. The taller soldier was carrying his buddy over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. They broke out in the clearing before the taller man even knew he was among Americans.
Arnason saw Woods and Sanchez before they cleared the jungle. “DAVID! OVER HERE!”
The sound of his team leader’s voice gave Woods the added strength he needed and he broke into a hobble, paused, and turned to fire another burst at the tracking NVA soldiers.
The whole small perimeter broke out in a song of death. The NVA had been traveling in force only a few minutes behind Woods. The heavy fighting lasted only for a couple of minutes before the NVA commander realized that he had run into a force larger than a single recon team. He withdrew to regroup his men.
Woods fell back against a small boulder and let his head rest on the cool rock. “Holy fuck!”
“It’s good seeing you again, David … Enjoy your stroll through the jungle?” Arnason was happy that Woods and Sanchez had made it.
“Oh! Fuck!” Woods couldn’t think of anything else to say. He looked over at Sanchez and Warner sitting together near a pile of rocks. “Where’s Koski?”
“He’s all right … I think he’s holding down the whole southern flank by himself.”
Woods closed his eyes and enjoyed the simple pleasure while he listened to the sound of artillery rounds whistling in and exploding all around their position. Captain Youngbloode was calling in artillery fire to get the NVA to withdraw. The huge 8-inch howitzers were extremely accurate but had a slow rate of fire. They were the only fire support the command could afford at the time. The NVA antiaircraft fire was too intense to risk sending in helicopter gunships and low-flying jets.
The brigade commander sat in his command bunker and realized that he might have made a bad error in sending the recon company so far away from the main body of troops. He had assumed they would maintain air superiority. The remnants of the recon company was surrounded by a superior NVA force, and there was no way that he could support them, except with the battery of 8-inch howitzers near Lang Vei and the twin 4.2-inch mortars that were part of the Special Forces camp defense system.
Arnason looked around the small clearing and counted the number of men left who could still fight. Woods had brought three seriously wounded Marines in with him. He looked around again, trying to locate Sergeant Welburg, and couldn’t see him at any of the two-man fighting positions.
“Sergeant Arnason!” Youngbloode drew Arnason’s attention back to the tasks at hand. “Let’s check our ammo … I need a count on grenades too.”
Arnason nodded and started checking the troops nearest to his location.
CHAPTER NINE
Night Escape!
The first signs of approaching evening were the flocks of birds coming in from the plateau to drink at the river. Woods looked up from his weapon at a flock of bright green-and-blue parakeet-sized birds that had paused in the trees surrounding the remainder of the recon company and the Marines. He finished wiping down his CAR-15 with the oily rag he carried for that purpose. It seemed like a waste of time, and maybe he should do something more important, but in times of great stress it is sometimes very calming to do a simple task.
Captain Youngbloode and the staff officer were talking with Arnason and one of the Marines a few feet away from where Woods sat. He could catch snatches of what they were whispering, and for the most part didn’t like what they were saying. The OCS captain wanted to try to sneak away during the night and attempt a linkup with one of the battalions to the east, or even try to make it to Lang Vei. Captain Youngbloode wanted to secure the area they were in and try to hold out until a relief force could reach them. Woods didn’t like either idea; staying would be almost suicidal because it was just a matter of time before the NVA started mortaring them, and once night fell the NVA would attack for sure. Trying to walk out would be foolish because of the three seriously wounded Marines, none of whom could walk.
Arnason said something sharp under his breath and left the group. He saw Woods sitting near the wounded men and veered toward him, running in a low crouch.
“What was that all about?” Woods nodded toward the group.
“They’ve decided on walking out of here tonight, as soon as it gets dark.”
“What about those guys?” Woods nodded at the three wounded men.
Arnason paused and coughed before answering. “They’re going to be left back here…” He knew what Woods’s reaction was going to be.
“Bullshit!” Woods started getting up off the ground and Arnason pushed him back down.
“Hold it! Now listen to me before you go off half-cocked!” Arnason looked around and lowered his voice. “There are twenty men who can still fight and seven walking wounded who can probably make it to Lang Vei—”
“What about the three men who can’t move!” Woods ground his teeth.
“I’m going to stay back here with them, and when the captain gets back he’s going to send in a relief force to extract us.” Arnason couldn’t look at Woods.
“Bullshit! That’s suicide!”
Anger flashed across Arnason’s face. “What other suggestions do you have? Everyone dies sitting here?”
Woods felt the tears coming from the frustration he was feeling. He shook his head. “There has to be another way!”
“There isn’t … and there’s no guarantee that those walking out are going to make it, but it’s better than waiting here.” Arnason grinned. “Besides, I’m going to surround myself with a constant barrage of artillery.”
Woods nodded.
One of the wounded Marines moaned and motioned for Woods to come closer to him. The distraction was what Woods needed to get his mind off what Arnason had said. “Yeah, buddy … how’ya feeling?”
The Marine tried focusing his eyes but failed. “Are you a Catholic?”
“Sorry…”
“I need to talk to a Catholic.” The Marine spaced his words apart, using a tremendous amount of determination just to talk.
“You got it, buddy. Let me find one for you.” Woods looked over and couldn’t see Koski, who had slipped out in the jungle to act as a forward outpost. Sanchez’s cape could barely be seen next to where one of Welburg’s
flunkies sat. “I’ll be right back.”
Sanchez squatted down next to the Marine and had to lean over his chest to hear what the man was trying to say. Woods watched from a few feet away. Sanchez reached in his jacket pocket and removed a small silver case. Woods had had short glimpses of the silver box when Sanchez would change uniforms, but he had no idea what its purpose was. Sanchez opened the case and rubbed his thumb on one side. Then he reached over and made the sign of the cross on the wounded Marine’s forehead.
Woods knew then what was going on and blinked back the tears forming over his eyes.
Sanchez spoke in Latin and his voice carried across the battlefield to a number of the soldiers nearby. Woods could see more than a few of their lips moving as they recited the Lord’s Prayer along with Sanchez in English. Woods caught himself joining in near the end.
Sanchez pulled the light poncho up over the Marine’s face and slipped his silver box back into his chest pocket, over his heart.
Youngbloode had gone from position to position and had briefed each of the men on what they were going to do as soon as it got dark. The last fighting position held Warner and Koski, who had rejoined the perimeter as the light under the canopy began to fade. They were all expecting an NVA assault at any time.
Youngbloode placed his hand on Warner’s shoulder. “I’m going to rely on you, Bobby, to lead us out of here in the dark.” The captain stared at the young soldier, looking for any sign that would tell him Warner couldn’t handle the additional responsibility.
Warner nodded. He was scared, but he had confidence in his ability to find his way. He had noticed that the captain had called him by his first name, and that made him feel good.
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