Death Valley (17 page)

That’s when the 4–31 Command & Control Huey came in. Aboard were LtCol Cecil M. Henry, BnCO; Maj Roger C. Lee, BnS-3; and Capt Phillip Kinman, Bn-Surgeon (he was exceptional for a draftee doctor, practically fighting his way onto the command ship whenever there was a report of wounded GIs in the field). They launched from LZ West and were orbiting Nui Chom in minutes. The platoon was near a ravine formed by the erosion of a long-dried-up waterfall. This looked to be the best LZ on the forested ridge, so the grunts popped smoke and the pilot homed in. The Huey glided to a hover along the eroded hole, one skid against a rock ledge, and Major Lee stood on the other skid to give Mekkelsen a hand up. The North Vietnamese opened fire again as they pulled up. Lieutenant Colonel Henry was crammed behind the pilot’s seat with headphones on as the pilot shouted to his copilot, “Slump down in your armored seat ’cause we’re taking beaucoup fire!” The NVA were shooting down on the rising chopper from their mountain perches. The Huey was only yards from the slope. A Chicom was flipped in the open cabin door and, just as quickly, Major Lee reflexively kicked it out the opposite door. The grenade exploded beneath them. The pilot finally got them over the peak—actually it took only seconds—then banked the Huey around and got the hell out.

As they headed for the medical station on Hawk Hill, Henry radioed Delta Company to pull back from their untenable position and regroup on the valley floor. He then switched frequencies to get air and arty support for them. It was a five-minute flight to Hawk Hill, and they
just had the chance to wish Mekkelsen well before the medics carted him off. Then the C&C hopped back over to where Delta had regrouped. The platoon leader was a senior first lieutenant, so Henry passed command to him.

The C&C also picked up Lieutenant Gonzalez; three AK47 rounds had punched into the M16 bandolier around his waist, smashing the ammunition magazines, but only bruising him. Gonzalez handed Lee some wild peppers he’d picked, while Doc Kinman plucked out fragmented metal slivers that had pierced his skin. Lee put the peppers in his pocket, and they raised a welt on his thigh through the cloth. Gonzalez had been eating those monsters. He hailed from Durango, Mexico, and he was a tough hombre.

He joked about his good luck in the ambush.

All in all, Delta Company was in a foul mood. Besides losing Captain Mekkelsen, they’d lost their first KIA since November 1968. This was significant since Delta was rated the best in the battalion, a fact due to their fine company commanders. Capt John A. Whittecar, a hard-core professional on his second tour, had taken over Delta after the November battle along Nui Chom. Before rotating to a staff position on LZ West, he had shaped his listless draftees into a proud company. Captain Mekkelsen, the son of a sergeant major, took over the reins in June after serving as a platoon leader under Whittecar.

Bravo Company, under Capt William H. Gayler, and Charlie Company, under Capt Thomas L. Murphy, were a notch below. They were colorless companies whose performances ranged from mediocre to workmanlike depending upon conditions; they were typical of the Americal Division. Then there was Alpha Company, which was especially short of experienced NCOs (the battalion was lucky if it could muster one or two Regular Army NCOs per company; most were “shake ‘n’ bakes” going from private to sergeant after a ninety-day course). In addition, Alpha’s cautious and popular commander, Capt Stanley Yates, had recently rotated; the new CO, Capt James G. Mantell, and an unhealthy number of troopers were FNGs, or Fucking New Guys. One indicator of the low morale in Alpha Company was that, by Doc Kinman’s count, the company harbored a disproportionate number of malingerers.

This is, of course, all subjective.

So is a discussion of the battalion staff, whose members were as diverse as the companies they led. Lieutenant Colonel Henry and Major Lee both had previous tours as ARVN advisors under their belts and
were professionally respected. Despite very different personal backgrounds, they meshed well and they drove their battalion hard in what was generally a complacent, quiet time. Henry—a man with a big, bald dome and a friendly face—was a product of the hardscrabble farms and two-room schoolhouses of Rome, Georgia. He had enlisted soon after his eighteenth birthday, served in the rear during the Korean War, then earned an OCS commission. He was almost a fatherly figure, hard when he had to be, consoling at times, a man who did not take the deaths of his troopers lightly. He had come to LZ West in July and was considered a rock under pressure.

Major Lee was not as well liked. A high school wrestler from Omaha, Nebraska, he had graduated from West Point only after some academic difficulties. He was an Airborne Ranger who stood stern-faced and crewcut in his fatigues. Many considered him a ticket-puncher, too harsh and spit-shined; but he was a fighter. In June, when sappers penetrated LZ Baldy and raised hell, Lee had been serving as battalion executive officer. He saw one NVA crawl down a drainage ditch and duck under a culvert, and GIs screamed that another had gone under a hootch. Major Lee shot them both to death, and caught some light shrapnel in the stomach when the satchel charge of the one under the culvert detonated. He and a captain then ran to the part of the perimeter manned by the brigade LRRPs, and reorganized those men who’d been stunned into inaction when one of the first RPGs demolished a bunker and killed the two men inside. For that, Lee won a Bronze Star recommendation. He was aggressive, but he was not unyielding. Early in his tenure on LZ West, he assigned the line companies a fierce schedule of humping six klicks a day and then patrolling. Captain Gayler, a Texas volunteer, finally told him, “What you should do is grab your rucksack and come out in the bush, because you’ve lost touch with the realities out here.” Major Lee maintained a hard stare in return and Captain Gayler gulped, but then Lee grinned, “Maybe you’re right.”

Battalion SgtMaj Hoss Gutterez, a Mexican-American, was big, crass, boastful, and an all-around gutsy soldier.

Comments on these men came chiefly from the commanders above them and the company commanders below them. Most of the grunts in the 4th of the 31st Infantry didn’t really know who the staff members were and either routinely saluted them or routinely dismissed them as chicken shit lifers. Such feelings are not hard to understand. A young grunt living in the mud was bound to be less than charitable to those who saw the war mostly from helicopters. Such feelings are common
in any war, but it is important to note that there were no fraggings during Henry’s command. Most of the grunts just reluctantly resigned themselves and kept humping. As far as Gayler was concerned, the men were lucky that under Henry and Lee, battalion headquarters was not as far removed from the bush as it was under some other officers.

9 August saw the second contact in two days.

The Polar Bear’s part in the screening operation was terminated and Lieutenant Colonel Henry and Sergeant Major Gutterez dropped into Charlie Company’s perimeter to supervise their airlift from Happy Valley to LZ Siberia. The men planned to go out with the last squad; that was all they had left on the ground when a higher priority mission arose elsewhere and division yanked their helicopter support. The stranded group decided to hump to LZ West, and they were on the trail below the camp when firing erupted. Everyone dropped in the bushes. Gutterez led several men around the flank and fired towards the NVA, who immediately broke contact and disappeared into the vegetation. The fight lasted perhaps five minutes, but the squad stayed put another thirty until a detachment from Bravo Company humped down from West.

It wasn’t until 2000 that the squad finally got to LZ Siberia. They were pissed off and shaken. One of them launched into a fabulous story for his comrades who’d missed the skirmish, which reflected the knee-jerk cynicism of the grunts.

On 9, 10, and 11 August, LZ Siberia was mortared.

When Alpha Company 4–31 was choppered to LZ West on the morning of 11 August, they had a collective case of the ass. The new colonel was stressing aggressive patrols and night ambushes, but the new captain didn’t seem to have the experience required. Among those pissed off grunts, Specialist Parsons was probably dragging the most. He’d been out of the bush for twenty days—extending his R and R by shamming with some buddies in the rear—and the last six days back in the field had been grueling. His load of M60 machine gun, ammunition, and rucksack had been kicking his ass like a new guy again. He was mighty glad this morning as Alpha Company replaced Bravo Company on the LZ West bunker line for their week of palace guard. The Bravo GIs weren’t enthusiastic about returning to the bush; when Parsons’s gun team took over one of their bunkers, they found a lot of machine gun ammo and grenades stashed under the cots. That much less to hump on patrol.

LZ West was no different from hundreds of fire bases dotting the Vietnamese wilderness. It rambled for several hundred yards across the humps of the ridge. Thirty bunkers, constructed of metal culvert halves, timber, and sandbags, ringed the LZ; each looked like a miniature sandbag castle. Chain-link fence circled most of the post, and in the brush creeping downhill was concertina and tangle foot wire. In the center of the perimeter, the 4–31 Tactical Operations Center was bunkered in under heavy layers of sandbags. More barbed wire twisted around it. Several radio aerials were stiff above these bunkers, and an American flag hung from one. A PP55 ground radar unit was installed beside the TOC. Dug in at the south end of the LZ were three 155mm pieces (C Battery, 3–16 Artillery), and an M55 truck mounted with .50–caliber machine guns (G Battery, 55th Artillery) sat at the northeast and southwest sides of the mountain base.

The LZ was hot, dusty, and boring—very boring. The big diversion was killing rats or, if you were so inclined, finally breaking out the marijuana stashed at the bottom of your ruck. Mostly, the LZ offered the line grunt a place to relax.

Which is just what Barry Parsons wanted. Along with Tom, Bubba, and Shorty from the weapons squad, Parsons was assigned to Bunker 30, the point position on the western side of the line. The men were sitting around when their platoon leader, 1stSgt James F. Price, and their platoon sergeant, Sgt O. J. Causey, came in to pass the word.
They were to be on alert that night because of the recent contacts, and in the morning they would be making a sweep of the LZ mountainside. Tom and Shorty were FNGs so they didn’t bitch as loud as Parsons and Bubba; nevertheless, they pulled their watches. Parsons had the second shift, from 2230 to 0030. He woke up Tom to take his place, rolled onto a cot, and the next thing he knew Sergeant Causey was waking them up.

Causey, a shake ‘n’ baker, was worked up and, as he usually did when he was excited, he stammered hard, “Th-th-there are d-dinks in front of y-your bunker!”

Parsons sat up on his cot. “Sure, O. J. Don’t feed us this shit, I want to get some sleep.”

“I’m n-not kidding!”

Parsons got up and peered into the black. Their artillery was firing and, in the flashes, he suddenly saw the silhouettes. A figure was visible a hundred yards downhill; he was standing and pointing. Six figures crouched behind him, carrying what looked like Bangalore torpedoes—wide bamboo poles packed with explosives.

“Holy shit, there they are!”

Parsons was rattled. The day before in the bush, the platoon had reconned by fire and a bullet had sheared apart in the barrel of his M60. The barrel had been taken to the battalion maintenance hootch. He was without his pig gun and quickly cranked the internal land line to the company command bunker. First Sergeant Price answered. Top Price was an older man, called to active duty from the national guard, and he was something of a father figure to the platoon. He was also respected, especially in comparison to the inexperienced young guys with the instant stripes who populated the battalion. Typically, Top Price told Parsons not to get excited.

“Excited hell! I have dinks in front of my position with Bangalore torpedoes and God knows what else, and I need some firepower!”

Top Price said wait one, and cut to B-TOC.

The officer who answered said to calm down.

Parsons was instantly pissed. Fucking lifers! He shouted to Top Price, “Tell him to come look for himself!”

More than one officer had, in fact, come to look for himself. Earlier, the GI manning the radar had picked up movement at three thousand meters. Lieutenant Colonel Henry, falling asleep on his cot in a room adjacent to the TOC command bunker, quickly pulled his clothes back
on; in response to the warning, he put the base on 100 percent alert and got the artillery and mortar crews to their pieces. Artillery began thundering into the pitch-black. This had been going on for some time with no response to indicate anyone was really out there. Henry and Lee joked, “For all the rounds we’re expending, there better be at least one dead dink in the wire!” Major Lee casually strolled down to the bunker line—wearing a T-shirt, a pair of blue jeans, and shower sandals, and carrying no weapon—and peered through one of the Starlite Scope mounts. Flares were fired and, in the yellow glow, nothing was visible; then the flare burned out and the sea of elephant grass around the hill seemed to move in his night scope. Lee peered at one of the fingers coming off the hilltop, he could see figures darting from boulder to boulder.