Death Valley (47 page)

It was 1600.

Lieutenant Page’s platoon had the lead. Corporal Skaggs’s squad was in front. The Italian kid was again on point. It was the third time Marines had tried to move west on the trail and there was much bitching in Golf Company that the NVA must have it preregistered. They did, because Golf was two hundred meters out of the CP and Lugger himself was fifty meters out when the first mortar round landed only yards from the point man. He disappeared into the paddy below the road.

The rounds started jolting down the trail, and Corporal Skaggs bolted for a tree line almost a hundred feet away. His squad huddled in a ravine in the trees, but the NVA lobbed a few rounds after them. One Marine took serious wounds in his chest and face. Many more had shrapnel wounds. Almost no one had been wearing his helmet or flak jacket; because of the continuing heat wave, command had given them the option not to.

Lugger ordered them back as he called for air and arty.

The platoon began staggering back, carrying their wounded, keeping low along a paddy dike. The mortars followed them. One round landed
near a group of men, inflicting more casualties. The retreat became chaotic.

They finally made it back into the tree line secured by Lieutenant Pickett’s platoon and Lieutenant Larrison’s CP. Larrison was on the horn and, within five minutes, artillery was slamming in. The arty fired for thirty minutes and was followed by air strikes. But in those first five minutes, the NVA managed to walk a few good-bye rounds into the trees. Staff Sergeant Clements saw one explode near his corpsman; however, he was unscathed and calmly continued working on the wounded. Another round landed five yards from the hole where the company headquarters was located. Lieutenant Larrison took some light shrapnel; one man took most of the blast in his legs, inadvertently shielding the rest. Then the artillery pounded in, the medevacs began landing back at the bush LZ, and men rushed back with the wounded in ponchos. One grunt died of his wounds just as they put him into the helicopter.

The chopper crews worked fast. Already that day, two Sea Knights had been forced down near the 2/7 CP with bullet holes in their rotors. A platoon from Hotel Company secured the crews, then ducked as a few mortar rounds thumped in around them.

Altogether, three helos were shot down while supporting 2/7.

Golf Company’s advance was thus halted before it even got started. Lance Corporal Russell, for one, had just saddled up and was sitting back on his pack waiting for the word to depart when the mortaring began. He joined a group of Marines working their way up to get the casualties, and ended up as caretaker for one of them. The man lay atop a poncho in the landing zone, face to the sun, calmly talking as if he didn’t understand that one leg was gone, the other one shattered. Russell talked with him until it was his turn on the medevac. Russell had taken some shrapnel graze wounds across his leg and arm during the previous night’s shower of mortars, but all he could think was how lucky he was.

Colonel Codispoti had watched through binoculars G Company’s retreat from LZ West. In his fitness report on Lugger, he noted the incident in thinly veiled terms:

Colonel Lugger’s written rebuttal defended both the actions of Golf Company and his decision to use the same CP location despite the preregistered mortar raid of the night before:

Whatever the tactics, it was not one of Golf Company’s prouder moments. When the medevacs began coming in, Staff Sergeant Clements saw several Marines with minor shrapnel wounds practically trample over gravely wounded men in their eagerness to get on the choppers. One gleefully shouted, “It’s my third, I’m going home!” The company gunny stood there aghast, tears in his eyes. Clements too had never before felt such shame and revulsion.

Other men were made of sterner stuff. Golf One made a quick head count and realized that two men—the Italian point and Lance Corporal
Conway—had been left in the paddy. Sergeant Ferguson got together several volunteers and they crept down a dike to where the point man had last been seen. They looked and hollered but, with darkness falling, finally had to crawl back empty-handed.

At first light, the platoon cautiously moved back down the trail. Lance Corporal Conway sat up in the grass; he had passed out either from heat stroke or shock during the mortaring and sweated out the night alone. The point man was dead. He had been hit by shrapnel and crawled back as far as he could before succumbing; a trail of flattened elephant grass marked his torture. Both men were carried back in ponchos and medevacked. Golf One, which had entered the valley with forty-six men, was down to sixteen.

Echo and Fox Companies pulled together near the Old French Road, a dirt trail with a strip of weeds down the middle. That night, NVA crept up and tossed Chicoms into the perimeter, wounding several men. An M60 gunner spotted the NVA’s silhouettes, and pumped a burst into them. In the morning, they found a body in the weeds—a healthy Vietnamese kid in khaki fatigues.

It was the only NVA that Echo Company had seen since getting to the valley; it wasn’t enough and Gunnery Sergeant Yohe left the perimeter with several volunteers. No order had been given to do so, but they went tramping around for a little revenge. They found a cave opening and one of the young grunts discovered a small hole in the floor. He hollered that he’d found something and tugged at the bush concealing the hole. It suddenly exploded in his face. From what he reckoned was a Chicom grenade rigged to guard the entrance, the Marine got burns and shrapnel from the chest up. The grunts carried the man back to the perimeter, then kept looking.

Another grunt stumbled upon a second hole about fifteen yards away; both led into the same man-made tunnel.

Gunny Yohe said he was going in. He was thirty-three years old, and it wasn’t often that an old gunny elected to wiggle into an enemy tunnel. Tunnel rats were usually nineteen and crazy. Then again, Yohe was regarded as a little nuts—and very good. He crouched beside the tunnel opening, took off his helmet and flak jacket, and popped five fragmentation grenades into the black hole. Then he shimmied in head first. It was narrow, but he was a little guy. He crawled in with a .45
in one hand and an unlit flashlight in the other. Almost immediately, he heard a groan in the tunnel. He waited a bit to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, then moved towards the sound as quietly as he could. The North Vietnamese was moaning in what seemed to be an unconscious delirium. Yohe could just make out his silhouette. He decided to drag him back out as a prisoner, but as he reached for the man’s ankles he suddenly became aware of a sensation. Whatever it was he never knew, but as soon as he felt it, he aimed his Colt .45 and instantly, instinctively opened fire.

Then he flipped on the flashlight. Just feet from him, two NVA were slammed against the side of the tunnel, shot dead.

A rope was brought down and the dead men and the wounded prisoner were hauled up. Yohe also brought out two AK47s, a rocket launcher, and some documents which the men’s Vietnamese scout said described NVA unit locations, supply points, etc. The grunts demolished the tunnel after dragging out the prizes; it measured seventy-five yards and had been unaffected by the previous air and arty strikes. Lieutenant Lindsay chewed out Yohe a bit for his recklessness, then put him in for the Silver Star.

The evening before, Codispoti had given a new mission to Lugger: retain the ground gained, recover and evacuate casualties at first light, then march back to LZ Ross. The company was being replaced by 3/7 Marines which, on the morning of the 27th, was conducting an airlift from LZ Baldy to LZ West, then marching into the valley. Echo and Hotel 2/7 led the way back to Ross. The Battalion CP and Golf remained in place until 1600, when the lead elements of 3/7 humped past.

Talk was the NVA were
letting
them leave.

Fox Company came out last. That morning they had made an attempt to move beyond the wood line they’d secured with Echo Company. But as soon as they left that cover, the snipers opened up and the Marines hustled back to their wooded haven. They were crouched among the trees, returning fire, when Collinson heard the HST man holler he was hit. A corpsman crouched beside him and removed a fragmentation grenade from the baggy side pocket of the man’s trousers. The AK round had split the grenade and bent the detonator cap before hitting him; luckily for all around, the frag had failed to explode.

The corpsman secured a bandage, then Collinson and McCoy got
the Marine between them and started back. He limped hard and moaned about how badly he’d been hit, and Collinson thought, man, this dude sure wants out of here. As they passed a clearing in the trees, AK rounds began kicking up dust on the trail. The wounded man instantly bolted from their hands. They chased after him but he beat them back to the LZ. Collinson and McCoy finally stopped, looked at each other, and laughed.

Fox Company spent the day nestled among the trees, some men keeping up the exchange with the snipers while others picked at what C rations they had left. They were pulling out and there was little urgency to their actions. One detail had to be taken care of, though; the body from the doomed recon patrol was still missing. Collinson joined the patrol that hunted through the tall elephant grass for him; they finally found the body because of its hot stench. The Marine had been shot full of holes and his wounds were ripe with maggots. It was sickening and sad, Collinson thought; but he was too numb to be truly repulsed. The grunts simply rolled the rotting body into a poncho and carried him back to the perimeter; then they dropped listlessly along an earthen embankment to await the arrival of 3d Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment.

When Fox Company finally saddled up and trudged past their relief column, Collinson noted the 3/7 grunts looked fresh, packs bulging and in good order, loaded with canteens, ammunition, grenades, and LAWs. Grunts from Fox Company began calling to them: the gooks got their shit together here, most places are preregistered with mortars, there’s spider holes and trenches every fucking place, keep your heads up! Collinson didn’t feel happy or relieved. He really didn’t feel anything but tired. The men carried the dead Marine with them as they moved single file back through the old command post area. The brush was ashy from napalm. The stench was intense, of bodies roasted and rotting in their spider holes. Collinson walked among the trees, head hanging, M16 in one hand, the other pressing his sweat towel over his nose and mouth to keep from vomitting.

On 28 August, the morning after 2d Battalion, 7th Marines trudged out of the Hiep Duc Valley, Colonel Codispoti told Colonel Lugger to report to him at LZ West. Codispoti questioned him briefly again about the problems during the battle; one was that, in the five days of combat, 2/7 had lost at least 24 men killed and 161 wounded and
evacuated, but could confirm (by actual sighting) only 23 NVA KIA and one prisoner. Not satisfied with the explanations, Codispoti told Lugger he was immediately relieving him and placing his executive officer in temporary command.
^*

I
f events had gone according to plan, PFC Charly Besardi of Lima Company, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines would have missed his battalion’s redeployment to the Hiep Duc Valley. Two days before the move, Besardi was choppered out of the field, sharing the ride with a wounded NVA prisoner, to attend Mine & Booby Trap School at 1st MarDiv HQ. The chopper was supposed to stop first at LZ Baldy so Besardi could collect his orders from the company office, but it flew directly to Da Nang. Besardi showed up, nonetheless, and was told he had to have the paperwork to get into the school. By the rules, he should have spent the night in a transit hootch at Division Rear. Besardi wanted nothing to do with the lifers and new guys there, so he talked his way into the R and R Center where accommodations were better.