Death Valley (45 page)

The most frequent refrain from the villagers when 2/7 patrols moved into what previously had been a 196th AO was, “GI no come.” The extent of NVA infiltration was a sore subject in the 7th Marines, and the grunts’ angry question was: how in the hell did the gooks dig in so well without being spotted! Marines harshly referred to an armed truce around Hiep Duc, and many men in 2/7 blamed their mauling on the complacency of the Americal Division. To them, the Army had practically abandoned the countryside and hunkered down around their fire bases.

However, it should be taken into account that by any measure, 1969 was an odd year. If Hamburger Hill proved anything, it was that commanders in the U.S. Army were no longer rewarded for closing with and killing the enemy. Their goal, subtly dictated, was to keep casualties down for political reasons.

And, the Americal had more land than troops.

Officers in the Americal Division were quick to defend themselves. To begin with, neither the 1st Marine Division nor the Americal had the resources to secure the Que Sons or Nui Chom; thus, the NVA were afforded a sanctuary overlooking the very lowlands the Army was trying to secure. To the north, the 2d of the 1st Infantry had patrolled actively around LZ Ross until about March; then they were moved to LZ Baldy and an ARVN unit was moved in to replace them. Presumably, support and aggressive spirit were lacking more among the ARVN than in the Americal, and the situation around LZ Ross had deteriorated accordingly. To the south, the 4th of the 31st Infantry mustered a paddy strength of only three hundred men; tied down with static defense, they could not be everywhere in the valley at once. The NVA base-camped along Nui Chom could easily dispatch small groups to scout the valley for suitable defensive positions; when they chose, they could then move down en masse and dig their slit trenches and spider holes in a night or two of ant-like industriousness.

The 7th Marine Regiment was rushed in not because the 196th Infantry Brigade was necessarily incompetent, but because they were spread thin.

The Marines considered themselves to be in virgin territory.

Lieutenant Schuler’s platoon of Echo 2/7 made their biggest find near Nui Chom. Intelligence had targeted a hill as a possible base camp and they swept up after the air strikes, sweating hard under the canopy as they divided along the maze of trails running through the thick underbrush. They found several NVA who’d been killed by the prep fire; they were all young and muscular with crew cuts, and their equipment was first rate, their weapons rust-free. Regulars. Schuler and his radioman, Cpl Paul Bowen, walked up the path leading to the top. In the vegetation, they almost bumped into a North Vietnamese who was cautiously walking downhill on the same trail. The NVA had an AK47 slung over his shoulder. He smiled nervously. Schuler smiled back just as nervously. They both started backing away from each other. Sweathog Bowen was frozen, gripping his M16, screaming, “Shoot him, shoot him!”

Schuler motioned the man towards him and called for him to chieu hoi. The NVA, grinning the entire time, started to unsling his AK47 and Schuler instantly shot him just below the chin with an M79 buckshot round.

He tumbled dead down the hillside.

More NVA popped up in the base camp, all of them either hiding or trying to get away. Corporal McFarlan, a squad leader, found one
in a cave. The NVA refused to surrender, so McFarlan ducked in and shot him in the forehead. The dead man turned out to be an NVA doctor. Cpl Ruben Rivera, the platoon sniper, nailed another one trying to slip down a trail. When the men searched his gear, they found dozens of snapshots of women and joked that he must have been a big ass man for the NVA. Schuler gave the photos to Rivera but Rivera, one of the bravest men in the platoon, was also one of the shyest, and he was too embarrassed to take them.

As they secured the camp, Lieutenant Schuler and his platoon sergeant, Sgt Tim Lopez, walked up the trail to the summit. Just as they cleared the top, a couple of AKs cracked up at them. It seemed to be a parting volley and the platoon dug in. They popped smoke near a garden at the peak and a Sea Knight came in to a hover. A machine gun suddenly opened fire. The corpsman beside Schuler dropped with bullets in both legs, and the helicopter reared out as rounds tattooed across the fuselage. The GIs kept bumping into NVA the next few days as they worked the trails leading away from the camp. Several men were wounded and one grunt had his bush hat shot off his head. But the NVA always quickly disappeared; their main concern was Hiep Duc, so they let their bases be picked through. That was great for the morale of Schuler’s grunts: they found documents, rice, weapons, ammunition. They even chased a man with an AK into a tiny ville which turned out to be populated by only women and children—and which had stacks of laundered and folded North Vietnamese Army uniforms.

Then came the call to Hiep Duc Valley.

While F Company shored up the southern half of the perimeter along the river, E Company assumed positions in the trees along the northern half. The area was uncomfortably small and stuffed with people. Sergeant Major Black—a wiry man known as Old Blue—came up. In helmet and flak jacket, and with a creased, weathered face that most closely resembled an ancient hound dog, Black looked like a Marine NCO. He had a solid reputation, which started when he won the Silver Star as a private first class in Korea and culminated with his selection as sergeant major of the Marine Corps. But even he seemed a bit shaken as he spoke to the M60 crews, “If you see anything out there, open up with everything you have.”

Schuler disagreed. The NVA usually probed before an assault, hoping to get the machine guns to expose themselves by firing so they could knock them out first. He stopped the sergeant major with typical bluntness,
“Stay away from my men. When an order’s to be given, I give it, not you.”

Schuler personally set each fire team and machine gun team into position and checked their fields of fire. They occupied some slit trenches which honeycombed the area—presumably the work of the NVA—and there was a nervous buzz in the air. Everyone remembered the antiaircraft fire and Schuler could see his grunts drawing together, talking about not leaving anyone behind. The feeling was to go down fighting. As it was, they never had that chance.

The
1st NVA Regiment
had halted 2/7 Marines in their tracks on 25 August, and many of the officers and men put the blame on Colonel Lugger. With four battles blaring over his radios at once and rounds zipping over his head, the talk went, he did not know what to do. He was in over his head. Such talk was rippling through the battalion; rumors exaggerated at each level until the corporals and pfcs were mumbling about that chicken-shit colonel who froze and got a lot of good dudes killed. There was talk of fragging.

One rumor put the bounty on his head at $10,000.

Colonel Lugger was not aware of such grumblings, and the situation was not so black and white that anyone was really willing to kill a battalion commander. Most men had only the energy to keep themselves alive, and they followed orders. The immediate concern was to get through the night. G and H Companies had withdrawn to the foothills of Nui Chom on the right flank; E and F Companies were dug in around the Battalion CP, and their perimeter was small and bunched up. The concrete pagoda was a homing beacon to preregistered mortar fire. They were a fat target, but a night move to alleviate the congestion was also a prospect inviting casualties. If the NVA assaulted, perhaps it was better to be close in to maximize firepower.

But the NVA saw no reason to expose themselves.

At 0130, 26 August 1969, the first mortar round thumped through the black stillness. The raid was brief, perhaps a minute, but pinpointed, twenty-four 60mm rounds right into the CP and the LZ clearing behind it. It killed four Marines, seriously wounded twenty-six. Many men had been too exhausted to dig more than shallow holes and their equally exhausted lieutenants had not ordered them to dig deeper; many men
had removed their flak jackets and helmets in the muggy heat and were simply sleeping on the ground under ponchos. Lugger blamed his junior officers. But in the eyes of General Simpson and Colonel Codispoti, the problem rested on the shoulders of Colonel Lugger.

By dusk, Private Norton had come to. He sat near the CP pagoda, tagged for a medevac, and talked wearily with some other grunts. Then suddenly, swoosh! swoosh! swoosh! Norton sprang to his feet and ran towards a palm tree. An explosion suddenly blasted him through the air and threw him to the ground like a rag doll. He lay there with a gash from his knee to his butt and shell fragments burned in his stomach and intestines.

He did not pass out again.

Lance Corporal Parr was asleep in the grass, wrapped in a poncho. The first explosion slapped him awake, and he put on his helmet, grabbed his M16, and was pushing up to run to a dike when the world exploded three feet in front of him. The next thing he knew he was mashed against a tree and thinking that the tree was fifteen feet from where he’d been sleeping and, oh Lordy, what the hell’s going on! He didn’t know it, but his entire body was riddled, helmet blown off, right eye blown out, the right side of his skull shattered. Only his left arm was unscathed.

Parr could feel nothing, only a numbness pulsing with hot sensations. The right side of his head seemed hottest of all; he touched his hand to it, feeling neither his head nor hand, thinking, Aw hell, you done it this time!

That was his last thought.

Shields ran up to Norton and got a tourniquet around his leg. Norton was terrified that his crotch had been ripped open, and he argued with his buddy to strike his lighter in the darkness. He finally did. “Naw, man, it’s all right!” Gunships rolled in; then a Sea Knight thumped down. Shields and another Marine rolled Norton onto a hootch door, then laid him on the back ramp of the crammed helicopter. As it lifted up, the crew chief sprawled across him to pump his M16 out the open hatch, and burning hot brass bounced onto Norton’s neck and chest.

The helo flew to Da Nang and Norton finally ended up on a freezing, steel table in the X-ray room, next to a Marine who’d been hit in the chest. Norton suddenly started shivering and yelled for a blanket; then
he realized he was going into shock. He’d seen it before and told himself, take it easy, lay back and let it roll.

Norton woke up three days later, in intense pain, tubes sticking out of him; when it was all over, he’d lost part of his intestine.

Parr woke up twenty-seven days later and, when it was all over for him, his skull and face had been reconstructed with plastic surgery and his right kidney and spleen had been removed, as had parts of his right lung, liver, intestinal tract, and stomach.

It was pitch black when the first 60mm mortar round thunked from its tube, but Collinson and McCoy were still awake in their foxhole. Collinson saw the sudden flash across the stream and, before the round impacted, he was shouting, “Incoming, incoming!” and shouldering his M16. He fired rapid, single shots, peppering the brush all around the mortar tube flashes. But he didn’t have tracers and couldn’t tell if he was hitting a thing. The NVA kept pumping and the explosions seemed to walk towards his position. The closest one exploded twenty meters short of his hole, then a few more rounds were lobbed in on the command post area.

The NVA mortar crew ceased firing on their own accord.

Collinson could hear shrieks for corpsmen as he continued to fire his M16 into the darkness. He screamed frantically at McCoy to get the M60 crew, and McCoy hollered for them.

An M79 man ran up, and Collinson, in his excitement and frustration, tried to take the weapon from him. The Marine wouldn’t let go, so Collinson shouted and pointed across the river. The grunt popped off an M79 round but, in the dark, it clipped a tree limb on their side of the stream. They had to duck under the abrupt spray of fragments. They decided not to try a second shot. Collinson stayed in place in his hole, eating at himself—I saw the bastards, why couldn’t I have killed them before they killed my buddies!

Lieutenant Schuler did not hear the thump of the tube, nor was he conscious of the explosion. But he instinctively knew it had been a mortar round which sprayed shrapnel down after hitting the treetops. He grabbed an M16 and tumbled into a slit trench as more fragments stung him, thinking the NVA were going to overrun them. He thought
he was dying. He was dizzy from the concussion and blood poured down his face. He realized he was not going to die only when the mumbles and screams of the men around him became intelligible again through the fierce buzzing in his head.

It was black as pitch and blood was in his eyes. Schuler could make out only a few of the faces around him. Sweathog, his radioman, was wounded. Newton, one of Schuler’s fire team leaders, was clutching his leg; it was almost severed. Rivera, his sniper, was slumped beside him in the trench. He was dead. No fire followed the shelling, so Schuler took the radio. He told the company commander they’d taken a direct hit and, in short order, personnel from the company headquarters hustled over to help carry casualties to the LZ.