We left the hill right before dawn. That was two days ago, although it feels more like a year. It was very foggy, and the ground was slippery. I don’t think anyone ate breakfast before we pulled out. There wasn’t really any conversation, either. Bebop and I made some coffee, and I got down most of a cinnamon nut roll. He ate a couple of crackers with some peanut butter. Right before we left, I saw him slip his mouthpiece out of his pocket and hide it inside the pack he was leaving behind in our bunker. I knew he was embarrassed that I had noticed, so Ilooked away.
“What do you want, man? That’s an Otto Link,” he said. “You know how expensive they are for a guy from Tan Town?” “Tan Town” is what he calls the ghetto.
Well — pretty expensive, I guess.
We were on our way out of the bunker, but I stopped and grabbed a couple of photographs — one of my dog, and one of my niece and nephew in their Halloween costumes. (A really small fairy princess, and an even smaller Batman.) I took my helmet off, and tucked them in underneath the liner — I’m not sure why. Just wanted them with me, I guess.
It was really foggy. You couldn’t see guys standing ten feet away from you. We were going to go out in two columns. Our platoon would be leading one of them, with a recon team and some 60mm mortar guys behind us. The other column was going to be the 1st Platoon, with the company command group behind them, and 2nd Platoon bringing up the rear.
Pugsley was in the column right in front of me, and he kept shifting his weight back and forth and swallowing so hard that it was really getting on my nerves. I told him to cool out, that this was just another walk in the woods. That didn’t seem to help any, so I gave him a couple of pieces of C ration gum. Figured it would calm him down. Instead, the smacking and chewing started driving me crazy.
For some reason, the fog made every noise seem that much louder. The way we were all breathing seemed almost like screaming to me, and when the dew dripped off the elephant grass and vines, I swear it sounded like a waterfall. I think I was just concentrating so hard that my hearing was better than usual. I also kept shivering — which I hope nobody noticed. Probably not, since most of them were too busy being scared themselves.
By the time we got to the bottom of the hill and were moving through the valley, the fog was — if possible — twice as thick. We had to slow down even more, just to keep from getting separated. At this rate, it was going to take us a week to reach our objective. Up ahead of us, the 105mm howitzers and the 81mm mortars from 881S were firing what they call “artillery prep to soften up the area.” Basically, that means you try to blow up — or scare away — as many of the enemy as possible, before the infantry troops got there.
Finally, around 0900, the fog began to burn off a little. The sun was coming out, and the temperature jumped from chilly — to steaming hot. But since we could see where we were going now, we picked up the pace. When we got to the bottom of 881N, Lieutenant Fanelli told us to take a quick rest break.
I sat down on a rock and stared at the ground between my boots. For some reason, I really wanted a cigarette, even though I don’t smoke. Not that any of us were supposed to smoke when we were out in the field, because the enemy can smell it. I drank some water from one of my canteens, then checked my rifle to make sure it was clean and ready to go. Checked it twice, actually. Back on the hill, we had all taped a few of our magazines together in pairs. That way, if you fired one, you could just flip it around and have another full magazine ready to go in seconds. So, I checked them, too.
Way too soon, the order to “Saddle up!” was whispered back along the line. I remember I felt a little dizzy, so I took a couple of deep breaths before moving out. We made our way along the ridge, heading up the smaller hills leading to 881N. Everything seemed quiet, and I began thinking that this really might be just another one of our walks through the jungle. We climbed up out of the last of the fog, and the sun was brighter than I expected it to be. I slowed down, blinking to help my eyes adjust.
The first cracking sound confused me. I thought a tree limb must have snapped off nearby or something. But then, it turned into one long stream of gunfire, and I heard the whooshing and explosions of RPGs being fired. It took me another few seconds to remember that I should hit the dirt, pronto.
We were out in an open area — mostly just elephant grass, no good places to take cover. The NVA had us pinned down, and a bunch of people were already yelling “Doc!” and “Corpsman, up!” I was just lying there, pressed into the ground. More than anything, I wanted to run away, or crawl into a hole, or — around about that time, I remembered I had a rifle. In fact, not only did I have a rifle, but I could actually start firing that rifle.
Which I did. I didn’t know exactly where to aim, so I just fired in the general direction up ahead of us. The NVA must have been within throwing distance, because chi-com grenades were falling all over our position. One landed so close to me that I knew I was dead. It hit the ground with a thud, and I automatically covered my head with my arms and waited for it to go off. I counted to five. To ten. To twenty. No explosion. I lifted my head just enough to see the grenade lying a couple of feet away.
“Throw it back!” Rotgut bellowed.
Okay. Why not? I grabbed it by the wooden handle and whipped it back in the direction it had come from as hard as I could. But I had to get up partway to do it, and as I started to flop back down, I felt this really hard thump in my side.
I was hit!
I fell over and felt all of this liquid spreading across my left hip. Damn. I was lying there, really mad, swearing my head off. They actually shot me. Took me a minute to get the nerve to look down and see how bad it was.
Make that, how bad it wasn’t. A bullet had hit one of the canteens hanging on my web gear, and the water had spilled all across my front. I was really happy for a second, and then I was scared again, because bullets were still flying all around me.
Rotgut was yelling for me to move up, but I could hear other voices screaming “Pull back! Pull back!”
Nothing made sense. Everything was so noisy and confusing that I couldn’t think. I rolled into a prone firing position and wondered where to aim. About half of the platoon was in front of me — I think — and I didn’t want to hit anyone.
Rotgut was on his feet, advancing in a crouch, and I followed him. He’d been in-country so much longer, he’d have to know where to aim, or — he suddenly went down with a yelping growl. Then he ran off a string of what my grandfather would have called “champion cussing,” and staggered to his feet. He made it another three steps before he got hit again.
I called for a corpsman as I low-crawled my way up there. Not that anyone was going to hear me, over all the shooting and everything. He had been shot in the right leg, and the bottom of his face was covered with blood. It looked as though a bullet had gone right through his cheek. He was spitting out blood — and what looked like a couple of teeth — and trying to get up. I was shouting at him to stay down, so he wouldn’t get me shot, too. His response was to swing at me and for an injured guy, he packed a lot of power. Got me right in the nose.
There was a field dressing stuck underneath his helmet band and I yanked it out. I was going to tie up the wound on his face, but he looked so terrified that I realized he might choke on blood, if I did. So I tied it around the bullet wound in his leg, instead. It didn’t stop the bleeding, but it maybe slowed down a little.
Thud! Another grenade landed somewhere very close, and I threw myself on top of Rotgut to cover him. A few pieces of shrapnel clattered off my helmet and slammed into the back of my flak jacket. I felt something burning on my arm and shook it off without taking time to see what it was.
A bunch of guys were running past me down the hill. I guess the Marines would call it withdrawing — but it was more like a completely panicked retreat. I mean, they were dropping gear right and left, without even seeming to notice.
A hand fastened around the collar of my flak jacket, and my first instinct was to fire at the person.
“Flaherty! Get Rotgut out of here!!” Lieutenant Fanelli ordered, crouching down next to me. “Toss a frag and a smoke out there, then bring him back!”
Now Fanelli turned to yell at everyone else. “Covering fire, people! Mooch! Perez! Grab that ammo!”
My reactions felt really slow — but I don’t know, my sense of time was all screwed up. I wasn’t sure if we’d been pinned down for five minutes — or five hours. I’m still not sure, actually. I wrenched a smoke grenade from Rotgut’s web gear, and helped myself to one of his baseball grenades, too. He tried to swear at me through his mangled mouth, but just gurgled something I couldn’t understand.
I threw the frag, then followed it by popping the smoke grenade — and the billowing yellow smoke made everything seem even more unreal. I was afraid to stand up, but what choice did I have? I closed my eyes and hoisted Rotgut up over my shoulders, while he groaned and tried to punch me again. His helmet fell off, but I didn’t stop to get it because I was already trying to carry both of our rifles with my free hand.
And — we pulled back. Broke contact. Disengaged.
Ran away.
Final score: NVA 1, Marines 0. Damn it.
I’m really tired. I’ll write some more later.
Around 2000 —
We’ve been working on our trench lines all day. In the back of my mind, I can’t help wondering if I’m going to dig into a live round the way Hollywood did. But you can’t think that way, or you might as well just shoot yourself in the foot and try to get them to send you home.
Which a guy in 1st Platoon did last night.
I didn’t know there were NVA graves up here, back from the Hill Fights, until a guy in the second squad dug into one by accident the other day. I was upwind from him, and the stink was still enough to make me gag. The more digging we do, the more often it happens. There’s nothing you can do, other than hold your breath, bury them again — and go dig someplace else.
A month ago — maybe even a week ago — I wouldn’t even have been able to imagine something so horrible. Now it’s all just part of this stinking lousy war, in this stinking lousy country.
I can’t even remember where I was in the story before. I’m so tired.
Rotgut. Right. I carried him back to this LZ, where the corpsmen had a casualty collection point. Apparently, the 1st Platoon had also run into trouble over on the other ridge, because I could hear a bunch of firing and artillery coming from that direction. Someone told me that the NVA had shot down the first medevac that flew in, but they moved the LZ farther back and more were coming in.
The point guy from our third squad had been killed in the first few seconds of the firefight, and we’d had nine other guys wounded. Of course, I already knew about Rotgut, but it was really bad to see Apollo on the ground, covered with frag wounds. I think he caught a bunch of shrapnel from an RPG. Doc said it looked worse than it was, and he should be okay. I was going to go over and talk to him, but a chopper came in, and he and Rotgut were both gone before I even had a chance to say good-bye.
“You all right, Mighty Mouse?” Doc kept asking. “You hit anywhere?”
He was trying to shove a dressing onto my face, and I realized that Rotgut must have given me a bloody nose when he slugged me. I told him I was fine, and poured some water onto the dressing so I could wipe away most of the blood.
I found Bebop and the Professor slouching inside an old bomb crater with Pugsley and Perez. Nobody looked like a new guy today. They were all smoking — even Bebop, and I sat down next to them.
“Give me one, too,” I said.
They gave me one. We smoked. It was really hot. We weren’t under any cover, so the sun was just beating down on us.
“You hurt?” Bebop asked.
“Nope,” I said. “You?”
He shook his head.
“You hear Grady bought it?” the Professor asked.
The point guy from the third squad. I nodded.
“He never got to see his baby,” the Professor said. “She was born two months ago.”
That just made me feel even more tired.
Artillery missions were being fired right over our heads, landing further up 881N. There were jets flying missions, too, dropping bombs that made the ground shake underneath us. We sat there, waiting for orders to head back to 881S and regroup. Instead, Shadow came over and told us that the word had come down, and Battalion wanted us to take the hill. I think we all wanted to refuse, right then and there, but nobody did.
Lieutenant Fanelli had us form up in a tight defensive perimeter in one of the bomb craters, while he showed us where he wanted us to go, and how he wanted us to do it. We were going to try flanking the NVA position, and see if we could surprise them that way. Most of us were pretty low on ammo, and Gunny Sampson redistributed what we had left, so we would each have the same amount. The medevacs were supposed to resupply us with ammunition, but it had all been on that first chopper, which got shot down.
Most of the third squad had been wiped out, so LT put them together with the recon team to make a new squad. Our squad and the second squad were still in pretty good shape, and we were going to take the lead this time. Smedley was the only machine gunner left in the platoon, so he was going to be carrying a lot of the load. His jaw was set really tight, and I knew he was grinding his teeth, so that no one would be able to see that he was afraid.
Like we weren’t all afraid? I walked over to stand next to him for a minute.
“The Cowboys suck,” I said.
He laughed. “Who went to the play-offs this year, hunh?”
The Cowboys.
At the last minute, Lieutenant Fanelli told us to “fix bayonets.” That meant that he wanted us to resort to hand-to-hand combat, if necessary. A lot of us just stared at him, but he repeated the order and we attached our bayonets to the ends of our rifles.
“Anything happens, write to my mom, okay?” Bebop muttered into my ear.
I nodded. “You, too.”
He nodded back.
I wanted to take out my pictures of Maggie and the kids, but there wasn’t time. If I didn’t make it out of this, my niece and nephew were so little that they probably wouldn’t even remember me. I’d just be poor Uncle Patrick, who died in Vietnam.
LT called in one more fire mission to the big 155mm howitzers down on the main base. We were going to assault, while the artillery — I hoped — kept the NVA’s heads down. Even though they seemed to bounce right up and start shooting again, no matter how many bombs and mortar rounds landed on them. The first and second squads would do a standard fire-and-maneuver, while the new third squad went up around our right flank.
Goes without saying that the plan didn’t work. I don’t think we got fifty feet before the NVA opened up on us with everything they had. Their machine guns were really doing a number on us. But Fanelli just wasn’t going to let us stop. He took the lead — and hey, we followed him. Every time he yelled, “Let’s go!” we went, firing our weapons and throwing grenades — and yeah, using our bayonets — until the NVA were forced to fall back from their positions.
And then, right at the top of the hill — they got him. He dropped in his tracks so fast that I knew he was dead. Gunny Sampson immediately took over — and they got him, too. Shadow had already gone down, and then I saw Smedley collapse, still firing his M60 until he hit the ground. There were a bunch of snipers somewhere, just picking us off, one by one.
We were at the top of the hill, but another couple of NVA machine guns had opened up on us from the east, and everyone scrambled around to find cover. Most of us ended up crouching in the same fighting holes the NVA had just abandoned.
“They’re right over there!” Pugsley shouted, one
position away from me. “Lay some fire into that tree line!”
Pugsley? Wasn’t he supposed to be crying and flipping out right about now?
“Mighty Mouse, go get the pig!” he yelled. “You’re on the 60 now!”
Was this really Pugsley? “Who died and put you in charge?” I yelled back.
“Look around — they’re all dead,” he said. “Now, go get the pig, you stupid jock!”
Doc had dragged Smedley into a mortar round crater, but the M60 was just lying out there in the open. I was sick of hearing Pugsley’s voice, so I vaulted out of my fighting hole and ran out into the line of fire to get the machine gun. Bullets were hitting all around me, and I dove back into the hole headfirst. I hadn’t fired an M60 since I did my staging training at Camp Pendelton right before I shipped out. I knew how they worked — but not very well.
There was half a belt of ammo left in the gun, and I was wearing a spare one over my shoulders. If I was careful, I might be able to make them last — a minute or two. I fired short bursts — just two or three rounds at a time — and yelled for anyone who had ammo to throw it over.
Didn’t know they were all going to take that literally.
The rest of the afternoon was a blur. The executive officer of the company came running over from the command group on the other ridge and took charge. Right away, he started redirecting our fire and told us to dig in. There weren’t enough of us left standing to make another assault, but the 2nd Platoon showed up to reinforce us. The skipper was in the group, too, and he assumed command, calling in more air strikes and artillery barrages. The jets even dropped napalm, which landed so close to us that the heat blistered the tops of my arms when I ducked down. But the NVA never seemed to stop firing at us. The napalm started a bunch of fires in the elephant grass, and the smoke was really thick. It made me think of my father, running into burning buildings, day or night, never thinking about his own safety. I was thinking about my own safety, but I was thinking about everyone else’s, too. That was enough to keep me in my hole, switching back and forth between my rifle and the M60 to conserve my ammo, doing my best to stop the NVA every time they counter-attacked us.
Into No Man's Land Page 6
