by Phil Ball
Goodwin waited a moment and the group of jovial NVA walked off, but there were still others in that immediate area who weren’t going anywhere. When he tried to heave the large PFC over his shoulder in the standard fireman’s carry, Weaver screamed loud enough to alert everyone in the vicinity. Goodwin immediately dropped him and fell to his stomach, preparing to shoot his way out. For some reason, nobody paid any attention to the scream and no NVA soldiers responded.
This time, Goodwin was serious; the threat to leave the wounded man behind the first time had been idle, but now he wasn’t fooling around. He told Weaver he was sorry, but he would indeed leave him if he cried out again like that. Weaver pleaded with Goodwin, “Please don’t pick me up, just drag me if you can; don’t touch my legs, please.”
Both of Weaver’s legs were severely wounded, the pants badly ripped and soaked with blood, but Goodwin could not see the wounds. He grabbed under Weaver’s arms and dragged him backward, all the way past the new line of defense and back to one of the areas where a corpsman was treating injuries.
Goodwin is just one of the heroes who helped get the dead and wounded out of that area before we called in artillery. Whatever caused the NVA battalion to loiter around for nearly 20 minutes is unexplainable, unless it had something to do with the opium and marijuana they were smoking. They certainly acted as if they were under the influence of drugs and may have even smoked some more during this period.
A Navy Corpsman had been treating several wounded Marines when the order to pull back had been given. They were in the tall grass behind 1st Platoon’s original positions when the NVA breached the perimeter. The men who were able crawled back behind the secondary line of defense with everyone else, but “Doc” and four seriously wounded grunts were still out there. Doc was barely keeping them alive, and was now unable to move them; the enemy milled around close by, preventing any sort of rescue. I don’t know that anyone even knew they were still out there or if they were still alive. All that Doc could do was try to continue to keep the men alive, quiet, and out of sight. At least one of his wounded, maybe more, was drifting in and out of consciousness, at times delirious with pain. Doc had to clamp his hands over their mouths when they cried out so the enemy would not hear them. Eventually, one Marine let out a moan loud enough to be heard by one of the more aggressive soldiers probing the grass nearby with his bayoneted AK-47. Doc froze, trying his best to make the others do the same when he saw the enemy soldier coming their way. Doc had a .45 on his hip, but there was no time for that now; the best he could hope for was to play dead and hope to be left alone.
The NVA soldier spotted Doc and his nest of wounded men, and for a moment he stood over them as if maybe he would walk away. Before turning to leave, he fired one round each, point blank, into each their heads.
Doc’s chosen profession in the medical field must have impressed someone “up there.” God was definitely with him, because the high-powered bullet that penetrated his steel helmet, ricocheted off the plastic liner insert, and only grazed the right side of his face. The four WIAs died instantly but Doc wasn’t even hurt. He lay there with dead Marines all around him the rest of the night. The first chance he got at sunup, he scrambled back in as fast as he could.
As we sat and waited for what was obviously going to be another attack on our position, we could hear the enemy talking in the tree line down the hill from us. Again, the order to save ammunition and fire only at targets of great opportunity was given and I realized that running out of ammo would certainly be a problem.
Chico ejected an M-16 round from a magazine and stuffed it in his shirt pocket, advising me to do the same. I was shocked that he would even consider killing himself, but after telling me “these muthafuckers don’t take prisoners,” I realized maybe I’d better follow suit. I put a round in my shirt pocket, but made a mental note to take it back out as soon as this was over. The mere suggestion of suicide seemed like bad luck to me.
Listening to the radio I was able to get just fragments of information concerning our status and the situation in general. Being on the perimeter, spread out 10 meters between each hole, is like being alone. A terrible feeling of isolation soon came over us, and we were starving for information. We couldn’t just call the commanding officer and ask him what was going on; we had to figure it out for ourselves. I already heard that 1st Platoon positions had been overrun and the survivors had pulled back somewhere. We knew there were enemy soldiers inside the perimeter, but didn’t know where or how many. We were ordered to save ammo, but had no idea how many more NVA soldiers were yet to come or how long this whole thing was going to last. If you used all your ammo on other targets, you might not have any left when you were perhaps face-to-face with a gook pointing an AK-47 at you.
At one point, Chico left to check the rest of the squad in the two fighting holes to our left (east). While he was gone I got a call to get a volunteer from 3-Alpha to go around and pick up any and all M-60 machine gun ammo that could be found. Since grunts sometimes helped out humping the large number of M-60 rounds that were always needed, it was highly probable that the ammo had not already been collected. Alabama had at least two boxes of the belted rounds in his pack that I knew of.
With Chico out of the hole for a minute, Alabama was in charge. I relayed the message and he immediately responded, “I’ll go.” I couldn’t believe he was actually so willing to risk his life so readily like that and I thought maybe he misunderstood what I said. I told him again, “Hillbilly needs that ammo up on the Crow’s Nest; they’ll probably want you to take it to him.”
He had already dragged his oversize backpack into the hole and removed the rounds he had been humping. He had a smaller shoulder bag he used for his grenades, and he hurriedly emptied its contents and put his own M-60 rounds into it. He slung a bandolier of M-16 ammo over each of his shoulders, gathered up a few grenades and his rifle, and told me to call the CP. “Tell ’em I’m ready. Ask ’em if I should go down to where 1st Platoon was.”
I was inspired and yet a bit bewildered by Alabama’s enthusiasm. He was anxious to get down there where all the enemy was and very excited about getting some real action. Chico had once told me in confidence, “’Bama is a completely different guy when the shit hits the fan.”
I got instructions for Alabama to go down as far as he could on 1st Platoon’s now-abandoned section of the perimeter. I was told that the machine gun at the top of the trail had taken a direct hit and there should be some ammo still there. “If you can’t find it, circle back around 2nd Platoon’s lines and get whatever you can from people on the way. Bring it all up to the company CP and check in with the gunny.” With that, Alabama disappeared into the darkness. I felt like I wasn’t going to see him alive again.
When Chico came back and I told him what happened, he was pissed, not at me or at Alabama, but at our acting platoon commander, for making one of 3-Alpha’s men volunteer. He got on the horn with the commander and put in his two cents. I heard him say something about 3-Alpha always being the squad chosen for the toughest, most dangerous assignments. When he handed the handset back to me, he said, “If you let them get away with it, they’ll walk all over you,” and smiled.
Around 0330 the word was finally given to resume artillery fire and the FO was ready. He called the first volley in on the western finger area where the tree line and the elephant grass met. By observing from the Crow’s Nest, he was able to “walk” the following barrages closer and closer to our positions until the big 105 and 155 rounds were pounding 1st Platoon’s abandoned fighting holes. This whole section was crawling with NVA and the artillery killed scores of them right away, but many of them managed to squeeze into holes and crevices and avoid being blown away. Dozens of enemy soldiers found cover in the big B-52 bomb crater. They not only survived the brutal artillery pounding but they started fighting back, beginning another, more intense assault than before. Instead of concentrating their effort on the western finger area, they circled around to the so
uth side of the ridge where the incoming artillery was not quite so heavy. The NVA seemed so much more organized this time, as if they had received reinforcements during the 30-minute break.
The noise and vibrations in this fire fight reached an ear-shattering crescendo, like a very large jet engine, but just when it seems to have peaked and can’t possibly get any worse, it climbs to the next decibel range. The NVA were running up the hill toward us through it all, dropping like flies, but inevitably a few were making it. Stretcher-bearers ran up and down the hill carting off the dead and wounded with unbelievable dedication.
I was curled up like a cannon ball, pulling as hard as I could on my helmet, wishing to God that I could just crawl inside it and disappear. I didn’t even want to open my eyes, much less stand up and look out for the enemy. I felt Chico hitting me on the arm. Screaming at the top of his lungs, his mouth only inches from my ear, I barely heard him tell me to get up. He pointed a finger toward the tree line.
It felt like an earthquake—my entire body was shaking violently and my vision was so jumpy I couldn’t see a thing. Only occasionally would things stabilize long enough to focus on something, but the air was so full of dirt, debris, and smoke that it was impossible to see much.
Chico and I took turns poking our heads out just long enough to make sure there were no NVA soldiers in our immediate area who were particularly threatening to our position. As long as they weren’t jumping into our hole we weren’t worried about them; the artillery took care of that. All we had to do was survive. From 0330 to 0415 the intensity remained constant. Our artillery and 81-mm mortars pounded a deadly wall of firepower all around the ridge line, while the enemy’s RPGs, grenades, and TNT blocks blasted away in the middle. It was hard to tell if there was much small arms fire being used at all. If it was, it was overpowered by the strength of the big stuff.
At 0415, our supporting fire slowed as two aircraft circled high above the battle field. Puff had arrived. “Puff the Magic Dragon” was the nickname for one of the most sophisticated, high-tech weapons of 1968. We didn’t have smart bombs and the cruise missiles available these days. Puff was actually a C-47 cargo plane outfitted with some very new technology in weapons systems. Three 7.62-mm guns were mounted on it, delivering considerable firepower.
The second aircraft circling with Puff in a counterclockwise direction was a flare ship. One of these planes could keep a 10-mile area illuminated like daylight as long as you needed. Huge parachute flares on squeaky metal hangers drifted slowly to earth, manufacturing artificial light, rarely allowing darkness to overtake us.
Upon the arrival of Puff and its lightning bolt–like fire, the NVA stepped up their attack as if in desperation. The already extraordinarily heavy RPG attacks suddenly increased significantly from a couple of new locations. They fired from adjacent hilltops, approximately one every three or four seconds. Over 500 RPGs were estimated to have hit our position between 0430 and 0600. The ground attack increased as well. Small arms, machine gun, grenade, and satchel charge fire hit us like there was no tomorrow, but there would be no tomorrow for the NVA battalion once the sun came up and we could get our jet air strikes in there. The NVA knew it, too; they knew they had no defense against our F-4 Phantom fighter planes and the 250- and 500-pound bombs they dropped.
Up until this point, we had not seen or heard the NVA’s .50-caliber machine gun, but when Puff arrived, they opened fire. I saw the big, lumbering, green tracers come up from the valley on our west side and streak toward the sky where the two planes were circling. Puff evidently spotted them, too, because in no time the fiery red tracers from above zeroed in on the source and immediately destroyed the enemy’s only anti-aircraft weapon. Our sister companies, all north of Route #9, watched in awe as our tiny hilltop position burned and erupted all night long.
To keep anyone north of the road from coming to our support, the NVA guns in the Co Roc mountains started pounding those Marine positions around 0330 and continued on into early morning. Golf 2/3 was hit hard with more than 55 of the bigger 130-mm rounds.
I heard strange voices on the radio at one point. It turned out to be a handful of NVA soldiers who had captured one of our abandoned radios. One of them held the transmission button in and spoke in broken English, while the others were laughing in the background, not unlike a bunch of school kids making prank calls. “Medi, medi, I hit bad! Please hell me. I hit! Medi.”
They were obviously hoping to lure someone to their position, but it was so phony that no one fell for it. Even when they weren’t speaking they kept that button pushed and the microphone keyed, which in turn jammed the frequency so we couldn’t get through to each other. This prompted Lieutenant Jones to order radio silence throughout the entire company. “Just turn ’em all off,” he said.
The radio was our only line of communication to the command posts. Once that line was cut, an overwhelming feeling of isolation came over us. Being on the perimeter where the holes were spaced 10 meters apart and the grass between the holes was chest-high, it was easy to feel all alone. The radio gave us some sense of connection, but now we really felt like we were on our own. I was worried I might miss something, and tried to anticipate the CO’s next move so we could be ready for anything. “Damn,” I thought, “what if we miss the word to move out, or we’re told to pull back the way 1st Platoon did?” I was scared to death of being left behind.
Alabama had been gone a couple of hours and we had no idea what had happened to him. We didn’t know if he was up on the Crow’s Nest with Hillbilly or if he was lying somewhere wounded or worse. Chico’s strong sense of unit responsibility would not allow him to sit and do nothing; he told me he had to go and at least try to account for the PFC.
My faith began to waiver; I wasn’t sure that if my squad leader left that he would come back. I was afraid that if he found a cozy spot up in the CP he might decide to stay there. He said he’d only be gone a few minutes and if I needed any help to call Salcido in the next hole.
The ground attack seemed to have slowed somewhat, but the RPGs were still raining in on us at a relentless pace. After making several half-hearted attempts to climb out of the hole, Chico finally committed himself and started to leave. We had listened to so many RPGs and their preceding whistles that we were becoming very good at predicting where they would hit, thus giving us that all important split-second warning to duck most of the time. No sooner had Chico committed and his feet had disappeared from my sight than I heard the telltale whistle of one of these giant bottle rockets coming straight at me.
I assumed the cannon ball position and tried to climb inside my helmet again. The fateful RPG round bore in on us and Chico came sliding in beside me with a hard landing. Every muscle in my body was flexed tighter than I imagined possible as I anticipated the violent explosion that would inevitably blow us to pieces if it landed inside the hole.
I heard and actually felt the impact of the grenade striking the ground, but there was no explosion. Instead, it stuck in the loose dirt piled up on Chico’s side and started spewing smoke and red-hot cinders like some kind of fiery fountain. There was very little time to be grateful we weren’t killed because my squad leader was getting burned all to hell. The fiery sparks bounced off his back and shoulder, catching his clothing on fire. We both panicked a little and struggled to tear off his flak jacket and shirt in the small confines of the fighting hole. There was a bandolier of M-16 magazines tangled around his neck that was only adding to the difficulty. Afraid the rounds might start cooking off, I finally gave the cloth holder a hard yank and tore it off. Frantically, I tried to pour as much water on his smoldering burns as I could as Chico slapped with his bare hands at the hot spots that were causing him a lot of pain. It was chaotic for a few seconds, but when we finally got him cooled off and found another shirt, we were able to laugh about looking death straight in the eye and coming out of it as good as we had. Dud RPGs and Chi-Com grenades were not really all that uncommon. The NVA knew this and compensated fo
r the shortcomings by bringing to battle more of them than was necessary.
Chico’s burns did something to him. He got quiet all of a sudden and very defensive when I urged him to go see the corpsman. He evidently had forgotten about Alabama until I reminded him he had to find out what happened to him so he might as well see the Doc while up at the CP. Finally, he agreed, and when Sal came over to help, the two of them left for the CP. Sal had been wounded earlier and also needed medical attention.
It seemed no sooner had he left the hole than the ground attack was suddenly renewed. A very heavy volume of enemy small arms and grenade fire erupted in front of my position, and NVA soldiers started running all over the place again. Earlier, I had heard a very strange sort of wailing sound coming from some place in the valley, but I didn’t know what it was. When I heard this same racket again, much closer and very clearly, I knew immediately what it was. It was an NVA bugler, blowing the Communist charge.
A few minutes later Sal stopped by my hole to tell me that Chico was on his way. He said if I needed any help to give him a call, then he crawled back to his own position as we all started receiving more and more enemy fire.
I really didn’t have time to think that I was alone in the hole now and was an inexperienced FNG. I knew what my job was, so I set about doing it. I had to defend our position at all cost—pulling back or going somewhere else was not even an option. When I put my three grenades in Alabama’s cubbyhole, I found that he had left two more behind. I straightened the pin on one and tossed it down the hill, remembering to yell “Fire in the hole” just before it exploded with a powerful crunch!
There was a hell of a lot of small arms and grenade fire outside my hole, and although I wanted to keep my head down, I knew I had to force myself to stand up. I lifted my head up just high enough see over the top and down into the burning trees. I saw approximately 10 to 15 NVA running around in no particular direction, but all with someplace to go. Just to be sure, I tossed another frag. This time, I counted off three seconds before releasing it, causing it to explode very close to my position. In order to see the small area right in front of me, I would have had to stand all the way up and expose far too much of my upper body to enemy fire. That did not sound like a good idea to me, but that area was crucial insofar as enemies sneaking up and throwing grenades and satchel charges into my hole. I decided to use the remainder of my grenades explicitly for that specific area. I continued to use the countdown method and barely got the grenades out two or three meters at most.
