Death Valley (16 page)

General Simpson agreed, but had his reservations. The whole point had been to pin the
2d NVA Division
, to cripple them before they could choose the time and place for their offensive. The enemy had not been pinned. Simpson was impressed at how quickly and completely the NVA could fade away; more than once, his Marines had found warm cooking fires in deserted camps.

Simpson was also frustrated. At the start of the operation, he had
coordinated with General Ramsey, CG, Americal Division, whom he knew and liked, about providing a block south of the Que Sons. That was the AO of 4–31 Infantry, 196th Brigade; but tied down with the protection of LZ West, LZ Siberia, and the Hiep Duc Resettlement Village, they had been able to deploy only C and D Companies. Two companies to screen the eight-mile northern frontier of the Hiep Duc Valley.

The NVA walked right past them.

One of the Americal’s gravest problems was that they were stretched too thinly and simply could not afford the units and material required for every mission (the joke among the grunts was that an airmobile combat assault in the Americal was one helicopter making fifteen trips). In addition, the demarcation line between the Marines and the Army was right down the Que Sons, making neither division wholly responsible. U.S. units were instinctively wary of AO borders and the NVA knew this.

Then came the night of 11–12 August 1969, when the
2d NVA Division
was able to bring the war down from the mountains on their own terms. While the 1st Marine Division was fighting around Da Nang and An Hoa, the Americal Division had been fending off another series of attack. Within days, Simpson and Ramsey conferred, and Ramsey then approached the commanding general, III Marine Amphibious Force; they wanted to expand the 1st MarDiv south to assume LZ Baldy, LZ Ross, and (finally) the whole of the Que Sons. That would take the pressure off the Americal and provide reinforcements for the counterattack.

P
ART
Gimlets and Polar Bears

S
P4 Ray Keefer was feeling good. He was shooting the shit with his buddies, a beer in one hand and a joint in the other. They were a dusty, coarse, loud crew. Their unit, A Troop, 1st Squadron, 1st Armored Cavalry, Americal Division, was preparing positions at Chu Lai in preparation for the arrival of the rest of the unit from Hawk Hill. Chu Lai was a quieter area and for Keefer—a nineteen year old who’d been wounded four times—this was cause enough to get loaded. Which is exactly what he and his buddies were doing in the warm evening air—until the radios in their vehicles came alive.

It was the night of 11–12 August 1969.

C Troop reported incoming fire; they were still on Hawk Hill (on Highway One between Tam Ky and LZ Baldy), providing security for an Americal infantry battalion that was assuming their old squadron base camp. Then they reported NVA in the wire. A second call for help came in; two tanks from A Troop were providing security on a hill outpost, and the commander of tank two-nine reported RPG fire.

The 1st Regiment of Dragoons had the reputation not only of being professional heads, but professional killers; in response to these calls, the men at Chu Lai scrambled to their vehicles. Keefer had heard no order to do so, but they pulled up to the post gate. Men were standing on the decks of their tanks and tracks, flak jackets over bare chests, frag grenades and smokes hanging across gun shields, and they broke out the ammunition for the machine guns as they argued with the MPs on duty to open the fucking gate! The adrenaline was pumping, but an officer appeared and simmered them down. The only way to Hawk
Hill, he explained, was up Highway One. The NVA were attacking throughout the area and they most likely had set up along the road to ambush the re-act; plus, the highway was hemmed in by rice paddies and their vehicles couldn’t maneuver well in them. The men returned to their bunkers, pissed off, and frustrated. They could only sit and monitor the jumbled conversations coming over the radio. NVA inside the wire at Hawk Hill. Artillerymen firing their 105-point blank. A GI from tank two-nine shouting that they’d taken two RPG hits and needed a medevac for two men seriously wounded with shrapnel in the chest and face. Medevacs kept away by the ground fog and ground fire. Automatic fire and explosions came through the buzz of the radio.

Little else had been as painful to Keefer as listening to buddies dying and not being able to do a damn thing to help.

That night was the beginning of the 1969 Summer Offensive. More than a hundred locations, both military and civilian, including hospitals, were shelled or attacked by the communists; most attacks were ended or repulsed by dawn. One assault, however, was to be the start of something bigger. The target was Landing Zone West, base camp of the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, overlooking the Hiep Duc Valley. Sappers and infantrymen of the
3d Regiment, 2d NVA Division
crept up this jungled mountainside under the cover of darkness, toting satchel charges and automatic weapons, their skin blackened with charcoal. In addition, three Soviet-manufactured 12.7mm antiaircraft guns had already been dug in at the base of LZ West to hamper medevacs and gunships.

Thus, 12 August was the official beginning of the battle for Hiep Duc Valley; but it was really on 8 August that the troubles began for the Polar Bear battalion.

Delta 4th of the 31st Infantry had made that contact.

Delta Company was commanded by Capt Norman B. Mekkelsen, a soft-spoken West Pointer. The company’s premature contact with the NVA occurred in Happy Valley. This populated rice bowl—named because it was sniper-infested and everyone was damn happy when they left it—was north of LZ West and south of LZ Ross. It sat at the eastern tip of Nui Chom, the rugged ridge line defining the northern frontier of Hiep Duc Valley. C and D Companies had been sent in to screen for the USMC’s Operation Durham Peak.

On 8 August, a platoon from Delta under a new lieutenant surprised five NVA at a lowland stream. They gunned down four, then hastily chased the survivor as he disappeared up a brushy slope of Nui Chom. It was rough going and one of the platoon’s best soldiers was near the front of the uphill chase. As he climbed over a huge boulder, an AK47 suddenly opened fire from only yards away, nailing the grunt in the chest. He fell dead as heavy NVA fire erupted. At the time, Captain Mekkelsen was about two kilometers away with 1st Lt Juan Gonzalez’s platoon. Mekkelsen tried to raise the platoon in contact, but no one answered. The RTO finally responded, then gave the mike to his lieutenant. This was his first firefight and—with AK rounds snapping just overhead and Chicom stick handle grenades bouncing down at them—he reported he was pinned down. The NVA were above them on the mountainside, concealed in spider holes burrowed under boulder outcroppings.

Mekkelsen radioed back that he’d better get his platoon organized and moving, or they’d die in place.

The new lieutenant said they couldn’t move.

Exasperated, Mekkelsen told Gonzalez to be ready to move immediately if needed. He then gathered his weapon and ammunition, took his FO and RTO, and told Gonzalez to get his two M60 teams and come with them. Gonzalez was one of their more able platoon leaders, and Mekkelsen wanted him up front so he would know the score if they had to call for the entire platoon.

This small group jogged towards the pinned-down platoon and, via radio, got the general location of the GIs and NVA. They decided to hike up the mountainside some four hundred meters to the right of the NVA dugouts, then hit them from that flank. Going uphill, they passed an area of flat boulders that had recently been used as an NVA latrine. Most of the shit was in loose piles—Mekkelsen wasn’t unhappy to note the enemy was suffering from diarrhea—but there was too much of it, indicating that, as was later estimated, Delta had run into an NVA company.

They were close to the sound of shooting when they were faced with the choice of exposing themselves by climbing over more boulders or continuing along a crevice in the rocks with their backs against one side, their feet against the other, and a ten-foot drop below them. They opted for the latter alternative and, after getting an M60 positioned to cover them, Captain Mekkelsen led the way down the crevice with Lieutenant Gonzalez coming next. An NVA suddenly fired down the channel.
Mekkelsen felt something slam into his left knee, the one facing the enemy, and in the next moment the M60 gunner was returning fire and the rest were throwing grenades. It was over quickly but Mekkelsen noticed that Gonzalez was leaning forward. He said he thought he’d been hit in the back, but there were no apparent marks when Mekkelsen pushed up his sweaty undershirt. “Well,” said Gonzalez, “I guess I’m not hit.”

“If you’re not,” Mekkelsen answered, “I am!” The M60 gunners hauled them up, and they got a bandage around his seriously damaged knee. Mekkelsen did not report his wound to battalion—it was his company and he’d handle this mess. He leaned against his radioman as they continued up. At their advance, the NVA disappeared. They linked up with the ambushed platoon, recovered the dead GI, and arranged to medevac the one or two wounded men. The RTO also finally reported their wounded captain.