Death Valley (18 page)

At the same time, Captain Whittecar (recently rotated from D Company to serve as air operations officer) had trotted down to one of the quad-fifty gun positions. He too saw nothing at first, until a vague impression of movement prompted him to tell the gun crew to recon by fire. They ripped off a burst and a Bangalore torpedo suddenly shrieked up like a deflating balloon with a rooster tail of fire trailing it. Whittecar shouted to fire a flare and, in the sudden glare, they caught some NVA in midstride, slithering through the high grass and shoving torpedoes under the wire to blow pathways. The gun crew started sending a stream of red tracers at them.

Doc Kinman was in the TOC when the .50-calibers suddenly erupted; someone joked, “Aw bullshit, nothing’s out there. He’s always smoking marijuana.”

That’s when Lee and Whittecar jogged back.

And that’s when the defense of Landing Zone West really began. Within a minute, a nervous GI ran down to Bunker 30. He handed Parsons an M60 machine gun, then ran back towards the TOC. From the bunkers, Alpha Company and Echo Recon sent M16 and M60 tracers into every noise or movement; M79 grenadiers fired dozens of rounds. From the center of the perimeter, the 81mm and 4.2-inch crews of the Echo Mortar Platoon had their tubes angled almost straight up, pumping out illumination rounds. Artillery was being fired from LZ West itself, and from LZ Siberia, LZ Center, and LZ Ross.

The hill was lit up like a Christmas tree.

Parsons was on the M60, while Tom, Shorty, and Bubba fired their M16s from the bunker and tossed grenades downhill. The ammo stash left by Bravo Company was coming in very handy. The quad-fifty fired
tracers like red cigars across the clearing, and Parsons could see NVA flop like rag dolls. Six panicked under the fusillade and took off downhill. Parsons saw them on the main trail, heads bobbing above the brush, headed towards a slight open rise on the path. He quickly sighted his M60 on the spot and cut loose when they ran into view. They all appeared to collapse amid the tracers.

The North Vietnamese were trapped on the slope between the firing from the bunker line and the howitzer fire from Siberia, which blocked their escape routes. The result was chaos. Some NVA tried to hide; others tried to run away. They did not return any fire; at least the only NVA fire that could be heard above the racket was a single mortar round. Realizing that everything was clicking into place and that the battle had turned into a turkey shoot, Lieutenant Colonel Henry and Major Lee ambled out to the bunker line. They spent the remainder of the night atop a bunker, watching the show. GIs were out of their bunkers too, laughing, shouting to one another.

By 0630 it was over. There were no U.S. casualties.

That’s when Parsons noticed that his M60 barrel was red-hot and the floor of the bunker was covered with expended brass and links.

With dawn, reinforcements were choppered atop LZ West and gun-ships homed in on the NVA parties moving away from the base of the hill. Delta Company had been in the bush when the attack began; they conducted a forced march, found a clearing, and Chinooks lifted them to the base at first light. Delta swept out from the bunker line Alpha was still holding, M16s anxious in their hands, looking over the NVA bodies and equipment strewn in the grass with fear, surprise, and excitement. Eventually, SP4 Robert Ferris and SP4 Barry Harper lit up cigarettes and took a break, sitting back-to-back on a boulder. Right in front of Ferris, a North Vietnamese sat up in the tall grass as if waking from a concussion.

Their eyes locked for a second; then, simultaneously, the NVA reached for a basket of Chicoms as Ferris snapped his M16 to his shoulder. It jammed. In the time it took Harper to twist around and fire, Ferris rapped the butt of his M16 against the boulder, thus sliding the bolt back, ejecting the jammed round, and chambering the next one. He opened fire too.

The NVA was blown full of holes where he sat.

When Alpha Company made its sweep, Parsons was unnerved by what they found. Some of their claymores had been turned around to aim at them, and their trip flares had been secured with string. Split
bamboo poles, white side up, had been laid uphill through the grass as guides to the infantrymen following the sappers. Directly in front of their bunker, maybe seventy yards down, two NVA were hunkered dead with an RPG. We were the point bunker, he thought—that was meant for us!

Besides the piles of weapons and equipment, there were bodies—fifty-nine that they could find. The sweep also came up with six prisoners, all wounded and left behind in the chaotic morning retreat. They were quickly interrogated; why had they not returned fire or retired when it was still dark? They said they were under strict orders not to attack until twilight, when they thought the Americans would be changing guards and be least prepared. When the firing began in the dark, some of their officers were killed; others disappeared. No new orders were received. Such inflexible discipline was not uncommon in the North Vietnamese Army.

The NVA dead were buried in shell craters as helicopters arrived, bearing General Ramsey, Colonel Tackaberry, and a cabinful of reporters.

The lull was definitely over for the Polar Bears.

That evening, Lieutenant Colonel Henry and Major Lee requested the brigade aviation officer to take them on a night recon flight. From LZ West they flew north to Nui Chom, from where Henry thought the sappers had come. As they cleared the crest of the mountain, they saw campfires on the northern slope some distance away. Henry radioed the artillery battery on West and, in short order, white phosphorus rounds were bursting around the dots of light. They were quickly extinguished. The men flew back to the mountain pass between LZ West and Center. There were more lights and these too were hastily doused as the noise of the helicopter echoed down to the enemy bivouac area. These sightings prompted Henry to send Bravo Company north into the Hiep Duc Valley, and Delta Company south into the Song Chang Valley. Search & Destroy. But, once again, the enemy was choosing to evade them.

On the morning of 11 August, the Marines began their move south into the AO of the Americal Division. The advance group was a team of liaison and communications personnel from 2d Battalion, 7th Marines off the Da Nang line. It was a routine move and 1stLt John H. Pidgeon, XO, C Company, 11th Motor Transport Battalion, 1st Marine Division, was assigned as convoy commander.

Pidgeon was just getting off his truck after an An Hoa run when he was told to report to the BnS-4; the supply officer didn’t know what was up, but lent him a jeep to report in to Division. Pidgeon was briefed at 1st MarDiv HQ. A lieutenant from 2/7, whose rifle platoon would perform convoy security, provided most of the details. It was not complicated. Pidgeon would have thirty-five trucks (every fourth one with a cab-mounted .50-cal.) plus a wrecker to tow any damaged vehicles; they’d be carrying mostly ammunition. An aerial observer would be on station in case fire support was needed. There was also a briefer from the Americal Division, a lieutenant colonel from LZ Baldy, who painted a rosy picture. The roads were swept every day without incident, he said; the area was a model pacification zone. No sweat, Pidgeon thought, straight down Highway One, unload, then head for home.

It was a quiet trip. The only thing unusual he noticed on the way to Baldy was that the Vietnamese along the road didn’t wave. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. Were they being watched? Their final destination was LZ Ross, a small outpost northeast of Nui Chom; it was fifteen klicks west of Baldy down an old colonial road named Route 535. The convoy was cutting through a large, flat expanse of sand and brush when the truck ahead of Pidgeon with a grunt squad aboard rounded a curve in the road. There was an explosion, a geyser of sand on the shoulder. Then silence. Everyone kept rolling, per procedure, and Pidgeon looked at the crater as they passed. No truck treads were near it. It had been a command-detonated mine.

The enemy was out there all right.

Their mine had done no damage because the Marine truck driver had remembered his training. The VC planted their mines in the shoulder of the roads to take advantage of lazy drivers who cut the corners at curves. Pidgeon credited his four, hard-nosed sergeants with drilling those lessons into the young Marines. They proudly called themselves the 11th Mothers.

Landing Zone Ross was a small, lonely-looking place, Pidgeon thought. There were two, low knolls off the road separated by a hard-packed saddle—ARVN on one knoll; a small detachment from 2–1 Infantry, Americal, on the other. The Marines ended up in the saddle. They circled their trucks for the night, fifties outboard, men on watch in the ring mounts and under the vehicles. Lieutenant Pidgeon didn’t have to replace the infantry platoon leader on watch until 0200. He climbed into his truck and fell asleep on a stretcher. Suddenly he was wide awake—not aware he’d heard the incoming mortars—and scrambling
under his truck. The first round had hit five yards away, splattering his truck with shrapnel, but the only damage was Pidgeon’s ringing ears. More rounds impacted around the LZ, and a Marine in a gun mount hollered he’d seen the tube flashes about five hundred meters out. It was a populated area, and they could not get permission from the Army to return fire with their fifties.

It was a frustrating night for the Marines; by daybreak, they were all ready to go home. The truckers were waiting for the Army to sweep the road when one of the sergeants hollered from his truck, “Lieutenant, look at this shit!” Pidgeon climbed up with him. The sweep team—which should have consisted of at least four men with minesweepers and an infantry squad on the flanks—was only an old truck being backed slowly down the road. It was loaded with sandbags to set off any mine that had been planted during the night. Christ, he thought, these guys are crazy!
^*

The grunts from 2/7 were staying on Ross, but the truckers were heading back for Baldy right after the sweep. Pidgeon huddled with his sergeants. It was quick. “We’re going out of here fast, gents. Fifteen second intervals at no less than thirty-five mph. If there is a gook out there holding two wires, we’ll make it tough on him. If you must abandon your truck, get under the rear duals. Stay on the road. Lock and load your M16s and good luck.” They hauled ass all the way to LZ Baldy, trucks empty, infantry security gone. A command-detonated mine boomed and a couple of AK47s sniped from within the roadside brush. No damage, no casualties.

They didn’t even slow down to return fire.

At Baldy, they received word from 1st MarDiv to remain overnight: a bridge on Highway One north of Hoi An had been dropped. They headed north the next morning and stopped at the juncture of Highway One and Route 4, which ran west into Dodge City. They were to meet a sweep team. The eastern leg of Route 4 had been closed for months due to heavy losses; this latest sweep was hours late. Lieutenant Pidgeon
waited under the broiling sun, thinking that once you’ve seen one group of a hundred Vietnamese villagers, you’ve seen them all! They crowded the halted convoy. The Marines bought soda from the villagers, who were friendly until a sale was rejected; then a sarcastic, “Number ten!” The kid Marines told them to fuck off. Some children were selling marijuana, and their older sisters were selling themselves. The girls were friendly, pouting and acting hurt if turned down. After the sergeants made sure the villagers stayed away from the rigs, it was rather relaxing to talk with the children. Pidgeon wasn’t totally at ease, though; this was always too vulnerable a situation.

The sweep finally came on the radio: ETA of twenty mikes. The southern voice was familiar, and Pidgeon recognized the face when the sweep came trudging in. It was a classmate from Basic School. There were no smiles or handshakes. Roads are cleared by technique or accident, Pidgeon thought; this was a case of the latter. An engineer had missed a mine in the road, which totalled the truck following them. A medevac was called.

Two days later, on 15 August, they headed back to LZ Baldy, trucking in the remainder of 2/7 Marines from the Da Nang Rocket Belt. It was a large convoy, more than two hundred trucks, and Lieutenant Pidgeon was dual convoy commander with 1stLt Al Fabizak. Pidgeon rode up front; Fabizak brought up the rear; and it was a typical, quiet, hot, dust-caked run to LZ Baldy. The night was different, though. The Marines were on the airstrip, truckers and grunts sleeping in the vehicles and under them, when the mortars began coming in and the sapper teams were spotted in the wire. The Marines squeezed under the trucks, weapons trained on the airstrip. Ahead of them, the GIs in the perimeter bunkers were on their M60s, slicing the black night with red tracers low to the ground. Flares popped over the base, their parachutes eerily floating down to drape themselves over hootches and wire. Pidgeon crouched beside his truck watching a couple of gutsy Huey gunship crews lift their birds off the strip amid the sporadic fire. They buzzed the wire, then made strafing passes behind a mass of huge boulders to the south. The boulders faced the arty section of the perimeter, and an NVA mortar crew was lobbing shells from the cover. Sappers were moving forward in the wire and an artillery crew dropped their tube to ground level. Then came the weird rush of a beehive flechette round screaming into the night.