The Magnificent Bastards Part 10

Moments later, several NVA who had gotten to a nearby hedgerow began flinging Chicoms. Some landed at the edge of the trench, and some rolled in. Some were duds and some were not. There were RPG explosions, and then a dozen NVA broke into the open on the left flank and rushed the trench. Captain Vargas stopped them with a full magazine of full automatic M16 fire. Most of the NVA went down dead or wounded; the rest disappeared into a hedgerow. There was another pause, and Weise shouted to Vargas that it was time to get out with their wounded. The dead they would leave. Malnar, who was to Weise's right on Vargas's other side, took up the call. "Start pullin' back the wounded-"

Big John Malnar was interrupted by the sudden, shattering detonation of an RPG against the forward edge of the trench. At that instant, Sergeant Major Malnar and Sergeant Bollinger, the colonel's radioman, were side by side and on their knees behind the earthen berm at the rear of the trench. Bollinger was firing his M14 and Malnar had lowered his shotgun as he turned his head to shout. The blast of the RPG flung them both backward, and Bollinger, suddenly on his back, saw blood burst from Malnar's mouth. A chunk of metal had hit the sergeant major in the chest and blown out the back of his flak jacket, killing him instantly.2 Sergeant Bollinger got back to his knees and reached for the M14 rifle that had been blown from his hands. He was in bad shape. His right humerus had been shattered and the artery cut. Feeling no pain, he glanced in numb shock at the bone sticking from the ma.s.sive wound and at the blood pumping out of his upper arm.

Lieutenant Colonel Weise, who was still in the trench, resumed firing with his M16 after he saw Malnar go down. An instant later, an AK-47 round bounced Weise against the back wall of the trench. He felt the thud in his lower left side. It stung, but it didn't really hurt. The shock dulled the pain, and Weise fell forward across the front edge of the trench and squeezed off a few more shots. He tried to climb out of the trench but couldn't. His legs wouldn't work; there was no feeling in them. He had to grab onto the edge of the trench to keep from falling to the bottom of it. He was bleeding badly.

Lieutenant Colonel Weise's legs had gone out from under him because the bullet that punched through his flak jacket had lodged between his third and fourth vertebrae. Captain Vargas dropped his M16 and reached down to pull Weise out of the trench by his arms; then, with one hand locked around the collar of the colonel's flak jacket and his .45 in his other hand, Vargas started dragging Weise toward the rear. Weise, sitting upright with his legs dragging behind him, kept a grip on his M16. When Vargas would stop to catch his breath, the colonel blasted the bushes, where it sounded as though there were enemy soldiers. Vargas was pulling Weise along again when he suddenly saw an NVA coming over the bank of the creek on the left flank. The NVA saw them, too, but before he could swing his AK-47 up to fire, Vargas snapped off a shot with his pistol. The slug hit the dirt in front of the enemy soldier, then ricocheted up to catch the man in his cartridge belt and knock him back into the water. The NVA, dead, wounded, or just stunned, did not reappear, and Vargas was able to get Weise back about fifty meters to the cover of a tree stump. Before Vargas headed back toward the command trench, he shouted at the Marines behind the stump to haul the colonel back to Dai Do.3 Meanwhile, Sergeant Bollinger, who was on his second combat tour with the Magnificent b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, had resumed firing his M14 despite his shattered right arm-only to be hit again as he blasted away on his knees. The first round caught him in the left bicep-missing the bone but cutting the nerve to his hand. As he dropped his rifle and spun around from the impact, another round hit him in the face. The bullet tore across his mouth from one side to the other, split his lips, blew out his front teeth, and tore away his mustache. He hit the deck with no rifle and a mouthful of blood and tattered flesh, and he knew he was in trouble. This time it hurt. It hurt beyond words.

The only Marine that Bollinger could see-the only man still in the trench-was Lance Corporal Kraus, the colonel's bodyguard, who was blasting away with his M16. Bollinger, in a panic because of the pain, screamed at him. "Kraus, I'm comin' bleedin' to death! Get this radio off of me!" Kraus smacked Bollinger in the face, which brought him to his senses, and then used his hunting knife to cut the shoulder straps on the sergeant's radio. Working fast, he secured a battle dressing around each of Bollinger's blood-streaming arms-the bandages didn't do much good-then got him up on his feet with an arm around his shoulder. The pair stumbled back to a position of relative safety, then Bollinger sank to the ground and pa.s.sed out. He woke up when a black Marine tried to heft him onto his back. Bollinger mumbled that the man wasn't doing it right, and the exhausted grunt told him to shut up or he'd leave him. He got Bollinger back a little farther, then said he was going to find a stretcher and some help.

The Marine disappeared. Kraus was already gone. Bollinger was all alone. He pa.s.sed out again. He opened his eyes as he was being lifted onto a stretcher, and he drifted in and out of consciousness as they hustled him back to where Major Warren, the operations officer, was organizing a line of resistance in Dai Do. Bollinger didn't know where he was or what was going on. When a lance corporal he knew from the communications platoon went through his pockets to get the crypto sheets used to decode radio messages, he suddenly became alert and kicked out as violently as he could at what he thought was a gook. He got a whoa-hey-I'm-a-Marine response from the man, and then calmed down when a corpsman thumped a morphine Syrette into one of his wounded arms. Major Warren appeared for a moment above his stretcher. Bollinger told Warren that the colonel was. .h.i.t and the sergeant major was dead, but the morphine and shock fuzzied his thoughts. What he was really thinking about was how the major used to lead their morning exercises. When they lifted Bollinger's stretcher and carried him past Warren toward an amtrac that was taking aboard wounded, he shouted, "Hey, Major, no more PT!"

Lieutenant Colonel Weise was a big, strong man, and although the initial shock of the blow to his spine had rendered his legs numb, he was able to shake off the trauma and start walking back. The first Marine he ran into was Lieutenant Hilton, whose FAC team was about a hundred meters to the rear of the vacated command trench. Weise sat down. Hilton, who'd been so busy on the air net that he'd lost track of the details of the ground action, was surprised that the colonel was not in the company of his sergeant major and radiomen. Hilton was even more surprised when he realized that Weise was wounded. Weise was holding his side and there was a lot of blood. Hilton blurted, "Do you need any help?"

"No," Weise said. "Big John's been hit. I think he's dead. We've got to pull back. We've got got to pull back." to pull back."

Weise told Hilton, who was a big, bold, crazy young officer, to organize a delaying action to give the remnants of Golf and Foxtrot the breathing room they needed to reach the position that Major Warren had organized in Dai Do with Echo and Hotel Companies. To put Weise back in contact with Warren, Hilton stood behind one of his radiomen and changed the frequency on the radio from the air net to the battalion net. He told the radioman to stick with the colonel and help him back, then took the handset from his other radioman to speak with the aerial observer in the Birddog above them. "I want you to bring in everything you can. Fly as low and fast as you can-make as much noise as you can-but don't drop any bombs because they're in amongst us. I don't know where anybody is."

Packing an M79, Lieutenant Hilton-who was near the end of his tour after six months in helicopters and six months playing grunt-moved forward to organize the delaying action. Weise, who had previously considered Hilton a typically immature, smart-a.s.s aviator, made sure he got the Silver Star. Hilton ran into Pace, the battalion interpreter, in the hedgerow in front of his original position. Pace had become separated from his two ARVN scouts. There were six Marines near Pace, and Hilton knelt beside them to explain the situation: "The colonel said delay. We've got to hold until we can get our people back."

Sergeant Pace was a career Marine from Lookout Mountain, Georgia. When Hilton told him what needed to be done, he answered, "Lieutenant, we're with y a, we gotta hold." Pace turned to the young Marines around them, shouting, "We're going to hold! How many you guys going to stay with the lieutenant?"

Holy s.h.i.t, thought Hilton when all the Marines answered in the affirmative. I guess I'm here with 'Em. They went forward to the next hedgerow and spread out behind it in a determined, nine-man line with about ten meters between each covered position. Those Marines they saw they waved back through their hedgerow. When one group went through and on across the open ground toward the next hedgerow, another group followed hard on its heels. The second group was made up of NVA. There were eight of them, and they were so focused on their chase that when they hustled through the breaks in the shrubbery, they did not see any of the grunts in the pickup squad at the base of the hedgerow.

"Those weren't our guys!" Hilton exclaimed to Pace.

Lieutenant Hilton quickly turned and aimed his M79 at the back of one of the running enemy soldiers. The NVA was literally blown apart by the 40mm sh.e.l.l. As Hilton reloaded, Pace rose up and blasted away with his M16. He was joined by several other Marines, and before the NVA realized what was happening, they were dead.

Lieutenant Hilton covered his men with the M79 as he directed them back to the hedgerow behind them. There were several wounded Marines there, and they stopped and made their next stand. Hilton saw Captain Vargas and several able-bodied grunts helping the wounded, so he slung his M79 across his back and joined them. Hilton tried to heft one of the wounded into a fireman's carry, but he was too tired, too drained. Instead, he grabbed a camouflage poncho liner and, along with three other Marines, rolled the man onto it and started back with him. They were all exhausted. They couldn't keep the poncho off the ground, and every time it b.u.mped against the ground the Marine inside, grievously wounded in the b.u.t.tocks, would let out a ferocious yell. He looked as though he was dying. A Marine ran up to take Hilton's place at one of the corners of the poncho, and behind that grunt came another with a stretcher.

Lieutenant Hilton rejoined his pickup squad in the hedgerow then, and they covered the casualty evacuation. Hilton was reloading his M79 when three more NVA caught him by surprise, busting out of their brushy cover and charging right at him. They had seen the broken-open, one-shot grenade launcher and had thought to take advantage of the Marine reaching into his demo bag for the next sh.e.l.l. Hilton quickly snapped the weapon closed and swung it up. His shot hit the nearest NVA squarely in the chest at such close range that the round had not traveled the fourteen meters required to arm its warhead. There was no explosion, but the impact of the sh.e.l.l was enough to kill the enemy soldier as it knocked him off his feet. The other two NVA dropped in the dirt in that same instant as Pace and his men opened fire. Hilton, quickly snapping his next round into the grenade launcher, thought he saw another NVA wheel around in midcharge and disappear into some bushes. That was where he fired next.

Lance Corporal O'neill, the sniper, was behind a four-foot hedge with his partner when a Marine coming out of nowhere jumped over it. The Marine still had his helmet and flak jacket on, but he'd lost his rifle and other gear. All he had was a bayonet and a wild look in his eyes. The bayonet was b.l.o.o.d.y, as was the man's hand. "They're everywhere," he screamed. "G.o.d, get us out of here! They're everywhere, they're everywhere! Get outta here!"

The Marine took off in a frantic run, and O'neill said to his partner, "What's he talkin' about? That's desertion if we run, isn't it?" O'neill started to rise to look over the hedgerow so he could see what was going on, and there was Lieutenant Colonel Weise, bulling his way through the brush, pushing and limping. He fell when he got through, but there were other Marines with him, and they quickly got him moving again.

"Do you know who that was?" O'neill gasped.

"No," said his partner.

"That was the battalion commander!"

"d.a.m.n, he looks hurt!"

"Well, I'm a firm believer in doing like they always say-follow your leaders. Let's get the h.e.l.l outta here!"

The sniper team fell in with the colonel's group. O'neill, hanging to the rear to provide some security, could see other Marines running back through the brush. He suddenly realized that there was an NVA about twenty feet to his right. The man was going in the same direction in the same cautious trot. They saw each other at about the same time. O'neill veered to the left as the NVA veered to the right and disappeared. Neither combatant had fired a shot.

"It's amazing what the human body does when it's trapped," reflected Captain Vargas. "I actually believed I was not going to get killed. I was shooting as fast as I could because I knew it was my a.s.s or theirs." After having dragged the colonel back, Vargas ran forward several more times with other Marines in the rear guard to personally haul back at least five more wounded men. He had picked up an AK-47 and secured several hand grenades from Marines in the rear, and he used them each time he rushed forward. "I had to go back. I couldn't leave them, not after what they had gone through." He was wounded when an RPG knocked him down and opened up his knee while he was hustling rearward with a one-armed Marine on his back. Later, Vargas was running forward again when he and an enemy soldier collided in the brush. "It was that crowded. There was so much confusion in there between the Marines and the NVA." The man fell down, then tried to swing his AK-47 around as he got up. Vargas had already drawn the knife that he kept strapped to the front of his flak jacket. "I got on him right away and just stuck the knife right in his throat. Other Marines had other NVA down on the ground, and they were fighting, too. Marines who were out of ammo were swinging their rifles or entrenching tools. It's amazing that any of us got out of there."4 Nearby, Private Kachmar and his buddy James Moffett, having lost track of the rest of Foxtrot Three during the retreat, had gotten mixed in with Golf Company. They ended up all the way down by the creek on the left flank. There were other survivors from Golf, most of whom had lost their weapons and gear, trying to climb up from the creek bed, and Kachmar reached down to help a sergeant. Kachmar had no more grabbed hold of the man's hand than the NVA opened fire again. Kachmar saw a bullet punch through the sergeant's chest as he struggled to get out of the water. The round thudded into the ground between Kachmar's feet on the bank. He quickly pulled up the sergeant and dragged him to cover. The man had a sucking chest wound, but Kachmar and Moffett sealed the hole with plastic and then started carrying him back toward the casualty collection point.

They were quickly pinned down. They could see NVA, whose uniforms were dark green from having just crossed the chest-deep stream, as they fired and rushed forward. Kachmar and Moffett fired like madmen, dropping some of the enemy soldiers. Kachmar, who'd taken cover behind a tree, fired until he was out of ammunition. He had never run out of ammo before. He was terrified. Spotting three NVA setting up a drum-fed RPD light machine gun in a dugout, Kachmar dropped his M16 and heaved a grenade at the position. The grenade exploded at the lip of the dugout, and without thinking Kachmar charged in right after the blast. The three NVA were all wounded and stunned. "One tried to get at his SKS rifle, which was maybe two feet from his hands, and I plunged my K-Bar into his chest," recalled Kachmar. He pulled out the knife and turned like a robot toward the next enemy soldier. "I stabbed him, too, but I twisted my knife. I couldn't get it out." The third NVA was sprawled against the back wall of the entrenchment, moaning in pain. "All these years later I want to say he was trying to get me, but I don't think he was. He was just moaning and I just choked him to death. I didn't even think about what I was doing. I just did it. It was like watching a movie. There wasn't any rage. I don't think I felt any conscious emotion whatsoever. I only thought consciously about what I did two or three days later, and I didn't feel like I actually did it. It all happened so fast."

Kachmar and Moffett ran back to their group, where Kachmar got ammo for his M16 from some of the walking wounded as they kept moving rearward. The sergeant with the sucking chest wound was a big man, and it took four Marines to carry him. Every time he started gasping for air they would put him down and Kachmar and another Marine took turns giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. It seemed to help. The sergeant wanted water, but they adhered to their training and refused to give him any. Finally, the man started mumbling that he knew he was going to die. He did not sound scared, nor was he screaming in pain-the fire was simply going out in his eyes. "I really wanted that guy to live," said Kachmar. "I intensely wanted to see that man live." He screamed at the sergeant not to give up. He gave him mouth-to-mouth again. He kept talking to him. They got the sergeant all the way back to Dai Do, but when they set him on the ground where the corpsmen were working, he died. Kachmar, exhausted and overwrought, angrily pushed the sergeant's body with his foot and shouted, "You comin' gave up-I don't believe you comin' gave up!"

Cut off on the wrong side of the creek, Corporal Yealock's group from Golf One was buzzed by one of the Phantoms that had arrived to provide close air support. Luckily, the grunts, convinced they were about to be strafed, were able to wave off the low-flying jet. Moments later, a Navy Monitor appeared in the stream-the group had worked almost all the way back to the Bo Dieu River-and when the gunboat swung its machine guns toward the unidentified figures on the bank the Marines again began waving frantically. The Monitor pulled up close enough to let a ramp down on the bank for them to come aboard.

Lance Corporal Dean of Foxtrot One, wounded twice already, had just shot the charging NVA when an RPG explosion peppered his forehead with little fragments. Dazed, he realized that the Marine lying beside him was dead; the explosion had blown away half his shoulder. Dean couldn't find his pistol, so he was unarmed as he started crawling toward the rear, screaming at the handful of grunts who were still there to follow him.

Dean staggered into a nearby hootch, and saw a squad leader struggling to hold down a convulsing grunt named Walter Cleveland. Better known as Coffee, Cleveland was a big, happy-go-lucky black Marine who was popular even with the Johnny Rebs such as Dean and Digger. Coffee loved to wrestle and horse around with them. Dean helped the squad leader pin Coffee to the hootch floor, amazed that he was reacting so violently to what looked like a little ding in the arm.

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit, we're all hurt," Dean yelled. "Just lie down!"

In moments, Coffee went limp under them. He was dead. Dean couldn't believe it until he rolled the body over and saw the ma.s.sive exit wound in the big man's chest, near his heart.

Foxtrot Company Marines were moving back helter-skelter all over the place. Digger Light, along with Alvarado and Bob Young of Foxtrot Two, having worked their way into the tree line between the hamlet and their fire-swept field, got their wounded organized for the run to Dai Do. They had eleven casualties with them, all of whom were shook up but still listening and functioning, to include Tanabe, who was temporarily blind. They had all the wounded men hold hands or grab onto web belts-the stronger supported the weaker. With the most able-bodied casualties in the lead, their bleeding, stumbling daisy chain made its desperate run. It was a moment of wild confusion. They did not know the terrain. They ran through smoke, then made like a centipede over a dike, then ran on into more smoke and popping embers. They pa.s.sed the bodies of Marines and NVA alike. Light and Alvarado brought up the rear, firing at anything that looked as though it might be following them. Huey gunships roared in directly over their heads, their machine guns blazing.

1. Lieutenant Morgan was awarded a BSMv for Dai Do/Dinh To, and another during the 25 May 1968 engagement in Nhi Ha. He earned the Purple Heart on 4 June 1968 after the battalion had moved to Khe Sanh and after one of his patrols accidentally walked into a USMC minefield. Morgan was on his hands and knees, probing a path to one of his casualties with a bayonet, when the wounded man, thrashing wildly in his agony, detonated another mine. The explosion removed the thumb and fingers on Morgan's left hand, seriously wounded his right leg, and blew off his left leg at the hip. Lieutenant Morgan was awarded a BSMv for Dai Do/Dinh To, and another during the 25 May 1968 engagement in Nhi Ha. He earned the Purple Heart on 4 June 1968 after the battalion had moved to Khe Sanh and after one of his patrols accidentally walked into a USMC minefield. Morgan was on his hands and knees, probing a path to one of his casualties with a bayonet, when the wounded man, thrashing wildly in his agony, detonated another mine. The explosion removed the thumb and fingers on Morgan's left hand, seriously wounded his right leg, and blew off his left leg at the hip.2. Sergeant Major Malnar, veteran of Saipan, Tinian, Okinawa, Inchon, Seoul, and most recently of b.a.s.t.a.r.ds' Bridge and the Cua Viet campaign, was posthumously awarded his second Silver Star and fourth Purple Heart for the Battle of Dai Do. Sergeant Major Malnar, veteran of Saipan, Tinian, Okinawa, Inchon, Seoul, and most recently of b.a.s.t.a.r.ds' Bridge and the Cua Viet campaign, was posthumously awarded his second Silver Star and fourth Purple Heart for the Battle of Dai Do.3. Lieutenant Colonel Weise was awarded the Navy Cross and two of his three Purple Hearts for the Battle of Dai Do. He got the Silver Star for Vinh Quan Thuong, and a Legion of Merit with Combat V for his six months of command service with BLT 2/4. Lieutenant Colonel Weise was awarded the Navy Cross and two of his three Purple Hearts for the Battle of Dai Do. He got the Silver Star for Vinh Quan Thuong, and a Legion of Merit with Combat V for his six months of command service with BLT 2/4.4. Captain Vargas was awarded the Medal of Honor and three of his five Purple Hearts for the Battle of Dai Do. His Silver Star was from Vinh Quan Thuong. Captain Vargas was awarded the Medal of Honor and three of his five Purple Hearts for the Battle of Dai Do. His Silver Star was from Vinh Quan Thuong.

We Took a Lot of 'Em With Us

BY THE TIME L LIEUTENANT H HILTON GOT SEPARATED FROM his pickup squad, he had already expended all his M79 ammo-maybe a hundred rounds-and had handed the weapon to a Marine moving rearward. He had also dropped all his excess gear. He was traveling fast and light. All he had besides his .38 revolver, an aviator's weapon, was a LAW he had picked up. Hilton ended up along the creek on the left side of Dinh To, where he saw an exhausted, soaking-wet Marine crawling over the bank. He joined the man, and they spotted three NVA cautiously coming out of the trees a hundred feet ahead of them. The wet Marine showed Hilton how to prepare his LAW for firing, but when Hilton put it over his shoulder to shoot it, he said, "I better aim it up a little bit to loft it." his pickup squad, he had already expended all his M79 ammo-maybe a hundred rounds-and had handed the weapon to a Marine moving rearward. He had also dropped all his excess gear. He was traveling fast and light. All he had besides his .38 revolver, an aviator's weapon, was a LAW he had picked up. Hilton ended up along the creek on the left side of Dinh To, where he saw an exhausted, soaking-wet Marine crawling over the bank. He joined the man, and they spotted three NVA cautiously coming out of the trees a hundred feet ahead of them. The wet Marine showed Hilton how to prepare his LAW for firing, but when Hilton put it over his shoulder to shoot it, he said, "I better aim it up a little bit to loft it."

Bad move. Hilton watched aghast as the 66mm HE projectile shrieked over the heads of the three NVA he'd been aiming at. The enemy soldiers, who'd been looking around, dropped and then backed up into the tree line. Other NVA, however, were still running past in the brush.

Hey, we're surrounded! thought Lieutenant Hilton as he and the young Marine slid into the creek bed and crawled along in about three feet of water until they reached Dai Do. Hilton saw Sergeant Pace in the mob of Marines. Pace had just made it back with a wounded Marine he'd found staggering dazed and naked near an old barbed-wire fence. All the grunt had on were his jungle boots. When Pace grabbed the Marine's arm to help him back, he weakly jerked away and moaned not to touch him because it hurt too much. Pace then noticed that the man had been hit in several places. The Marine mumbled, "I'll make it, I'll make it," as Pace walked beside him. When they finally reached Dai Do, the Marine sank to his knees and said, "told you I'd make it." Then he died.

Lieutenant Hilton and Pace stared at each other, and then hugged. "You got guts, Pace," Hilton said. "No," Pace answered. "You're the one with them." Given the casualties and the confusion, they wondered if they were the senior Marines on the spot, and Pace said half-jokingly, "Looks like you're in charge."

"Bulls.h.i.t. I'm an air officer. You're You're in charge." in charge."

"s.h.i.t, I'm an interrogator. I don't know anything about this s.h.i.t."

There were no coherent units left. "It was like a fire team here and a couple of stragglers there," recalled Lieutenant Acly of G Company, "and just about everybody had been hit or cut up or something was wrong with them. Everybody felt beat up." While running around along the forward edge of Dai Do getting Marines into defensive positions and organizing litter teams, Lieutenant Taylor of H Company saw Lieutenant Colonel Weise being helped back by Vargas on his shaky, semiparalyzed legs. Taylor, greatly concerned, asked him how he was doing. Weise, in much pain, answered through clenched teeth, "We took a lot of 'Em with us."

Weise was led to Major Warren, and pa.s.sed command to him with a simple, "It's all yours." A young corpsman helped remove Weise's torn-up flak jacket, slapped a battle dressing over the gunshot wound in his lower left side, and hooked up an IV of serum alb.u.min to his left arm. Holding up the bottle, Weise was led to a stretcher on the floor of an amtrac alongside several of his young, badly wounded Marines. When the ramp went down in An Lac he was hustled to one of the skimmers. Moving down the river, Weise, who was on his back, could see Navy craft gliding by in both directions. The logistical lifeline had been reopened. They had accomplished their mission. A feeling of peace washed over him. He had given everything he had and done everything he possibly could. There wasn't anything else he could do. When he allowed himself to relax, Weise pa.s.sed out on the floor of the skimmer. The shock and blood loss had finally caught up with him.

At 1740 on 2 May, Major Knapp, XO of BLT 2/4, heard the first report that Dixie Diner 6 was a casualty and that F and G Companies were withdrawing to the perimeter held by E and H Companies in Dai Do. Knapp relayed the news to Fire Raider 6 and to the SLF commander aboard the Iwo Jima Iwo Jima, adding that he was leaving Mai Xa Chanh West to get a handle on the situation. Within one minute, Knapp caught a skimmer at the boat landing near the medevac beach and proceeded at top speed for An Lac to take command of the battalion if necessary. Knapp had no information on how badly Weise had been wounded.

Meanwhile, Major Warren, the de facto, on-the-spot battalion commander, was running around bareheaded in Dai Do getting different people to do different things. Warren did not shout directions in the typical hey-Marine-get-your-a.s.s-over-here fashion, but rather with an encouraging, "Hey, buddy, help us out with this," or "We need you over here, buddy." He never lost his cool. Warren had artillery and naval gunfire pounding into Dinh To in coordination with their suddenly available close air support. Huey gunships added to the racket, as did the Navy Monitor positioned where the westernmost tributary emptied into the Bo Dieu. Lieutenant Hilton was back on the air net and in contact with the Huey pilots, who indicated that they could see the bright air panels that Hilton had instructed the Marines at the front to put out once he'd determined that they had a front. When the Hueys began their strafing runs, a lieutenant on the ground net reported to Hilton that his men were taking friendly fire. Hilton immediately keyed the handset linking him to the pilots. "Hey, our guys say you're shooting at them!" he shouted. "You gotta go farther north! Do you see the air panels?"

The pilots answered in the affirmative. After the next strafing run, however, the lieutenant on the ground net screamed, "If they shoot at us one more time we're going to shoot 'Em down!"

Lieutenant Hilton ran forward to ensure that confused Marines had not accidentally positioned the air panels to their south. They had not. It was the pilots who were confused, and Hilton was still up front when the next strafing run commenced. Hilton bellowed into his handset, "You're aiming right at me! My guys are going to shoot you down if you do that one more time!"

"Well, G.o.dd.a.m.nit-" the pilot began, but Hilton cut him off: "Do not shoot if you're not sure, because our guys will will shoot you down!" shoot you down!"

When corrected, the Huey's fire added to the devastating, overwhelming volume of ordnance that was churning Dinh To and preventing the NVA from continuing their a.s.sault into Dai Do. Meanwhile, the battalion moved into a small pocket in the eastern corner of Dai Do, still taking some fire as the Marines established vulnerable, barely concealed positions amid the skeletonized trees. "Tactically, it was a terrible place to be," Warren later commented. "If the NVA had had the numbers to keep coming, there was no way we could have stood our ground. We should have gone back to An Lac so as to have that open field in front of us. We didn't because to try to have people move and establish some other defensive perimeter would have been just a nightmare operation given that there was so little control and so few people left."

It was dusk when Major Knapp's skimmer landed in An Lac. Knapp contacted Warren and asked for a situation report before setting out across the paddies on foot to join Warren up in Dai Do and take command of BLT 2/4. As the perimeter was battened down in Dai Do, Knapp called his company commanders back to the hole that served as his CP. Using a piece of cardboard from a C-ration box, which he would take home as a souvenir, Knapp wrote the status of the personnel and equipment in each unit. The numbers did not reflect the total trauma of the battle because they included a lot of walking wounded.

Golf Company, still under the command of the thrice-wounded Captain Vargas, was incredibly weak, with only three lieutenants-Acly, Morgan, and Deichman-two Staff NCOs, three corpsmen, and twenty-nine enlisted men present for duty. The company had three radios and three machine guns, but no grenade launchers, no rocket launchers, and no tubes left in the mortar section.

Echo Company, commanded by its only remaining officer, Lieutenant Cecil, was not doing much better, with only two Staff NCOs, three corpsmen, and thirty-nine enlisted men. There were no machine guns and no rocket launchers, but they still had a grenade launcher, two mortar tubes, and six radios.

Hotel Company, led by lip-shot Lieutenant Taylor, had one other lieutenant left, Boyle, plus six corpsmen and fifty-six enlisted men. The Marines in the company had managed to hang on to six radios, two machine guns, three grenade launchers, and two mortar tubes.

Captain Butler's F Company was in the best overall shape, with two lieutenants, Basel and Wainwright, plus one Staff NCO, six corpsmen, and forty-two enlisted men. They had three machine guns and seven grenade launchers, plus two mortars and ten radios. Behind them in An Lac, Captain Murphy had one officer and thirty-two enlisted men with four tubes from the 81 mm mortar platoon (which was presently firing into Dinh To), plus Lieutenant Muter and his eighteen-man recon platoon. In addition, three officers and sixty-eight enlisted men had just arrived at the splash point from Mai Xa Chanh West. Knapp had directed the headquarters commandant to round up all nonessential personnel at the BLT CP to reinforce the rifle companies, but, since it was already dark, Knapp elected to have them remain in An Lac. Also in An Lac was B/l/3, which had three officers and eighty-six enlisted men on hand. Knapp later told the division historical team, "We tightened in our defense, redistributed our people, and checked all radio nets to see that we had active FO teams, air teams, and so forth. We continued preparations by posting listening posts and firing close night defensive fires-we put them in very close. Requested illumination throughout the night from a flareship, and our request was approved and provided for."

During the madhouse retreat, Pfc. Otis E. Boss, who served as the radioman for the 81mm FO attached to Foxtrot, was left behind. Boss and his FO, a lance corporal, were at the tail end of the retreat when a squad of NVA suddenly appeared behind them. Boss shouted at the FO to make a run for it while he covered him. When Boss swung around to fire his M16, he was amazed to see the NVA turn tail for the protection of a tree line. By that time, though, the FO and everyone else was out of sight. Boss crawled to a paG.o.da among the burial mounds and lay exhausted in its cover while he searched the airwaves for an active frequency.

Lieutenant Hilton heard a terrified, whispering voice break in on the air net, repeating, "They're all around me, they're all around me."

"Where are you exactly?" asked Hilton.

"I don't know. They're all around..."

Hilton put Boss in contact with the aerial observer in the Birddog, and Boss said that he would identify his position by waving his helmet. The aerial observer saw the helmet immediately. So did the NVA. Huey gunships strafed the NVA soldiers firing at the paG.o.da, and Boss took advantage of the distraction by crawling away. He hadn't gone thirty meters toward what he thought was Dai Do-it had gotten totally dark-when the NVA saw or heard him again. They tossed Chicoms at him, but the Hueys rolled in again with machine guns blazing.

Boss made it to new cover. The decision was made to extract him by helicopter. The word was pa.s.sed for everyone, including the mortar crews, to fire on signal into the western side of Dinh To so as to suppress NVA movement and allow Boss to crawl east to a clearing that would accommodate a Sea Horse. When the Marines opened fire, Boss immediately reported over the radio that they were shooting at him. The fire was shifted on his order. The aerial observer in the Bird-dog, meanwhile, had asked Boss to mark his position in the dark. The young radioman struck a match and held it inside his upturned helmet. The aerial observer spotted the brief flame and directed Boss toward the clearing. Boss got there on his hands and knees, but when the Sea Horse started to land the NVA opened fire from several directions and the helo had to break its hover and clear the area.

The suppressive fires cranked up again, and the Hueys strafed with rockets and machine guns. When they finished, the Sea Horse went back in while Boss, who was at the end of his tether emotionally and physically, guided the pilot by radio. "Come left, come left... no, no, come right, come right right ... ah, straight ahead, straight ahead ... okay, stop, ... ah, straight ahead, straight ahead ... okay, stop, stop stop ... back up, ... back up, back up back up ... come left-" ... come left-"

"How far am I from you?" the pilot interrupted.

"You're fifty feet."

"I'm settin' down-you run to me. Run to me!"

Private Boss clambered aboard the Sea Horse-the whole battalion cheered when the pilot reported that the rescue was a success-and returned to duty the next day. He was awarded the Silver Star for his actions during the three-hour ordeal.

At least one other Foxtrot grunt, LCpl. David R. Bingham, a skinny, scared-to-death young Marine, was left behind in Dinh To. Bingham, who was really nice but a little slow, was both the company screwup and the company pet. When the battle was over, his body was found in the rubble of a demolished, tile-roofed house three hundred meters farther north in Dinh To than the battalion had advanced. He was lying on his back with one hand on his stomach, and with NVA-type bandages around the wounds that had prevented him from keeping up with his comrades during the retreat. He had another NVA bandage tied around his head covering his eyes. The NVA who had taken him prisoner, and who had treated his injuries before deciding that he was too much of a burden to take with them, had blindfolded the eighteen-year-old Marine before shooting him in the head.

It was a long night in Dai Do. At 2045, there were exchanges of grenades and automatic-weapons fire between a platoon-sized group of NVA and Foxtrot Company, which covered the northeastern side of the perimeter. The NVA were probing, not attacking, and the Marines lobbed M79 rounds wherever they saw a shadow in the flarelight. The Marines could hear the NVA shouting to each other. The NVA also shrieked such things as, "You die tonight, Marine!"

One enemy soldier tried to get into the perimeter, although sniper O'neill didn't believe it at first when the Marine beside him said he heard movement. The enemy had been lobbing in an occasional round with a captured M79, and O'neill answered, "Nan, you probably hear the bloop gun firing."

"No, no, I hear movement movement-I really hear something!"

"Well, hey, you go wanderin' out there and somebody's going to shoot you."

"I hear something!"

Lance Corporal Cornwell of Echo Company, who was asleep in his nearby position, heard the same movement and snapped awake with a start. It took a moment before he realized that there was an NVA about ten meters ahead of them. The NVA was walking slowly and deliberately toward them, scanning the area ahead of him before each step. When Corn-well woke the two Marines with him, the NVA disappeared in the brush. They kept their eyes open; then the Marine on Cornwell's left suddenly tapped him on the arm. The NVA was crouched about six feet away. Cornwell fired his .45 at the same time his buddy did, then crawled toward the enemy soldier and found him lying perfectly still on his back, his brand-new AK-47 beside him. The man, a gurgling noise coming from his throat, was beyond using his weapon. Cornwell finished him with a bullet in the head.

At 2130, the NVA fired a recoilless rifle from a paG.o.da on the far side of the creek. The sh.e.l.ls exploded near the rear of the Marine perimeter, where an amtrac had been parked to serve as an aid station. One sh.e.l.l landed in or near Hotel Company's mortar position. Eight Marines were seriously wounded. "You could hear 'Em scream through the night," commented a sergeant when interviewed by the division historical section. Another said, "Our men on the Otter got up with a .50-caliber-they just totaled out the paG.o.da where the recoilless rifle was." A Navy patrol boat also poured .50-caliber tracers into the little cement structure, and Major Knapp shifted artillery fire onto the area. Knapp said that although "we had previously requested and received permission through Fire Raider, 3d Marines, to have blanket clearance to fire on the other side of the stream, because it was 2d ARVN Regiment territory, it took twenty minutes to get the fire mission cleared on this particular problem."

The wounded were treated in the amtrac, and a helicopter medevac was requested rather than running the risk of moving the wounded downriver in the dark. Major Warren guided the Sea Horse into the cemetery on the southeastern edge of Dai Do while standing on a grave mound with a flashlight. The pilot, flying blind, set down his helicopter right on the light. As Warren backed up, he tripped and fell in the dark. He had to roll to one side to avoid the Sea Horse's front tire as it settled down where he had been. There was no enemy fire.1 The next medevac was for Sergeant Pace, the battalion interpreter. He was lying on his back against a dike between two other Marines when he heard the crack of an RPG being fired. h.e.l.l, he thought, secure behind his cover, let 'Em shoot-I'm going to sleep. He never heard the explosion, but he suddenly realized that something was wrong with his legs. They were numb; they wouldn't work. Pace reached down to squeeze them awake and came up with a handful of blood. d.a.m.n, they got me! he thought. The RPG had riddled his legs with seventy-two metal fragments. Pace tied off a battle dressing around one thigh as he hollered for a corpsman. Lieutenant Hilton recognized his voice and came to get him. Hilton helped Pace to the landing zone and a.s.sisted him aboard the Sea Horse, shouting over the roar of the blades, "I'll see you again someday, Sergeant!" It was a promise he kept.

Lieutenant Hilton spent most of the night in radio contact with the flareship that orbited above them, although he could not see the aircraft because of the slight overcast. The pilots could not see through the clouds either, so Hilton adjusted their flight path as they blindly jettisoned their parachute-borne flares. Hilton lay on his back with his radio and extra batteries and, without knowing it, slid into a quick, numb sleep. He jerked awake and grabbed the handset he had dropped. "Are you guys still there?" he asked.

"Yeah, you must've dozed off-we thought we'd lost you."

"No, no, I'm okay. I just fell asleep."

"Okay, hang in there. Get some coffee or something."

Hilton brought in several more flares-it was well after midnight-and the next thing he knew someone was shaking him. "Wake up, wake up-they're trying to get a hold of you!" Major Knapp had a radioman relieve Hilton. He managed to catch a few hours of sleep before waking up to help with the last hour of flares, which, like the nonstop artillery on Dinh To, carried them to daybreak.

Meanwhile, Colonel Hull decided to land the 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, in An Lac the next afternoon to continue the a.s.sault through Dinh To and Thuong Do. With an Army battalion in position along Jones Creek, Fire Raider 6 finally felt secure enough to commit his only remaining maneuver battalion. Fire Raider 3, Major Murphy, relayed this information to the BLT 2/4 CP in Mai Xa Chanh West via the secure net at approximately 2230, but it was not until 0100 that the combat situation had quieted down enough to allow this very welcome message to be radioed to Knapp and Warren in Dai Do. a.s.suming that the battalion net was being monitored by the enemy, the watch officer, Captain Mastrion (who had just flown back from the Iwo Jima Iwo Jima despite his injured back), came up with a message that would frustrate NVA efforts to decipher it. Bearing in mind that 1/3's call sign was Candy Tuft, and that the fresh battalion would pa.s.s through BLT 2/4 in order to continue the northward attack, the message that Mastrion crafted read: "Sweetheart Boy will step on your back on his way to Santa Claus's home." despite his injured back), came up with a message that would frustrate NVA efforts to decipher it. Bearing in mind that 1/3's call sign was Candy Tuft, and that the fresh battalion would pa.s.s through BLT 2/4 in order to continue the northward attack, the message that Mastrion crafted read: "Sweetheart Boy will step on your back on his way to Santa Claus's home."

At first light on 3 May, the seventy-one H&S Company fillers who'd been shuttled to An Lac the evening before hiked up to Dai Do. They were distributed by grade to each of the skeletonized rifle companies. Other reinforcements had joined the support activities at An Lac and Mai Xa Chanh West, and these men were a mixed bag. A request had been sent to the Iwo Jima Iwo Jima the evening before for "every able-bodied man on ARG shipping," and within forty-five minutes Sea Horses had brought to the BLT CP a platoon's worth of volunteers, which included two majors and three captains from the SLF staff. There were also a number of walking wounded from the ship's hospital. It was suspected that even a few gung-ho sailors had donned Marine gear, picked up weapons from the casualty receiving area, and gone ash.o.r.e with or without permission. Lieutenant Hilton saw men in helmets and flak jackets who were wearing blue Navy work jeans. Corporal Schlesiona, aboard a skimmer, was convinced that some of the personnel at the splash point were sailors because "on at least two occasions when we landed with resupply materials, I ran across people who just didn't look right. Perhaps they were too clean or too raw looking, or just too generally uncomfortable in their att.i.tude. They seemed not to know what to do, where to go, or even what questions to ask." the evening before for "every able-bodied man on ARG shipping," and within forty-five minutes Sea Horses had brought to the BLT CP a platoon's worth of volunteers, which included two majors and three captains from the SLF staff. There were also a number of walking wounded from the ship's hospital. It was suspected that even a few gung-ho sailors had donned Marine gear, picked up weapons from the casualty receiving area, and gone ash.o.r.e with or without permission. Lieutenant Hilton saw men in helmets and flak jackets who were wearing blue Navy work jeans. Corporal Schlesiona, aboard a skimmer, was convinced that some of the personnel at the splash point were sailors because "on at least two occasions when we landed with resupply materials, I ran across people who just didn't look right. Perhaps they were too clean or too raw looking, or just too generally uncomfortable in their att.i.tude. They seemed not to know what to do, where to go, or even what questions to ask."

There was no enemy action in the morning. At 0815, Colonel Hull choppered into Dai Do. Major Knapp's report to Hull was reflected in his later conversation with the division historical section, in which he said that, "except for numbers, we had an efficient, effective fighting force." He added that "it was extremely gratifying" to observe how well organized the companies remained despite the loss of key personnel. "The number threes and fours stepped right up, took over, and did an excellent job with what they had. There was no loss of control. Command and control remained in effect. Communications were sustained throughout." Knapp's primary recommendation, at least for the historical branch, was "don't send bits and pieces. Send a whole battalion to do a battalion's job."

The Marines in BLT 2/4 were disgruntled with how Fire Raider 6 had piecemealed them into Dai Do. "If we could have had the entire battalion from the beginning," said Knapp, "it would have been an entirely different story." But they were angrier still with the ARVN, who had disappeared in the Marines' hour of need, and whose earlier negligence set the stage for the entire debacle. Prior to the engagement, the Dai Do complex had been in the TAOR of the two battalions from the 2d Regiment, 1st ARVN Division, withdrawn to defend Dong Ha. "It is inconceivable to me that the 320th NVA Division troops could have been so well dug in with mutually supporting bunkers, communications lines, and infrastructure without having done so over a period of days and probably weeks," wrote Major Warren. He was convinced that the ARVN had turned a blind eye to the buildup rather than tangle with an NVA force that would have eaten them alive. "It would have been nigh impossible for the ARVN not to have gotten wind of this activity, as these areas were occupied by ARVN family members and other camp followers."

At 1100, correspondents were finally allowed to visit the battlefield. The Marine casualties in Dai Do itself had already been evacuated, but dead NVA lay everywhere in the rubble, leaving the impression that the NVA had been butchered in a one-sided display of overwhelming firepower. One young correspondent, aghast at the human carnage, turned on Lieutenant Hilton, whom he'd been interviewing. "You guys are unmerciful! Why are you so cruel?" Hilton said he "grabbed the reporter by the seat of his trousers and the nape of his neck and escorted him headfirst into a bomb crater. I was going to beat the s.h.i.t out of him, but somebody said, 'Get Hilton and get him outta here,' and three or four enlisted guys grabbed me and pulled me away."

At 1200, a light but hot meal was delivered to the field. Air strikes were being run the entire time on the north end of Dinh To and on Thuong Do. At 1445, two companies from the 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, began landing in An Lac aboard amtraes. They pa.s.sed through Dai Do to continue the a.s.sault. The scene shocked them. The place looked like Tarawa in its own torn-down, churned-up way, and the stench of death was overwhelming in the hot, windless air of the wrecked hamlet. There were pith helmets and canteens, b.l.o.o.d.y battle dressings, and smashed weapons. There were dead NVA who had been killed when napalm sucked the oxygen from their lungs and who had not a mark on them, and there were dead NVA who'd been shot in the forehead, the backs of their heads blown away.

There were also dismembered bodies teeming with maggots strewn about the area. Lance Corporal Ross E. Osbom of AJ AJ 1/3 paused to look at two NVA who still clutched their weapons in death, and whose "eyes were wide and staring at the sun, their faces contorted in horrid death grimaces. Their intestines protruded from their khaki shirts like purple balloons. You felt sorry for the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. You were glad they were dead, but they were soldiers, too. I remember everyone being very quiet." 1/3 paused to look at two NVA who still clutched their weapons in death, and whose "eyes were wide and staring at the sun, their faces contorted in horrid death grimaces. Their intestines protruded from their khaki shirts like purple balloons. You felt sorry for the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. You were glad they were dead, but they were soldiers, too. I remember everyone being very quiet."

After the battle it was estimated that BLT 2/4 had engaged more than 2,000 enemy troops, and that the battalion had "accounted for 537 known enemy dead as a result of ground action alone." The battalion had also taken four prisoners. An additional 268 NVA kills were credited to supporting arms ("For once," a correspondent wrote, "these estimates were probably not too far from reality."), which included twenty-seven air strikes during the three-day battle in addition to 1,147 81mm mortar, 2,383 naval gunfire, and 5,272 artillery rounds. This tabulation did not include counterbattery fire against NVA artillery in the DMZ, which had been ma.s.sive in its expenditure of sh.e.l.ls.

As 1/3 moved through Dai Do, BLT 2/4 was policing its immediate surroundings by dragging dead NVA to a central location and shoveling dirt atop them. Hospitalman Carmen J. Maiocco, a corpsman in D/l/3, wrote in his journal that the covering was "very shallow and you could see the shapes of the bodies just beneath the freshly turned dirt. I'll guess and say there were maybe 50 or 60 bodies. An image that stands vividly in my mind is of a human arm sticking up straight from the dirt. A few of our men walked by and shook the dead hand and even had their photograph taken in this grisly pose."

Battalion Landing Team 2/4 was awarded the Navy Unit Commendation (NUC). The opcon B/l/3 was included in a separate NUC given to the entire regiment for its successful defense of the supply routes on the Bo Dieu and Cua Viet rivers. However, 81 Marines had been killed during the three-day battle, and another 297 Marines in the five companies involved had been seriously wounded and medevacked. An additional 100 Marines had been wounded but treated in the field. Half the casualties occurred on the final day of the battle, and 41 dead Marines were left behind in Dinh To. While 1/3 pa.s.sed through Dai Do and launched its a.s.sault on Dinh To, Major Knapp walked back to An Lac with Echo and Foxtrot Companies, where they loaded aboard Mike boats for the trip downriver to Mai Xa Chanh West. Knapp's orders to Major Warren, who remained in Dai Do, were to follow behind 1/3 with Golf and Hotel and recover the dead.

By 1730, the sweep through Dinh To was in full swing. The bags of rags that had been NVA soldiers were everywhere, too, and 1/3's Marines were stunned to see dead grunts lying with them amidst the battlefield debris. Marines did not leave bodies. Marines did not leave weapons and ammo and ammo boxes, nor packs, canteens, helmets, entrenching tools, or flak jackets. But they had. The impossible had happened here. "Dig this," said one numb Marine to another. "The NVA did some wounded grunts from Two-Four a job, man. Shot 'Em skeleton dead in the back of the head."

"Wow," said his stunned companion.

"You want to go see 'Em? They're over there by the river."

"No way, man."

"We found their empty rifles, man. It's for real. Five or six dudes lyin' facedown in a ditch...."

Much of the ground was burned and black. When 1/3 reached the trench that had served as BLT 2/4's hasty command post, they found twenty dead Marines in it. Hospitalman Maiocco wrote in his journal that they were "piled in on top of each other, covered with flies, arms and legs all twisted. We couldn't speak. When we did speak it was in whispers."2 A haystack situated on the right flank of the trench was determined to have actually been a camouflaged gun position that afforded its occupants a straight line of fire down the trench. Thousands of spent cartridges were found inside the hollow haystack. The scene in the trench was all the more appalling to the recovery parties from BLT 2/4 coming up from the rear, because those who had been slaughtered were not only fellow Marines but friends. Lieutenant Acly of Golf Company looked down at Sergeant Snodgra.s.s, whose intense blue eyes were still brilliant in his dead face, and he thought of how the noncom had shared his last cigaret with him the day before. Big John Malnar was also in the trench, along with the spotter from the mortar section, whose face was waxy and who had black ants crawling into his shot-open mouth. The senior company radioman's PRC-25 was still strapped on and functioning. Voices from the battalion net came out of the speaker on the dead man's back.

Lieutenant Morgan, also of Golf Company, stood beside the trench. Some of the dead Marines in it had been in his platoon. He had come to Dai Do with thirty-eight men. Including his radiomen, he had only three left. He could not fathom the victory in that.

The dead Marines were pulled from the trench with difficulty. Several were stuck to the ground by dried blood. Rigor mortis had set in, so it was tough to straighten out the bodies so that they could be zipped into body bags. They were then carried to amtracs and skimmers, which had come up the creek to take them back. Discarded and inoperative weapons were thrown onto a pile aboard one skimmer, along with armfuls of web gear and other b.l.o.o.d.y equipment. The Marines left more than they recovered. It was dusk by the time the forty dead Marines in the area had been bagged like yesterday's garbage. While 1/3 began setting up for the night, to include positions in that b.l.o.o.d.y irrigation trench, the Marines of BLT 2/4 climbed aboard amtracs, skimmers, and Otters for the ride back to Mai Xa Chanh West. They were satisfied that they had recovered all their comrades. Actually, the last man would not be discovered until the next day when 1/3 pushed beyond the irrigation trench and found the body of David Bingham, the radioman who had been captured and executed.

It was 2100 when the last element off the Dai Do battlefield-the recon platoon at An Lac-secured inside the BLT CP. An amtrac near the medevac beach was pointed toward the DMZ so that when its back ramp was lowered the interior lights would not be visible to the enemy artillery spotters to the north. The battalion's KIAs were gathered outside the vehicle. Marines with flashlights unzipped the body bags and lined up the dead men by company.