The Magnificent Bastards Part 5

This time Cornwell used the bayonet. He cut the ears off his kill.

Cornwell had seen El Toro in action two months earlier in an embattled hamlet that was thick with smoke from burning hootches as the Marines grenaded the enemy bunkers beneath each. The men in Echo Two were in a black mood because one of their most popular comrades had been killed by a defective grenade. When Cornwell tossed a grenade of his own into a bunker, an ancient-looking Vietnamese woman emerged. She stood small and gray and wrinkled on the trail, hands clasped against her chest. No civilians were supposed to be in the area. "The sergeant called to ask what to do with her. Word came back to waste her. I wanted to kill her. She was mine. I threw the grenade in that bunker." Cornwell put down his machine gun. He wanted to kill her execution-style with his .45-caliber pistol. He started to unholster the weapon. "El Toro beat me to it. He whipped his machine gun up and just put a burst right through her. I always wondered if it would have bothered me if I'd gotten the chance to kill her. When you're eighteen and in that position day after day, you know you're going to die. There's no doubt whatsoever that you're going to die. The fear, the total fear, cannot be understood. You do things you're not really proud of."

As Echo Company's attack on Dai Do got rolling, two more NVA, previously undetected, were discovered squatting in holes in the tall gra.s.s. They immediately raised their hands in surrender. They had apparently deserted their positions in Dai Do and had waited all night to give up. They were quiet and scared, and Lieutenant Jones quickly organized a detail to escort them back to the battalion CP. There they joined two other khaki-clad prisoners, deserters who had approached Hotel Company in Dong Huan during the night with their brand-new, folding-stock AK-47s held over their heads.

Sergeant Ernest L. Pace from the division G2's Interrogator-Translator Team spoke with the prisoners, then reported directly to Weise. Pace said that one prisoner told him twelve NVA companies were in Dai Do alone, and that they had identified themselves as belonging to the 52d Regiment, 320th NVA Division. The prisoners claimed that the only thing they feared were the air strikes. Weise looked at them before they were loaded into a skimmer for the trip downriver. They were sitting under guard with their hands tied behind their backs. They occasionally looked around with great curiosity, but mostly they had downcast eyes. Weise said later, "I'm sure they were wondering whether they were going to be killed. I was very concerned for their safety. We made it a point to impress the intelligence value of prisoners on our troops all the time, but the men were really upset and you had to be careful."

"We fixed bayonets and went for it," Captain Livingston said of Echo Company's a.s.sault on Dai Do. Echo Company did not advance from An Lac behind a smoke screen, nor did it enjoy a rolling barrage to keep NVA heads down. Once again, there were problems with the artillery. Echo's new FO, GySgt. James Eggleston, who was serving his second of four combat tours, noted that "all I was able to get out of Dong Ha before the a.s.sault was just a half-a.s.sed prep, maybe thirty rounds for effect from a one-oh-five battery. h.e.l.l, that was it." During the fight itself, Eggleston spotted NVA on the west side of the tributary about a thousand meters away. "I got one round of Willie Peter on them, then a fire support coordinator, a lieutenant in Dong Ha, cease-fired the G.o.dd.a.m.n mission because he said they were ARVN up there. Those weren't ARVN, I'll guarantee you that. Me and that lieutenant had some hard words over the phone."

Coordination with the ARVN, which did have units on the other side of the creek, was always difficult. Captain Anthony C. Conlon, commander of H/3/12, a 105mm battery at the DHCB, wrote of another problem: "The magnitude of the artillery support [was such that] Hotel Battery expended all ammunition on several occasions during the battle. Needless to say, when calls for fire from BLT 2/4 were corning in and we could not fire due to the paucity of ammunition, I cannot express how helpless we felt."

Nothing could replace the value of constant, coordinated artillery to an infantry a.s.sault, but there was some compensation in this instance: BLT 2/4 had finally been given priority for CAS. The Phantoms and Sky hawks had practically been stacked above Dai Do before this fourth frontal a.s.sault commenced on the fortified hamlet. "We were piling in on there," wrote Livingston, "and, meanwhile, we were using weapons organic to the company, i.e., the M79s, LAWs, rocket launchers, mortars-the whole bag. We were using anything we could find that would shoot, and then it was high-diddle-diddle-right-up-the-middle right across that same paddy again."

When the NVA in Dai Do opened fire at 0715 on 2 May, Captain Livingston and the company gunny, GySgt. Roscoe Chandler, dropped behind one of the burial mounds dotting the five hundred open meters between An Lac and Dai Do. The lead elements of Echo Company were within two hundred meters of Dai Do. The NVA entrenched in the hedgerows at the hamlet's edge had waited until the Marines were that close before commencing fire. The first volley included RPGs aimed at the numerous radio antennas in the company command group. Livingston and Chandler kept their heads down momentarily as one explosion after another, about eighteen altogether, virtually disintegrated the burial mound they were hunkered behind.

Captain Livingston had Lieutenant Sims's Echo Two forward on the left flank, and Lieutenant Jones's Echo Three on the right. Lieutenant Cecil and Echo One were in reserve. The Marines in the a.s.sault platoons could hear bullets thumping into the burial mounds behind which they dove for cover as they ran, crawled, and ducked their way toward Dai Do. Everything was happening in a blur of confusion. At one point, an Echo Two Marine who had gotten ahead of the line was accidentally shot in the back. His flak jacket saved him, but the bullet tore open a magazine in a bandolier slung over his shoulder. The rounds inside began to cook off, and the Marine dropped his M16 as he frantically ripped off his bandoliers and extra machine-gun ammo, knocking off his helmet in the process.

Corporal Nicolas R. Cardona, the wounded man's incredulous squad leader, screamed at the Marine who had shot him to cease fire. The Marine could not hear him over the din, so Cardona finally ran over, took a hard swing with his helmet, and hit the man on top of his own steel pot.

"Stop firing!" Cardona screamed.

Meanwhile, the wounded Marine stood for a second and gave a visible sigh of relief after ripping away his last bandolier. The NVA shot him in the stomach in that unguarded instant. It was only a flesh wound, but the Marine, understandably shook up, raced rearward, scared out his mind.

Lance Corporal Cornwell's machine-gun team was advancing with Cardona's squad. Corn well and his best friend, Danny Wilson-a Boston Irishman with an eagle, globe, and anchor tattoo-were both humping M60s and were both loaded down with ammo. They had just jumped up to run to the next piece of cover when Wilson let out a scream. Corn well spun back and threw himself p.r.o.ne beside him. Wilson had a serious stomach wound, and Cornwell got a battle dressing over the bullet hole as he told his buddy to hang on.

Danny Wilson was taking it well; as soon as a corpsman got to them, Cornwell bounded forward again with his other gunner and the team's ammo bearer. The trio dropped behind cover that was a fraction of an inch higher than their p.r.o.ne bodies, and started blasting the hedgerow with machine-gun fire. They heaved grenades over the bushes between bursts. Chicoms came back at them, and Cornwell was grazed by a fragment across his right hand as he blazed away. The NVA were right on top of them but impossible to see. In an act of desperate, inexperienced bravery, Cornwell's gunner jumped up without warning and charged. He fired as he ran, sweeping the hedgerow, but as soon as he crashed through it the enemy dropped him with three rounds in the leg. The gunner started screaming in pain.

When Echo Company began to bog down on the southeastern side of Dai Do, Captain Vargas's Golf Company attempted to relieve the pressure by sweeping into the hamlet from its previously cutoff position in the eastern corner. Golf Company, whose forty-six members had come through the long night unscathed, went into the a.s.sault high in spirits but low in supplies. Lieutenant Acly, for example, had dug in the previous night with a few smokes, no food, and a canteen of muddy water he'd gotten from the bottom of his foxhole after hitting the water table. The Otters that had delivered ammunition had also brought rations, which were distributed to the lowest-ranking men first. There were not enough meals for the officers and noncoms. Acly's preattack breakfast consisted of a handful of crackers that one of his radiomen shared with him. One grunt later wrote that he was "so thirsty that I was licking the dew off the leaves."

Staff Sergeant Del Rio, wounded twice in two days and weak from loss of blood, had spent a semisleepless night leaning against some ammo crates with his pistol in hand. He was sick and exhausted, and his whole body ached. When two Otters pulled up, Vargas directed him to get aboard with the other wounded men who had ridden out the night with them.

"Well, Skipper, I'm not that bad."

"Go on, get on the Otter," said Vargas.

"Okay." Deep down, Del Rio didn't want to argue with the captain. "I was scared, I wanted out," he said later.2 Captain Vargas no longer had a gunny, but he still had Lieutenant Hilton, the battalion air liaison officer, who had accidentally been swept up in Golf's initial a.s.sault on Dai Do. Hilton had started the morning with a call from Vargas that Dixie Diner 6 was on the battalion net and wanted to talk to him. Weise told Hilton he'd thought he was dead and was glad he was not, then added, "What the h.e.l.l are you doing with Vargas?"

"Well, sir, I-"

An angry Weise cut him off. "We'll talk about it later."

Lieutenant Hilton may have been lost, but it didn't bother Vargas, who used him as a platoon commander. Hilton had an AK-47 slung over his shoulder and an M79 grenade launcher in hand. As Golf Company's attack stepped off with a roar of fire, Hilton shouted to the Marines he'd been given temporary command of, "Everybody ready? Okay-fire! Let's go!"

Hilton started toward the trees his men had just unloaded into. He'd gone maybe a hundred feet before it registered that they were hollering at him, "Lieutenant, Lieutenant-stop! Stop!" Stop!"

Hilton looked back. No one was with him. They were still at the start line. "Stop, Lieutenant, stop-we gotta reload!"

Hilton hit the deck and called back over his shoulder, "Okay, everybody reload then, G.o.dd.a.m.nit!"

Things got very serious very quickly. Although the advancing Marines blasted everything ahead of them, they began receiving sporadic return fire about the same time that Echo Company reached the fringes of Dai Do. Lieutenant Ferland of Golf Three sent one fire team after an enemy soldier detected while firing on Echo Company from a camouflaged spi-derhole. The fire team discovered more NVA in a deep trench, which was expertly constructed and camouflaged; the Marines could hear a 60mm mortar pumping out rounds from inside it. Ferland later told the division historical section that when his fire-team leader went after the mortar tube with a hand grenade, "he was shot at several times from an enemy who was no more than about five feet in front of him-yet my fire-team leader could not see him. This is how well they were concealed and dug in. We were unable to secure this mortar tube as far as we know. We did fire M79 rounds and throw hand grenades into that area, not knowing the effect as we were not able to get close enough."

At one point, Lieutenant Ferland and his radioman, LCpl. Jerry Hester, dropped into an NVA communications trench. Hester had his M16 up as they slowly slid along the trench wall toward a sharp, L-shaped turn. They were about five feet from the turn when an NVA with an AK-47 suddenly sprang from around the corner, fired three or four rounds, and then jumped back. The enemy soldier had taken them completely by surprise, and Ferland had to keep his terrified and enraged radioman from charging recklessly after the man. He told Hester to get against the wall and not move. Ferland himself, moving so fast as to fumble, unholstered his .45-caliber pistol, unwrapped it from its protective plastic bag, and frantically pulled the slide back to chamber a round. He was pressed firmly against the trench wall, and the NVA missed when he jumped out to fire another burst. When the man pulled back, Ferland reached around the corner and blindly squeezed off a few shots of his own. The enemy soldier lunged out again, fired, missed, and disappeared. Ferland played 'possum. He wanted the NVA to think he'd gotten him. Ferland readied himself, and when the soldier made his next move around the corner, the lieutenant shot him squarely in the chest, killing him instantly. Ferland, who'd been acting on adrenaline and instinct, began to shake like a leaf.

Lieutenant David Jones of Echo Three was a hard-charger from Silver Spring, Maryland, who led by example. "If you made a mistake, he wasn't down on your case," noted Sergeant Rogers. "He was there showing you how to do it better." When the squad in the center of Jones's formation was pinned down by 12.7mm machine-gun fire at the edge of Dai Do, Jones shouted over the din to Rogers, who had the squad on the right flank. Jones wanted Rogers to send two men to help suppress the fire on the center squad.

Sergeant Rogers, a twenty-three-year-old career Marine, told his a.s.sistant squad leader to take over, then he moved out with Lance Corporal Frank. Bullets kicked up around the pair as they found a good firing position. When they opened up they saw an NVA jump up to run farther back into the thick vegetation. There was a lull in the enemy fire, but as Lieutenant Jones started pus.h.i.+ng everyone forward again Frank suddenly went down, clutching his side in agony. Rogers had to get back to his squad, which was moving into the first hedgerow, but he also needed to get Frank to where a corpsman could a.s.sist him.

"Can you walk?" asked Rogers.

"Yeah."

"Can you run?"

"Yeah."

Sergeant Rogers covered Frank's withdrawal with his M16 in his right hand and the wounded man's rifle in his left. When Rogers caught up with his squad, he found his a.s.sistant squad leader, Cpl. Joseph C. Pickett, twenty-two, of Chicago, dead with a bullet in his neck. Pickett, a black Marine, had not been the senior corporal in the squad. Rogers had selected him as a.s.sistant squad leader, though, by dint of his cheerful, fearless enthusiasm. Private Jerry Fields, a nineteen-year-old black from Lexington, Kentucky, was also dead. He'd been shot in the head.

The squad's senior corporal was nowhere to be found, however. The word Rogers got was that the noncom, who'd always been a self-centered whiner, had latched onto a wounded man as an excuse to head back across the paddies. He never came back. In fact, Rogers never saw the man again-even after the battle.

Corporal Cardona, a squad leader in Echo Two, finally made it up to the first hedgerow with his radioman. A dilapidated barbed-wire fence, less than two feet high, ran through the overgrown vegetation on the opposite side. A Marine flung himself p.r.o.ne on Cardona's right, and another made it up to his left.

From the right, a wounded corporal from another squad hollered at Cardona, "There's somebody in that bus.h.!.+" Cardona bobbed up to his knees and flipped grenades over the bushes as he tried to see where the enemy was. He could hear the NVA firing but saw nothing. The wounded corporal could see the concussion of the automatic weapon as it shook the leaves, though. "I'm going to fire some cover for you! Come over the fence!" he shouted.

Captain Livingston suddenly appeared beside Cardona to help them get organized. The skipper fired his grease gun into the brush as Cardona shouted at a machine gunner to move up on the left and provide more fire. The Marine started forward with his M60 and, to Cardona's horror, was immediately wounded. It was now or never. The wounded corporal on the right was still firing to help them over the hump. Cardona shouted at one of his men, Lance Corporal Mitch.e.l.l, to get over the fence. Mitch.e.l.l stared at Cardona as though he was crazy. "Mitch.e.l.l, we gotta go!" Cardona screamed. When Mitch.e.l.l started to get up, Cardona shoved him over the fence, then hurdled the shrubs himself and went p.r.o.ne. Mitch.e.l.l was already firing. Cardona squeezed off a few more rounds, then threw a grenade. Other grunts were doing the same, and the enemy Soldier in the bushes was finally silenced.

There were dead NVA in camouflaged spiderholes at the edge of Dai Do, and live ones dug in amid the gutted hootches, hedgerows, and bamboo thickets. Echo Company pressed forward behind a shock wave of M16 and M60 fire. The Marines also used LAWs and M79s against identified enemy positions, then pitched in fragmentation and white phosphorus grenades.

The NVA did not retreat.

One Marine took a direct hit from an RPG-and his blown-off leg went cartwheeling through the air.

Lance Corporal Cornwell was behind another Marine when he saw spiderhole trapdoors abruptly open to either side of the advancing grunt. The Marine hesitated. Before he could decide whom to swing his M16 at first, the NVA shot him in the head. When the situation allowed Cornwell to move forward again, he noticed that the dead Marine had fallen at such an angle that the blood had all rushed to his head. The dead man was purple from the neck up.

Gunnery Sergeant Eggleston, the artillery spotter, crouched over a young Marine who had been hit in the side of the head. The man's brain was exposed, but he was still coherent. He told Eggleston that he knew he was going to die. As Eggleston wrapped a battle dressing around the wound, he told the man he'd be all right-that he was going to get him back. The gunny hefted the wounded Marine over his shoulders in a fireman's carry and humped back toward an Otter that had driven up to within a hundred meters of the hamlet.

Gunnery Sergeant Eggleston was a big man, but when he saw several Marines huddled behind one of the burial mounds with an M60 he called to them for help. The Marines did not move. "We're takin' fire here!" they shouted back. Eggleston moved on to the Otter without a.s.sistance, and got the wounded man propped up on the deck inside the open back door. At that instant, he glimpsed the flash of an RPG being fired from behind the first hedgerow. He turned to see the slow-moving projectile arcing toward the vehicle. Eggleston pushed the wounded man inside with an instinctive shove that was so hard and fast he was afraid he had killed him. Then he dove for cover, losing his helmet in the process. The RPG exploded about twenty meters away, just as Eggleston was. .h.i.tting the deck. He was grazed across the top of his head, and blood ran down his face. The Otter took off at top speed as soon as the RPG impacted, and he could see the wounded man's legs bouncing as they hung out the back. Eggleston secured a battle dressing over his own head, tied it under his chin, and put his helmet back on over the thick bandage before starting back into Dai Do in a crouching walk.

a.s.signed as a machine gunner, Pfc. Marshall J. Serna of Echo Company had also played corpsman and grenadier on the way to Dai Do. He put a lot of rounds through his M60, but he couldn't see a single NVA; he finally ceased fire and moved to a.s.sist the casualties nearest him. Serna grabbed an M79 from one of the wounded men and slung a bag of 40mm sh.e.l.ls around his neck. After lobbing several into the first hedgerow, he leapfrogged his way to the next wounded Marine, carrying his M60 in one hand and the M79 in another. By then he was close enough to make some sense of where the NVA had dug in. He fired the M79 at those positions, pausing repeatedly to bandage the wounded man lying beside him. He finally called for a corpsman and charged on through the hedgerow into the hamlet itself.

Someone was shouting, "Machine gun up!"

Serna put down the M79 and clambered into the cleared-out NVA trench from which the call had come. There were about ten Marines in it. The trench was only about forty meters from one that was full of NVA who kept exposing themselves as they rose to fire. There was a bunker in the clearing between the two, and several wounded Marines huddled behind the earthen mound for cover.

"Why hasn't anybody got those guys?" Serna screamed, furious at the other Marines' inaction.

He decided to go after the wounded himself.

The irony was that Serna, who had been raised fatherless and on welfare in Pittsburg, California, had previously been a discipline problem in Echo Company. He had a real problem taking orders. Furthermore, Serna was a pothead who got stoned almost every day he was in Vietnam. He got stoned because he was scared.

Serna had never touched marijuana prior to s.h.i.+pping out to Vietnam in November 1967. During his first day in the transient area in Da Nang, however, a fellow grunt had taken pity on the nervous new guy and fired up a nerve-mellowing joint as he rapped with him about the 'nam. From then on, Serna smoked gra.s.s whenever and wherever he could get away with it, even on patrol. Although no one in the platoon lit up as enthusiastically as he, there were usually takers when he pa.s.sed a joint. "We just talked and cracked up," Serna recalled. "Hey, a lot of things were ugly but after smoking weed, you didn't give a d.a.m.n." The marijuana was never smoked openly, and Serna himself told no one that his nerves had become so jangled that he had graduated to morphine. The only person who knew was the corpsman who supplied Serna with morphine Syrettes from his medical bag. It started the first time Serna saw the doc thump a Syrette into a badly wounded grunt. Serna approached the corpsman afterward and asked, "What the h.e.l.l did you hit him with? First he's screamin', now he's laughin'? laughin'? Doc, do you think, you know...." After that, Serna would shoot up in his fighting hole when no one was looking. Doc, do you think, you know...." After that, Serna would shoot up in his fighting hole when no one was looking.

Oh G.o.d, Serna thought as he went over the top with his machine gun and dashed to the bunker behind which the wounded Marines were pinned down. He received the Silver Star for what he did next. Serna dropped to his gut atop the bunker and fired his M60 into the enemy trench in front of them. Return fire cracked past his head as several NVA clambered out to charge his machine gun. Everything was happening fast but with a clarity that was almost like slow motion. Serna could see the pith helmets and the banana-shaped magazines in the AK-47s of the NVA charging him. He could see his bursts. .h.i.tting them, but one NVA would not go down. Serna kept firing. He knew he had hit the man in the chest. It terrified him. He figured the man must be on opium. The guy was going to kill him. Serna flashed back to childhood arguments about Superman, whom he hated, and he remembered how stupid it had seemed when the villains shot the superhero in the chest. He had always said he would have shot Superman in his big fat head. Thinking of that, Sema raised his sights and shot the NVA superman in the head. The enemy soldier finally fell.

Sema threw grenades into the NVA trench, then left his M60 atop the bunker as he grabbed one of the wounded. Hunched over, he dragged the man like a sack back to the Marines' trench. Then he ran back to his machine gun. No one followed him. These guys are watching me like they're watching G.o.dd.a.m.n TV! he thought. Why isn't anybody helping me? Sema resumed firing, hammering out long bursts that burned out the barrel of his M60. Another machine gun lay nearby in the debris, and he kept firing with that weapon until he turned and grabbed another of the wounded. Sema made it back with the man, and then went back for another, screaming at the other grunts for not a.s.sisting him.

"What the h.e.l.l is wrong with you guys?" Sema clambered back out of the trench, shouting, "The h.e.l.l with you, man-I'm going to kill these sonsofb.i.t.c.hes, man!"

Sema picked up the machine gun and started toward the enemy trench in a killing fury. He hadn't gone two steps when an enemy soldier, apparently the last one still alive in the position, flung a grenade at him. He saw it tumbling end over end and spun around to jump back onto the mound. The grenade exploded. When he rose back up to try to kill the NVA, Sema saw that his right leg was pumping blood from a wound below the knee. Oh, G.o.dd.a.m.n, I'm hit! he thought. He couldn't feel anything, but his leg buckled under him. He lay where he had fallen and bellowed that he was out of ammunition. He was so scared that it took him a moment to remember the ammo bracelet he wore around his wrist. He snapped the half-dozen rounds into the M60 and got behind the weapon to sight in on where the NVA had appeared. Sema waited for the soldier to come up again with another grenade. When the man did, Sema fired a burst into his head and chest. Then Sema pa.s.sed out.

Awakened during his evacuation by amtrac, Sema was on a stretcher at Mai Xa Chanh West when he saw a newsman lining him up for a photograph. "I don't need this kind of s.h.i.+t, man, to be showin' at home." Serna screamed at the photographer, thinking of his nervous mother.

Bitter and sh.e.l.l-shocked, Serna was in the recovery ward aboard the Iwo Jima Iwo Jima when he made a decision. "I knew I had reached my limit," he recalled. "I'd seen men snap out there and they got people killed. Rather than going back out there and being a worthless piece of s.h.i.+t, I said no, I better end it now." Serna had been wounded before, but it took three Purple Hearts for an enlisted man to be rea.s.signed off the line, not two, as was the policy for officers. Serna knew one of the corpsmen working the ward, and he talked the man into altering his medical records so that an injury he'd received when burned by a hot machine-gun barrel would show up as enemy related and thus become his ticket out of 'nam. The trick worked, "but to this day it still bothers me because I'm supposed to be a big war hero." when he made a decision. "I knew I had reached my limit," he recalled. "I'd seen men snap out there and they got people killed. Rather than going back out there and being a worthless piece of s.h.i.+t, I said no, I better end it now." Serna had been wounded before, but it took three Purple Hearts for an enlisted man to be rea.s.signed off the line, not two, as was the policy for officers. Serna knew one of the corpsmen working the ward, and he talked the man into altering his medical records so that an injury he'd received when burned by a hot machine-gun barrel would show up as enemy related and thus become his ticket out of 'nam. The trick worked, "but to this day it still bothers me because I'm supposed to be a big war hero."

Lieutenant Ferland of Golf Three slid into an abandoned enemy trench at the forward edge of Dai Do. As the NVA retreated into Dinh To, the next hamlet along the creek, Ferland established radio contact with an aerial observer above the battlefield and called for an air strike.

Lieutenant Ferland's radioman, Hester, was to his right in the trench. Hester was an easygoing, redheaded country boy whom Ferland thought the world of. Because Hester was strong as an ox and because Ferland wanted to be able to move quickly and freely, Hester humped not only the radio and his gear but most of Ferland's stuff as well. Ferland appreciated those long handset cords because Hester could not always keep pace, loaded down as he was.

Private First Cla.s.s Bill McDade, the platoon's number one grenadier, was to Ferland's left in the trench. McDade was a tough guy from New York City-the type you'd love to know in combat and hate to know in civilian life, according to Ferland. McDade was impressive with the single-shot M79; he could put three rounds in the air before the first one landed.

As Lieutenant Ferland talked to the aerial observer, an RPG exploded in front of their trench, wounding all three men before they could get the air strike in. Ferland caught a metal fragment in his right eye. He thought that both eyes had been hit because his left one clouded in unison with his right. He grabbed his face and slid down to the trench's bottom as he exclaimed, "Oh, s.h.i.+t!" Ferland wasn't in pain, but he couldn't see anything. His right eye felt very heavy, and he thought it was gone. The pressure was not as severe in his left eye. His first thought was that he'd be able to take up skeet shooting again with that eye. Then reality hit: How the h.e.l.l are we going to get out of here? he wondered.

Although Ferland had been rejoined by his two squads that had fallen back to An Lacthe previous evening (they had come up with Echo Company), his shot-up platoon could not spare anybody to escort the wounded trio rearward. The only a.s.sistance they got was from a corpsman who wrapped a bandage around Ferland's eyes, treated Hester's wounded arm, and then tended to McDade, who was semidelirious with a head wound. The idea was to have McDade lead them back through the partially cleared hamlet, with Ferland hanging onto McDade's web gear with one hand and keeping a grip on his AK-47 with the other. Hester, who was too badly injured to hold a rifle, would bring up the rear. If they ran into anything, Ferland was to blast them at Hester's direction. After making it back to An Lac without incident, the three became separated along the medevac chain. Lieutenant Ferland was finally helped aboard a Sea Horse that flew him to the USS Repose Repose. He had refused to let go of his folding-stock AK-47 the whole way back, and he still had it in the triage area when a gurney carrying a wounded NVA prisoner was wheeled up beside him. Ferland, who had become delirious and was mumbling to himself, began screaming, "Get this b.a.s.t.a.r.d away from me or he's going to get it!" A Navy chaplain came over to calm Ferland as the prisoner was moved away. The chaplain told Ferland he could keep the AFC's clip as a souvenir, and Ferland agreed to give up the weapon only if he could toss it overboard. He didn't want it to wind up as some Navy bra.s.s hat's undeserved trophy. The chaplain helped Ferland off the gurney, led him to the side of the s.h.i.+p, and together they threw the rifle over the railing.3 Lieutenant Morgan of Golf Two never heard the descent of the 82mm mortar rounds that the NVA fired from Dinh To twenty minutes after his platoon reached the far side of Dai Do. No one could hear the mortars being fired over the general din. The Marines were in and around the hedgerow-covered slit trenches that the NVA had vacated, and they were checking their ammunition supply and refilling magazines when explosions began erupting around them. The enemy fire was right on target, and before Morgan knew it he had fifteen more wounded Marines on his hands.

Meanwhile, Captain Livingston, who had caught fragments from two grenades in his right leg, coordinated the evacuation of Echo Company's approximately ten dead and sixty wounded aboard Otters. The severely wounded included one of the captain's radio operators. As a corpsman worked on the prostrate radioman, Corporal Cardona's squad happened to be pa.s.sing by on its way forward. Livingston called to Cardona that he needed his radioman. This randomly picked replacement would prove to be a good one: He would very shortly help save the captain's life. Dai Do had been secured, but the battle was not over.

1. Although they had different styles, Captains Livingston, Vargas, and Williams had a lot of faith in each other. They were the mainstays of BLT 2/4 in terms of company leaders.h.i.+p during the high-casualty, fast-turnover campaigns along the Cua Viet. As Vargas put it, "The three of us knew that if anything went wrong, the other guy was going to come h.e.l.l for broke." Although they had different styles, Captains Livingston, Vargas, and Williams had a lot of faith in each other. They were the mainstays of BLT 2/4 in terms of company leaders.h.i.+p during the high-casualty, fast-turnover campaigns along the Cua Viet. As Vargas put it, "The three of us knew that if anything went wrong, the other guy was going to come h.e.l.l for broke."2. Del Rio was awarded a BSMv and his second Purple Heart for Dai Do. His first Purple Heart was the result of a b.o.o.by trap encountered during his first tour. Del Rio was awarded a BSMv and his second Purple Heart for Dai Do. His first Purple Heart was the result of a b.o.o.by trap encountered during his first tour.3. The metal shard that had lodged behind Lieutenant Ferland's eyeball was too small and had done too little damage to warrant surgery. The doctors left it where it was, and within four days his eyesight began to return. He went back to BLT 2/4 and became an a.s.sistant S3. He later received an end-of-tour NCMv in addition to the BSMv and Purple Heart he got for Dai Do. The metal shard that had lodged behind Lieutenant Ferland's eyeball was too small and had done too little damage to warrant surgery. The doctors left it where it was, and within four days his eyesight began to return. He went back to BLT 2/4 and became an a.s.sistant S3. He later received an end-of-tour NCMv in addition to the BSMv and Purple Heart he got for Dai Do.

A Village Too Far

AT 0914 0914 ON ON 2 M 2 MAY, ECHO AND G GOLF C COMPANIES REPORTED that Dai Do had been secured and that they were tied in and consolidating along the northwestern edge of the hamlet. One minute later, the NVA in Dinh To began mortaring Dai Do to cover their retreat. The sporadic sh.e.l.ling lasted for fifteen minutes, during which time Colonel Hull arrived by skimmer. Fire Raider 6 joined Lieutenant Colonel Weise and the BLT 2/4 Alpha Command Group in the forward edge of An Lac. While Hull and Weise were talking, the battalion sergeant major, Big John Malnar, raised his binoculars to investigate a lone figure he'd spotted in the paddies between An Lac and Dai Do. "Look, there's someone running right across the front there-s.h.i.+t, it's a f.u.c.king gook!" he shouted. that Dai Do had been secured and that they were tied in and consolidating along the northwestern edge of the hamlet. One minute later, the NVA in Dinh To began mortaring Dai Do to cover their retreat. The sporadic sh.e.l.ling lasted for fifteen minutes, during which time Colonel Hull arrived by skimmer. Fire Raider 6 joined Lieutenant Colonel Weise and the BLT 2/4 Alpha Command Group in the forward edge of An Lac. While Hull and Weise were talking, the battalion sergeant major, Big John Malnar, raised his binoculars to investigate a lone figure he'd spotted in the paddies between An Lac and Dai Do. "Look, there's someone running right across the front there-s.h.i.+t, it's a f.u.c.king gook!" he shouted.

The NVA was in the open about a hundred meters away. The soldier, who wore green fatigues and carried an RPD light machine gun, seemed utterly confused and lost. He was trying to get away from Dai Do, but his escape route made him a shooting-gallery target for the Marines in An Lac. Sergeant Bollinger, the battalion commander's radioman, asked, "Can I get him, Sergeant Major?" When Malnar told him to go ahead, Bollinger shouldered his M14. His first shot led the NVA too much, and his second was behind the running figure. The third caught the man in the head, and he dropped like a stone. As another Marine rushed out to check the body for intel material, Sergeant Major Malnar looked down at his radioman-turned-rifleman and said with mock disgust, "s.h.i.+t, Bollinger, took ya three comin' shots to get 'im."

Colonel Hull had meanwhile informed Weise that he wanted BLT 2/4 to maintain its "momentum" with an a.s.sault on Dinh To within an hour. Weise, who later said that he didn't think his superiors "really knew what the h.e.l.l was going on," listened incredulously to the plan. While BLT 2/4 hit Dinh To, an ARVN unit was to hit Dong Lai, which sat on the opposite side of the narrow tributary on Dinh To's western flank. With or without ARVN support, BLT 2/4 was in no condition to launch another a.s.sault into prepared enemy positions, and Weise was aggravated more than ever by Major General Tompkins's failure to visit the battlefield. Weise wondered if regiment was providing division with accurate reports about the magnitude of NVA activity in the Dai Do complex, and he told Hull as bluntly as he could that his battalion had just about run out of steam. "We don't have anything left. We're worn out. We've been fighting here-continuous fighting-and every one of my companies is pretty well shot up."

Hull was adamant. "I have have to keep the pressure on," the colonel said. "I want you to go." to keep the pressure on," the colonel said. "I want you to go."

"Well, we'll do the best we can," said Weise resignedly. "You know, if you really want to catch these guys, land some battalions north of here and drive 'Em into us. We can occupy Dai Do and dig in. Drive 'Em into Dai Do and we can clean 'Em out."

Weise and Major Warren had discussed this hammer-and-anvil plan the day before, and Warren had suggested it then to the regimental operations officer. Specifically, Weise and Warren proposed that the regiment's two remaining battalions, 1/3 and the 1st Amtracs, be placed on either side of BLT 2/4. This would be the anvil against which the battalions inserted north of Dai Do would hammer the NVA as they swept south. Hull, however, could not move 1/3 or the Amtracs without permission from division, and it was doubtful that Major General Tompkins, whose units were stretched thinly along the DMZ, could have come up with the forces needed to make a meaningful hammer. Weise later wrote that whether his recommendation "ever reached the commanding general, I do not know. I do know that no aggressive plan to destroy the enemy was carried out and that we lost a rare, golden opportunity to annihilate the crack 320th NVA Division."

Lieutenant Colonel Weise, who would soon salute the flagpole and dutifully launch into Dinh To with the out-of-steam BLT 2/4, saw folly in the method of attack. He did not see folly in the rationale behind it. Weise was a conventional warrior, and he viewed the 320th NVA Division's offensive within conventional parameters. The confluence of the Cua Viet and Bo Dieu rivers near Dai Do lent strategic value to this otherwise worthless terrain. If the NVA controlled the juncture of the rivers, they could cut resupply down the Bo Dieu to the 3d Marine Division at the DHCB, and down the Cua Viet to the provincial capital, Quang Tri City. The NVA had accomplished this first step, and Weise was of two minds as to what he suspected their next move would be. An attack against the division headquarters was one option: Dong Ha was a sprawling combat support and combat service support base. Once a strong enemy got in close, penetration of the thin defensive perimeter, manned by and large by support troops, would have been relatively easy. Enemy a.s.sault units might take heavy casualties, particularly after the friendly maneuver battalions near Dong Ha reacted. Heavy casualties would have been a small price to pay for Dong Ha....What could be a greater propaganda victory than destroying and temporarily occupying the largest Marine base in northern I Corps?

Another possibility was an NVA attack through the ARVN defenses at Quang Tri City. The capture of a provincial capital would also have resounding propaganda value. "Such a bold stroke would have been possible if the 320th NVA Division had not been stopped on the north bank of the Bo Dieu," wrote Weise. In stopping the NVA, BLT 2/4 had been forced to go nose to nose with them-taking heavy casualties in the process. Weise thought those Marine losses were justified. "Just think of the casualties suffered in World War II a.s.saults on Tarawa, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Sugar Loaf Hill on Okinawa," he wrote. He further reflected that "if the 320th NVA Division had had planned to attack Dong Ha or Quang Tri, then BLT 2/4 had conducted a successful, albeit unintended spoiling attack.... I have fought the Battle of Dai Do many times in my mind and always return to the same conclusion: We accomplished our mission against great odds. Whatever the enemy intended to do, he didn't." planned to attack Dong Ha or Quang Tri, then BLT 2/4 had conducted a successful, albeit unintended spoiling attack.... I have fought the Battle of Dai Do many times in my mind and always return to the same conclusion: We accomplished our mission against great odds. Whatever the enemy intended to do, he didn't."1 There was another perspective to the Battle of Dai Do, however. This view held that the NVA had, in fact, accomplished exactly what they intended. They had wanted to kill a lot of Marines, and this they did. The NVA never actually attempted to cross the Bo Dieu River to reach Dong Ha or Quang Tri. It was the Navy's TF Clearwater, not the NVA, that shut down logistical traffic on the river. The NVA had simply fired a number of recoilless rifle rounds at river traffic; and then readied themselves for the Marine response. The NVA in their camouflaged, sandbagged, and mutually supporting entrenchments had forced their opponents to fight on ground of their choosing. By plunging full speed ahead into the fortified NVA hamlets, the aggressive Marines aided and abetted NVA tactics. It was really the NVA who were playing the body count game.

"I saw what was happening as wasteful of American lives," wrote Lt. Gen. Victor H. "Brute" Krulak, commanding general of the Fleet Marine Force, Pacific. Krulak was headquartered in Hawaii, and although a frequent visitor to the war zone, he did not have operational control of the Marines in Vietnam. Operational control rested with General Westmoreland in Saigon. Westmoreland saw battles such as Dai Do as victories. Krulak did not. Since June 1966, when Westmoreland formally announced his search-and-destroy strategy-which sought battles such as Dai Do-Krulak had been trying to change the direction of Westmoreland's war horse. The search-and-destroy strategy was aimed at bringing the NVA to battle anytime, anywhere, until overwhelming U.S. firepower had inflicted such heavy casualties on Hanoi's army that it could no longer field a meaningful force. Westmoreland intended to pound the NVA into submission. Krulak understood the folly of this. Search and destroy was a war of attrition, and it was a game that Hanoi was destined to win. Hanoi had time, and it had men to expend by the hundreds of thousands. Was.h.i.+ngton did not. The North Vietnamese embraced the DMZ battles as a chance to bleed the Americans in empty, meaningless terrain that favored their dug-in forces. Krulak understood, as did his counterparts in Hanoi, that victory did not hinge on the big battles, but on which side could provide security to the villages of South Vietnam's densely populated coast. Westmoreland's strategy pulled U.S. units away from pacification efforts in these areas, and Lieutenant General Krulak, unable to focus U.S. efforts back where he thought they belonged, would write bitterly that "we were pitting American bodies against North Vietnamese bodies in a backcountry war of attrition, while the enemy was free to make political speeches in the hamlets and villages....However valiant, however skillful were the Army and Marine operations against the large formations ... in terms of doing what we came to Vietnam to do, the costly, blood-sapping, grinding battles were blows in the air."

"We knew the odds. After being there so many months we were all very realistic. We knew a certain number were going in, and a certain number were coming out," said 2d Lt. Vic Taylor of Hotel Company. "We were going to prevail-that was not a question-but it was a matter of going up and doing it."

Hotel Company had been issued orders for the attack on Dinh To, and Lieutenant Taylor, the acting commander of Hotel Three, walked his line in Dong Huan to make sure that his Marines had their gear and were ready to go. Taylor, a reader of history and a romantic, had grown up watching such movies as Battle Cry Battle Cry and and The Sands of Iwo Jima The Sands of Iwo Jima, and there was a certain dramatic and familiar ring to the things he saw and heard as they saddled up. He thought of the Marine "Devil Dogs" advancing through the wheat at Belleau Wood, and of the next generation of Leathernecks wading through the b.l.o.o.d.y lagoon at Tarawa. Of his own Marines about to go into battle across the rice paddies, Taylor later wrote: Some were standing watch, some readied equipment, many slept or lounged, but all were quiet. No nervous jabbering, no false bravado, no whining, no melodramatics-they were professionals. Most were teenagers, many with far less than a year away from home, but they were seasoned by months of fighting with a determined enemy. Despite their youth, despite their short time in the Corps, they were as willing and serious-as professional-as anyone who ever wore a uniform. I was proud to be among them.

Lieutenant Taylor had rejoined Hotel Company only the previous evening from his XO billet aboard the USS Iwo Jima Iwo Jima. At twenty-eight, Taylor had more experience and confident, soft-spoken maturity than the average second lieutenant. Originally from Chester County, Pennsylvania, he had done three years as an enlisted Marine following high school. After college he soon became bored with the life of a junior business executive, so when Vietnam cranked up he went back in as an officer. It was in Vietnam that he decided to make the Marine Corps his career.

"Taylor was a real handsome, studly kind of guy, and a great, heroic-looking Marine," said Captain Williams, the former Hotel Company skipper.

Hotel began moving out of Dong Huan at 0955 to cross the five hundred meters of exposed ground between their position and Dai Do. The Marines in the column were well s.p.a.ced so there would be no ma.s.s target on which an NVA artillery spotter could adjust fire. Lieutenant Taylor wrote: We plodded forward in our attack formation-H Company, all seventy-five of us. The day was still, the heat intense. We had guzzled all the water we could hold and had refilled canteens in Dong Huan, not knowing when there would be more. Now the sweat poured out, and uniforms were soaked. Little puffs of dust rose from the dry rice paddy at each step. The metal of weapons was almost too hot to touch. Up ahead, I could see the hedgerows and thickets of Dai Do, burning and smoking from earlier attacks. The firing had ceased. Maybe this would be easier than I expected.

Hotel Company's grunts moved through the southeastern side of Dai Do, past the few Marines they could see among the many from Echo and Golf who were safely tucked behind cover. Reaching the muddy, sluggish stream that defined the western edge of the battlefield, Hotel turned northwest along it. The battalion command group had moved into Dai Do, and Lieutenant Prescott, Hotel's new skipper, gave Weise a cigar. "We'll be back shortly," he said.

Lieutenant Prescott a.s.saulted Dinh To with Lieutenant Taylor's Hotel Three hugging the blueline on the left flank, and Lieutenant Boyle's Hotel One moving abreast on the right. Hotel Two was in reserve under the command of Sgt. Bruce Woodruff, who until that morning had been a squad leader in Hotel One. The a.s.sault platoons were moving forward aggressively and methodically in team and individual rushes, using trenches, hedgerows, and tumble-down hootches for cover, when they began taking fire from the front. It sounded as if it was coming from two enemy soldiers with AK-47s in separate, camouflaged positions. More NVA, none of whom the Marines could see, opened up as Hotel Company pushed on. Taylor suspected that the enemy had deployed observation posts ahead of their main line of resistance, and that it was these small teams of NVA who were doing the shooting. Their fire was accurate. Several Marines had already been hit when Taylor and his radioman knelt behind some bushes. Prescott was on the radio. When the radioman extended the handset to Taylor, the young Marine was. .h.i.t in the elbow by one of the to-whom-it-may-concern bullets snapping blindly through the vegetation.

Hotel Company leapfrogged deeper into Dinh To, returning the increasingly heavy fire but not suppressing it. As Taylor pa.s.sed seriously wounded men he would thump the nearest Marine and tell him to help get the casualty to the rear. Their corpsmen already had their hands full, so Taylor had no choice but to use able-bodied riflemen. Nevertheless, he did so reluctantly. Their firepower was needed up front. Taylor knew that some of his Marines would rush forward again as soon as they carried a wounded man back, but he had others he knew would drag their feet, hoping, for example, that the gunny might scoop them up to move water cans or ammo in the company rear. As more Marines were hit and others fell out to help them, it became impossible for Hotel to maintain its momentum.

A lot of prep fire had hit Dinh To, but there was still plenty of greenery. There were trees and leafy bamboo thickets, as well as the hedgerows that had once demarcated property lines. There were also thatch-roofed homes with stucco-covered brick walls. Some were demolished, some were not. Some of the fences and empty animal pens were also still standing. Taylor thought it was like going from yard to yard in suburbia. He finally bogged down with the squad on his platoon's right flank. They were hung up against a hedgerow that ran across their front. The entrenched NVA on the other side had every opening through the thick bushes zeroed in, and the enemy on the flanks covered the trenches that ran the length of the hedgerow, one in front and one behind the shrubs.

Meanwhile, Taylor's platoon sergeant, Sgt. Joe Jones, was pinned down with the squad on the left flank. They were under heavy fire along the creek, and had several wounded men. Jones had two machine-gun teams with his squad, but one of the gunners had fallen out with heat exhaustion. The man was in agony, and his comrades bellowed for a corpsman. The squad's M79 man took over the machine gun, but it jammed on him just as the corpsman made it up to help the gunner. The other M60 was still firing, and the grenadier's M79 also still worked. Every M16 in the squad was jammed, however. All the riflemen could do was throw grenades. Infuriated, Jones grabbed the inoperable machine gun. As he was trying to clear the weapon, he spotted one of the NVA who had pinned them down. He told the grenadier to fire on that position. Then, with the M60 back in working order, Jones rushed to their corpsman to provide the covering fire needed to start getting their casualties back. Jones, who was subsequently awarded the Silver Star, later told the division historical team: That was the first time we'd ever seen snipers in trees [and] the wounded we had, we couldn't get 'Em out because people just didn't seem like they wanted to get out of their covered positions. You almost had to move up to the individual Marine and beat 'Em over the head with the weapon that you had to get 'Em up to help the wounded out. I don't know. Maybe people was scared or maybe they was just plain tired. I don't know what the story was behind it, but they wouldn't even help carry the wounded out.

North Vietnamese soldiers were firing from the hootches and bushes on the far side of the creek. Sergeant Jones said that once he'd forced some litter teams into action, NVA snipers were able to slip down the near side of the streambed to pour point-blank fire into Hotel Three's flank because his scared grunts had begun "to pull in from the flanks and cl.u.s.ter up in the middle."

Lieutenant Boyle and Hotel One were also in sorry shape. They had bogged down in the face of heavy AK-47 and RPG fire. As understrength as it already was before taking more casualties, the platoon could not properly cover the right flank, where the vegetation gave way to open paddies. There were NVA in that vegetation, as well as behind the burial mounds in the paddies themselves. Hotel Two, brought up from reserve, was also subjected to this fire from three sides and was unable to restore the momentum of the a.s.sault.

There was a lot of confusion. Many Marines simply kept their heads down, but there were a number of others who did more, such as LCpl. Ralph T. Anderson, an eighteen year old from St. Petersburg, Florida. According to his Silver Star citation: Observing two Marines pinned down by sniper fire as they attempted to move a companion to safety, Lance Corporal Anderson obtained a pistol and several hand grenades, unhesitatingly left his covered position and began crawling toward the sniper. Advancing beyond friendly lines, he silenced the enemy position, enabling his comrades to move the Marine to safety. Before he could return to his position, however, he was killed by enemy fire.

Almost every M16 in Hotel Company was inoperable due to overuse and a lack of cleaning gear. When Sgt. Donald F. Devoe's carboned-up rifle jammed, he opened a C-ration can of beans and franks and used the grease it contained to lubricate the weapon. Devoe resumed firing.

Lance Corporal Donaghy of Hotel Two, crouched behind an earthen mound, was just rising up to fire his M16 when the Marine doing the same thing beside him was shot in the head. The round went through the man's helmet, which stayed on his head, and he wordlessly turned to look at Donaghy as a fountain of blood spurted from the wound. Slumped over but still conscious, the Marine did not make a sound as the corps-man worked on him. He didn't look as though he was going to survive.

"We were in a nasty, narrow spot and we had a lot of people jammed in that narrow front," Lieutenant Prescott said later. He had moved his command group into a partially demolished hootch maybe fifteen meters up from the stream and was trying to get a handle on the situation.

"Scotty Prescott was a real good leader, and the troops liked him," said Captain Williams, the man Prescott had replaced. "He had a lot of spirit and he had the wiseguy in him." Prescott, a twenty-four-year-old Texan, could also be serious when necessary. From September 1967 to March 1968, when he'd had Hotel Three, he'd been considered by some to be the best platoon commander in the battalion. His follow-me brand of leaders.h.i.+p had gotten him shot in the leg during the a.s.sault on Vinh Quan Thuong, where he'd also been an on-the-spot grenadier, machine gunner, and LAW rocketman. He'd been b.u.mped up to the exec slot after recuperating. Prescott had no career intentions. He was a citizen-soldier. "Most of the officers were USMC. I was USMCR," he noted. "I never wanted the R dropped off. I was always United States Marine Corps Reserve and proud of it, knowing that at the end of three years I was gone."

Lieutenant Prescott, watching from behind cement cover, saw Cpl. Tyrone W. Austin, a black machine gunner, get shot in the head after setting up right outside the lieutenant's hootch. The round took away half of his head. The corpsman inside the hootch with Prescott went into shock at the sight. He had to be shaken back to reality.

The NVA had moved in too closely for Prescott to call in air or arty-or even his own 60mm mortars, which the gunny had set up at the edge of Dai Do. At about 1200, Prescott radioed Lieutenant Colonel Weise to report that Hotel Company would probably be overrun if not reinforced. Shortly thereafter, Prescott's radioman got off the horn and said excitedly, "Captain Livingston is coming!"

Lieutenant Prescott, who knew then that they would be okay, hollered to Taylor, who was about seventy feet from the hootch, "Echo is coming up!"

"Echo is coming!"

"Echo is coming!"

The word was repeated down the line, and it electrified Hotel Company. Marines who'd had all they could take of eating dirt got up to scream and wave, "C'mon, let's go on. Let's go!"

Lieutenant Prescott came out of his hootch, bellowing for everyone to stay where they were. He had taken only a few steps from cover when he was suddenly spun three-quarters of the way around and dropped on the spot. He had been hit in the small of the back. Prescott was vaguely aware of the sound of an AK-47 squeezing off a shot from across the creek at the same moment he stepped out of the hootch, and he was terribly aware that he could not feel his legs. He figured that his spine had been damaged, and as he lay on the ground he imagined that he would have to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. A corpsman and several Marines dragged Prescott back into the beat-up hootch. A thousand thoughts rushed through his mind. He had been shot before, and this did not feel like a gunshot wound. His back was sore. He could feel something wet, but he didn't seem to be bleeding badly. But why don't my legs work? he wondered frantically.