• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 723 0

surprise, declared he’d suffered a simple break of the fibula bone. He was fixed with a plastic splint and helo’d to Da Nang, where a cast was put on his leg. The next day, he was helo’d out, this time to the 6th Convalescent Hospital, Cam Ranh Bay. Tam’s bizarre odyssey from a battle he had missed did not end there. As part of the Summer Offensive, the NVA had begun launching terrorist rocket attacks on hospitals. Tam lasted two weeks and one raid before the decision was made to further evacuate patients who couldn’t run quickly to the bunkers. He ended up in Japan, from where he expected eventually to rejoin his platoon. Instead, his ward was cleared out to make room for a surge of casualties and he was flown to an Army hospital in the United States. When he was discharged from there, Tam was cut orders for duty in the Panama Canal Zone.

Chapter Thirteen

Enter The Marines

In the late morning of 21 August 1969, LtCol Marvin H. Lugger, CO, 2/7 Marines, met with Colonel Codispoti at the new regimental headquarters on LZ Baldy. Codispoti informed Lugger that the Army was in heavy contact in the Hiep Duc Valley and had requested a Marine element to move in and relieve some of the pressure. He himself seemed indifferent to the request and told Lugger to handle the situation as he saw fit. Lugger jumped at the opportunity. With almost four months in command and a new post waiting in two weeks, he had yet to take his battalion to the field for a full-fledged combat operation. Prior to this, they’d been in the Da Nang Rocket Belt.

Lugger was briefed by the S-3, 196th InfBde, who said that they needed any troops the Marines could spare and they needed them right away. Lugger decided to march south past the eastern tip of Nui Chom from his battalion base camp on LZ Ross. Once in the valley, the Marine block would face west, separated by three or four kilometers from the Army units moving towards them. The tip of Nui Chom rose to form Hill 441, and just west of that was Hill 381; the Army said the command posts of the NVA units they were engaging in the flatlands were probably dug in around those peaks.

Lugger radioed his CP to have F Company (1stLt D. C. Ehrsam) and G Company (1stLt J. P. Larrison) put on standby at LZ Ross. Golf Company was still coming in from patrol, and Fox was just starting down the road to take their place. Lugger helicoptered back; organized a jump CP including his S-3, Maj Mel Horowitz, and his BSM, SgtMaj Henry Black; and by 1400 the column was moving. They followed Route 535 for seven kilometers with Fox in the lead, the CP in the center, and Golf bringing up the rear. It was well over 100 degrees and the road south was dotted with heat casualties: Marines lay naked on ponchos in the roadside weeds, unconscious and pale, corpsmen and buddies pouring canteens over them. To hide their intent, the column left the road and marched near OP Lion in Happy Valley; by dusk, they had set up night positions due east of Hill 441.

In the morning, Fox humped up the northeast slope. From the crest was a sweeping view of the valley’s terraced rice paddies blanketed by bright green elephant grass. Golf and the CP came around the other way into the valley itself. Major Lee, S-3, 4–31 Infantry, helicoptered into the 2/7 CP to confer with Lugger. The new mission was to push one kilometer west from Hill 441 to the paddies below 381; hopefully, this would exert enough pressure on the NVA rear to force them to lessen their attacks on the Polar Bears.

Helicopter resupply came in, including precious water blivets from the Army, and by dusk, 2/7 Marines had advanced to their new blocking positions. Golf was on the right flank in the shadow of Hill 381. The CP was in the center, along the Song Lau River, which cut the valley lengthwise. F Company was deployed around the CP. There had been no contact, but the sun could kill, and there were numerous priority and emergency medevacs for heat exhaustion patients. Some Marines began shit-canning their gear.

That night, the Marines made their first contact in the Hiep Duc