Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [132]
The day had been a series of snafus, at least for Private Jandecka. Bravo Company had handed over their resupply to the more depleted grunts of Delta Company, which was proper, except that Jandecka was hungry too. He managed to scrounge up a can of ham and eggs, not a charlie rat favorite. The next day, 27 August, was not much better as he moved along with a growling stomach. Bravo’s rucksacks, which had been left near Million Dollar Hill, were choppered in and dumped helter-skelter in the brush. GIs rummaged through them, most unable to find their own and forced to take one at random. That was a real blow to morale. Jandecka, for one, took a pack with the necessary military gear, but in turn lost his letters, camera, film, New Testament, harmonica, sunglasses, notebook, extra food, and Kool Aid.
The rest of the afternoon was spent quietly humping to a new position near the Old French Road. Battalion was realigning its companies for what they hoped would be a final push to the Marine side of the line at dawn. The grunts knew as much about these plans as pawns on a chess board. They did not know why they were sweating from one chunk of elephant grass to the next; they just did what the platoon sergeant said and hoped no North Vietnamese would materialize en route. During the early evening, one of their perimeter trip flares went off and Captain Gayler bellowed to put the damn thing out before the dinks pinpointed their position. Three men quickly scrambled to it—Jandecka the only one quick enough to pick up an M16 first—and they used a helmet to smother it. Actually, their fall extinguished the light: in the blinding, white glare, they all fell over the road embankment, the helmet and flare bouncing with them. They scrambled back to their lines but, Jandecka noted, “it was a couple hours before I could shake that unmistakable feeling of being watched by an unknown set of eyes as we were at the bottom of that bank.”
Chapter Fifteen
The Lost Battalion
The dawn of 25 August 1969 spread across the paddies with all the serenity of the inside of a steel mill. Lieutenant Larrison of Golf Company and Lieutenant Vannoy of Hotel Company, 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, brought Phantoms and artillery fire into the tree lines in front of their perimeter.
The battalion was preparing to push west.
Hotel Company, on the right flank, moved out first. They’d been detailed to run a squad recon up the southern slope of Hill 381. Considering the events of the past two days, Lieutenant Vannoy thought two platoons would be safer; Colonel Lugger approved the modification. Lieutenant Vannoy and his command group stayed in place with 2d Platoon while 1st Platoon (1stLt Charles Vallance) moved out on the right flank and 3d Platoon (2dLt William Brennon) moved out on the left. Farther to the left, Lieutenant Larrison of Golf was still bringing the firepower down on the tree lines facing them.
A senior officer cut into the net: “Golf Six, do you realize you’re holding up two infantry companies!” Brennon was stunned. Don’t they realize what’s down here? he wondered.
The situation got worse. Hotel One and Hotel Three began advancing after the airstrikes were stopped, filtering into the trees on the northern half of the battered wood line. A Sea Knight descended behind them, either on a resupply or medevac run, and a 12.7mm machine gun opened fire from the southern half of the tree line they occupied. Brennon could see Vallance and his platoon sergeant moving on his right, and he shouted to them, “I ain’t believin’ this!” They shook their heads back as if to say, yes, this is suicide.
The two platoons emerged