Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [137]
By the time Fox Company straggled back—unable to reach their lost platoon and forced to leave behind some of those killed in the attempt—the fight along the river had subsided to a cat ‘n’ mouse. Among others, Collinson and McCoy took up positions on the slope of the streambed. An AK would chop brush in their direction; they’d trigger a return burst, firing blind into the muggy heat, then duck back behind their trees, change magazines, and wait for the next shot. At one point, McCoy cranked off a hurried burst, then shouted he’d seen an NVA darting from one tree to another. He thought he nailed him. Behind them, up the creek-bed slope, other Marines were firing. A LAW flashed across the stream and was instantly answered by an RPG which exploded inside the lines.
Collinson could hear shouts for a corpsman.
The jets came in again. Collinson must have subconsciously heard their supersonic approach, because he happened to glance up just in time to see a silver napalm canister wobbling down. It seemed to be headed for the middle of the stream, and he bolted from his tree, scrambling up the bank. The sudden heat wave enveloped him, seeming to singe the hair on his face and arms, leaving him breathless. He threw himself behind a tree as a second Phantom rolled in low, splashing more nape among the trees across the thin stream. The air reeked with gasoline and smoke.
The NVA snipers were finally silent.
Air support—the Phantoms guiding down the Song Lau and expertly placing their ordnance within fifty meters of the battalion perimeter, close enough for expended 20mm shells to hit the grunts’ helmets—is what finally quieted the firing on the command post. Lieutenant Colonel Lugger grabbed a LAW in frustration and strode to an opening in the trees. He aimed at a hootch several hundred meters away. The LAW misfired, so he threw it down and picked up another rocket. It roared off across the paddies.
Lugger had not seen a single NVA soldier, nor could he tell if he even hit the hootch—a combination which seemed symbolic of the entire battle.
Colonel Lugger was simply boiling.
He had made staff sergeant before earning his commission and had volunteered for combat duty in Vietnam, but this battle—his first—was a mess. Lugger thought he was doing as well as any commander could, considering the circumstances, and he was bitter towards his detractors, who were many:
I was up to my ass in alligators with no help from above, and little or no help from below. I was trying to keep together and coordinate what few forces I had left while fighting an escalating battle on four or more fronts against an overwhelmingly superior enemy. An enemy who knew the area like the back of his hand and had prepared positions for years waiting just for this opportunity. Why do you think the Army avoided this area? I had no say in what missions I was assigned after the first three days. Codispoti was commanding my battalion—from a distance. His missions completely fragmented 2/7, sending its units off on wild goose chases to be ambushed by a waiting enemy. Simpson and Codispoti left 2/7 out there because they did not know what to do, or would not admit that they made a mistake in ordering one undersized battalion to get so entangled. Damn it, why didn’t they give me some help, or relieve me of command on the spot? Based upon what he wrote about me, Codispoti should have taken over command on the spot from his incompetent subordinate.
The roots of disaster ran deeply, not only in the clashes at command level, but in the character of the battalion itself. The recent history of 2/7 had been a harsh one. They saw heavy combat