Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [15]
On 19 March, NVA sappers and infantry breached the wire at Liberty Bridge, manned by a company of 1/5 and an artillery battery of 2/11, and gutted three bunkers with flamethrowers before a heroic, hasty counterattack plugged the gap and artillery fire was brought to bear at point-blank range.
On 31 March, the 7th Marines began Operation Oklahoma Hills, an eight-week foray into and around Charlie Ridge. At the same time, on 29 April, B and D Companies of the regiment conducted a bloody foray into the Arizona.
On 9 May, the 5th Marines executed an expert deployment around a large NVA unit moving through the Arizona, then devastated them with air and arty. (“We caught them with their pants down,” said 2dLt James Webb, platoon leader with D/1/5. “Our FO was calling for artillery on four hundred NVA and he was sixth on the priority list!” After recovering, the NVA struck back at the isolated companies; this was later immortalized in Webb’s novel, Fields of Fire, and it was the day his Marine called Snake posthumously won the Navy Cross for dragging wounded men through a withering crossfire.) The battle lasted three days.
On 7 June, the 90th NVA Regiment attacked 1/5 Marines in the Arizona, sparking a week-long battle. The NVA retreated to Charlie Ridge.
What followed those four months of sustained activity was called the Summer Lull. It was during this time that the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, under the command of LtCol John A. Dowd, crossed the Song Vu Gia into the Arizona Territory. Their operation continued through the last six weeks of the lull; then the 1969 Summer Offensive almost buried them.
* This was true for these men, and many blacks concluded from such personal observations that their sacrifice was out of proportion to their numbers in society. Many thought this was no accident; however, of those who died in Vietnam, 12.5 percent were black while 86.3 percent were white. This corresponded roughly to racial demographics in the United States.
* Captain Downey noted another initial problem. “There was a rumor, one I was never able to substantiate, that the Americal had received the bulk of McNamara’s Hundred Thousand, troops of very low IQ who had been drafted to take the place of those able-bodied men who had run to Canada and Sweden.” To carry this further, these were the men most prone to getting themselves killed and committing atrocities.
Chapter Two
The Arizona
It was almost twilight when Delta Company moved down a weathered railroad trestle without tracks. Nicholas Cominos looked back over his shoulder. It was another hot night in the Arizona flatlands, and in the fading light the company was moving to a new night position to disorient enemy mortarmen. The column was perfectly spaced, everyone silhouetted, faces hidden in the shadows of helmet brims. This is really beautiful, Cominos thought; this is what the poet sees sometimes.
It became his lasting mental portrait of the operation.
The 1st Battalion, 7th Marines entered the Arizona Territory on 1 July 1969 as part of Operation Forsythe Grove. The op had been hastily organized after reports of an impending attack on Hill 65 by six hundred NVA believed to be massing in northern Arizona. To preempt this, 2/5 Marines took up blocking positions in western Arizona, 1/5 Marines in eastern Arizona, and 1/7 Marines were to sweep south between this cordon. Alpha 1/7 (Capt Edward T. Clark III) was helicoptered into southern Arizona at first light to form the final block for the sweep. They took some fire, but gunships quieted it. The assault companies staged on the banks of the Song Vu Gia below Hill 65: Bravo 1/7 (1stLt Allen E. Weh), Delta 1/7 (Capt Brian J.