Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [150]
The chopper crews worked fast. Already that day, two Sea Knights had been forced down near the 2/7 CP with bullet holes in their rotors. A platoon from Hotel Company secured the crews, then ducked as a few mortar rounds thumped in around them.
Altogether, three helos were shot down while supporting 2/7.
Golf Company’s advance was thus halted before it even got started. Lance Corporal Russell, for one, had just saddled up and was sitting back on his pack waiting for the word to depart when the mortaring began. He joined a group of Marines working their way up to get the casualties, and ended up as caretaker for one of them. The man lay atop a poncho in the landing zone, face to the sun, calmly talking as if he didn’t understand that one leg was gone, the other one shattered. Russell talked with him until it was his turn on the medevac. Russell had taken some shrapnel graze wounds across his leg and arm during the previous night’s shower of mortars, but all he could think was how lucky he was.
Colonel Codispoti had watched through binoculars G Company’s retreat from LZ West. In his fitness report on Lugger, he noted the incident in thinly veiled terms:
… The Marines from one company were clearly observed running from one treeline across about 500 yds of rice paddies and carrying wounded to another treeline. This officer [Lugger] was immediately apprised of the situation by me over the radio and instructed to get control of the situation.… Later that evening he reported back that the company was running to the rear because they had been receiving incoming mortar fire and that he considered it appropriate for them to run … to achieve the cover of the treeline.… He further advised that this company had been moving forward with his small jump CP group and that he had returned them and the CP group to the same battalion CP area occupied … for three successive nights.
Colonel Lugger’s written rebuttal defended both the actions of Golf Company and his decision to use the same CP location despite the preregistered mortar raid of the night before:
His [Codispoti’s] observations were made from OP WEST some 3500 meters from the activity in question.… I did not report that I considered it appropriate that this company should run to the rear away from contact, as he infers. I reported that the “running” he observed was the movement of over 15 casualties to an LZ for evacuation. The forward elements of the company had consolidated, were retaining their ground, and fighting the enemy with organic and supporting arms fire.
The LZ was located in the vicinity of the CP we had just departed, but had moved less than 100 meters from. I had no forces for LZ security except the rear elements of the company in contact, which I utilized. It was my intention to continue forward movement after the med-evac; however, in the interim I was ordered by Colonel Codispoti to consolidate in good defensible perimeters for the night. I decided to remain at the CP location I had occupied the night before. This was the second successive night I utilized this position, not the third as stated.… it offered a relatively secure LZ for the evacuation of wounded and delivery of supplies; and it was the most defensible terrain in the area with a water obstacle on one flank and good fields of fire on the other.
Whatever the tactics, it was not one of Golf Company’s prouder moments. When the medevacs began coming in, Staff Sergeant Clements saw several Marines with minor shrapnel wounds practically trample over