Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [152]
Talk was the NVA were letting them leave.
Fox Company came out last. That morning they had made an attempt to move beyond the wood line they’d secured with Echo Company. But as soon as they left that cover, the snipers opened up and the Marines hustled back to their wooded haven. They were crouched among the trees, returning fire, when Collinson heard the HST man holler he was hit. A corpsman crouched beside him and removed a fragmentation grenade from the baggy side pocket of the man’s trousers. The AK round had split the grenade and bent the detonator cap before hitting him; luckily for all around, the frag had failed to explode.
The corpsman secured a bandage, then Collinson and McCoy got the Marine between them and started back. He limped hard and moaned about how badly he’d been hit, and Collinson thought, man, this dude sure wants out of here. As they passed a clearing in the trees, AK rounds began kicking up dust on the trail. The wounded man instantly bolted from their hands. They chased after him but he beat them back to the LZ. Collinson and McCoy finally stopped, looked at each other, and laughed.
Fox Company spent the day nestled among the trees, some men keeping up the exchange with the snipers while others picked at what C rations they had left. They were pulling out and there was little urgency to their actions. One detail had to be taken care of, though; the body from the doomed recon patrol was still missing. Collinson joined the patrol that hunted through the tall elephant grass for him; they finally found the body because of its hot stench. The Marine had been shot full of holes and his wounds were ripe with maggots. It was sickening and sad, Collinson thought; but he was too numb to be truly repulsed. The grunts simply rolled the rotting body into a poncho and carried him back to the perimeter; then they dropped listlessly along an earthen embankment to await the arrival of 3d Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment.
When Fox Company finally saddled up and trudged past their relief column, Collinson noted the 3/7 grunts looked fresh, packs bulging and in good order, loaded with canteens, ammunition, grenades, and LAWs. Grunts from Fox Company began calling to them: the gooks got their shit together here, most places are preregistered with mortars, there’s spider holes and trenches every fucking place, keep your heads up! Collinson didn’t feel happy or relieved. He really didn’t feel anything but tired. The men carried the dead Marine with them as they moved single file back through the old command post area. The brush was ashy from napalm. The stench was intense, of bodies roasted and rotting in their spider holes. Collinson walked among the trees, head hanging, M16 in one hand, the other pressing his sweat towel over his nose and mouth to keep from vomitting.
On 28 August, the morning after 2d Battalion, 7th Marines trudged out of the Hiep Duc Valley, Colonel Codispoti told Colonel Lugger to report to him at LZ West. Codispoti questioned him briefly again about the problems during the battle; one was that, in the five days of combat, 2/7 had lost at least 24 men killed and 161 wounded and evacuated, but could confirm (by actual sighting) only 23 NVA KIA and one prisoner. Not satisfied with the explanations, Codispoti told Lugger he was immediately relieving him and placing his executive officer in temporary command.*
* They had a new commander the next day. As General Simpson noted, “This was no place to insert a green battalion commander. All of my experienced commanders were then serving in command positions. I was in almost daily contact with MajGen William Jones, CG, 3d MarDiv and an old and trusted friend. He made LtCol Joseph Hopkins available. In a remarkably short time he was