Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [162]
Sergeant Allison collected frags by going from man to man in his platoon, which was watching the flanks. He carried the frags up a small rise; the crest was too exposed to get over, but he was able to toss the grenades to a GI on the other side. Allison did not see what happened next. Hodierne did. The GI nearest the stranded group was told to crawl to them with the grenades. He refused and moved back to where the medics had dragged the newly wounded. He was moaning to a medic about his nerves when an NVA M79 exploded nearby and he went down with a piece of shrapnel, a Purple Heart, and a ticket out. Nothing’s fair.
In the tree line, Brantley lay with his squad RTO as Captain Gayler polled his platoon leaders on the radio. Their consensus was that it was time to get out; there were probably only a dozen NVA, but they were dug in and held good fields of fire. Gayler wanted men from each platoon to flank the hill and provide cover fire so the stranded men could crawl back. Brantley got off the radio and called to the GI nearest him, Private Doughty, to join that group. “Keep your ass down and if you guys can’t do the job, get the hell back!”
Doughty was a steady dude. “Fuck it,” he shouted back, referring to the NVA fire, “it don’t mean nothin’!”
Doughty tagged Jandecka and they decided to crawl forward to the right of the point platoon. There was an old French hootch, with a sniper in the rafters. Doughty borrowed a grenade launcher and pumped two rounds into the hootch; then came the distinct clatter of a weapon hitting the hard-packed floor. They pushed off, Doughty in the lead as they crawled along a hedgerow that led up the hill. They reached a clearing. Jandecka slinked into a spider hole, feeling too exposed for comfort, but Doughty kept going and disappeared into the brush. A minute later, there was a burst of automatic fire, then the terrible racket of fire being exchanged. Then it was quiet again. Jandecka had squeezed a couple of bursts at the sound of the NVA weapons, then sat tight, weapon ready in his hands, glancing nervously into the thick vegetation around him.
Suddenly, Doughty dragged himself out of the bushes, yelling, “Charley, I’m hit, Charley, I’m hit!” He collapsed in front of the hole. Jandecka hollered back for help and Frank Eates ran up with two GIs; they grabbed Doughty and dragged him back, running in a fast crouch, while Jandecka came out last covering the rear.
Doughty had about eight rounds in him.
They were still trading M16 for AK47 bursts in the tree line when Brantley hustled back to where Doughty lay. He was on his back in the brittle grass, stripped of all gear except an M16 bandolier around his waist, breathing shallowly, eyes open but unfocused. He should have died on the spot; Brantley wondered if he’d forced himself to crawl back so he could die among his friends. A buddy knelt beside him, shirt off, cigarette jammed in his mouth, face streaked with sweat; with one hand, he clasped Doughty’s hand, with the other he held a piece of C-rat cardboard over Doughty’s face to shield him from the sun. There was little the medics could do. Hodierne kneeled there, photographing the scene.
Brantley said he was sorry. Doughty’s eyes were open, but there was no way to tell if he heard.
No medevac was immediately available.
It probably wouldn’t have mattered. Doughty was dead within minutes. He just stopped breathing, his eyes still open, and Brantley slumped into the grass, eyes brimming with tears. He was awash in hurt and guilt, and anger.
In the big picture, Private Doughty might have died in vain; but he and the few others who’d moved forward had put out enough fire to allow the fifteen men pinned on the hillside to crawl back. They had left the two who’d been shot,