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The squads maintained their line, then bogged down in a field of shoulder-high elephant grass. Ten meters into the briar—as the grunts were shouldering through the sharp rows of blades, increasing their frustrated exhaustion, getting disorganized in the tangle—the North Vietnamese ambushed them from higher up on the ridge.

The 12.7mm and several AK47s scythed the grass.

Everyone scrambled for cover.

LCpl Danny R. Emery had wandered off to the right before the shooting started, humping his M60, his partner tagging along, humping the ammunition. When the NVA fire hit the center of the platoon, Emery and his partner were able to crawl uphill. The 12.7mm was firing from somewhere to their left, invisible amid the vines and trees; Emery cut loose at it from a crouch, raking his M60 back and forth, his assistant gunner keeping the ammo bandolier from jamming; both men were soaked with sweat. A piece of shrapnel hit Emery. He kept firing.

The 12.7mm kept firing too, keeping the platoon pinned. LCpl Jose Francisco Jimenez, a small, wiry fire-team leader, got up. No one had ordered him to. He simply crashed through the elephant grass, rushing uphill right into a North Vietnamese who popped from a spider hole to shoot him. Jimenez cut him down in an instant with his M16, then was upon two more of them. He blew them away in their spider holes. He was near the 12.7mm, and he dropped on the tangled slope; yanked the pins from one, two, then a third grenade; and hurled them into the spot of brush from where the gun seemed to be firing, rushing up after the explosions, firing on the run. The 12.7mm gun was in a shallow pit on a tripod, its gunner slumped dead. Lieutenant Nyulassy was on Jimenez’s heels, shouting the platoon up the fifty meters to the gun pit. Then another group of AK47s screamed from the right flank. Lance Corporal Emery fired his M60 at them as Lance Corporal Jimenez charged again. He threw frags, then ran up to pump his M16 into two North Vietnamese.

In a matter of moments, Jimenez had killed six NVA regulars and silenced the machine gun. He paused for a second near the last two victims when an AK47 suddenly cracked from the left, hitting him in the side of his head.

Jimenez was killed instantly.

Under the renewed fusillade, Lieutenant Nyulassy got most of his men back behind a knoll. He tried to sort out the situation. The parched elephant grass had caught fire, probably from their tracers, and burned out of control. The NVA were firing from above them; they seemed to have a slit trench along the ridge which allowed them to avoid the Marine fire and pop up anywhere along the hill. The NVA were not using tracers, so it was virtually impossible to zero in on them. Jimenez’s body was sprawled by the gun bunker, and the Marine Corps does not abandon their dead. Nyulassy silently cursed the Americal Division for allowing the NVA to dig in so well, then called for volunteers to get Jimenez back. He was mightily impressed by the response. Seven men joined him.

Campos

Bosser

Sherrod

Davis

Jones

Dirken

Doc Sampson

They crawled uphill on their hands and knees, Nyulassy up front and Doc Sampson coming last, heads down under the AK fire and the hot smoke of the brush fire. The NVA went mad behind their guns as soon as the Marines neared the clearing where Jimenez lay, sending everyone down except Sherrod. He fired into the snipers—it looked as though he got one—then tumbled with an AK47 round through his neck. In the next moment, Chicom grenades were thrown downhill onto them. The explosions bowled over Nyulassy, tearing his right arm with shrapnel; Campos was also wounded. They scrambled back. The AKs and Chicoms kept coming. Their return fire seemed to have no effect.

Bosser tried again and was shot in the head.

Sherrod was hauled behind a spot of cover and Doc Sampson patched him. He was dying, and Jones and Dirken sat with him talking simple, reassuring things to him.

Davis was killed trying again.

The fight was