Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [20]
Bravo Company took a few RPGs and Chicoms that night; they medevacked six wounded in the morning, then moved on. The CP moved in after them, setting up for two days and one night in their old foxholes; Lieutenant Colonel Dowd split the CP and took a dozen men in a “jump” group to Charlie Company. They moved out at night through the thick mud of the paddy lowlands. A killer hump, Wells thought; the muck extracted much energy. The area was pocked with shell craters, thirty feet across and deep with muddy water, and they skirted along their rims. Wells was deathly afraid of them. Cripes, he thought, with this radio and pack and ammo, batteries, and junk strapped to my back, I must weigh 250 pounds. If I fell in, I’d drown before they could pull me out.
The men finally got across and were setting up in a tree line when the point men trotted back with five Vietnamese males they’d surprised. The radio reported other successes that night: Delta spotted fifty NVA with a GreenEye moving in a wood line, called in artillery airbursts, and Bravo swept in to count a few bodies. In the morning, Dowd set his jump CP into position, then took Wells and a few grunts on a hike to Charlie Company. Lieutenant Colonel Dowd and Lieutenant Hord were talking, and Wells waited and munched on some wild sugarcane. One of the daylight patrols moved past; a skull was affixed to the back of a grunt’s pack, its jaw bouncing as he walked so it looked like the skull was talking. Wells and the grunts shouted their approval.
The jump CP spent four days with Charlie Company, the last day being the only eventful one. Wells was sitting around on the perimeter when a Vietnamese appeared from a far tree line. There were shouts, then a grunt opened up with his M60 and the man dashed away with rounds kicking up dirt all around him. There were hoots and laughs when the man jumped, unscathed, into some trees. Later that day, Lieutenant Hord radioed the CP to complain that a certain scout-sniper was zeroing in his rifle by shooting water buffalos. The sniper had a good reputation; Dowd cracked a grin and told Wells to radio back that they must be enemy transport. The day after the execution of the buffs, Lieutenant Colonel Dowd took his jump CP back to the main group on the Hot Dog. That afternoon, a helicopter from battalion rear dropped off a small generator and electric hair clippers. Lance Corporal Wells spent the day making himself scarce. His hair was long by Marine standards and he intended to keep it that way. Besides the peace symbol drawn on his helmet cover, it was the only symbol of his minor rebellion against the lifers.
Captain Clark of Alpha and Captain Fagan of Delta were both calm professionals on their second tours. Lieutenant Hord of Charlie was also good but, in comparison, an eager youngster. Weh of Bravo was also a lieutenant, but of a harsher cut. An aggressive and blunt man, he had originally enlisted at seventeen; after college and OCS, he’d spent three months in 1967 as a platoon leader with 3d Recon before being wounded and evacuated. He rotated back in September 68, spent four months as an air observer, then requested infantry duty again. Weh prided himself in melding his company into a well-oiled killing machine, and his diary notes from the Arizona operation sound as if in war, he had found his natural state:
I planned a platoon ambush about 400–500 meters down the trail west of our pos the night we set up (July 20th). At dark the platoon moved out and within 45 min had a meeting engagement with four gooks—result 1 dead NVN and about 4 of my Marines wounded by grenades they threw. I sent a squad out to pick up the casualties and bring them back so they could continue to establish an ambush. We called a Med-evac and waited. About 2330 the chopper came