Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [28]
Two hours before midnight the next night, a couple Chicom grenades were tossed into Alpha Company’s lines, wounding two Marines. Their injuries were minor enough so they could wait until daylight for medevac. Several hours later, a Marine from Alpha was killed. He’d been on guard in a two-man hole when he had to take a piss. He walked a few yards into the brush and was coming back when his sleeping buddy startled awake and fired his M16 at the noise on the perimeter. The man who’d done the shooting was walked up to the CP by some grunts. Wells awoke to hear the Marine hysterically sobbing that he’d killed his buddy.
He too was slated for a medevac.
On the evening of 10 August, PFC Charly Besardi and PFC Tom Bailey were walking point for 3d Platoon, Lima Company, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines. They were in Dodge City, following a path below Charlie Ridge. The sun was setting behind the mountain and, in the hazy silhouettes of twilight, Besardi suddenly noticed the movement. A hundred meters ahead, men were crossing the path, north to south, one right after the other; he could just make out the outlines of pith helmets, packs, AK47s, and RPG launchers. It seemed there were hundreds of them.
Besardi and Bailey hustled back to the rest of the platoon. The platoon leader, 2dLt Jeff Ronald, quickly got the men on line across the dirt road and everyone cut loose at the same time. Red tracers whizzed towards the silhouettes and, instantly, the NVA on the road bolted and disappeared. In seconds, fire was being returned from deep within the roadside thickets. Explosions began bursting about forty feet ahead of them. Besardi noticed his buddy Vaughn to his right, firing an M79. He called to him in his clipped Massachusetts accent, “Vaughn, shoot that seventy-nine out farther, man! You’re shootin’ ’em too short!”
Sergeant Fuller, the platoon sergeant, shouted back amused, “You stupid asshole, Besardi, those are RPGs being thrown in on us!”
In the middle of it all, Marines started laughing.
The firing lasted maybe thirty minutes, a noisy exchange that claimed no Marine casualties. It finally ended when the last of the NVA fell back into the night. A flare ship droned overhead, turning the fields into a stadium, and word was passed for Besardi’s squad to sweep forward and make the body count. He almost balked in fear: nine Marines strolling into hundreds of North Vietnamese! They waded forward through the thick brush under the weird light, and Besardi noticed that Lieutenant Ronald and Sergeant Fuller were with them. His fear did not evaporate then, but his hesitation did. He looked upon them much like older brothers he wanted to impress. They always did right by the platoon, took more than their share of chances, and, although Besardi was convinced they were all going to be killed, the idea of refusing them was unfathomable.
No one died. The NVA were gone, leaving only a few pith helmets and packs. In the morning, the platoon searched along the road and up into the foothills of Charlie Ridge. They found at least part of what they were looking for: three NVA stragglers sitting in the brush of a creek bed, eating rice, their packs unshouldered beside them. The lead squad opened fire and, in that screaming instant, one of the NVA lurched violently while the other two rolled, grabbed their AK47s, and bounded into the brush. Besardi saw one dash down the creek, splashing through the shallow water, and he lunged after him. Besardi wasn’t thinking; it was all just go, go, go, get the bastard! The NVA lost his helmet as he tried to clamber over the creek berm and into the thickets. He was forty feet away. Besardi halted in the middle of the creek, firing his M16 madly at the scrambling figure. The NVA slammed face first into the embankment, dropping his AK. Besardi’s M16 suddenly jammed. He frantically tugged at the bolt, trying to clear it.
The terror lasted only seconds. Lieutenant Ronald had been just behind him, and he sprinted past Besardi and pumped his M16 into the gook until he stopped moving. They policed up the area,