Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [31]
Then the LP’s radio went dead.
The squad sent out by Schirmerhorn took fire as soon as they advanced from their foxholes. At the same time, Campbell’s LP came under fire. Then came a barrage of RPG and AK47 fire against Schirmerhorn’s side of the line, then a scrambling rush of North Vietnamese into their perimeter.
The listening posts had served their purpose: the lines had been put on a 100 percent alert before the NVA could finalize their attack, and artillery was already up. When the Bravo LP abruptly disappeared from the radio net, Fagan was in the process of calling back the Delta LP. They too had begun to take fire. The LP was from the 2d Platoon under 2dLt Denny Taylor (replacing Lieutenant Peters who had rotated to the rear two weeks earlier); as the LP began moving back under fire, Fagan radioed Taylor to send out a squad to help them in. The squad managed to link up with the listening post, but the NVA were almost on them. They flung grenades at each other on sound. AK rounds snapped past in the blackened brush until, finally, PFC Cornelius J. Cashman dropped to one knee. He cradled his M60 butt against his hip, sling over his shoulder, and told the others to get moving. He would cover them. Cashman was not an inexperienced new guy or a renegade looking for trouble; if any stereotype fit, it was of the All American Boy. Cashman shouted, “I’ll be right there, I’ll be right there,” as he scythed the brush with his sixty, keeping the NVA back long enough for the rest to slip back. Inside Delta Company’s perimeter, Lieutenant Taylor made a quick head count. Cashman was not there. His M60 was silent. Taylor’s radio report to Fagan was emotional, but Fagan would not allow a search party. He was probably dead, the NVA were still coming, and they could not afford such a gap in their lines. Fagan made a mental note to put Cashman in for the Navy Cross, and only hoped that if the kid were still alive, he would keep his cool and hide in the bushes until dawn.
Charlie Company was also under fire from RPGs and AK47s; it was sustained, but seemed designed only to keep them in place. The grunts sat tight in their holes, suffering only a few shrapnel wounds, awaiting the assault that never materialized. Lieutenant Hord’s hole was near where Lieutenant Colonel Dowd was hunched over his radios. They could hear Weh desperately calling his LP. No answer. A squad of Marines was missing and, in the middle of it, Dowd was getting inquiries from regiment and division. Everyone feared the worst and Hord could see the anguish and frustration in Dowd’s eyes. The colonel was a fighter, but this was not a battle of his design. No one really knew what was happening. The only option was to hunker down and weather it out. As they waited for dawn, Dowd told Hord they’d march over to the Hot Dog at first light and take it from there. His voice was charged with one desire—swift retaliation.
Lance Corporal Wells was half-asleep in his foxhole after the initial melee on the H&S Company hill. An RPG or mortar exploded nearby. It showered him with dirt and sent him scurrying for their trench. The slit trench was only three feet deep, and there were a dozen Marines crouched in it. The firing was creeping closer and there was an air of high-strung anticipation as the men fingered their weapons and strained their eyes. No one was firing, though; there were other Marines down the hill and, even in the flare light, things were indistinct.
An M60 crew was set up in front of the trench in a little scooped pit. Wells kneeled with them and squinted through their GreenEye; it cast an eerie lime fuzz across the battlefield,