• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 596 0

had been able to tell in which direction the NVA had retreated after their tree line had been seized. If they had fled to the south or west, the Que Son Mountains offered a sanctuary their battalion could not tackle alone. If they had gone east, they would run into the 5th Marines AO around the An Hoa Combat Base. Dowd decided their only option was to sweep north towards Alpha Company’s encampment on the Song Vu Gia. Prospects did not seem likely that they’d find anything, though. Plans were sketchy, intelligence was nonexistent, everyone was exhausted. Lieutenant Colonel Dowd finally ended the meeting, “Go ahead and get some rest. We’ll reconvene in the morning, and we’ll put the rest of this together.”

Chapter Five

Hounds Too Fast on the Hunt

Before dusk on 12 August, reinforcements moved into the vicinity of the Hot Dog: India Company, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines (Capt Robert A. Beeler), which humped in from An Hoa; and two platoons from Lima Company, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines (Capt Jon K. Rider), which choppered in from Hill 37. Lima’s 3d Platoon was on patrol when the warning order came, so Rider was attached a platoon from Kilo Company for this operation.

By nightfall, these two companies were dug in within sight of 1/7’s hillside of foxholes. The night was free of combat, but not of commotion. The 81mm mortar crews fired H&I most of the night, and some of it exploded too close for comfort near India Company. Captain Beeler had only recently lost some of his Marines to friendly fire—from misplotted 3/5 H&S fire in the Que Sons during Operation Durham Peak—and he was quickly on the horn to 1/7’s operations officer. The fires were shifted farther out into the paddies. Later, one of India’s listening posts captured a North Vietnamese. He was alone, presumably lost, and the grunts just reached out and grabbed him when he walked past their hiding place in the bushes.

At first light, the battalion came alive again.

The mission for 13 August was pursuit of the bloodied NVA regiment, and Lieutenant Colonel Dowd held a predawn huddle at his command post. His three company commanders were there, along with Colonel Codispoti, who stood in camouflaged fatigues, hands firmly on his hips, silver eagles shining from his collars and from his starched fatigue cover. The regimental commander had choppered in the previous day and now was going to accompany the sweep. Only the most cynical were not impressed by this style of leadership; but Lance Corporal Wells and the other radiomen on the fringe of the meeting were young and salty, and they hid their astonishment by mumbling among themselves how bad the colonel’s cigar stunk.

Codispoti was a definite piece of work. He had replaced a more calm—some thought a more professional—colonel. Codispoti himself was short and stocky; with white hair; enormous eyebrows; and a gruff, Brooklyn clip. He was prone to temper tantrums even over trivial matters, and he had many idiosyncrasies. He’d already been passed over for brigadier general, so he was not afraid to run things the only way he knew how—his way. Colonel Codispoti was there to kill communists. Period. He allowed himself little slack as he constantly helicoptered among his units, looking, conferring, writing orders on the backs of old envelopes; he hammered at his battalion commanders for results, pushed his grunts to the edge of exhaustion. Some understood that the only way to save American lives was to keep the Vietnamese on the run. Others were not so charitable towards him. One weary staff officer in 2/7, for example, wrote of an upcoming operation hard on the heels of the summer battles, “… regiment had a crumby scheme-of-maneuver designed to kill and wear out the maximum number of Marines. But we got it changed. It was another of those fight up the hill deals.”

But most thought Codispoti knew what he was doing. At one regimental briefing, the S-4 (supply) officer got up to report on the amount of food and ammunition each of the twelve rifle companies would have that night. He said one company was down to zero or one