Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [45]
“Where’s the Actual?”
“He’s a Kilo. I’m the Six.”
That’s how the company commanders were informed that the colonel was dead. Lieutenant Peters, XO, D/1/7, was not very surprised when he heard the news. He’d always thought Dowd was too gungy for his own good. One of the first things Peters learned as a combat officer was to try to look like an enlisted man in the bush. He packed away his gold bars, wore simply an o.d. undershirt under his flak jacket, and traded his .45 pistol for an M16 rifle. One day in July, Peters’s platoon had been on an isolated hillock when, from out of nowhere, Lieutenant Colonel Dowd and Sergeant Major Awkerman had come walking towards his perimeter with two riflemen. Not only had the been walking through the Arizona with such a small party, but there had been Dowd in all his glory, cigar jutting from his jaw, walking stick in his hand, and a silver oak leaf on his cover. It had shone in the sun. As far as Peters was concerned, Dowd had been begging for a sniper to hit him. He wondered, with little sympathy, if the colonel had let his macho streak kill him.
Lima Company on the right flank was trying to push through the tree line to assist India Company. When the ambush was first sprung, Lima had been in the paddy with two platoons up and their attached platoon from Kilo back. Lieutenant Colonel Dowd had instantly come over the battalion command net to tell Captain Rider to press the attack into the tree line. Rider gave the order to his two lead lieutenants.
They made an assault right out of the book.
The forward observer crouched behind a burial mound with Rider, calling in more artillery, while the M60 teams jogged to the far right flank and pumped grazing fire across the company’s front. The reserve platoon was moved to refuse the right flank, while grunts in the paddy fired cover for fire team and individual rushes. From dike to dike, they edged towards the invisible snipers in the tree line. Everything was going so smoothly that Rider felt more like an observer than a participant, and he found himself standing atop the burial mound more closely to watch his Marines attack; he was beaming.
To understand why the company commanders in this battle were so proud of their riflemen, some background is necessary. In 1965, Rider was a platoon leader in the 7th Marines when they deployed to Vietnam from Camp Pendleton. At that time, most of the senior officers and sergeants had experience ranging from Gaudalcanal to Inchon. Almost all the staff NCOs were veterans of the Korean War, and most of the new corporals and sergeants had at least four years in the Corps. When Rider returned to the regiment in 1969, his company was a body of teenagers. The grunts were mostly new graduates or dropouts from high school, and most of his NCOs had been promoted early due to the manpower drain of Vietnam. He had sergeants who weren’t old enough to drink beer legally. His platoon leaders were all Rice Paddy Lieutenants, rushed through a shortened version of Basic School for only one use.
But now these young lieutenants and grunts—with bullets snapping over their heads, but with a tangible enemy finally materializing in this sweaty hell—were charging right at the North Vietnamese.
They were Marines.
Captain Rider was finally chased off that burial mound when his new gunnery sergeant, Gunny Martinez, shouted at him, “Goddammit, skipper, you better get off there or we’re going to bury your ass in that bloody mound!” Lima Company got into the trees without casualties, but then took several wounded as they cautiously advanced towards India and Delta Companies: the NVA were firing from spider holes and, with the arty turned off now, snipers had clambered up into the trees.
It was about then that Dowd was killed.
Soon after, Captain Beeler finally got a grenade into the machine-gun pit. The RPD was silenced and he brought 3d Platoon across the paddy to secure the area.