Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [47]
Lieutenant Hord passed within yards of Dowd’s body as he brought Charlie Company into the wood line. His eyes teared. He loved the colonel and had to look away; he couldn’t go over and touch the body for fear he would break down.
Medevacs began coming in. There was no fire.
In India Company, corpsmen were finally getting to the men who’d been stuck for hours in the parched field. One, Cpl James Castor, was gravely wounded and they worked frantically on him. Besides him, four men from India had been killed and sixteen others wounded. Captain Beeler’s hand was bleeding and swollen, and he tucked it in his flak jacket so the troops wouldn’t see it as he moved about. He made sure their prisoner was still alive and had him placed aboard one of the medevacs. Then he turned over command to the new lieutenant leading 3d Platoon, the only officer left. He made sure to have a talk with 3d Platoon’s sergeant first, though; this staff sergeant was the only seasoned leader left and Beeler told him to stick with the lieutenant and make sure everything was okay until they got their two experienced lieutenants back in the field.
At 1800, Beeler went out on the last Sea Knight. Corporal Castor was also aboard and corpsmen kept up their efforts to save him all the way to the 1st Medical Battalion, 1st MarDiv, Da Nang, where he was quickly loaded onto a stretcher and rushed inside. The 3/5 Navy chaplain met them there, and Beeler handed him his asspack full of C rations; he was surprised to discover all the cans had been opened by the Chicom shrapnel. He also asked the chaplain to check on Castor—he died on the operating table.
A Navy surgeon gave Beeler a local, sutured up his neck and hand, then sent him to a ward. He didn’t feel too badly, at least not until a corpsman noticed he was still bleeding from the neck and had him rushed to intensive care. He lay on a gurney and noticed one of his men, Lance Corporal Stewart, beside him. Stewart had tripped the booby trap that morning, but Beeler had not seen him before the medevac came; he was shocked to see that the young man’s leg was gone. After surgery, the Division inspector general and a young Marine came through the ward with a Polaroid camera. The IG presented Captain Beeler with his Purple Heart and the Marine snapped a photo. The IG suggested he send it home as soon as possible to let his relatives see him smiling from a hospital bed. Hopefully, it would allay some of the fears the telegram would bring. Beeler thought that was a good idea and so did his wife; she still carries the photograph.
In the tree line, Major Alexander had assumed command of the battalion. He’d been with 1/7 only about two weeks, but was on his second tour; three years earlier as a company commander with the 4th Marines he had won the Silver Star. Compared to Dowd, he was a taciturn, businesslike man.
Colonel Codispoti, of course, outranked Alexander but, as was proper, Codispoti let the chain of command take effect. Codispoti was still an observer and a helper, and it was now Alexander’s ball game. He got on the radio to clear up any confusion and to get the battalion moving again. “Youth Six is Kilo. I am Oscar India Charlie. The plan is this: continue to march and we will make it to the river.” There was only token resistance. A few NVA were visible moving through the tree line and Lieutenant Hord, a student of military history, had thoughts of Dunkirk. Alpha Company was waiting for them on the banks of the Vu Gia. As it turned out, the conclusion of the chase more closely resembled one historian’s characterization of the cavalry pursuing the plains Indians: “… like an amoeba each band would divide, divide, and divide again, and again, and once again, leaving a less and less distinct trail, with the result that his blue-jacketed cavaliers never could catch anybody to punish.”
Captain Clark’s Alpha Company did not have the opportunity to machine gun the retreating swarm. In their three days