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to draw the 2d NVA Division into a fight. The op lasted three weeks and claimed the lives of fifteen Marines and seventy-six North Vietnamese. There were numerous important finds, including a large and hastily evacuated NVA hospital equipped with Swedish surgical instruments of the highest quality. The 5th Marines regimental report wrote it up as a victory: “… Although large scale enemy contact was not experienced, Operation DURHAM PEAK was considered highly successful in that it denied the enemy freedom of movement in his normally natural haven. The presence of a multi-battalion force caused the enemy to abandon his numerous base camps and flee to the lowlands north and south.… Numerous large base camps and caches were discovered and destroyed. In addition, valuable intelligence information was gained concerning the Que Son Mountains, e.g. trail networks, base camps, and caves.…”

General Simpson agreed, but had his reservations. The whole point had been to pin the 2d NVA Division, to cripple them before they could choose the time and place for their offensive. The enemy had not been pinned. Simpson was impressed at how quickly and completely the NVA could fade away; more than once, his Marines had found warm cooking fires in deserted camps.

Simpson was also frustrated. At the start of the operation, he had coordinated with General Ramsey, CG, Americal Division, whom he knew and liked, about providing a block south of the Que Sons. That was the AO of 4–31 Infantry, 196th Brigade; but tied down with the protection of LZ West, LZ Siberia, and the Hiep Duc Resettlement Village, they had been able to deploy only C and D Companies. Two companies to screen the eight-mile northern frontier of the Hiep Duc Valley.

The NVA walked right past them.

One of the Americal’s gravest problems was that they were stretched too thinly and simply could not afford the units and material required for every mission (the joke among the grunts was that an airmobile combat assault in the Americal was one helicopter making fifteen trips). In addition, the demarcation line between the Marines and the Army was right down the Que Sons, making neither division wholly responsible. U.S. units were instinctively wary of AO borders and the NVA knew this.

Then came the night of 11–12 August 1969, when the 2d NVA Division was able to bring the war down from the mountains on their own terms. While the 1st Marine Division was fighting around Da Nang and An Hoa, the Americal Division had been fending off another series of attack. Within days, Simpson and Ramsey conferred, and Ramsey then approached the commanding general, III Marine Amphibious Force; they wanted to expand the 1st MarDiv south to assume LZ Baldy, LZ Ross, and (finally) the whole of the Que Sons. That would take the pressure off the Americal and provide reinforcements for the counterattack.

PART

Gimlets and Polar Bears

Chapter Six

Landing Zone West

SP4 Ray Keefer was feeling good. He was shooting the shit with his buddies, a beer in one hand and a joint in the other. They were a dusty, coarse, loud crew. Their unit, A Troop, 1st Squadron, 1st Armored Cavalry, Americal Division, was preparing positions at Chu Lai in preparation for the arrival of the rest of the unit from Hawk Hill. Chu Lai was a quieter area and for Keefer—a nineteen year old who’d been wounded four times—this was cause enough to get loaded. Which is exactly what he and his buddies were doing in the warm evening air—until the radios in their vehicles came alive.

It was the night of 11–12 August 1969.

C Troop reported incoming fire; they were still on Hawk Hill (on Highway One between Tam Ky and LZ Baldy), providing security for an Americal infantry battalion that was assuming their old squadron base camp. Then they reported NVA in the wire. A second call for help came in; two tanks from A Troop were providing security on a hill outpost, and the commander of tank two-nine reported RPG fire.

The 1st Regiment of Dragoons had the reputation not only of being professional heads, but professional killers; in response