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By Root 592 0

many Vietnam campaigns only because of its mood. It was the first major engagement after the announcement of U.S. withdrawals. A new slogan was heard: Why be the last man killed in Vietnam? Such sentiments were rarely expressions of cowardice or antiwar protest. More simply, a cynicism that always had existed among the grunts about the validity of attrition tactics became crystallized. They knew they were leaving, and they knew the job wasn’t done. A spiritual malaise began to affect the entire war effort. “Nothing much of anything was decided by the summer campaign,” commented SP4 Bob Hodierne, U.S. Army combat photographer. “I don’t believe any Medals of Honor or court-martials for cowardice were its fruits. It, in fact, could be seen as painfully typical of the whole damn experience. Pain, death, little private acts of heroism and cowardice, individuals changed forever, and when it was done—what? As the GIs said, ‘Fuck it, it don’t mean nothin.’ ”

The grunts who fought the 1969 Summer Offensive were the smallest part of the Green Machine, the slim end of a funnel that yawned wide at the top. Only a relative handful did the actual fighting. For every grunt in the bush, there were from five to ten men supporting him in base camps. For this campaign, there were two anchors of command and support and both were located along Highway One on the coast: Da Nang for the 1st Marine Division and Chu Lai for the Americal Division. Both sites had been secured by the Marines in 1965; by 69, they were insulated by miles of barbed wire and guard towers, and within, living was physically comfortable. And boring.

An arc was drawn around Da Nang to indicate the maximum range of NVA 122mm and 140mm rockets; the 1st and 26th Marines conducted saturation patrols in this Rocket Belt. Base camps of the 5th and 7th Marines were sprinkled across the flatlands between Da Nang and An Hoa, bridges between the rear and the bush. Hill 55 (7th Marines Command Post) sat east of the northern tip of Charlie Ridge; the villages there were replete with guerrillas and the Marines jocularly nicknamed the area Dodge City. Rivers running down from the Que Sons twisted in several directions towards Hill 55, and numerous battalion base camps for the 7th Marines were constructed near the banks: Hill 10, Hill 37, Hill 65. A dirt road called Route 4 (or Thunder Road) ran west from Highway One to Charlie Ridge; smaller convoy roads radiated from it to connect the various bases.

Four miles south of Hill 55, the rivers isolated a stretch of land called Go Noi Island; it was a bleak, desperately hot place which resembled a moonscape covered with tall elephant grass. It had a bad reputation and there were no permanent positions on it. Nor were there any in the Arizona Territory. The Arizona was isolated too, blocked by the Que Sons to the south and west, the Song Thu Bon River to the east, and the Song Vu Gia River and Charlie Ridge to the north. Directly east across the Song Thu Bon was the An Hoa Combat Base (5th Marines Command Post); it was a red clay hill, circled by wire and bunkered in with four million sandbags. Since it sat at the base of the Que Sons, it was called Little Dienbienphu. Route 537 ran north from An Hoa to Dodge City, crossing a curve of the Song Thu Bon over Liberty Bridge. The bridge was the work of Navy Seabees; the perimeter compound, called Phu Lac 6 after a nearby hamlet, was an artillery fire base for the 11th Marines.

Morale in these cantonments was better than in places like Da Nang and Chu Lai. There were frequent rocket raids and infrequent sapper attacks, living conditions were more spartan, and there was enough to dispel complacency and forge some comradeship. But these base camps were also hot, boring, and dusty, and an occasional problem did crop up. A platoon leader noted some of the reasons:

The nature of the war dictated that there would be numerous fortified strongpoints, surrounded by no-man’s-land. Most of the rear echelon Marines were eighteen to twenty years old, surrounded by barbed wire with nothing to do except mundane,