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By Root 662 0

the first time the grunts knew that the conversation between Bacon and Shurtz had been taken down by some reporters who happened to overhear it at LZ Center, and it was making headlines around the world as the first recorded combat refusal of the war. Many of the stories on Alpha Company referred to the “grunt revolt,” with unsettling connotations of a militant underground. Never mind that similar incidents had occurred numerous times during glory days of WWII and Korea. Only a few understood that the young men in Alpha were simply soldiers in a company that had seen one battle too many. One of the reporters was James Sterba; after noting that Army policy was that a man who reenlisted would be taken out of the infantry, and that the Americal sent a reenlistment NCO to every fire base every two weeks, he commented:

On a sizzling hot day in August, it was less than ironic, then, when a helicopter touched down on Landing Zone Center … and dropped off a reenlistment sergeant. That was the day that a ragged, demoralized, exhausted company—Alpha, Third Battalion, 21st Infantry, Americal Division—trudged up the hill from a week of hell in the valley below with only half the men it had started with. World-famous Company A, the one that had refused, for an hour, to go to war, was being given the opportunity by the United States Army to re-enlist, to serve for three more years, but not “out there.” By the end of the day, the re-enlistment sergeant’s results, remarked one officer, had been “outstanding.”

Lieutenant Shurtz, meanwhile, was being shuffled away. Most agreed his downfall had been born of inexperience, not a lack of courage, and that he’d been made a scapegoat. To his superiors, he had waffled when he should have charged—and he had embarrassed the division in front of a hostile press. For this, he was reassigned as assistant brigade personnel administrative officer on LZ Baldy, then promoted to captain and sent to Chu Lai to complete his tour as the brigade stand down officer.

Two days after securing Hill 102, Alpha 4–31 abandoned it, just as they had done when they took it the first time in July. Two days after that, they got word that they were moving back to LZ West, from where they would CA into Hiep Duc. The action on that side of the ridge was still fierce and SP4 Parsons jotted in his pocket diary, “We’re going over to Hiep Duc Valley tomorrow. Looks like Ass kicking Alpha has too go clean up there own AO now. Boo Coo Dinks over there.”

First Lieutenant Raymond A. Hord, commander of C/1/7 Marines, poses with a captured enemy flag, pith helmet, hand grenade, and 9mm pistol. (Courtesy Col. Raymond A. Hord, USMC, Ret)

Lieutenant Hord (left) with Lt. Col. John A. “Jack” Dowd (right), commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division. (Courtesy Barbara Dowd)

Lieutenant Colonel Dowd (left) with a U.S. Army advisor and staff officers of the 7th Marine Regiment. (Courtesy Barbara Dowd)

Lieutenant Hord (right) and Capt. Brian J. Fagan, commander of D/1/7 Marines, at LZ Baldy in late-August 1969. (Courtesy Col. Raymond A. Hord, USMC, Ret)

Lieutenant Colonel Dowd and Capt. James W. Huffman, a company commander in 1/7, are decorated with the Silver Star for their part in the destruction of two NVA companies in April 1969. On 13 August 1969 Dowd was killed during a major battle in the Arizona Territory and posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. (Courtesy Barbara Dowd)

First Lieutenant William G. Peters, a platoon leader in D/1/7 Marines. (Courtesy Maj. William G. Peters, USMC, Ret)

Lance Corporal Don Wells, a radioman in 1/7 Marines, relaxing at Stack Arms, an in-country R&R center on China Beach. (Courtesy Don Wells)

Lance Corporal John G. Bradley, a rifleman in C/1/7 Marines. (Courtesy Master Sgt. John G. Bradley, USMC, Ret)

Corporal Nicholas Cominos, a squad leader in D/1/7 Marines, in the Arizona Territory in July or August 1969. (Courtesy Nicholas Cominos)

Vietnamese children tag along with a Marine patrol. (Courtesy Carson C. Bartels)

An 81mm mortar crew