Loon - Jack McLean [43]
“Incoming!”
The explosions were followed quickly by small-arms fire. Looking up, Tillery could see a large rice paddy stretched out below him with a tree line on the other side. The tree line was the source of rapid machine gun fire. As their mortars continued, we returned fire, but there was little else to do until the mortaring stopped. With that, Randolph pulled a poncho over the top of the hole that he was sharing with Tillery.
“What the fuck are you doing?” asked Tillery, incredulously.
“Well, brother,” Randolph replied, “if you don’t see ’em, it ain’t as bad.”
It was hard to refute the logic of the veteran Randolph. He had been in country for ten months and he was alive.
The small-arms fire then really started coming in all around the perimeter. I was frightened and disoriented, looking for guidance from any available source. The veterans appeared cool, so I just did what they did—stayed low in my hole and returned fire with my M16 in the direction of the incoming assault, which was, in fact, every direction. The mortars seemed to be getting louder and closer, so we stayed low but kept firing. I heard my first cry for “Corpsman!” Several holes away, an incoming mortar had landed next to one of our squad leaders. They began to work on him furiously.
A helicopter medevac was called for.
As the UH-34 helicopter slowly lowered to land, it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade that took off the tail section. It spun wildly out of control for several seconds and then crashed right inside the perimeter. To those of us in our holes, it became increasingly difficult to focus with the escalating noise and activity. The helicopter was burning, the small-arms fire was incessant, and the mortars continued to come in all around with increasing accuracy.
In the midst of the attack, several of us were pulled back to stand in reserve, in the event that additional support was needed in a vulnerable area. Our orders were to stand watch and be prepared for whatever might happen. Being new, I had little idea of exactly what might happen or how I would know if it did. I was at once relieved and disoriented. Without a specific place to be and no hole dug, I found a bomb crater and lay inside, falsely believing that it would provide some security from incoming.
Expansive bomb craters, although deep, provided little protection from incoming artillery and mortar fire that came from high above.
An early lesson learned.
At dusk, another marine from the 2nd Platoon scurried up next to me to see if I knew what was going on. One look at his bright green utilities, new boots, and frightened expression told me a strange new truth: I was the salty veteran and he was the new kid. Whatever meager tidbit I possessed would be encyclopedic compared to his near complete ignorance of the situation.
I was scared.
He was petrified.
I was new.
He was newer.
He looked at me the way I looked at everybody else—like they were old veterans who knew exactly what to do all the time. To him I was the experienced one, so I acted the role and got the two of us through the most horrifying night either of us had ever spent. These were the circumstances under which I met PFC Dan Burton of San Diego, California.
Dan was California. He had a surfer’s body and an easygoing manner that endeared him to nearly all he met. He was a solid marine and worked hard like the rest of us, but he played hard as well. He loved to laugh, smoke dope, and make wonderful spirit-lifting jokes at times when our morale was down. There were no jokes from Dan this evening, however.
The NVA were heavily probing our lines looking for weak spots. Delta Company was in the worst position. They had no fields of fire, and the enemy knew that. Within the hour, the enemy had penetrated the Delta lines.
“Gooks in the perimeter!” came the call.
As I had been trained, I removed my bayonet from