Loon - Jack McLean [72]
We cautiously emerged from our holes to look for confirmation that this had really happened. Instantly a third round came in. It whizzed inches over our heads, just missing the hill, and exploded with tremendous force in the valley below.
Danny Burton and I watched it in awe.
Even when we’d taken a direct hit on a bunker in Gio Linh, we had never heard such unbridled power or force. We snuck back into our holes and waited. The NVA had our complete and undivided attention. Charlie and Delta companies provided a big target on a small hill. The enemy had us in their sights.
We had nowhere to go.
We were pinned down.
The bombardment continued for more than an hour. Several more fighting holes were directly hit. Not a single subsequent round missed the hill. The cries of “Corpsman!” were unending.
The 2nd Platoon lines were particularly hard hit. Captain Negron passed the word for every available hand to get over there and start hauling the dead and wounded marines up to the LZ for evacuation.
I froze.
Was I an available hand?
I was not.
The ground attack would certainly come the second the last round hit. The NVA knew when that would be. We didn’t. I remained and kept a sharp eye out for NVA troop movement in the valley below. Like the others, I was a well-trained marine and well understood my role, even in the daunting chaos.
The next incoming round was their exclamation point.
It landed right on the LZ where the dead and wounded had been hauled. All of our available corpsmen were there treating the wounded, and all of our available volunteers were there attending to the bodies. The explosion was colossal. Dirt, shrapnel, and body parts flew by in all directions. Tiny pieces of searing metal lodged in my upper arms and shoulders outside of the protection of my flak jacket. I was completely covered with dirt.
Thanks to our training, though, we were able to again secure the LZ and, miraculously, get one last Marine Corps medevac chopper in. The three most severely wounded were slid aboard: 2nd Platoon machine gunner Wayne Wood, 2nd Platoon fire team leader Ric Popp, and my dear friend navy corpsman Mac Mecham.
Wood, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was so severely wounded that he would receive the last rites of the Catholic Church three times during the following week, but he would survive. Popp would recover from his wounds and later be returned to action. Mecham would lose his right thumb, which had been grotesquely mangled by shrapnel in the blast. He had been treating the wounded on the LZ.
As he boarded the outgoing helicopter, Mecham passed a handful of dog tags to one of the few corpsmen who remained.
“Here,” he said. “Don’t lose these.”
With that, Mecham was hauled into the belly of the chopper, his legs dangling. The wheels lifted, the door gunner released a torrent of .50 caliber machine gun fire, and the bird banked off to the north and away.
The dog tags that Mecham handed off were those of each of the dead marines. He had been collecting them all day.
On our first morning on Parris Island, we were issued two dog tags. The first was to hang on a chain around our neck. The second was on a small chain hanging from the main chain. When a marine was killed, the second dog tag would be removed and kept with the unit for identification. The first remained on the body for final identification by the coroner in the rear.
Once the medevac was safely out, the corpsman delivered the pile of dog tags to Terry Tillery, rightfully assuming that they belonged with the command group.
“Here,” he began, “somebody’s got to be responsible for these because these guys are all dead.” With that he dropped the muddy collection of stamped tin into Tillery’s open palms.
Tillery wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with them, but he did know that they demanded his immediate attention. Slowly lowering himself back into the security of his fighting hole, he