Loon - Jack McLean [78]
The second Phantom followed on an identical run. No AK-47S were heard. I put my head down as the second payload of canisters was dropped, and listened for the screams.
There were none.
The target had been annihilated.
The fighting continued sporadically for the rest of the afternoon. The two remaining corpsmen had their hands full as they crawled from one wounded marine to another to stop the bleeding and administer immediate triage. One corpsman was working fruitlessly on Mel Langston, a nineteen-year-old private first class from Valentine, Nebraska. Langston had been shot through the helmet and had a bullet lodged in his skull. The round was clearly visible in his head. He died an hour later.
The sky remained filled with rocket-laden Huey gunships that were making regular assaults on the enemy positions. High above, there was a spotter plane directing fire, but the NVA kept coming. We continued to take wounded and continued to contract our perimeter up the hill to compensate for the increasing manpower shortage.
As the afternoon wore on, Bill Negron was becoming concerned about the two reported helicopter crash survivors that were out there somewhere. They were probably lost, certainly disoriented, and would have no way, in all the confusion, of knowing where we were.
So, he hatched another plan.
Gathering most of us who were on that side of the hill, he had us stand in loose formation and, with every ounce of breath that we could muster, sing “The Marines’ Hymn.”
From the Halls of Montezuma,
To the Shores of Tripoli;
We fight our country’s battles
In the air, on land, and sea …
I am not kidding.
At the time, I thought that we were just giving a big fuck-you to the enemy, but the Skipper would never have needlessly put us in harm’s way. Instead, he was trying to signal to the two lost marines so that they would know where we were.
Minutes later, the familiar sound of rotors rose behind us as two marine helicopters flew over to survey the crash site for survivors. The sound of the AK-47 fire directed at them again became deafening. The pilot spotted several hundred uniformed NVA soldiers several hundred meters east of the downed chopper. Incredibly, over the next twenty minutes, with covering fire from the air and the ground, the rescue chopper was able to extract Corporal Santangelo and three other marines—two had been part of the downed chopper’s crew.
Given the crash of the two helicopters and the near-impossible evacuation that he had just witnessed, Bill Negron knew now that our chances of being evacuated were remote at best. He could barely imagine that even a marine helicopter pilot would take such a suicidal risk. We were surrounded by a vastly superior force and were low on ammo. Nightfall was coming.
Negron needed a new plan.
If we stayed on the hill, we would in all likelihood die.
It would be one hell of a fight, and we would take legions of them with us, but losing the balance of an entire Marine Corps rifle company was not an option. He passed the word that we should gather every compass and map that we could find. We had already taken all of the serviceable equipment from the dead. Any of the wounded who had been evacuated had left their compasses, maps, water, and ammo behind.
We were in better shape than Negron might have thought. There were maps and compasses for nearly every marine who was left.
Negron then passed the word that we would most likely be leaving by foot shortly after dark. We would be in three-man teams, quietly abandon the hill, and head due north through the jungle using our escape and evasion training and skills.
Several miles due north was Route 9. It was open and secure during daylight hours. All we had to do was keep heading due north all night. Some of us would make it; most