Chapter 22: Even More Trouble at Loc Ninh 062025

     After reading William Fee's memoirs, I replayed a video of what could be a relatively easily missed scene in David Spielberg's "Pearl Harbor". It's the scene where Jimmy Doolittle stands on the bridge of the aircraft carrier, the Hornet. He is looking down at the two main characters walking together on the deck below, and he says the following to his subordinate standing behind him. "We may lose this battle, but we are going to win this war, Jack. You know how I know?" Jack then replies with a simple, "No." Doolittle responds with a single word. "Them", and he points to the two main characters walking on the deck below. Doolittle goes on to say, "Because they are rare. At times like this, you see them stepping forward. There's nothing stronger than the heart of a volunteer, Jack". With those few words, Doolittle falls silent, and the scene fades.    

     My father was a seventeen-year-old volunteer when he joined the Navy in World War II. He had two good reasons for becoming a volunteer. The first reason was that it was a more exciting way of helping his father put food on the table than working in that tree nursery in Fishersville, Virginia. The second reason was to fight against the global tyranny of Germany and Japan, which had spawned a real fear in most Americans that we would soon be learning to speak German or Japanese if something was not done about their aggression. His reasons were similar to those of many other young men of his generation. Unlike my father, however, most of the grunts who served with me were draftees. The large majority of us would never have volunteered to join the armed services, otherwise. William Fee was also of my generation, but he was cut from a different material than I. In the fall of 1966, Fee was starting his second year at the University of Cincinnati. Unlike my father, Fee had never experienced hunger. He had a remarkable young woman who loved him. He also had a loving family. He belonged to a college fraternity with enough like-minded peers to join him in any vain pursuit he chose. Most of those pursuits had something to do with chasing the opposite sex and getting plastered. What could have motivated him to become a grunt? Was it the memorabilia strewn throughout that VFW hall where his frat party was being held? Was that the needle that pricked his conscience and pushed him over the edge? After reading his memoirs, it seems safe to say that I don't believe even Fee knew why he did what he did. Whatever the reasons, Bill Fee became a true Patriot. Like Oliver Stone, he quit college and chose to serve in a questionable war at the tip of the spear. Perhaps Fee did that for the same reason that my father and Oliver Stone did what they did. Possibly all three volunteered because that was just who they were at heart. Perhaps they were made that way before the eroding winds of a fallen world had time to change them.

     As Doolittle said, young men like this are rare, but at certain times, they do appear. However, although men like these begin well and out in front of the rest of us, a volunteer still needs a great leader, or all that potential will soon go for nothing. Those young volunteers on the Hornet found their great leader in Jimmy Doolittle. Bill Fee and the rest of my Dogface Battalion found our’s in Dick Cavazos. Maybe Oliver Stone's denigrating portrayals of Vietnam Veterans in the movie "Platoon" were the result of his not finding his. Would he have told that same story to audiences across the globe if he had served under a leader like Dick? I don't know the answer to that question.

     On October 30, as I described in the previous chapter, Dick and his headquarters personnel had followed closely behind Fee and D Company as they made a classic fire-and-maneuver advance, up Hill 203. There was the blaring of the long antennae radios and sporadic bursts of automatic weapons. Hundreds of enemy conscripts held the high ground, some shooting from the protection of irrigation ditches. At the beginning of the battle, others had charged down the hill toward A Company. That’s when they killed Amos, Hanson, and Kenter, as I described in the last chapter. Dick countered this enemy attack with well-placed artillery barrages that killed some of the enemy. However, the irrigation ditches gave enough protection for many more to live through those barrages. Those ditches had to be cleared by Fee's D Company grunts. I have already described the tactical details of how that was done in the last chapter. Now, however, I would like to contrast the different personalities and perspectives between Fee and Mac. The battle was a sight to see from Fee’s perspective. Fee’s D Company was being followed closely by “a bulldog looking” figure of a man and his entourage, as Dick calmly walked up that hill while giving blow-by-blow sitreps on the brigade radio. Dick would then turn to give verbal orders to his forward observer walking beside him, pausing at other moments to grab the battalion mic and fine-tune the actions of his company commanders. Now and again, Dick made sure he punctuated those radio transmissions with just the correct number of cursing remarks, knowing that these transmissions over the radios were music in the ears of his senior commanders. Dick was ever so careful, only to denigrate the enemy and not his own subordinates. Yes, Dick was only yards from Fee, and displaying the epitome of what a war commander should be. The generals flying above were bedazzled. Yet, Fee witnessed none of what his commander was doing. You see, Fee was in the heart of the fight. Fee experienced the terror of it all, but Fee did not see it all. He and his D Company buddies were too busy focusing on staying alive to do that.

     Actually, on the same day, October 30, 1967, Mac was in a position to absorb a great deal more about this big battle than Fee, although C Company was not directly involved in the fighting. Instead, they were providing security for the NDP. However, Mac listened intently to the battalion radio and those many informative broadcasts made by Dick. Mac had been with Dick as long as there had been a Dick in Dogface Battalion. He was not the least bit surprised or awed by what he was hearing over the radios as Dick advanced up Hill 203. If D Company and William Fee sensed anything about Dick's prowess, it would come later when they had time to compare notes and think about what they had just gone through. Mac was in a much better position to judge objectively. He had known and trusted Dick for some time now. Mac knew that he was part of something special. He also knew that being part of something this special meant that he could not let his guard down. Fee, like most young grunts, lived for the moment. Mac lived beyond the moment.

     That meant that Mac needed to work harder to keep his guard up. He and his squad were not involved in this fight, but Mac knew quite well that things could turn on a dime. Yes, Mac was inside the wire and holding down the fort. However, he was able to keep more tuned in to what was happening outside that wire than Fee, who was smack-dab in the middle of the fight. Also, Mac was an “old grunt” who had an incessant desire to keep informed about what was going on outside his own little bubble and always kept tuned in to those radio broadcasts without hesitation. It had always been his nature to listen to what was going on around him. Mac was curious because he naturally wanted to anticipate and control situations before they had a chance to control him. Listening carefully to everything going on around him was very important if he were to maintain that control. Many others, like me, had no desire to hear what was coming across those radios. We were comfortable living in our own little world. Yes, we had good instincts, and we could sense danger and even make good decisions in the moment on what to do about countering that danger. Yet, I believe that it was the fear of reproach from those over us that made grunts like me keep our heads down and wait to be told what to do. This propensity in Mac to listen and then act was a rare trait in a young grunt, and it certainly did not go unnoticed by Dick Cavazos. Strangely enough, Mac did not see himself this way. He fancied himself to be just another grunt, and so he walked point a lot. Yet, his real talent was so much rarer.

     Most good point men like Tom Mercer or me had grown up dreaming of living in the fanciful yonder years portrayed by Fess Parker's Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. Mac lived in the present tense. He wasn't much of a dreamer. He was a doer. When the battle of Loc Ninh took place, Mac was already doing what I could only dream of doing. On several occasions, we stood only feet apart. Yet we were worlds apart in our thinking. It would take many years and a lot of hardships for the Holy Spirit to straighten me out. Mac, however, was one of those rare few who were already flying straight toward the mark that they would make on the world.

     A couple of days later, as the sun rose on me in the rubber trees at Quan Loi on November 1, it was also rising on William Fee at Loc Ninh. Fee was sitting in the dirt to the rear of his DePuy bunker. Long gone were his thoughts about the fighting on Hill 203. One of his first thoughts on this day was in anticipation of the tasty hot doughnuts and coffee that I would be air-freighting to him from Quan Loi. My B Company commander, Watts Caudill, had been Fee's company commander at Fort Lewis and remained so until their ship, the Geiger, landed in Vietnam. Unlike most Vietnam Vets, Fee had the opportunity to bond with his fellow grunts during their training at Fort Lewis and on their trip across the Pacific. Now, during the last month together, they had also experienced some of the many horrors of war. He had first gotten to see Dick at work during those deadly days in the Long Nguyên Secret Zone. On the 30th, the taking of Hill 203 was even more spectacular. These were the kind of battles that many combat veterans only see in war movies.

     Fast-forwarding to November 1, Mac and C Company went on a “patrol in force,” while Fee's D Company stayed inside the wire, guarding the NDP. The events of October 30th were now ancient history for both men. Although Mac and Fee would remember those events for a lifetime, they would recall them in vastly different ways. On this day, unlike Mac, if Mac’s C Company encountered a fight, Fee would keep his head down and stay near his bunker. He would have no desire to know what was happening outside the wire. It would have been more probable that Fee would have rummaged through his rucksack, looking for any items to bring him a little immediate comfort, than worrying about a firefight somewhere that did not involve him. Of course, cigarettes were the most coveted comfort items. However, I liked Bit-O-Honeys.

     On this same fine November day, Mac also got to enjoy my tasty donuts, but he had to swallow them quickly, because today was his company’s turn to go on a patrol in force. Because Mac liked to take the initiative more than most of us, his squad was chosen to do something else. They were picked to walk point for the entire company, although it was not their turn. That euphoric feeling that came from being promoted around guys like me instantly turned into a "slap in the face" feeling for Mac. It didn't take the quick-witted Mac McLaughlin two seconds to realize that not a single grunt in his squad was going to give him a standing ovation when he announced that news. They had already done more than their fair share. Now, they were being singled out to do even more. Never mind that it was because leadership favored them. The average grunt, like me, knew that doing more in the Army meant that more would quickly be expected. That’s another reason why there were very few people like Mac. Quite frankly, after the sniper school incident, I had become the very antithesis of Mac. There was considerable complaining when Mac's squad got the news.           

     Nevertheless, Mac's men buckled under and got ready to go. Fortunately, they encountered only one "hairy moment" on patrol when Mac spotted three VC trying to lure them into giving chase. After making sure Mac and friends saw them, they disappeared over a slight rise. Dick, who was tagging along with the patrol, knew immediately that they were being lured into a trap. He directed the patrol to change directions.

     Other than this one tense moment, the patrol was quiet. Still, just the stress of leading a patrol in this dangerous area left C Company in no mood to join D Company people in their letter writing at the end of this day. When they returned from their patrol, a delicious can of peaches would have been in order, but no letter writing. Not today. Fee and his D Company were rested and more apt to think of home, but Mac and company were worn out, or at least his men were. Mac still had things to do and people to see. Worn out or not, he still had to help O Be's squad get ready for ambush patrol.

     To further discourage a night attack on Dick's perimeter, defensive measures had been greatly improved. These recent battles of Operation Shenandoah II had been the heaviest ground fighting of the war so far for The Big Red One. Regardless of that much heavier fighting, with Dick in charge, my Dogface Battalion was losing fewer and fewer men. The communists were losing more and more. Vast numbers of enemy conscripts had been recently slaughtered, but the communist leadership didn't care. They were more than willing to sacrifice millions more if that's what it took for them to stay in power. Westmoreland was blinded to this fact of life. After winning the war, the communists caused millions of Vietnamese to lose their lives. Those lives were lost because no flavor of totalitarianism can exist without completely enslaving all those who live under its control. Many South Vietnamese who had tasted freedom were believed to be resistant to that enslavement. So, after the war, they were ferreted out and imprisoned or killed.          

     Additional trip flares and Claymores were strung out in front of every position. The irrigation ditches to the front of Fee's bunker were also laced with additional claymores and flares. Some trip wires were set to go off when the wire was cut rather than when it was tugged on by one's foot. Ground flares were hoarded in each bunker because they could be thrown by hand to provide light under the rubber tree foliage. You see, the artillery flares, which popped open high above the rubber trees, were shaded from illuminating the ground beneath those trees. However, hand-thrown flares could be used to light up the perimeter. Dick had walked that perimeter several times. On his first walk, he had made several men reposition their DePuy bunkers so they would provide better coverage. A pit was dug on the right side of Fee's bunker to store the newly arrived 90 mm rockets. They had recently been flown in on the resupply chopper, but no one really knew how to deploy or store them. I am sure that Dick was aware of their arrival, but I know that he certainly did not realize that they were being placed in an open pit next to Fee’s bunker. They also had no overhead cover to shelter them from mortars or RPGs. An enemy mortar or an RPG round landing amongst them could be devastating. Even so, only so many precautions could be taken. There would always be loose ends left undone by any unit, no matter how well prepared that unit was. That's just a given in war.

     Over in the command bunker for C Company's Lima platoon, Sergeant John May, who had started his tour in my platoon, was the only person in the battalion who wasn't wishing for some downtime. John really didn't give a flip, because tomorrow morning he would be getting on that first supply chopper and heading for our main base camp at Di An. Once there, he would be processed out for a seven-day R&R in Hawaii. John's wife was already on the way from their home in Chicago to meet him when he arrived in Hawaii. Mac, on the other hand, had long since filed his pleasant memories of his Australian R&R into the far reaches of his mind. While Platoon Sergeant John May was going through the motions and dreaming of Hawaii, Mac was still running at full speed, like the Eveready Bunny. Not only did he need to help O Be get ready for his squad's ambush patrol, but he would also be required to spread his squad out to cover empty bunkers, left behind by O Be's men. That task was easier said than done. O Be's grunts would go about 500 meters north and set up a perimeter in the middle of some rubber trees. There, they would have a good view out to about two hundred meters. However, that view would only last until the sun went down. After that, everything would become as black as black could be. Still, that was okay with O Be. They were not new at this. They had experienced enough pitch-black nights to realize that the enemy would also not be able to see a thing. They were also smart enough to take a bearing on the row of rubber trees, which they would use as guideposts just in case they needed to get the heck out of Dodge fast. A and D companies also sent out ambush patrols, but Fee would get to stay home tonight. The members of all three ambush patrols gathered their gear slowly at first but sped up their efforts as the sun sank lower. Most knew that they needed to be in their assigned positions on the map before the moonless night closed in around them. They might reposition after dark, but probably not. That was a decision they would make on the spot, not at this moment. Dick and his handpicked subordinates gave us a lot of leeway on how we wanted to play things after we left the wire. By this late date in the year, the heavy rains were subsiding, and on this night, everyone would be able to stay dry. Hopefully, they would also be able to stay alive, because soon they would have hundreds of enemy troops warming over each of their ambush positions.

     It was around the third watch on A Company's ambush patrol when they heard noises further south, coming through the rubber trees and getting closer to them by the minute. By now, everyone in the patrol was already wide awake and ready for the order to make a break for the NDP. They had been awakened about twenty minutes earlier when they heard the thumping of mortar rounds leaving the tubes farther south of their position. Many of those enemy mortar rounds landed around Mac's side of the perimeter. The enemy was obviously trying to take out the 105 mm guns located just behind C Company's perimeter. Soon after that, everyone in my Dogface Battalion was wide awake and getting ready for an all-out attack on their perimeter. Fee's D company was covering the east side of the perimeter. Rubber trees shaded that position, but Mac's position was in the open outside the rubber trees. There was also a deep gorge running parallel and in front of the positions manned by  Mac's platoon. Cam must have had good maps because he did not attack Mac's side of the perimeter, where he would have had to cross that deep gorge. Additionally, his troops would have had no rubber trees to provide shade for their advance. Cam split his main force and had most attacks from the south first, then from the east and the northeast.

     Dick's three company commanders performed superbly during the night. A significant reason for that was that Dick didn't micromanage them. They also knew that they would have his support in any decisions they made. Dick had already put in place company commanders who knew how to make sensible decisions. The company commanders of A and D companies quickly permitted ambush patrols to blow claymore mines and come home. Those two patrols were followed hard by swarms of conscripts of the 273rd regiment, who could hear the claymores explode but could not see the Americans. The ambush patrols were relatively safe in the pitch-black night as long as they moved quickly and followed their predetermined azimuth home. No, the enemy would not have been able to follow them in the dark, but they were going the same way, and there were hordes of them. Dick told each company commander to hold their fire until they were sure that the enemy was pressing its attack at the wire. He knew that we grunts tended to fire off uncontrollably in the heat of the moment. He needed to give those ambush patrols time to make it home before that happened. Dick also did not want his men to run out of ammunition in the middle of an assault.

     The mortar attack lasted for twenty minutes, and soon afterward, Fee heard several explosions to the front of his DePuy bunker. It was the listening post blowing their claymore mines and returning to the NDP. Fee's friend, Steve Diehl, was one of those three men in that listening post. He became disoriented in the darkness and jumped into Fee's bunker instead of his own. There were now four men in Fee's bunker. Our DePuy bunkers were designed for three men, not four. Two men would operate the ports on each side, shooting through them at roughly a 45-degree angle. The third man guarded the entrance at the back and helped the other two with anything that required his help. "They're coming", Diehl said. Yes, the enemy was coming, but the scouts and guides were who Diehl heard coming. They always went first to locate the American lines so they could stop the main force and then position them in attack formations. That's why Fee later heard whistles. Whistles and bugles were used in the pitch-black darkness to help assemble those formations. Tonight, Cam would launch his main assault on A Company's side of the perimeter first. 

     Meanwhile, on Mac's side of the perimeter, while the mortar attack was still underway, Johnny O'Conner abandoned his post on orders from C Company Commander Bill Annan. He had received no response from his own platoon leader, Lt. Zima,  when he tried to call him first before talking to Captain Annan. That was the proper chain of command protocol. Upon returning to the perimeter, Johnny joined Mac in the entryway of their DePuy bunker and delivered the news that they could not reach the platoon command bunker. Johnny had used Mac's squad radio on LP (listing post), so Mac was unable to monitor events taking place around him until Johnny returned from the LP. Those first few minutes during the mortar attack, without his radio, were not good. He needed to know what was going on around him so he could react accordingly. For Mac, his radio was a piece of equipment that was second only in importance to his M-14. He was glad to see Johnny, but he was also happy to see that radio. Johnny unslung it from his shoulder and handed it down to RTO Coleman inside the protection of the bunker. The command bunker was only a few yards away. Mac could see a glow coming from the ammo pit just behind the bunker. Enemy mortar rounds continued to rain down. "Johnny, stay here with the radio. I am going to check on the command bunker and find out why no one is answering their radio". Johnny made no reply. Instead, he grabbed Mac's arm to prevent him from leaving and said, "Mac, you got a piece of shrapnel sticking out of your shoulder". Mac calmly replied, "Well, okay, Johnny. Can you pull it out?" Johnny did, and Mac launched out into the darkness. Doc Houchins arrived just seconds before Mac disappeared into that darkness. Mac quickly brushed him off as he tried to look at Mac's shoulder. He had to find out what was happening at the command bunker and why they weren't answering their radio. When Mac got to the command bunker, he found it to be a mess. The entrance had taken a direct hit from a mortar round. Sergeant John May was dead, and Lt. Zima was severely wounded. The radio operator, David Estus, was injured, and his radio was damaged. At the same time, Mac couldn't help but notice a fire coming from the ammo pit, behind the command bunker. At this moment, the first artillery flare popped open above Mac's head, and since his side of the NDP had no rubber trees, it lit up the entire area. In the light of that flare and the glow of the fire, he spotted a jerry can full of water sitting beside the command bunker. He grabbed it to pour into the ammo pit, but quickly realized that it was a useless endeavor. Rifle rounds were now starting to cook off. A rifle casing whizzed by Mac's head. There were also boxes of grenades in that pit. It didn't take the genius in Mac long to realize that he was in the wrong place, trying to do the wrong thing. That ammo pit was going to explode, and there wasn't anything that he could do about it, except save himself. Dropping the jerry can, Mac made a beeline back toward his squad. His squad was okay, but he now needed to give a sitrep to Capt. Annan. When Annan got the news about Lt. Zima and Sergeant May, he quickly agreed that Mac should take over Lima Platoon. Zima had severe wounds around his head and neck and couldn't talk. I believe that O'Be was the senior squad leader to Mac, but he was still out on an ambush patrol. About this same time, the ammo pit went up in a massive explosion.  

     The mortar attack ceased. That meant that a ground attack was imminent. Dick had ordered everyone to hold their fire until the trip flares were tripped. That was a definite indication that the enemy was in the wire. Dick had long since had his forward observers drop artillery into preregistered coordinates around the perimeter. His individual company commanders already knew that they had his blessing to chime in and fine-tune any artillery fires during the actual attack. Sleepy-eyed senior commanders at Quan Loi could not help but be awed by what they were hearing over their radios. Dick's battle communications were a symphonic marvel to their ears. He was calm, cool, and collected. His superiors didn't have to think. All they had to do was listen. Dick already had the answers before they had to produce a half-baked one themselves. He notified his forward air controllers to drop their ordinance much closer than most commanders would have dreamed of doing. He also instructed them to direct their bombing routes to fly parallel to the outside edge of the line of flares marking the perimeter, approximately 100 meters out. Burning flares clearly marked the boundary of the NDP as seen from the air. Men from inside the perimeter continued to throw new flares out in front of them as the old ones burned out. It made directing traffic for an experienced air controller look easy. Those American flyboys followed the forward observer's instructions to the letter. Thank God it wasn't raining, or they would have been grounded. Most commanders were fortunate to get air assets dialed in as close as 500 meters. Not Dick. I had felt the intense heat from napalm several times when my squad was running point for him.

     Since the first attack came from the south, A Company's south side ambush patrol was the first to hear noises. Guides, not the main force, were creating those noises. If their small party had been facing the main force, then there would have been a much greater chance of them being overwhelmed before they had a chance to get away. Those local guides always approached the perimeter first. They would then stop and wait to position the main force coming along behind. By the fall of 1967, the NVA had received huge supplies of RPGs. Earlier in the year, we did not see such large numbers of these weapons. The enemy was now using these RPGs as their mobile artillery. On this night, main force RPG crews would be positioned just to the rear of those conscripts, following them up to the wire and then firing their rockets over them into the NDP. These RPG crews consisted of naive teenagers, as did the main force conscripts. Most had never been in a single battle and would not be in another, after tonight, because they would be dead. They were rice farmers' kids who had been brainwashed since they were toddlers. At this point in their naive lives, they had been told over and over that the weapons they carried would make them invincible. They believed that lie because they were kids, and kids can be brainwashed into thinking and doing anything. Their NCOs knew better. The smart ones would run to the rear once they got their conscripts launched out in the right direction. Once the return fire started, there would be so much confusion that they wouldn't have any worries about being caught and branded a coward for running away. Furthermore, these lower-level NCOs and officers were brilliant individuals who had survived a great deal, and they were not about to tattle on each other for withdrawing rather than facing what they all knew was certain death. Later, as I have already said, they could tell the story anyway they wanted to tell it, or better yet, let the American press tell the story, and they would then surely be decorated as heroes.          

      Soon after, A Company's ambush patrol arrived safely within the perimeter, and the main enemy force also approached A Company's side of the perimeter. They were then formed up for the attack. When the whistle blew to signal the attack, they charged the wire, and the RPG crews fired their rockets. Many of these were then cut down by the immediate and enormous amount of return fire. Within a couple of minutes, barrages of artillery rounds started exploding around the attacking force. Some turned and tried to run. Some lay flat on the ground and hoped they wouldn't be blown to bits like those around them. Others charged toward the perimeter in the confusion, and what was left turned tail and boogied out when they saw that their NCOs had already done the same. Initially, the higher-ranking NVA officers had hung back several hundred meters from what they knew would become a killing field. If their conscripts breached the American perimeter, fine, but if they didn't, then they would wait at that safer distance to regroup the survivors. These field officers maintained wired communications with Cam, while those killing field survivors were reassembled to move out or join fresh troops who would attack other positions on the perimeter. The more open ground of the rubber tree plantation allowed Cam to reassemble and maneuver his forces much more quickly than would have been possible if he had been fighting in the dense jungle. When the already wide-awake D Company ambush patrol heard noise, coming at them from the east, they blew claymores, and like A Company ambush patrol, they high-tailed it home.                 

      Fee's D Company and Mac's C Company could do nothing but wait and listen to the battle on A Company's side of the perimeter. They were also able to see the big jets as they made their runs along A Company's perimeter just a little further out than the artillery fires. Further out, green tracers from heavy machine guns streaked upward from the ground, and red tracers from American gunships streaked downward toward the earth. At some point, Mac actually witnessed a lucky hit on a bomb being dropped from a jet. At first, the midair explosion led Mac to believe that the jet had been hit by machine gun fire and had subsequently exploded. Then he saw the afterburners of the jet kick in as it climbed out of its dive. He then knew that the jet was okay. All this was a sight that Dick's boys would never forget. During the lull, while Cam's forces regrouped to attack D Company's side of the perimeter, Fee, Diehl, Ciliberti, and Fierro hunkered down on the backside of their DePuy bunker. There was no room inside for all four to fit. I don't understand why Diehl did not return to his own bunker when the attack on A Company subsided. That bunker would now be short a man. Fee mentioned that things quieted down enough for him to eat a C-ration can of pears. That would have given Diehl time to return to his own assigned position. However, he didn't, and that would have dire consequences for Fee.

     Fee was the last man on the right side of the bunker when the main attack was launched against his D Company. All four men were outside and behind the bunker, shooting over the top of the sandbag roof of the bunker. To Fee's right was another sandbag wall protecting one of those new rocket launchers. Since there was no overhead cover protecting the rocket launcher, an enemy RPG round soon struck and destroyed it. The resulting explosion severely wounded Fee's right shoulder. The platoon medic, Frank Passantino, was quick to arrive, but there was not much he could do. Fee was losing blood and needed the medical attention that only a hospital could provide. Frank, however, did not let Fee know how bad it was. Instead, he gave him a morphine shot and propped him up against a rubber tree directly behind his buddies. The battle raged on. Doc Passantino moved on to another man who had been shot in the stomach.

      As Fee sat against the rubber tree, his three companions continued to fire sporadically to their front. Still, the attack soon lost steam when the American artillery started chewing up the attacking conscripts. As white sap from the damaged branches of the rubber tree dripped down on Fee, he soon became mentally detached from what was going on around him. Maybe what happened next was caused by the morphine, or perhaps it was the spiritual side of Fee. I, personally, think that it was his spiritual side. Fee looked up and saw the face of his future father-in-law, whom he had not known well at all. The man had died suddenly in September, and yet Fee was looking into his face. In a calm voice, he assured Fee that he was not going to die. That was it. After making that brief statement, his father-in-law's face vanished. Yet, there was an unexplainable, yet peaceful sensation that rolled over Fee's soul, like rays of warm sunshine. I have had several of those spiritual encounters, and I can assure the reader that they were not drug-induced. We are connected to a spiritual realm, and although we struggle to understand that spiritual side of things, it's not imaginary. It does exist.

      It was almost an hour before Doc Passantino reappeared and gathered Fee to his feet. "Come on, Fee, you are getting out of here", he said. He explained to Fee that he was going to catch a ride aboard a resupply helicopter and be flown back to Quan Loi. Fee almost passed out walking to the helicopter. It probably felt like the longest walk of his life because of his weakened state. Also, the choppers could only land in the clearing on the other side of the perimeter near Mac's bunker. Thankfully, Quan Loi was only about 25 miles away and a fifteen-minute chopper ride at most. Dick couldn't get a "Dust-Off" (med-evac) to come to his aid. Evidently, the rules had been changed since that rainy night at the beginning of October. No Med Evac was now allowed to fly into a hostile situation, especially at night. There was a good reason for this change. By now, the Big Red One had lost many fearless flyers who tried to retrieve the wounded in the midst of battle, a rainstorm, or both. That had been the case with those brave flyers coming to the rescue of Dingle on that rainy night a few weeks before. Just as then, I am sure those Dust-Off pilots would have shown up this time too, if they had not been threatened with a court-martial for disobeying that new standard operating procedure (SOP). Such was the dedication of these unsung heroes to saving lives. However, Dick knew that this new SOP did not restrain our resupply choppers and would be able to bring resupplies at any time. So, he ordered resupplies shortly after Mac's ammo pit blew up. The battle was still intense when they arrived, but Dick personally ordered them grounded until his severely wounded could be loaded aboard. Fee was one of those. Mac's platoon leader, Paul Zima, was another. The man shot in the stomach, Willie Carson, was another. All three men would likely have died had Dick not taken the action he took. Looking back, it seems like this would have been such a logical thing for any commander to do. However, it's incredible how many logical and straightforward actions were overlooked in the heat of battle. By the time Fee received blood transfusions, he had lost half his body's blood supply. He definitely would have died sitting under that rubber tree if Dick had not personally intervened.

     After Acting Commander Cam's second attack failed, as miserably as the first, he assembled the survivors, along with his remaining fresh conscripts, to launch a third attack. The show went on, not because Cam's boss, Tran Van Tra, had any hope of breaching Dick's defenses, but because he had every hope of breaching the resolve of the American people themselves. Cam's conscripts were now formed up in a staging area several hundred meters north of the last lonely ambush patrol still in place. That patrol was Mac's second squad of Lima Platoon. Mac was now acting as the platoon leader and was well aware of their situation. When the battle first started, O Be and the rest of that patrol lay low and listened warily to the familiar sounds of a big battle. From the first moment they heard mortars explode inside the perimeter, their priority changed from waiting to shoot a few VC to making sure that everyone could be ready to run and run fast. However, they stayed put because that seemed like the safest thing to do. The new guy, David Gilbert, moved closer to his team leader, Ray Etherton, and kept his mouth shut. It was a long time before they heard noises coming their way. I have no idea what kind of noises they heard because no one said. Witnesses just said they heard noises. I went on a lot of ambush patrols, but I missed that class where we were in imminent danger of being discovered and overrun by an overwhelming enemy force. I can only give a scanty report of O Be's situation, at best. What I do know is this. The second squad heard noises. They would not have been able to see anything because on November 1, 1967, the moon was a 1% crescent moon. That meant that under the canopy of those rubber trees, they could not have seen their hand in front of their face.

     Time sped up as soon as O Be radioed Mac about the noises coming from their front. Mac immediately permitted the patrol to blow claymores and run for their lives, although he didn't say it quite that way over the radio. Mac, in turn, had already been permitted by Captain Annan to do what he thought best. In a similar situation, my squad would have used our red lens flashlights to help us stay together in the darkness. I assume this is what they did too, although I don't know for sure. The enemy's green tracers initially flew in every direction when the patrol popped their claymores, but that was okay. In the darkness, those wildly fired enemy bullets were not their greatest threat. Getting separated in that darkness was. The next greatest danger was being shot by their own men when they approached the perimeter. However, everything was going well. They were halfway home. The point man was doing a good job of following the return azimuth, which lined up closely with the distant glow of artillery flares lighting up Mac's open side of the perimeter. O Be was the rear guard covering their backside. Then it happened. It may have been a reflex action coming from O Be. Perhaps O Be believed that those enemy soldiers, following them, were getting a little too close. I can only guess. However, if that was the case, O Be was no novice. He was a gun slinger, and he was not about to let an enemy come close enough to get the drop on him.

     Whatever the reason, O Be opened up with his M-14, spewing red tracers into the darkness and toward the sounds. He got an immediate response of green tracers coming at him and the squad from scores of enemy automatic weapons. O Be kept returning that fire. Finally, after Etherton screamed at him to stop shooting, he realized that he was giving away their position and stopped. O Be stopped firing, but the return fire did not die down. It became so intense that one in a thousand of those blind rounds pierced one of the men's straps on his web gear, and another went through the stock on an M-16. Americans inside the perimeter saw the muzzle flashes and green tracers and started returning fire. The ambush patrol was now caught in a crossfire. Fortunately, the terrain dipped about ten meters lower than the terrain around the perimeter, so the fire from the perimeter went over the patrol's heads. Mac was horrified at what he was seeing. Tom Mercer and Johnny O' Conner later agreed that it looked like Hell was chasing behind the ambush patrol as they ran toward the perimeter. It was a miracle that every man returned without a scratch. It was also a miracle that the young grunt, Mac McLaughlin, was saved from that most gut-wrenching experience of command, which would have been the loss of those men in less than an hour after taking over. Fortunately, Mac was spared dealing with that for the rest of his life. That most terrible weight of command was lifted off him, like a millstone off a drowning man's neck, as he watched each man's smiling face trickle through the wire into the relative safety of the NDP. Dick was busy when he got the news, but not too busy to look up toward the night sky and say, "Thank you".

     That third assault was launched shortly after O Be's men made it back to the safety of the NDP. That attack was repelled quickly. The attack lost any element of surprise when Cam's conscripts opened up on O Be's retreating ambush patrol. After this third attack, Cam was running low on naive teenage conscripts to throw at my Dogface Battalion. However, that was okay. It was even expected. There were millions of other warm bodies from which these came. Cam would hold up in a jungle hideout somewhere in War Zone C and wait for his ranks to be replenished. Those replacements would be marched down a spider web of ox cart trails to swell his ranks again within a matter of days, not weeks. While he was waiting, those conscripts, who had lived through these recent horrific engagements with Dogface, would be turned over to communist Svengalis. There would be medals. There would be promotions. There would be dope and sex provided by that same gigantic human trafficking ring that brought them here. There would be half-truths spun about the recent events. Those lies would be so skillfully woven that no conscript could come close to unraveling truth from fiction. One might ask, "Is this true?" However, a discerning believer in Christ has only to listen to so-called liberal podcasters of today to realize that what I am saying is absolutely true. Truth is, all who base their core beliefs on the messages of this world, placing that messaging above God's Holy Word, become liars. They quickly come under the influence of powerful supernatural forces, persuading them to not only believe lies over the truth, but they, themselves, become the lie. When this happens, these wretched creatures expect others to not only believe what they say, but to become who they are, as a false sense of godliness takes shape in their souls.  

     As the sun rose on November 2, 1967, the Battle of Loc Ninh could be chalked up as one more Victory for the Big Red One. We Americans were two steps closer to losing the war. My Dogface Battalion continued to camp in the rubber trees until November 6, and then returned to Quan Loi, where most considered it downtime. Never mind that my fellow grunts were pulling perimeter guard and sleeping on the ground while I was sleeping on a cot in the mess hall tent. 

     Mac survived Loc Ninh. He completed his tour of duty in Vietnam in January. After completing his service to his country, he went home and finished college. He then obtained a law degree. Early on, he also found an excellent partner in life when he saw Christine. In the 1980s, Mac served his country again when he was appointed to the office of federal prosecutor for the Northern District of Ohio.