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. Next Chapter (Last Chapter) |