THE ORDER

     I recalled my earlier conversation with General Lynch. On September 15th, he received a confusing call from regimental HQ. Higher ordered the battalion’s rifle companies back to the LZ. The puzzling nature of the transmission did not surprise him. Marines assumed the NVA heard every word of their unencrypted communication. The order itself, however, concerned him most. Several hundred Marines already crowded Margo. It made no tactical sense to pack in several hundred more. Lynch argued his point. He knew the NVA watched their every move. The situation on the ground made it nearly impossible to comply. For reasons unclear, the order stood. Lynch directed the companies to about face and head back to the LZ.

     Lynch continued arguing. The order was a disaster waiting to happen. The officer on the opposite end of the radio ran his concerns up the chain of command. Lynch hoped common sense would prevail. While he waited, he ordered the rifle companies to about face once again back into the hills. As expected, all three companies surprised the pursuing NVA, and firefights erupted. At the same time, Foxtrot Marines spotted 20 NVA soldiers with mortar tubes on their backs wading across the Cam Lo River, just west of the LZ.

     Lynch raised higher once more, armed with these new developments. He grew louder and more exasperated with each breath. He shed any concern for his own reputation, in an effort to make his point.

     “It was an exercise in the use of profanity,” he gently recalled.

     Higher refused to hear it. The order stood. To make matters worse, an arbitrary time limit was assigned for Lynch’s compliance. Higher also directed Lynch to squeeze the entire battalion south of an arbitrary grid line, running through Margo on the map. Whoever made this call was not factoring any tactical implications. Through all the cryptic language, Lynch finally deciphered the reasoning behind the order. A B-52 Arc-Light mission was coming. These high altitude carpet bombings devastated huge swaths of the jungle. One was already on the way. The entire battalion needed to be in the LZ by 1400 on September 16th, in order to keep a safe distance.

     Lynch passed word. A sense of dread pervaded the CP. Lt Wonders returned to his hole and grabbed his e-tool. The Marine who helped him dig the first day watched him hacking away again.

     “What’s going on sir?”

     “Come on. We need to make this deeper.”

ATTACK

     The unfolding tragedy revealed itself to me in pieces. I listened to Marines around the room. Each had their own story. On the morning of the 16th, the rifle companies reversed direction a final time and headed back to Margo. Most of the Marines were out of water and looked forward to refilling their canteens at the spring in the LZ. Echo Company entered the perimeter last. By the time they arrived, there was nowhere for them to go. Lance Corporal Teddy Banks, an 18 year old rifleman, helped carry a Marine KIA up the hill. He placed the body at the casualty collection point, then joined his friend, Harry Rivers. Banks stripped off his gear and lay down his rifle, thankful to doff the burden. He noticed a cache of supplies dropped further up the hill.

     “Hey Rivers, I’m gonna head up there and see if I can find some chow. I’ll be right back.”

     Banks made it halfway to the supplies. Suddenly, a sound echoed across the hill.

     “THOOMP, THOOMP, THOOMP, THOOMP, THOOMP.”

     It sounded distant, yet close. Banks knew the sound of outgoing mortars, but had never been on the receiving end. Other, more experienced Marines let him know what was about to occur.

     “INCOMING! INCOMING!”

     Before he could react, mortar rounds exploded at the top of the hill, showering him in debris.

     “THOOMP, THOOMP, THOOMP, THOOMP.”

     He instantly regretted dropping his gear. He sprinted back down the hill. Rivers and the others in his squad were gone. Banks threw on his helmet and slid his arms through the flak jacket. As he grabbed his M16, an explosion flung him through the air. He felt like someone had trampled him over, running up his right side. When the shock of the explosion wore off, Banks examined himself. He saw blood on his arm, but could not move it to inspect the wound. His helmet fell off as he tumbled, but his right hand still clutched his rifle. He tried to stand, but could not move his right leg. The mortars fell in a downpour, raking across the LZ. Banks used his working left side to crawl up a small incline, where the rest of his squad moved. He reached the top and looked down the other side. The remains of Harry Rivers filled the bottom of a small crater. His hole took a direct hit.

     On the other side of the LZ, Private First Class Steve Haisley, from Hotel Company, watched the mortars explode in rapid succession. Deafening shock waves pulsed towards him, and black smoke billowed with each impact. The rounds began to move, walking his direction. Haisley found a hole nearby with a Marine taking cover.

     “Move over, I’m coming in!”

     He curled up as he dove into the hole. It was not deep enough to fully protect him. He closed his eyes, but heard the explosions coming closer and closer. For the first time in his life, Haisley fully expected to die. He had been in Vietnam five months. He had been afraid before, even believed he would be killed. His teenage invincibility always pushed the fear aside. This was different. He saw exactly how he would die, and heard death coming. Haisley opened his eyes. He locked onto the Marine next to him, a kid just like himself. Would this be the last face he saw?

     “Please God, I’m 19! I can’t die yet! Not like this!”

     A mortar crashed down next to the hole. Haisley felt a searing sledge hammer plow into his left arm. Surprised, he looked down at unrecognizable carnage hanging from his shoulder. He did not even notice the hole in his back. He thought to investigate the arm further. With mortars falling all around, Haisley stood. The half of his arm below the elbow fell dead, severed completely, except for a shred of skin. He froze, fixated on his forearm suspended by a thread. The Marine with him reached up, grabbed his belt, and yanked him back down into the hole.

     “Get down! You’re hit pretty bad!”

     He stabilized Haisley on the bottom of the hole and yelled over the roar.

     “CORPSMAN!”

COURAGE AND CHAOS

     Near the CP, Alan Green and seven other Marines took cover in the FDC. When the mortars began, Green dove into the crater and instinctively placed both hands over his crotch. Every Marine with him mirrored his defensive posture. The look on one young Marine’s face spelled terror, just as much as the sound of death raining down. Screams filled the air along with the explosions. Several of Green’s mortar crews took direct hits. The big guns broke and flew in pieces; the Marines manning them did as well.

     After several minutes of constant bombardment, a shout came from higher up the hill.

     “Fire mission! Fire mission!”

     Staff Sergeant James Doner, from the Reconnaissance Platoon, saw muzzle flashes in the distance. He grabbed his map and worked out the grid coordinates. He shouted them down the hill to the Marines in the FDC. They immediately went to work. One of the Marines picked up the telephone to communicate with the gun crews. After several attempts, he turned to Green and yelled over the explosions.

     “I can’t get a response! I think all the land lines are cut!”

     Green crossed the FDC to snatch the stolen megaphone. He jumped out of the hole and surveyed the hill. Smoke obscured his line of sight on some gun pits. Some were just gone. Other mortars tubes stood tall, ready to take the fight back at the NVA. He crouched and lifted the megaphone to his lips.

     “Fire mission! Fire mission! Come on you United States Marines! Get out of your holes and get on your guns!”

     His booming voice roused the Marines into action. They readied their ammo and adjusted the mortars to the coordinates Green communicated. As he jumped back into his hole, Green looked out across the gun pits. Only the top half of the tubes protruded above the rim of their holes. Hands flashed up into view dropping rounds down the tubes. The sound of his own mortars firing mixed with the incoming rounds, nearly indistinguishable. It felt good to fight back.

     Two hundred mortar rounds fell on LZ Margo in less than ten minutes. They continued falling. The NVA walked rounds back and forth across the tightly packed hilltop. Explosions and gunfire kept the volume at a deafening level. If a pause in either happened to coincide, screaming filled the void. Smoke enveloped the hill, limiting visibility. Despite the chaos, initial shock gave way to courage.

     An M60 machine gun opened up from a hole a few meters from Green. Corporal Joe Cooper blasted away at a distant enemy, unseen from Green’s position. When the barrel burned bright red and overheated, Cooper grabbed it off the gun with his bare hand, replaced it with a new one, and continued firing. Higher up the hill, SSgt Doner and another Marine likewise opened up with their M60. Mortars landed near Cooper and Doner, peppering their bodies with shrapnel and knocking them off their guns. Green turned back in time to see an entire mortar crew, loaded with ammo, pop up and dash from their gun pit. An explosion knocked their mortar out of action. The Marines sprinted through smoke and shrapnel to the nearest firing gun.

     “A squad leader in the old gun became an ammo humper on the new gun,” Green told me. “It was incredible, and guys died doing it. It was inspiring. It was heartbreaking. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”

     At the spring, Marines were caught in the open filling canteens. LCpl Clifton Spiller ran to their aid when the rounds walked away. He picked up a wounded Marine, and moved towards the nearest corpsman. The mortars walked back his direction. He knelt, dropped the Marine, and laid over top of him. Explosions rocked the spring again. Spiller jerked as metal and rocks ripped his body. Two others, PFC Larry McCartney and LCpl Gary Daffin, observed the carnage from a nearby hole. Daffin told McCartney to head to the CP and find a corpsman, while he went to aid Spiller and the others by the water. They stood from their hole, turned their backs to each other, and headed in opposite directions. Simultaneously, a mortar exploded between them. Shrapnel buried into McCartney’s flak jacket and rifle, but he sustained only minor wounds. On Daffin’s side of the blast, a large piece of metal flew between the back of his helmet and collar of his flak jacket, nearly decapitating him. McCartney recovered quickly enough to catch Daffin before he fell, killed instantly. By the time help arrived, Clifton Spiller and every other Marine around the waterhole, except McCartney, was already dead.