We Were Soldiers Once...and Young (46 page)

On November 22, his fifth day alone, a North Vietnamese soldier on the tail end of a passing column looked into the hole in the brush and saw the American. Braveboy said: "Four walked by me and the last one looked me right in the eye. He stopped and pointed his rifle at me. I raised my wounded hand and shook my head no. He lowered his rifle and walked away. So young. He was just a boy, not more than sixteen or seventeen."

The U.S. Air Force had begun targeting fighter-bomber missions on the entire Albany area. Braveboy said, "I don't know how I survived. The bombs were landing all around me. All I could do was lay flat on the ground and pray they didn't hit me."

After seven days, terribly weak and sinking fast from loss of blood and lack of food, Braveboy heard and then saw a 1st Cav H-13 scout helicopter wheeling and circling at low level nearby. Desperate, Braveboy crawled to a small open area, took his bloody T-shirt off his gangrenous hand, and waved it, swung it around over his head, until Melvus Hall, the observer in Warrant Officer Marion Moore's scout chopper, saw him and took aim with his M-16.

When pilot Moore realized the figure was an American, he radioed gunship pilot Captain Jerry Leadabrand, who circled the area, wrote

"Follow me!"

on a box of turkey loaf C rations, and dropped it to Braveboy on a low pass. Only after the scout helicopter had swept the area and made certain that there were no enemy nearby did Leadabrand land and pick up Toby Braveboy.

Braveboy was flown first to Due Co Special Forces Camp for immediate treatment of his wounds. Then he was flown to Camp Holloway for surgery.

His Alpha Company commander, Captain Joel Sugdinis, says he got the report that Braveboy had been located and picked up by elements of the 1st Squadron, 9th Cav. "He was wounded, scared, and dehydrated but otherwise all right," Sugdinis recalls.

Surgeons amputated one of Braveboy's fingers and did the best they could to save the rest of his hand. Gangrene had set in during his seven-day ordeal in the brush, alone on the battlefield.

Back home in Coward, South Carolina, his family had been notified that Toby Braveboy was missing and presumed dead. The local newspaper had already run his obituary. After recovering from his wounds, Braveboy was discharged from the Army.

NIGHT WITHOUT END Any danger spot is tenable if men--brave men--will make it so.

--John F. Kennedy Captain Myron Diduryk's Bravo Company soldiers once again rode to war, courtesy of Major Bruce Crandall's assault helicopters. In the front seats of one of those Hueys were Chief Warrant Officer Rick Lombardo and his good buddy and copilot, CWO Alex (Pop) Jekel, who thought they had seen and survived everything in Landing Zone X-Ray, but were about to have their horizons expanded one more time.

Says Lombardo: "Where we were going no one seemed to know except the flight leader, and he didn't say. We were just following. Dusk was falling and our fuel situation was critical. About three miles out I could see battle smoke and that was where we were headed. I looked at Pop Jekel and said: ' we go again!' We were the second flight of four to go in. As the first flight approached the landing zone, tracers started arcing up at them. The radio came alive, people yelling they were hit, or this or that pilot was hit. Our platoon was forced to go around because the first flight was still on the ground. On our approach the sight before me was unbelievable. Grass fires all over the place, tracers crisscrossing the LZ, and the smoke. It looked like Dante's Inferno."

About twenty feet from touchdown Lombardo felt and heard a tremendous bang and a rush of air coming between his legs and dirt blowing all around inside his Huey. "Before my skids touched the ground, the troopers were out. I glanced down and saw my left skid on a body.

Couldn't tell if it was one of ours or one of theirs. Then I realized I no longer had a chin bubble. My feet were on the pedals but there was no plexiglass beneath them. It wasn't shattered; it just wasn't there! All gauges were in the green so we hauled ass out of there. I told Pop to fly so I could get the dirt out of my eyes. To that point not a word had been spoken over the intercom. Before I could say a word, Pop Jekel keyed the intercom and said: ' flew thirty-one missions in B-24s in World War II and that's the closest I've ever come to swallowing my balls.' That took the tension out of the crew. I asked if everyone was OK, then I started feeling my legs. I didn't even have a scratch."

Captain Robert Stinnett, thirty-two years old, from Dallas, Texas, had won his ROTC commission out of Prairie View A.&M. College in 1953. On this night he had six years of flying experience under his belt, including two years in the 11th Air Assault Test and 1st Cavalry Division. He led four of the twelve Hueys carrying Diduryk's Bravo Company troops into Albany. He reports that eight aircraft were hit by ground fire and one aviator was wounded on that dusk troop lift.

Captain Diduryk wrote of the flight in and the situation on the ground: "Assaulting Albany we picked up five bullet holes in the helicopter.

Things were bad there. I found out when I landed that the battalion [was] shot up pretty bad. So we came in the nick of time to their rescue. The main part of 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry was on their last-ditch stand at Albany. Little Bighorn revisited."

Lieutenant Rick Rescorla, 1st Platoon Leader in Bravo Company, recalls: "First pass over Albany I stared down into the smoke and dust. Between the trees [were] the scattered khaki bodies of at least a dozen NVA. They lay face up on the brown gravel of a dry streambed. Firing snapped around us. We circled out to safety. ' bodies. You see them?' I yelled. Fantino shook his head. He had been looking out the other side. ' of American dead down there, Sir.

Muchop On the second pass I saw the blackened track of the napalm.

American bodies and equipment dotted between the anthills and scrub brush. Getting ground fire; the pilot was clearly upset, hunched low. He jabbered into his mike, expressing doubt that we would get down.

Darkness was closing in around us. I stood on the skids hovering at least twelve feet over the LZ. Too high."

The sound of two bullets hitting forced Rescorla back. "Looking sideways I saw a trickle of blood down the pilot's sleeve. The chopper dropped a few feet. The pilot yelled at the gunner. The gunner snarled, ' out." I hesitated. ' the fuck out!' Four of us dropped a bone-jarring ten feet. The gunner kicked out the boxes of C-rations and they rained down on us. We were on our own. Lying flat, four of us tried to get our bearings. Sixty yards away three khakis rose like quail and ran for the tree line. Two of us cut loose and they fell headfirst into the brown grass. I popped a round with the M-79 just to make sure. Up ahead we heard sounds of American voices. We sprinted into the perimeter, proudly lugging the precious C-rats."

Now inside the battalion command group perimeter, Rescorla took stock.

"The battalion sergeant major sat against a tree with a bandaged chest.

"We got hit bad, Sir. Real bad.' The wounded were gathered thirty yards from the CP. Only half my platoon had arrived. The other ships turned back because of ground fire and darkness. The perimeter was an oval island of trees. Three platoons could man the perimeter but with the exception of our people and Pat Payne's recon platoon there was no unit cohesion. Colonel Mcdade slumped against a tree. He looked exhausted. He was exceptionally silent. Major Frank Henry, his executive officer, was reassuringly active. A short fireplug of a man, Henry waved a welcome, working the radios. Captain Joe Price, the fire-support coordinator, crouched beside him. Clumps of survivors sprawled inside the perimeter, including several company commanders."

Lieutenant Larry Gwin watched the reinforcements arrive: "I saw Rick Rescorla come swaggering into our lines with a smile on his face, an M-79 on his shoulder, his M-16 in one hand, saying: ', good, good! I hope they hit us with everything they got tonight--we'll wipe them up." His spirit was catching. The troops were cheering as each load came in, and we really raised a racket. The enemy must have thought that an entire battalion was coming to help us because of all our screaming and yelling. Major Henry directed that I round up some men and police up all the ammo resupply which the choppers brought in on the last flight. It was lying in crates on the far side of the LZ. Somehow we got it all into the perimeter. As I came back with the last load I passed right by the body of that North Vietnamese I'd killed early in the fight. There wasn't much left of him and I didn't give a damn."

Lieutenant Pat Payne of the recon platoon was just as happy about the reinforcements as Gwin. "We were all very surprised to see those helicopters come in. We were only securing one side of the LZ sc when the guys would jump off the helicopter we hollered at them which way to come. I had the feeling we had actually been rescued, that in fact the cavalry had arrived, just like in the movies. I admired the courage it took to land in Albany. Lieutenant Rescorla was one of the best combat leaders I ever saw during two tours in Vietnam. He walked around and pepped everyone up by telling them they'd done a good job, that there was support now, and that things were under control. He never raised his voice; almost spoke in a whisper. We were awfully glad to see him and the others from Bravo Company."

After walking the perimeter, Lieutenant Rescorla was worried. "We had as many men inside the trees as those on the perimeter. I was uncomfortable with that many rifles to my rear, particularly if they started scare shooting. Worse than the tactical layout was the dark malaise that had fallen over the battalion. Even men who were not wounded were melancholy."

One of the wounded still suffering alone out in the butchered column was PFC James Shadden of the Delta Company mortar platoon. "By this time it was beginning to grow dark," Shadden recalls. "I slipped the pin back into the booby-trap grenade in my armpit, thinking now that I might get out alive. Then artillery began to come in. It felt as if the earth would shake out from under me. This continued on into the night. My thirst was almost unbearable; my leg was so painful I could hardly keep from screaming. I thought help would surely come soon."

Specialist 4 Jack Smith of Charlie Company was also lying wounded in the tall grass. "At dusk the fighting stopped and I had a chance to have a cigarette. I told myself if I lit a cigarette they will find me and kill me, but I didn't care anymore. Then I passed out. I woke up in the middle of the night. The Alpha Company, 1 st Battalion, 5th Cavalry sent a group to try to rescue us. A man came up to me and asked if I was wounded. He said they had a few stretchers for the worst wounded. I said, ' me out with you.' He said, ' up.' I stood up and passed out. They couldn't take me. They left a medic with us. That night the NVA tried to get to us. They were going around killing people. Our weapons platoon lieutenant, Bob Jeanette, had been horribly wounded. He called in artillery so close to our tree that it killed some of us. But it also killed the North Vietnamese when they came to try to take us out. This happened two or three times during the night."

Doc William Shucart, the surgeon of the 2nd Battalion, had been guided to safety in the Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry perimeter at the tail of the column by one of Captain George Forrest's platoon sergeants, Fred Kluge. Shucart says, "Around dusk, Kluge said he was getting ready to go back up the column. I asked if he was sure he wanted to do that. He said: ' are other guys like you out there, lost or wounded, who need our help.' I said, ', let's go.' I know we had a radio where we were. We were trying to get the medevac ships to come in but they would not. A couple of Huey slicks came down but we were taking fire and the medevacs wouldn't come. When you are taking fire is precisely when you need medevac. I don't know where those guys got their great reputations. I was totally dismayed with the medevac guys. The Huey slick crews were terrific."

Among the wounded that Captain Shucart and Sergeant Fred Kluge rescued at dusk were Enrique Pujals and some other Charlie Company soldiers.

They spent the rest of the night in George Forrest's perimeter at the southern end of the column. Lieutenant Pujals made it through the night and was evacuated the next morning--one of the lucky ones.

Captain Forrest says that late that night he received a radio call from a man identifying himself as

"Ghost 4-6" who reported that he was badly wounded, there were dozens of other wounded Americans all around him, and the North Vietnamese were walking around killing them. Forrest sent Sergeant Kluge and a large patrol back up the column at midnight.

PFC 4 David Lavender was part of the patrol sent out to find Ghost 4-6 and the wounded. He recalls, "Our sergeants came around seeking volunteers to go back out and retrieve some men who had been wounded and were bleeding to death. There were twenty-three of us went out on this patrol. One of the wounded had a radio, so we were in radio contact. We wandered around till we found these fellows. There were twenty-three to twenty-six men in a group, trying to take care of each other. All hurt very bad. We had a medic with us and the twenty-three of us tried to carry as many of them back as we could. We left our medic there with the ones we left behind. All we could handle was thirteen. We had men slung on our shoulders, in litters, carrying them any way we could." Lavender says that on their way back into the American position someone on the perimeter opened fire, wounding three of those carrying the wounded, including Lavender himself, who was shot through the hip. "Last I heard, twelve of those thirteen we brought in lived. The rest of the men our medic watched that night also survived. Jack P. Smith wrote an article in [the] Saturday Evening Post about that night, and I read that and suffered flashbacks. He was one of those we left behind with the medic. He went through a long, hard night."

Joseph H. Ibach was the first sergeant of the 2nd Battalion Headquarters Company. He and Captain Daniel Boone, commander of Headquarters Company, were in that mixture of admin and logistics guys inexplicably included in the march across the Ia Drang Valley that day. Says Ibach: "I was with Captain Boone and we had small groups together. More like clusters of men. We did not have radio contact with anyone. Colonel Mcdade and the command group were 200 to 400 yards up the column. We couldn't locate them so we stayed where we were, all afternoon and the whole night. We were confused and I didn't think we would survive. Finally radio contact was established and we were informed to stay where we were until morning. At first light we started walking and reached the battalion command post."