15 Months in SOG by Thom Nicholson Page B

instructions. “I’ll catch up with him later, after I get things organized.” I moved my men out and set up a security ring around the old compound. The air force was still dropping flares, and the choppers were buzzing about like angry hornets, but all was quiet on the ground.
    It didn’t seem long until the pink sky in the east announced morning. As the light increased, I looked around the area. There were lots of signs on the muddy earth, and here and there a body lay crumpled, but not many. The VC had the annoying habit of dragging off their dead so we couldn’t get a good count of their casualties. A few blood trails led back into the brush, and the junk scattered about showed that a battle had been fought. The first good rain would wash it all away, and the land would once again look as it had for millennia.
    Now that we could see, choppers began to land with frantic regularity in the courtyard of the fort. Fresh Marines jumped off, their rifles ready, and formed up to go into the brush after the attackers. Wounded men were loaded on the empty ships and carted off to the navy evac hospital, only ten minutes away by air.
    I reported in to the no-nonsense Marine battalion commander, who was in charge of the reinforcements. He thanked me for our help and said we were relieved of any responsibility once the final choppers carrying his battalion had landed. By eight o’clock in the morning, our job was done. I had my soldiers stand down beside the dirt road, and I ordered the 3d Platoon out to gather up their casualties from the first ambush at the river. As the Marines started off into the bush after the survivors of the attacking force, I wandered back inside the compound to get the story of the fight.
    The dozen or so Marines still alive and unwounded from the original force were eating C rations and drinking warm beer that had been brought in on one of the relief choppers.
    I asked for the story of the fight, and the same NCO whom I’d talked with earlier filled me in between bites. The understrength Marine platoon had taken on a good-size force of VC or NVA attackers. Only by shifting from wall to wall as the attack intensified did the Marines beat off the determined attack.
    The gunny took me outside and showed me his defensive points and the flow of the battle. The walls had been blasted open from RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) rounds in several places. Hasty barricades of sandbags, debris, and lumber showed how the Marines had repaired each breach. As I walked around the compound, I saw a round, bloody spot about every five feet, going here or there.
    I watched my XO, Lieutenant McMurray, coming up the path from the road back to town. The company was all formed up along the road, as I’d been instructed to road march in from the fort back to CCN. My curiosity got the better of me.
    “Sergeant, what the hell is that spot I keep seeing all over the place? That round one there.” I pointed at the bloody mark on the ground.
    “Oh, that,” the Marine spoke with an obvious pride in his voice. “The ell-tee got hit early on in the fight, nearly blew off his foot. He ran around on the bloody stump until it was over,and then he fainted from loss of blood. They took him out on the first chopper.” The crusty NCO shook his head and gave a wry laugh. “One of them hotshot college boys. Didn’t have the sense to stay inside, where he’d be safe.”
    The look he gave me of pride, comradeship, courage, Semper Fi, all wrapped in one proud glance, said it all. “Damn,” I muttered, “I sure wish I had gotten to meet him.” We stood there, silent, savoring the calm and a soft, morning breeze, our appreciation all the more intense because of what had preceded it. Lieutenant McMurray reached us and reported the company ready to march. I made my farewells with the brave old Marine and headed off with my soldiers. I thought about the heroic defense of the fort all the way back to CCN.
    I never did find out the Marine