procedure (SOP), the sailor wanted to put Williams’s weapon, ammo, and gear on the growing pile off to one side of the hangar bay. The problem was that although the field corpsmen were trustworthy, their shipboard, noncombat counterparts had a reputation for looting gear and personal items from the anonymous piles of casualty discards.
So, his adrenaline still pumping, Williams shouted, “You’re not taking my forty-five!”
“Sir, I’ve
got
to take your forty-five.”
“Like hell! I’ll turn my forty-five over to a
Marine
—I’m not going to give it to any fucking Navy man in the rear!”
First Sergeant Martin waved the corpsman away and took the pistol from Williams. The captain, still energized, shouted to Taylor and Martin from his stretcher about how the company had attacked across four hundred meters of open ground and annihilated the enemy dug in before them. “Boy, you should have been there, you should have been there! They weren’t going to let anything stand in their way!”
1. At this point, Capt. G.W. Smith, USN, the TF Clearwater commander, closed the Bo Dieu River to supply traffic until the Marines could clear the banks.
2. Captain Williams was awarded a second Silver Star and the Purple Heart for his actions and wound at Dong Huan. His first Silver Star had been for Vinh Quan Thuong. He later received the Bronze Star Medal with Combat V (BSMv) as an end-of-tour award.
3. Staff Sergeant Ward was awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart for Dong Huan. He picked up his second Purple Heart during the subsequent battle for Nhi Ha (25 May 1968), and finished his tour on Okinawa, where, true to his crazy, alcohol-fueled ways he was court-martialed for fistfighting. His name was removed from the gunnery sergeant list, and he was never promoted.
Piecemealed
B Y L ATE A FTERNOON ON 30 A PRIL 1968, THE ASSAULT BY H BLT 2/4 on Dong Huan was over, but F BLT 2/4 was heavily engaged in Dai Do. At the same time, a company placed opcon to the battalion, B/l/3, came under heavy fire in An Lac. The battlefield resembled an open-topped, bluelined horseshoe some two kilometers in depth and a klick wide. Framed by one unnamed tributary to the east and another to the west, and with the Bo Dieu River as the southern edge, it contained five evacuated hamlets. Dong Huan was situated at the eastern edge and An Lac at the southern, with Dai Do snug against the western tributary. Dinh To and Thuong Do sat along the same creek north of Dai Do. This horseshoe had been an ARVN TAOR. With the ARVN redeployed to the Dong Ha area, BLT 2/4 had been given the mission of clearing the horseshoe. Lieutenant Colonel Weise requested via regiment that the 3d Marine Division approve a boundary change to annex the battle area to the BLT 2/4 TAOR. Weise was adamant (“We wanted to be able to fire and maneuver with a free hand”), and he commented about the several hours of delay before the shift was finally ordered: “It shouldn’t have taken that long, but that’s the way it was when you were dealing with the ARVN. On previous joint operations we had tried to get artillery fire missions and air strikes cleared throughARVN fire support coordination centers, and you may as well be assuming a twelve-hour delay for something that should take half an hour. They were very slow with coordination, and I knew damn well that I wasn’t going to commit any of my troops in their area unless I had operation control of it.”
A Toehold in Dai Do
W ELL, LOOKING BACK, EVERY TIME WE’VE HAD A NEW second lieutenant we’ve really had a good initiation for him,” the seasoned lieutenant had told the new one with matter-of-fact humor when asked about the outfit and the area. The seasoned lieutenant had gone on to say that “some of those guys didn’t survive their baptism of fire.”
The new lieutenant, 2d Lt. David K. McAdams, thought of that observation as he got his platoon, Foxtrot One, onto the amtracs that had arrived late in the
So, his adrenaline still pumping, Williams shouted, “You’re not taking my forty-five!”
“Sir, I’ve
got
to take your forty-five.”
“Like hell! I’ll turn my forty-five over to a
Marine
—I’m not going to give it to any fucking Navy man in the rear!”
First Sergeant Martin waved the corpsman away and took the pistol from Williams. The captain, still energized, shouted to Taylor and Martin from his stretcher about how the company had attacked across four hundred meters of open ground and annihilated the enemy dug in before them. “Boy, you should have been there, you should have been there! They weren’t going to let anything stand in their way!”
1. At this point, Capt. G.W. Smith, USN, the TF Clearwater commander, closed the Bo Dieu River to supply traffic until the Marines could clear the banks.
2. Captain Williams was awarded a second Silver Star and the Purple Heart for his actions and wound at Dong Huan. His first Silver Star had been for Vinh Quan Thuong. He later received the Bronze Star Medal with Combat V (BSMv) as an end-of-tour award.
3. Staff Sergeant Ward was awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart for Dong Huan. He picked up his second Purple Heart during the subsequent battle for Nhi Ha (25 May 1968), and finished his tour on Okinawa, where, true to his crazy, alcohol-fueled ways he was court-martialed for fistfighting. His name was removed from the gunnery sergeant list, and he was never promoted.
Piecemealed
B Y L ATE A FTERNOON ON 30 A PRIL 1968, THE ASSAULT BY H BLT 2/4 on Dong Huan was over, but F BLT 2/4 was heavily engaged in Dai Do. At the same time, a company placed opcon to the battalion, B/l/3, came under heavy fire in An Lac. The battlefield resembled an open-topped, bluelined horseshoe some two kilometers in depth and a klick wide. Framed by one unnamed tributary to the east and another to the west, and with the Bo Dieu River as the southern edge, it contained five evacuated hamlets. Dong Huan was situated at the eastern edge and An Lac at the southern, with Dai Do snug against the western tributary. Dinh To and Thuong Do sat along the same creek north of Dai Do. This horseshoe had been an ARVN TAOR. With the ARVN redeployed to the Dong Ha area, BLT 2/4 had been given the mission of clearing the horseshoe. Lieutenant Colonel Weise requested via regiment that the 3d Marine Division approve a boundary change to annex the battle area to the BLT 2/4 TAOR. Weise was adamant (“We wanted to be able to fire and maneuver with a free hand”), and he commented about the several hours of delay before the shift was finally ordered: “It shouldn’t have taken that long, but that’s the way it was when you were dealing with the ARVN. On previous joint operations we had tried to get artillery fire missions and air strikes cleared throughARVN fire support coordination centers, and you may as well be assuming a twelve-hour delay for something that should take half an hour. They were very slow with coordination, and I knew damn well that I wasn’t going to commit any of my troops in their area unless I had operation control of it.”
A Toehold in Dai Do
W ELL, LOOKING BACK, EVERY TIME WE’VE HAD A NEW second lieutenant we’ve really had a good initiation for him,” the seasoned lieutenant had told the new one with matter-of-fact humor when asked about the outfit and the area. The seasoned lieutenant had gone on to say that “some of those guys didn’t survive their baptism of fire.”
The new lieutenant, 2d Lt. David K. McAdams, thought of that observation as he got his platoon, Foxtrot One, onto the amtracs that had arrived late in the
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