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"The Magnificent Bast- ards"). The 2/4 Battalion area of operation until the end of May 68 was in the area north of Dong Ha. My first significant combat took place at Nhi Ha (1) and (2) on May 17th and May 25th. On May 25th a Platoon from Echo Company patrolling Nhi Ha (2) was ambush- ed and the seeding battle would at first involve both Echo and Hotel Companies. As the battle progressed it would grow to a regimental size operation of the Third Marines and its opcon units. By the conclusion of this encounter Echo Company would sustain 17 KIAs and 38 WIAs. In the process of this firefight my squad would be pinned behind a rice paddy dike. As I reached out to touch Bruce Sherfield, a guy in my Fireteam, he wouldn't respond. He had been hit by a sniper not an arms length from me. An interesting linkage to this battle at Nhi Ha and LZ Russell is that several Marines who had survived the hell of Dai Do and Nhi Ha would be killed or permanently disabled from wounds sustain on LZ Russell nine months latter. There were others, but two I knew were Tommy Miller, KIA LZ Russell, and Ed Wynn (Navy Cross for actions at Nhi Ha) was gravely wounded and medivaced back to the States.
In early June Echo Company was part of an operation in the area of a "known NVA road just north of the LAOS/VIETNAMESE boarder". In searching the road E and F Companies found a "large van like truck (est. 3 tons) ….. camp used by an NVA Engineer Regiment". On June 17th Echo was helilifted to Hill 691 just above LZ Cates. Echo and Hotel Companies would during the month of June develop LZ Cates from an LZ into a full Fire Support Base with 105 Howitzers. Elements of Echo Company including the 2nd Platoon (mine) would remain on Hill 691 for 4-6 weeks. The other Platoons of Echo would be on nearby hills; e.g. 950. While on Hill 691, the Company under the Command of Captain Hill, would suffer a major NVA mortar attach on July 19th. Within a 3 hour period the hill would be hit with over 60 82mm and 60mm mortars. The company would sustain 1 KIA and 20 WIA. I was one of the WIA medevaced to Quang Tri. I returned to the bush within two weeks.
Echo Company was back on LZ Cates in late August and we were stunned to see how much the "LZ" had been developed. It was now an expanded Fire Support Base. We couldn't believe the size of the bunkers. I remember there were bunkers with four racks, actual metal racks stacked two high, and a desk. After participating in various operations we would be back on Cates in October. I was medevaced off Cates the night of Oct. 22. I went into some type of shock or delirium. They had to light the LZ with C-4 at 1:00 in the morning so the chopper could see where to land. I was medevaced to Quang Tri and after a few days apparently was ok. A young physician treating me felt I needed a little time out of the bush and he arranged it under the guise of me getting circumcised. In many ways that was more painful then humping the mountains and running patrols. There's a good reason that surgery is done when you're a baby and don't have a tendency to pop the stitches. Capt. Hill got a good laugh out of the reason for my extended absence and got back at me. He made me a Squad Leader when I returned to the Company and sent us on some pretty hairy patrols.
During the later part of November, Echo Company was heli-lifted to LZ Winchester and we humped the surrounding hills for several days ending up on what would become LZ Russell. When we first humped onto the hill it wasn't named. It was just another hill. I have a letter that talks about how thick the vegetation was. We started clearing at the top with machetes to make a field of fire. We dug temporary foxholes as we knew we would be extending the perimeter over the coming days. We got enough cleared off that choppers brought in battalion engineers with chain saws and explosives. I really can still hear those chain saws. The grunts were down extending the perimeter and the guys on top had chain saws and ex- plosives clearing the big stuff including stumps so an LZ could be built. We, Grunts, really wanted to get our hands on those chain saws to make our work easier. It was only about 7 - 10 days and the choppers were bringing in the105 howitzers. About that time, second week in December, Echo was moved to FSB Cates and 2nd Platoon, mine, humped back up to Hill 691.
Sometime the first couple weeks of January the 2/4 Battalion went back to LZ Studd for Battalion R & R. We ended up manning the lines and then going back to a beach in Quang Tri where we drank beer, watched movies, and slept a lot. By February 11th Echo was back on LZ Russell. As we experienced on LZ Cates, we were stunned by to see how much the hill had been built up since we were on it in early December. My Platoon, 2nd, assumed responsibility for the defensive lines we had previously occupied.. We, 2nd Platoon, would be there only a few days before going opcon to ¼. We were really upset because we knew there was a strong likelihood that Russell was going to get hit. We ran some patrols with ¼ and by the 23rd we were back at LZ Studd waiting to get helilifted to Russell. Capt. Hill knew the hill was going to get hit, he wanted us there. The weather had been terrible for several days, low cloud cover and the choppers weren't flying. The night of the 25th we sat on LZ Studd with a radioman listening to Russell get hit. That was one of the most anguishing and sad times for me in Viet Nam, knowing what was going on and not being able to do anything to help. We could actually hear the explosions and the yelling. The next morning we were on choppers and landed on Russell. The first thing we saw as we stepped off were bodies of Marines waiting on the LZ to be lifted out. What a mood, we hadn't been there to help. Now we had to clean up the hill. Many thoughts and memories of the next few days that I won't go into now. I can't talk about them but some are very sacred.
There are a couple of events that I will share as they may help others to recall/clarify their memories. On February 27th my Squad while on patrol, not far outside or lines, heard rustling up the gully from our location. We thought for sure we had walked into an ambush. The point man signaled back for us to stay in place as we reacted in a defensive posture. He didn't find anything. As we sat there we wondered why there would be just one NVA in the area. We looked around a little and discovered two shallow graves. We radioed back to Capt. Hill our findings and he had us dig the bodies up, he thought there might be papers on them. As we lifted them out of the ground, I was straddling one, a large amount of gas was released from the dead body. Our first reaction was that the body was exploding by a booby trap pinned to him. We jumped back and didn't know what to expect. A couple of guys started laughing and then we realized what happened, a little gas.
On March 4th, 69 a squad from Echo was patrolling off LZ Russell when they were taken under fire by an NVA ambush. My Platoon, 2nd, was sent to reinforce/extract the Squad under fire. As we reached the trapped Squad, my
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