It was a typical patrol, we were moving through the countryside as usual; carefully watching for bobby traps and alert to the danger of snipers. Solomon, our squad leader, was managing the patrols movement through “Indian’ country. We had reached a point near the Tu Cu road about six or seven hundred meters from “Booby-trap Alley” when we heard the all to familiar sounds of a firefight erupt due south of us.  We knew that the Second platoon was patrolling in that area and we soon heard them on the radio requesting fire support or assistance. They were taking heavy fire (it sounded like all hell was breaking loose) and were pinned down by a large enemy force.   We were only a few hundred meters away.
 
“Brake, Brake, this is Hotel 1 Alpha, Hotel 1 Alpha, responding to second platoons request for assistance and we are on our way”. Roger came the reply; where are you? We were already moving in their direction at a fast clip as Solomon relayed our position to them.  The going was tough.  We had to move through knee high rice paddy water, watch for bobby traps and be alert to a possible ambush.  Given all that, we were still dam near running.  When another Marine unit is in trouble, you tend to push the envelope! Solomon let them know the direction we were coming from. He wanted to make sure they would not fire on us when they saw movement coming from our direction.

Drenched in sweat, our hearts pounding, we felt like the cavalry coming to the rescue. We were a small squad of five or six men. Squads this small were the norm. While a Marine Rifle Squad should have 13 men, we had not seen anything larger than a 6-man squad since Khe Sanh, We had absolutely no idea the size of the force we were running towards, we just knew that Marines were in trouble and we would do our best to help. Solomon gave us the hand signal to halt. It appeared that we were only a few meters behind the enemy positions.  Solomon notified second platoon where we were and that we would soon start an envelopment movement on the unsuspecting enemy. 

We struggled as we literally pushed our bodies through dense, tall grass in our efforts to get in position to open fire on the enemy. The Second Platoon stopped firing so as not to hit us, but Charley kept firing at them at a very heavy pace. I was right behind our point man, (we called him Pointer; he was a black dude from the Midwest) when he yelled-out. I thought he had been hit. I looked up to se what was happening and saw what had caused him to yell-out.  There were VC every where.  They were in the trees and on the ground.  I had never seen so many VC at one time. I spotted a small group about 10 feet from my position and opened fire on them. Everyone in the squad was firing like crazy.  We had literally walked in to the middle of at least a company-sized unit. Our M-79 man, Jay Vincens, fired his blooper at a VC, hitting him square between the shoulders causing the top half of his body to disappear. Everyone was in the game.  VC were being shot out of trees and the ones on the ground were being shot down as they tried to run away. We had caught them by surprise and they did not know what to do.  I am sure that they thought we were a much larger force.  Had they know that there were only six of us, they would have reacted quiet differently.  

The Second platoon had to sit this one out.  We were literally intermingled completely with the enemy forces. They were dropping like flies we had caught them with their pants down, big time. Charley was everywhere!  They were running past us, around us, in-between us.  Confusion ruled.

Rounds spit up all around us, as we hammered them furiously- giving no quarter. Fred opened up knocking two or three out of their sniper positions in the trees.  Solomon mowed down a couple that ran right into him. Benny, Belt, a super bush fighter from up north, was having a field day, and had a grin from ear to ear as he kept shouting “Shit’” Shit” as VC dropped around him. He didn’t need to waste ammo firing at the ones that he dropped, he was one heck of a marksman and seldom ever had to fire twice at the same target.

There goes a couple, someone yelled in the excitement. Jay swung his Blooper around and put a solid round between the shoulders of one of the runners. The top of his body disappeared and his buddy fell next to him hit by the shrapnel from Jays round.  A two fur! I was blasting at fast moving targets running by me on both sides, it was hard to decide which group to shoot at so I favored them both with a few rounds hitting hit a few in each group as they disappeared in to the heavy under brush.

Suddenly, the firing stopped. The first moments after the firing stops are incredible. Your mouth is suddenly dry.  You look from place to place; trying to find the enemy. You hear your own heart beating.  You look to see if you were hit. The silence was deafening. The quiet is nerve racking.  

Solomon put us in a 360-degree perimeter to keep us from being hit by any VC that might try to double back on us. He then radioed the Second platoon with the news. “This is Hotel 1 Alfa, 1 Alfa is all clear in here over?” Second Platoon came back with a happy sigh of relief and they thanked us for our help. Solomon radioed the Company with the results of the action and the approximate size of the enemy force we had engaged.  The next thing to do was find out how many confirmed kills we had, the number of weapons we had recovered and look for intelligence information (maps, papers ect.)  

Solomon, he directed us to start searching the bodies. Damn, they were everywhere. There were even some  NVA nurses with AK-47 rifles by their sides.  Some of the snipers in the trees were hanging upside down 15 to 20 feet in the air, caught in the heavy branches; their weapons had fallen to the ground. We searched the area carefully looking for intelligence information and for wounded VC. Prisoners were rare and we hoped to bring one home. We were all proud of what we had accomplished.  We had taken on a much larger force, rescued second platoon and had taken no casualties.  A miracle.

“Saddle up!” Solomon snapped, seeming irritated after talking to the rear, “we’re pulling out to tie in with second platoon”. Everyone was puzzled; what about the confirmed kills, and papers some of these guys must be carrying? “Orders are to Saddle up!!! Now grab what gear you got and let’s go.  Lynch, Pointer is a little shaken up, you take point for now. Fine a probing stick before you move out. Everyone else fall in, and keep your eyes pealed for a counter attack. Let’s go, move out towards second platoon. They are expecting us.  Keep your eyes open. We don’t need to get ambushed. We are leaving a lot of dead VC “they will fight no more forever”. A quote from Chief Joseph of the Nez Perse tribe that took the entire US Army on in the dead of winter. He was a warrior, from whom the word warrior was coined from, back in the late 1800’s.

Heading toward the Second platoon, we broke out into open rice paddies. I was walking tail end Charlie and I heard this commanding voice yell, “Hingston, keep your eyes on the rear like you’re suppose to, or you’ll get us all killed. I guess I was daydreaming about the encounter we had just had and my mind was still on the firefight and not on what I was suppose to be doing. I immediately started looking behind me over each shoulder as we crossed a rice paddy dike headed for some sand dunes where Second platoon was.

Needless to say,  they were grateful for our assistance; yet surprised there were so few of us. You sounded like a platoon over there the Lt. remarked. Well sir, Solomon said, “ We did have our hands full. It’s nice to get a few good blows in now and then. By the way sir, there are quite a few confirms down there with weapons. We shouldn’t leave them around for the VC to pick up.  We hit some nurses too, it must have been a large force to have nurses with them.

“You are to continue your patrol and then go in to be debriefed. We will clear the area. We didn’t like this at all.  We did the killing. We should get to clean out the area. It was not the first time this had happened to us. We had ambushed a squad of NVA on the outskirts of a village a month or so back. We did the killing, and another platoon mopped up the area and got all the goods. 

Solomon gave the order to saddle up and move out. We headed toward the Tu Cu Road again, to complete our assigned patrol. “Pointer you take point again. Lynch you walk ahead of Hingston. Both of you keep your eyes open. We’re not out of danger till we’re back at battalion”. We moved out slowly; Careful to keep our distance from the man in front.  Our adrenaline was still pumping, it doesn’t matter how many fire fights you have been in, that adrenaline takes time to wind down so everything is still moving in some kind of slow motion vacuum in your mind and through your whole body.

Written by Bobby Hingston and Carl E. King.