One night in July, 1968...

One Night in July, 1968...

The following is a personal recollection of a night in July, 1968, by Larry Weist who served with Alpha Company, 2/14th, as a correspondent for the 25th Infantry Division's weekly newspaper Tropic Lightning News, and later as a staff writer for Deseret News in his home state of Utah. Among his other contributions, Larry is a past president of the 25th Infantry Division Association.

May 24, 1985
By Larry Weist
Deseret News Staff Writer

Ernie Pyle wrote of brave men in World War II and helped memorialize them and their deeds for the folks back home. Few stories were recorded of the courage and brave actions of the common foot soldiers or grunts in the Vietnam war. In retrospect, perhaps few Americans were interested anyway.

One of the Vietnam vets in the main story (a reference to the issue in which this story appeared) pointed out that no soldier ever gave up in Vietnam -- no units ever surrendered in the most unpopular war in America's history. Here is a story of a platoon, outgunned and outnumbered four-to-one, and having sustained over 50 percent casualties, that didn't give up.

On a July 1968 night, a platoon of less than 24 men of the 2nd Battalion 14th Infantry, set up a night ambush patrol outside a village in War Zone C northeast of Saigon. Before midnight, they received a radio call from battalion S-2 telling them an NVA force of at least company size was going to hit them during the night. They could hear the villagers moving out of their hootches and knew something was going to happen.

After waiting an hour of what seemed like a lifetime of intense expectation, the NVA hit the platoon inside its circled perimeter with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. The men's flak jackets and steel helmets had their work cut out for them, but initial casualties ran high from the mortars. A thin bamboo curtain detonated many of the RPGs before they could reach their targets.

Three hootches and a haystack within the platoon's perimeter were set afire by the RPGs and the blazing light marked the heart of the NVA's target.

During the minutes and hours that followed, the Golden Dragons of the 14th Infantry traded machine gun fire and small arms fire until the Americans ran out of machine gun ammunition.

As the contact between the two sides got closer, the platoon's leader, a lieutenant from Michigan, called for a helicopter gunship strike on the area. The two sides were close enough that when the lieutenant called for the airstrike, a mocking voice from the other side of the berm called back: "Where is your gunships GI?"

The gunships never came and the platoon, by this time reduced to about a dozen able soldiers and with less than a full magazine per man, was responding to enemy fire by throwing hand grenades. The peculiar quirk of the platoon leader, that each of his men must carry six or more grenades, turned into a lifesaver that night.

There was no talk of surrender, no talk of giving up as the last of the grenades were being tossed at the enemy. Those that had them were fixing bayonets, just like in an old movie -- the others were collecting rocks.

Although they had seen at least 30 NVA drop during the two- or three-hour firefight, the Golden Dragons were more outnumbered then than in the beginning because of their casualties.

As they were preparing for what everyone assumed would be a final assault, a reinforcing platoon arrived and engaged the enemy from less than 200 meters away.

Only the NVA, which still outnumbered both platoons, gave up that night.