TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

Leatherneck Square
Flying the lead chopper into LZ Goose, Kirby ran
into a hail of automatic‐weapons fire as he hovered to
dislodge the infantrymen. The Communist gunfire disabled
the helicopter’s radio and wounded most of the crew,
along with three riflemen. Another Marine was killed
instantly and fell from the chopper. Kirby managed to
maneuver out of the precarious situation, while the
wounded door gunner kept up a steady stream of machinegun
fire.
At LZ Owl the NVA hit 2nd Lt. Dwight G. Faylor’s 2nd
Platoon, thinly spread over an 800‐yard area and moved in
so close that naval gunfire couldn’t support them. By 1100
relief forces began to reach them, but the NVA chose to
stay and fight. Company B, 1/3,supported by several M‐48
tanks, attacked a trench line holding numerous enemy
soldiers, and the Marines were quickly entangled in handto‐hand
combat. Marine jets screeched down.
(A. Hemingway)
***
The combined Marine/ ARVN forces swept across the DMZ,
and cleaned it out – for then. But in stepping back (fifty
years), it’s clear that there is no vaccine – then nor now – for
an exposed flank. Push east to west over the top of
Leatherneck Square again and the next time ambushes
didn’t start with trip­wire but with 152 mm artillery. This
fate befell 1/9 the first few days of July. Worse, the the
Walking Dead out­walked their arty. Marine Air shepherded
them back to Con Tien. That hell­hole, however, wasn’t
outside anybody’s arty fan. Getting to it wasn’t like getting a
free pass into Disneyland: that night the NVA hit the hill
with over a thousand rounds of arty and mortars. It
seemed, as well, that the NVA had un­packed a large stash
of .50 cal. machine guns. The army paid dearly in
helicopters and crews for using AK­47 tactics against .50
cals. Dick O’Leary, spotting from a army Bird Dog, was
killed in action over the Square by a single .50 cal. round.
Nevertheless, old Colonel Bill Masterpool and
General Truong had kicked things off in the DMZ. ARVN
(Abn) troops held their line of attack throughout, killing 342
NVA and capturing another 30. The invasion of the
southern half of the DMZ netted 789 enemy killed and
another 37 captured. Marines, for their part, sustained 142
dead and 896 wounded.
Still there, though daily remodeled, Con Tien made
Charlie walk around it. Though with it still being a big, fat
free­fire zone for NVA gunners, Marines defenders there
continued to suffer from acute shrapnel indigestion.
Conversely, NVA gunners suffered no countervailing fire.
Tactical half­measures develop limps.
Anyone supposing that distant Washington
possessed the power of restraint sufficient to let Marine
leaders treat whatever limps that beset them, afflictions that
were at least partially under their control, and to restrict
themselves to the political implications of the DMZ, which
only they could effect, well, they’d probably believe a
Montagnard girl would get chosen as Miss Saigon. No
surprise, then, when Robert S. McNamara had Marines
begin work on the second of his great creations, the
McNamara wall. (The first being the Ford Falcon.) While
McNamara had long prospered changing parts suppliers,
A‐23