Fear is the Coward

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by Harvey Sullivan

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JUNE 3RD 1969



"We're going in & it's hot!" the door gunner yelled over the roar of the chopper blades.

We could see the LZ as we dropped out of the sky. It was a naked scar gouged out near the apex of the jungle-covered mountain. Gunships were raining down destruction on the high ground next to the smoke filled LZ. There were numerous poncho-covered bodies lying on the LZ as we jumped off the hovering chopper. The wake of the blades blew the ponchos open, emblazing the sight of the heinously wounded dead on my mind for all time.

From the moment I first saw those torn up bodies, I found myself enveloped in a mind numbing fear. This was not the terror of combat. I was used to that. This was something else, something I had not experienced before. All bets were off. I was determined, with every fiber of my being, to find a way out of there from the second my foot touched that Hill.

B Company was covering the LZ when 2nd platoon, Delta, landed. B Company had been there since last night. They told us that a Blue Team from B Troop 2/17 CAV had CA'd in yesterday looking for an NVA .51 that had been firing on any chopper that came within range. Surrounded by hundreds of NVA and deserted by their Vietnamese Scouts, the Aero-Rifle platoon had been dropped right into a meat grinder. A platoon from Bravo CA'd in to rescue the Blue Team. The fighting was savage. Sometime during the battle a chopper was shot down. The rest of Bravo had to hump, over land, fighting their way through reinforced NVA positions, to hook up with their lost platoon.

As the situation developed, the rest of Delta was brought in behind us. Alpha Company followed.

I started plotting my escape. I would break my ankle! I decided where to accomplish the shameful deed unseen. There was a large group of boulders off the LZ that we were using as a latrine. Now I had to wait for the right moment.

During the day my heart sank as I watched Alpha and Bravo leave the Hill to sweep the surrounding low areas. The panic rose in my gut as Captain Roy proceeded to inform me that I was to take a patrol out about 150 meters on the ridgeline to find an NDP for the night, after which Delta was going to follow that trail up to the high ground and out onto the ridgeline! sent KC to get a radio from the CP. I told everyone I had to take a crap and they should be ready to move out when I got back. I moved deep into the area where the boulders were. I took off my boot, positioned my ankle on a rock and braced myself for a blow from the butt of my pistol. Just then I heard KC calling me. I put my boot back on, came out from the rocks and asked what was so important he had to bother me while I was taking a crap? He told me the Captain said we didn't need a radio since we weren't going that far and if we got into trouble he would hear it.

God hates me. I went over to the CP and took a radio. Told Billy I had point because he was "already too good at it and I needed the practice". Then walked six of the eight remaining members of 2nd platoon up the trail and onto the high ground of Hill 376.

Joseph La Pointe, the Medic who was with the Aero-Rifle Platoon B/2-17 Cav, who died on June 2, 1969, was awarded The Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions on that day.

By Harvey Sullivan
Delta Company 1/501