The Soldier Who Came Back
by Harvey Sullivan
I
've been trying to write this story for over two years now and I just can't
seem to get it down on paper. This is weird, seeing as when I sit down with
a buddy and have a couple of beers this is one of my best war stories. I
must have told it a hundred times. So, this Memorial Day, I decided to have
a few beers and tell it to Janice, again, and have her write it down.
It was June 4, 1969. Delta Company's strength was down to about 50 men
due to the heavy fighting of the past two weeks. (A Company is usually
about 140 guys.) Delta had just moved out of our NDP, which was on a high
spot on the ridgeline of Hill 376. This was a bad place at a bad time.
Now this is what happened....
As we moved, single file and well spaced, down into the saddle, there
was a well worn trail about 6 feet wide running along the crest of the
ridgeline - real scary! We found a smaller secondary trail, about 30
meters to the left of the main trail, which ran parallel to it. There
were a few old fields around, some of them terraced. It was real slow
moving, but I felt way better once we got off the main trail. Big
mistake!
The Ambush....
After an eternity of this, the trail led to the top of a broken down
retaining wall for a small terraced field. When I stepped down into the
field, the first thing I noticed, in the far left corner of the field, was a
group of guys, including Lt Black, cluster-fucking around what I later found
out was some NVA equipment. I yelled at my people (at least what was left
of 2nd Platoon - around 8 guys - not the 40 or so you might expect - but
then an Officer would have been in charge instead of me!) to fan out to my
right and form a perimeter. I turned and started moving in the direction I
had indicated when all hell broke loose. An NVA machine gun started ripping
across the clearing. I threw myself
across the rim of the second terrace lengthwise, facing the oncoming fire.
I decided to play dead, unfortunately, my leg from the knee down, was
still straight up in the air! I didn't want to draw attention to myself,
as all I had for cover was a couple of weeds which were only a few inches
high and didn't even block my view. So I left my foot up there!
What I saw as I lay there....
There was no cover anywhere. Twenty men were sprawled out on the
terrace two feet below me hugging the ground. The bullets were spraying
across the field kicking up dirt as they impacted the ground - I remember
the dirt spraying up in my face as the bullets hit right in front of me.
I saw little Jonesy, literally ram his hands in the dirt around a flattish
oblong rock, around 20" x 12" x 9" deep (a REALLY BIG ROCK - embedded
flush with the ground!) and rip it up out of the ground in one motion!
He held the rock in front of his head as machine gun fire ricocheted off
it. But as the machine gun continued its arc the bullets found their mark
in his shoulder. I remember thinking at the time how the hell can bullets
hurt a man who just did that?
Snuffy Smith, the Platoon RTO, exposed himself numerous times in his
attempt to reach Lt Black with the radio. A few feet before he reached
the Lt they began dropping mortars on us starting with Snuffy. Snuffy
went flying one way and the radio went flying another. I lost sight of
Snuffy as the mortars neared my position. The good news was they were
firing a light mortar, not one of the big 81s. (Oh yeah, my foot was
still in the air at this time!)
Next I caught a glimpse of Flood moving through the fire to get to
Snuffy. When he reached Snuffy I watched as he put a tourniquet on
Snuffy's leg. They were completely exposed and I saw that they had a short
exchange of words while Snuffy pulled a piece of shrapnel out of Flood's
shoulder. Flood immediately picked Snuffy up in a bear hug, with Snuffy
wrapping his legs around Flood's waist. As Flood ran out of the clearing
in the direction we had come from, Snuffy laid down cover fire back over
Flood's shoulder. This was the first return fire since the ambush had
been sprung, probably less than two minutes ago!
Then somebody had the sense to pop smoke. I used the cover to roll
back about 25 feet into a nice wet bomb crater. Now I was below the line
of fire. I positioned myself in the crater so my M-16 was facing the
bunker. Everyone still in the kill zone had crawled to whatever little
concealment they could find. Return fire was impossible because the NVA
were well concealed and fortified in a bunker and they were firing at any
movement they spotted. We were all pinned down too close to the enemy to
use air support or artillery and I had no idea where Captain Roy and the
rest of the Company were. After awhile it started raining. I saw Billie
Scott had made it to a bomb crater on the terrace to my left. He kept
popping his head up to see what was going on until a mortar round landed
between us! Then he settled in for the duration, like me! We were there
for hours. I smoked a whole pack of cigarettes!
Mulvey saves the day!........
After about five hours the rain slacked off some. The fire and mortar
rounds lessened to an occasional burst in the hopes of getting us to move,
which none of us seemed inclined to do! I had taken my .38 out of its
holster and placed it in easy reach. I had been expecting to be overrun by
NVA for hours. It was about this time that I heard something off to my
right. The sound came from about 20 feet to my right in the heavy
vegetation just off the clearing. It was Mulvey! Whoa! I almost shot him!
He was asking me something. He really threw me; I had no idea what he
wanted! I listened more closely. "Sully. You gat a LAW?" "What?" "Do
you have a LAW!" (Light Antitank Weapon - a rocket with a bomb on the end
of it!) "No, sorry." "That's OK, I've got two already!" He held them up
for me to see and started moving deeper into the vegetation. I asked him
"Where ya goin?" He grinned and pointed in the direction of the bunker! I
said "Good Luck!" and lit another cigarette, wondering what the hell was
going to happen next! About 10 minutes later I heard the distinctive sound
of a LAW being fired, followed almost simultaneously by an explosion. The
second round followed immediately behind the first. Mulvey had worked his
way around behind the enemy bunker and fired off the LAWs at point blank
range into the back of the bunker taking out the machine gun. I heard
someone yell, "Somebody got the fuckin' bunker!" There were cheers,
somebody else yelled "Mulvey did it!" We were still taking some small arms
fire but now that the machine gun was down we were able to slowly recover
our wounded (about 9 guys) and work our way out of the clearing.
The word was out before we settled into our NDP for the night that
Captain Roy had put Mulvey in for the Silver Star for his actions that day
which had saved so many lives, including mine!
The next day....
We had lost one man the day before and had not been able to recover his
body when we pulled out of the clearing. Mulvey volunteered to show the
patrol where the body was. Lt Black led the patrol which was made up of
these two, me and six of my eight people. We all had a bad feeling about
this patrol. The NVA had booby trapped the body and four men were killed,
Lawrence Patrick Mulvey among them. Two more were wounded. I have
already written an account of this day, it's called "Contact: 30 Years
Later"*.
The Legend of the Soldier Who Came Back....
After about a half hour of uncontrollable rage, I pulled into myself
for a few hours after the explosion, sort of like a robot, going through
the motions. We were back in our NDP licking our wounds. Another bad day
in an eternity of bad days. "It don't mean nuttin'."
At first we started talking about the guys we lost. Mulvey had just
saved 20 guys the day before. It wasn't fair. Then somebody said that
Mulvey had died before! That's right! I remember! Mulvey had drowned at
CoCo Beach around the end of March or beginning of April. He had gotten a
surf board from one of the Navy guys and gotten into trouble out in the
ocean. By the time I got there they had brought in a chopper and I
watched as a guy leaned out of the chopper, which hovered over Mulvey,
grabbed his arm and the chopper slowly pulled him to shore. I watched the
medics work on him and finally pronounce him dead. They put his body on
the chopper and took Mulvey away. The next day Mulvey walked right into
our hooch at CoCo Beach! He freaked us out! He was kinda embarrassed
about the whole thing. All he would tell us was that they were able to
revive him at the hospital and he didn't want to talk about it!
Then it began. The Legend circulated throughout the Company within the
day. Mulvey had come back to save us. The story went that when Mulvey
died that day at CoCo Beach and went to Heaven, he could see all. He knew
he had unfinished business. So he went to God and cut a deal. God would
let him come back so he could save his buddies, but when he was done he
would have to die again.
This Legend was still being told when I left Nam four months later.
Any time a Grunt got a chance to sit down and have a cold beer, the
Cherries got to hear the Legend of Mulvey: The Soldier Who Came Back.
But I guess the Legend still lives because any time we old Grunts get
together and have a cold beer we still tell the Legend of Mulvey....and I
believe still.
Harvey Sullivan
(Sully)
D/1/501: Vietnam 1969-'70
The Soldier Who Came Back
by Harvey Sullivan