Diễn Đàn Cựu Sinh Viên Quân Y Hiện Dịch

Chapter Six

Ripley's Raiders

The fighting raged on from mid‐afternoon to late afternoon; still personal, still brutal, often at between bayonet and hand grenade range. Marine air and artillery were a godsend, keeping the much larger enemy force at bay, dulling but still not eliminating completely their enthusiasm to regain all the gear they had left behind.

Replacement Marines were worked into the various squads of First and Second Platoon along with all the ammunition they could shoot. Medevacs took out only the most critically wounded. The rest of the wounded-nearly everyone else-stayed in the fight.

Meanwhile, India Company, Lima’s relief, continued inbound throughout the day. At around 1730 or a bit later, a platoon from India made contact with Lima’s perimeter. What a joy for all the men of Lima to know that the “cavalry,” however late, had made the scene. A collective, heartfelt “God bless India” was on the lips of all Lima Company Marines.

Fully expecting to have his position reinforced and consolidated in order to keep all the NVA gear from falling back into their control, after paying such a high price to conquer this piece of jungle hell now consecrated with so much Lima Company blood, it came as brutal affront and outright shock to Captain Ripley when Gunnery Sergeant Mack, the platoon commander from India Company who had made the linkup, delivered orders to abandon this locale and pull back for the night to the junction where Lima’s Third Platoon had been forced to sit out the battle.

Captain Ripley was livid. Even if they had not paid the huge price to appropriate all the NVA gear they now controlled, Lima Six Actual was not about to leave it for them to come back and repossess. Even if all of Lima Company’s walking wounded had been at full strength and maximum health, even if this was not a tactical situation and even if he could have checked the Yellow Pages for a moving company to pack this stuff out of there, Captain Ripley would have needed a fleet of trucks, all the elephants in Hannibal’s supply train.

There was no textbook method or typical manner by which to break contact. The fighting on this position just sort of petered out on its own as night approached, both sides experiencing near complete physical, mental, and material exhaustion.

Prior to departure from this ground now drenched in Lima blood and littered with NVA dead and their equipment, Captain Ripley and Prince Henry the Navigator, who like his skipper had been dinged but was still very much alive, worked up an even greater volume of air and artillery strike requests to continuously blanket the position they were about to vacate. Like a stubborn, selfish child the Marine attitude was that if they were not sticking around then neither could the NVA. From the air strikes it was “snakes and nape” (Snake‐Eye bombs were five hundred‐plus pounds of high explosives, napalm the gelatinous substance that burned everything it touched), from arty came multiple volleys of high explosives. By the time those missions were “rounds complete” there would be little that the NVA could use of the supplies which had been left behind.
Policing the site to ensure that all Marines were accounted for, Captain Ripley spoke briefly with his company gunnery sergeant. Surveying the diminished and dramatically rotated roster of Lima
Company personnel, this very prototypical Marine Corps SNCO, in prototypical Marine Corps SNCO eloquence, gave Lima Six Actual a partial, horrific score for the day: “Skipper, there’s only fifteen motherfuckers left in this outfit who ain’t been killed or wounded today…an’ you ain’t one of ‘em, sir.” With that, Lima Company, what was left of it, moved out together and headed down the trail.

THE GRIM REAPER COMETH

Captain Ripley’s emphatic, official, but probably illegal, order to his senior corpsman-”Don’t you ever tag me!”-was never disobeyed. The ill‐advised broadcasting over an uncovered net that “The skipper’s hit! The skipper’s hit!” by one of the reasonably flustered company radio operators was heard by everyone back at the Division G‐3 where all comm was monitored. That very same transmission was no doubt listened in on by prying NVA radio operators as well.

Mindful that the regimental operations officer for the Third Marines, parent regiment to 3/3, Major George Ripley, was big brother to the skipper in question, an unnamed but concerned fellow monitoring the broadcast in the rear had the presence of mind to record the info on one of those official U.S. government three‐colored, carbon‐between‐the‐copies message pads. Major George Ripley received the yellow copy of the semi‐official and still inconclusive news: “Skipper L 3/3 hit. Still breathing…” Major George Ripley, the same man who by allowing his baby brother to read, against the counsel of his parents, Leon Uris’s Battle Cry way back when that helped set the hook in the tender‐hearted youngster to a life that now seemed just about to be snuffed out, with a heavy heart partially folded and then in a mix of grief and anger balled up the yellow paper and placed it in his pocket.

Once the word was out that Captain Ripley was a casualty, whatever the status, the ironclad, no‐nonsense process for notification to next of kin was inexorably begun. With Ripley still in the field, there was no way he could preempt the casualty‐call process.

The fighting that had taken place on March 2 had long concluded, to be replaced by other skirmishes in subsequent days by the time the Casualty Call Officer (CACO) tasked with delivering the news to Moline Ripley arrived. Still in the field, in command and very much in the fight, Captain Ripley was unaware that his wife and folks were soon to be notified of the wound he received but had claimed no credit for.

As much as she feared what might be shown or broadcast, Moline Ripley was drawn to every news report concerning Vietnam. With senses acute, she could be in another room tending
to young Stephen or doing other chores but still alert for key words like “Marines” or “casualties” or “northern I Corps.” No news, no mention of action involving Marines; that was good news.
By the late morning of March 3, 1967 Moline Ripley had already read where Senator Robert Kennedy the day before had announced a three‐point plan to end the war. His plan included a suspension of U.S. bombing of the north, withdrawal of both American and North Vietnamese ground forces from the south, and a replacement with some sort of neutral international force. The senator’s good intentions had certainly not trickled down to either side currently locked in mortal combat in northern I Corps.

There was also continual coverage of growing opposition to the war on the American college scene. It had not been two weeks since a major demonstration had taken place at the University of Wisconsin where students protested the presence of Dow Chemical representatives on campus. Dow, manufacturer of the very napalm Captain Ripley and Prince Henry the Navigator had only hours before adroitly applied in order to save the lives of Lima Company Marines and terminate those of their enemy, had come to recruit promising young scientists. The protests garnered national attention. At their conclusion, those who had joined in, except for the organizers, were able to return to the more serious college pursuits of getting laid and loaded. For the Marines spared thanks to the scientific genius of Dow engineers, life or death in the jungle was all they could continue to look forward to.

Networked with and well supported by her slightly older sister - in‐ law Maureen, whose husband Major George Ripley had been the first family member to hear the bad news, the two women were as close as they could be. Living in the same apartment complex in Alexandria, Virginia while their husbands were at war, they were within shouting distance of one another. George and Maureen had three daughters, all older than Stephen. Both of the young mothers could spell the other for a break when the need arose.

Maureen’s kitchen window looked out onto the main lot where visitors to this section of the complex were forced to park. She was the very first to spot the approach of the official USMC vehicle that might as well have been replaced by a skeleton riding a horse. As she and Moline were the only military wives in this portion of the development, unless the Marine officer was lost, her day was instantly ruined; she knew she was either minus a husband or a brother‐in‐law.
Maureen Ripley gathered up her youngest daughter, the other two at school, and rushed out to intercept the young Marine captain who had just parked his sedan. Recognizing from a distance the extreme fear in her eyes as the distance between them closed, the captain spoke a split second before she did, both speaking over the other. “I’m looking for the Ripley family, please.”

“Which Ripley is it you want, Captain?”

When Maureen learned that it was John and not George, she was grateful for the briefest moment, thankful that her husband was alright. That relief was immediately replaced by her own survivor’s guilt and then sadness and empathy for Moline and sweet little Stephen. “I’ll take you to Captain Ripley’s wife…” Maureen Ripley accompanied him to her sister‐in‐law’s apartment. As pleasant and professional as he appeared, there was simply no way to make friendly conversation on the walk. And it was a long walk that seemed to last forever. When they got to the door, the captain politely rapped on the door’s frame with Maureen standing behind him.

Expecting no one in particular, Moline Ripley was quick to respond; her sister‐in‐law would not have knocked. Opening the door her demeanor changed with the speed of sight from the natural smile she almost always wore to what could only be described as shock and fear and extreme sadness. While still not used to this, the young captain had experienced the broad range of outcomes-none of them good, some only less bad than others-to the responses his presence always evoked. He would rather have faced the same enemy John Ripley currently faced than serve as a CACO, but duty called.

Moline moaned, then emphatically said, “No…?” Somehow able to maintain her composure and dignity, she managed to find the words to invite him in. The shock of the moment consumed her, so much so that she blindly closed the door on Maureen as if she were not even there.
Such bizarre and horrible duty it was to serve as a Casualty Call Officer. In the cases where the Marine involved was KIA, there was never a positive outcome from the visit, no joy at all. With a family, especially that of a professional officer or longserving SNCO, folks became almost giddy when they would learn that their Marine was “only” wounded.

Once the CACO had assured Moline that her husband was very much alive and expected to recover, the mood changed dramatically. Thanking him profusely, Moline noted his kindness and professionalism. She took great comfort in knowing that her Marine had not been killed. At least not yet.

The process for notifying primary next of kin-a wife if a man was married or parents generally if a man was single-was far more personal than notification for secondary next of kin. In Captain John Ripley’s case, his folks received the typical, timeless, and without-any-compassion-at-all telegram. (By 1967 telegrams were used by fewer and fewer people as long‐distance phone calls had displaced their need except for the odd method of communication such as the need for a government agency to inform a family member of their relative’s death in combat.)

Further south and west in tiny Radford where Bud and Verna Ripley were widely known, it was common knowledge that all three of their sons had been, for a period of time, in Vietnam together. It was also common knowledge all across small‐town America in 1967 that the man who delivered telegrams for Western Union, as innocuous as he might look in that silly uniform, more times than not, especially as the war intensified, became the Grim Reaper himself. Unless someone was sending a telegram announcing the birth of a child-which would have been worth the expense of a long‐distance call-and there were currently no pregnant women in the greater Ripley family circle anyway, whatever message he might bring would not be joyful news.

When the message arrived and before it was delivered, even without its contents being disclosed to anyone, the news that there was a telegram for the Ripleys traveled with amazing haste in tiny Radford, so quickly that a fair number of folks presumed to know its portending doom before Bud and Verna Ripley ever took delivery of it.

Verna Ripley spied the approach of the hapless Western Union man well before he reached the door. Assuming instantly the news was bad, she took off in the opposite direction, crying hysterically, as if not knowing for sure might deny the reality of what she was about to learn. Bud was left to initially deal with news that was inconclusive but still, by God, confirmed that their youngest son was alive.

The notion that Captain John Ripley had, at last report anyway, been seen alive, was reasonably healthy, and still fit enough to command his rifle company served as elixir to his lovely young bride. Moline Ripley’s ability to isolate and then extrapolate that news, and hang on to it as if he was somehow safe and sound was the only reasonable way to cope with not knowing a lot of details, details that would have sickened her with worry. At least he was alive. That was comforting to know, something that would allow her to keep focused on the one good thing in her life that she did have some control over which was the mothering and nurturing of sweet little Stephen.

But Captain Ripley wasn’t safe and sound. While he would have wanted his wife and folks not to worry, the real truth was that the action in northern I Corps had never really stopped, had never really de‐escalated at all… It was probably not at all ironic that as the clock was again about to advance one more twenty‐four‐hour period to check off on the service calendars of everybody left alive after the day’s fighting-both of Ripley’s platoon commanders had been killed and every squad leader from First and Second Platoon was either KIA or WIA-that the final contact with the enemy would be initiated and concluded by the squad of the very man who had sniffed out the NVA regimental headquarters a dozen or so hours earlier.

Captain Ripley, along with his few remaining stalwarts plus all those who had joined as replacements throughout the day, had finally linked up with Third Platoon at the original trail junction. In addition to the ersatz collection of Lima Marines were most of India Company and a smattering of others from the battalion.

Just because they had fought a major engagement and lost and replaced a large number of their comrades was no reason to kick back. This was not a football game. The clock had not run out of time even though Lima had nearly run out of men. This was the USMC and here in northern I Corps the war was still definitely on.

Once the disparate units had linked up for the night, the normal tactical routines were reestablished. Placed on 50 percent alert, with two men to each fighting hole where one man slept and the other kept watch, each platoon also sent out a security or ambush patrol to protect the greater harbor site. As tired as he was, Captain Ripley monitored the comm with his radio operator. Corporal Hobbs had been sent out with his squad to a general location selected by his skipper. Figuring that if the NVA were to come calling they would pass a certain spot on the trail, they selected a proper ambush position. Corporal Hobbs and crew did not have to wait long for visitors.

It was a slaughter. Perhaps the NVA expected the Americans to lay low, to expect no pressure from an enemy who had lost many times the number of men they did, to be as tired as they were. The volume of fire shattered the night’s stillness. The ambush site was distant but close enough for the entire company to hear the screams of the enemy shouting, seeming to plead, “Chieu hoi! Chieu hoi!” “Same to you. Assholes. Whatever ‘chieu hoi’ means.”

It was only later the Marines learned that the men caught in Hobbs’s ambush, once discovered, had decided to surrender. (“Chieu hoi” means “I surrender.”) No prisoners were taken that night. Had there been understanding of what they said, after the experience of the earlier combat, it was still doubtful there would have been prisoners taken that night.

The action that followed on March 3 was little different than that of March 2. March 3 was followed by the fourth, the fifth, the sixth. Lima Company remained in the field, humping from place to place, in contact with the NVA every single day. Machete Eddie was correct in his assessment; John Ripley had some kind of magnet that attracted action. Lima Company would remain in
the bush for the rest of March. Chuck Goggin was still in charge of First Platoon, was even promoted to sergeant by his skipper who had no real authority to do so. General Ryan, a day or two later, came out and made it all legal.

Every single new day was nearly the same as the day before, and the one before that. Marines knew it was Sunday only because it was the day the corpsmen would pass out malaria pills. The fighting, the continual contact with the enemy went on and on. Without relent. Men were routinely killed or wounded every single day. Without relent.

The action involving Lima 3/3 in early March of 1967 was not unique. In northern I Corps, the rest of I Corps and throughout all of South Vietnam, the first week of the month saw the greatest casualty toll for the war so far with 1,617 Americans killed, wounded, or missing.

As much as they were ground down and exhausted, those who remained were by now pretty confident in their abilities and those of the man who led them. The Lima Marines who remained had a right to be proud. In every single engagement they had taken their fair share of hits but they had always bested the NVA. Always. It must have been at least two weeks after that first major action of March 2 when one of the Lima Company vets received in his letters from home news clippings about the exploits of an outfit the Boston Globe or some other East Coast newspaper was now referring to as “Ripley’s Raiders.”

Oddly enough, throughout the course of that day that seemed never to end, during one of the countless resupply/medevac runs to the position Lima Company attacked into and then defended on March 2, a gaggle of print and broadcast journalists were transported out to have a look‐see at the hornet’s nest Lima had stirred up. With Captain Ripley and every one of his Marines focused on the battle, camera crews and men with tape recorders haphazardly surveyed Lima Company’s positions, almost as if they were not part of or subject to the fighting taking place all around. More than anything else, their presence was an annoyance and a distraction for Marines
trying to get to the business at hand. As if these men were completely neutral about the outcome, one camera crew even filmed a group of Marines transporting a wounded comrade to a waiting helicopter using a poncho as a stretcher. When an incoming mortar barrage caused the stretcher bearers to drop their buddy as they sought cover, the camera crew filmed the episode. The parents of the fellow in the poncho learned of their son’s wounding when they saw all the action on the evening news. This particular news report caused them no end of sadness and grief.

Long before this incident occurred, the popularity of media types for most Marines in contact was only slightly higher than their love of the NVA. As the attack progressed and intensified, with members of the press also standing in harm’s way, the desire for self‐preservation caused one of them to charge a CH‐46 which was just about to lift off with its ramp nearly up. Running at a speed rivaling Jesse Owens, the man in question threw his equipment up and into the helicopter, where it landed on several of the wounded Marines being medevaced. With his gear aboard he then attempted to scale the closed aft ramp of the helicopter. The Marines witnessing this egregious display of cowardice and self‐preservation were enraged. At least one of the Lima Marines wanted to shoot the man.

Of the group of journalists who made it out and were able to file reports, at least one was impressed by the pluck and determination of Lima Company’s exploits. In writing about what he was able to personally observe and learn from the Marines in contact, he described this seemingly august and increasingly smaller‐by‐the‐hour group of Leathernecks as “Ripley’s Raiders.” The name stuck. For those who were a part of it, it was a title of honor, a proud thing to describe oneself as a member in that now too small group of men known, as long as their skipper led them in combat, as “Ripley’s Raiders.”

Whether the NVA had access to the Boston Globe or not mattered little. They poured their finest troops into the action at an increasing rate to do battle with Marine units all across I Corps. The constant contact and intensity of combat for all USMC units from late February 1967 onward was a reality few at home could appreciate.

In any other military organization, return to Ca Lu could only be described as extreme hardship duty. Compared to where Lima Company had spent the last four weeks, compared to the brutal action they routinely engaged in every single day as they battled NVA units across the width and breadth of their tiny section of northern I Corps, return to the “company hill” that was Ca Lu, a veritable Ft. Apache in the wilderness, was as close as mud Marines would get to heaven without dying first in early April 1967. Strategically located along Route 9 adjacent to the Thach Han River, Ca Lu was the furthest west fortified position occupied by Marines before Khe Sanh, some twenty or so kilometers closer to the Laotian border.

To give Lima Company a small break from the action another rifle company was helicoptered in to man the perimeter at Ca Lu. When the last Lima Marine was inside the wire sometime around 1730, the quality festivities and classiness of Marine Corps goodness were revealed. With unlimited quantities of steaks and cheap beer magically made available to the men who looked more like participants in some crazy mass experiment in sleep deprivation, stress, and starvation than the battle‐hardened warriors they had become, a whole host of those aboard had grown sufficiently sick to their stomachs from gorging on steaks or blotto from the beer by 2200 when the word came that a battalion from Ninth Marines had gotten into some big‐time action. Reinforcement was required. By 2230 Ripley’s Raiders were formed up, on the road, good to go. They were back in it…all the way…again.