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Gerald Maddock 2nd Pltn Bravo Co 2/27 Wolfhounds

Bravo Co of the 2/27th was designated as a reactionary force to be on stand-by to help units that got into trouble. 2nd Pltn Bravo Co was sent to help re-enforce our sister companies, Alpha, Charlie and Delta, at Diamond I, we arrived early morning Feb 23. We went out on a sweep to take body counts and police up the bodies for burial and collect weapons and ammo. The NVA had broken thru the perimeter the night before and had blown some bunkers with satchel charges. The other companies had lost many men, KIA and WIA's, from that ground attack.

They brought in equipment to dig the trenches between bunkers, bulldozers to dig the mass graves. We spent the rest of that day and the next day rebuilding bunkers and the perimeter, getting ready for the next ground attack that they assured us was going to happen again. The next night when the attack started, they scattered us (2nd Pltn) clear around most of the perimeter. I was on the bunker line that faced the village. I think one gun crew M60 (Oehrli, Nietz, and Branham) was to my right, the other gun crew (Dedeaux, Rhodes, and Burt) was somewhere on further around the perimeter toward the Cambodian side. Everyone else was scattered out between and beyond the gun crews. I can't really tell you what the others went thru, due to our separation that night.

The next morning, we probably talked a little about things that happened that night, but really didn't talk much about it even later, we were very busy for several days afterward. But I'm sure it was embedded in each and every one of our minds, and will go to the grave with each of us. It was a long night, to say the least. Civilian Vietnamese had come to the wire in the late afternoon telling us that buku NVA were coming. At dusk, we could see huge bonfires in the distance on the three sides of us, away from the village side of our perimeter. Don’t know if it was true, but we were told later that we had top priority for air strikes and artillery that night. The sky was lite up like daylight with continuous illumination the whole night, but the dirt and dust in the air was so thick you could almost cut it with a knife, at times you could n't see across the small perimeter. All due from the surrounding artillery, mortar, and air support, and of course, the in-coming enemy ground fire and their bombardment of mortars, rockets and RPG’s.

It started shortly after the sun went down and lasted until just before daylight. As I said, it was a long night. I was between the first and second bunker from the left, on the village side. At the peak of the heaviest mortar attack, tried to get in the corner bunker, but it was full, so I spent the whole night firing from the trench between bunkers. The village was a "no fire zone", even though they kept bringing cases of "Laws" to us. It seem like they had fifty mortar tubes zeroed in on us from the village, we could see the muzzle flashes. Finally, we said, "piss on it" and started firing laws into the damned village. At one point, a spotter plane came in and dropped a white phosphorus round "between the wires" right in front of us, and then here come the jet, he made a trial pass, and was coming around to make his drop. We were screaming our brains out all this time, when they finally got him called off just as he was coming in on his final pass. We all had crap in our pants, litterly. At one point, I was down in the trench reloading my magazines, a mortar round hit right on the edge of the trench behind me, it caved in on top of me. I was completely covered up with dirt.....I thought it was all over. I don't know if I was unconscience for any length of time from the blast and impact. The next thing I knew, I had got my head up out of there and got a gulp of air. I realized I was still alive and only seemed to have effects from the concussion. I found my steal pot, then my M-16, then my magazines and ammo. The bolt and dust cover was open, and the chamber was full of dirt, and I knocked as much dirt out of it as I could. I knocked as much dirt as I could out of my magazines. I took my bottle of LSA lubricant and squirted some in the open chamber, and I also squirted a small amount down the barrel. I fully did not expect it to fire. Knowing it would probably explode in my face, I slammed a magazine home, and jumped up and let loose on "well done". And to my surprise it worked, 18 rounds and a lot of smoke, but by God, to my amazement, the damned thing worked.

I just know, that the 2nd Pltn of Bravo Co. helped save that perimeter that night. We lost Walton Daley that night in the corner bunker opposite where I was. His job was to stay in the bunker and fire off the claymores when they hit the wire. It was raining mortars and RPG's. A mortar round hit close out front of the bunker and a piece of shrapnel came thru the rifle port and struck him in his jugular vein. He bled to death in the bottom of the bunker. Jim Overly just told me recently at a reunion, he was at that bunker with Daley. Daley was a "newbie", and he kept raising up to look out. Jim said he kept telling him to "stay down, I'll tell you when to fire them", but the last time he raised up, he got hit. Jim tried to help him, and called for a medic, he just lost to much blood to quickly, they weren't able to save him. He was the only KIA that night. After it was all over, we swept the area, came back in, started tearing down the perimeter, and we put it all on choppers. Filled in all the holes in the ground, policed the whole damned area for anything that would have indicated that GI's had been there, crawled on the choppers, and off we were on our way to build another perimeter. We had to have overhead cover by dark in our new location, FSB Ayres, and be ready for night patrols. In the months to follow, there would be a Diamond II, III and IV. ...........Diamonds Forever.

The next day after dismantling and policing up Diamond I, they picked us up by chopper and took us to the new spot to start building FSB Ayres where we got back with our company. There was a village a short distance away, and our job was to build a Bn. size perimeter as fast as possible. We spent 2-1/2 days building it. At night, of course, we pulled LP's and bunker guard, no ambushes. The first night, VC set up rockets on one side of us in a hedgerow, as if we were not even there. They were getting ready to fire on the village that I mentioned, and we were in between them and the village, the bunkerline and a LP spotted them, the bunker line started firing dooper rounds in on them and the LP called in mortars, and blew them away. The next morning when we went out to sweep the area, we couldn't believe they had been so dumb. We had again gone with virtually no sleep for three days and two nights due to being on alert, then they let us sleep all night. On the next morning, choppers came in and picked us up and another unit (never knew who it was) came in and took over our perimeter that we had just busted our butts building, and they flew us out. A lot of stuff was happening in a short period of time. I did write a letter to my wife on Feb 27th saying: "They have worked us to death. I went 90 hours with no sleep. In that 90 hours I was in three mortar attacks, one human wave, we tore down Diamond and now are building FSB Ayres. Ayres is only 8 clicks northwest of Cu Chi. We have worked day and night for the last 2-1/2 days, I've only gotten about 4 hrs. sleep in that length of time I am writing this to you so you know why I haven't been writing." I wrote again on Mar 4th: "We spent 3 days at Ayres, then they moved us out. They choppered us to Cu Chi, then flew us out o there to Tay Nihn, they gave us the night down, the next morning they convoyed us out to FSB Washington which is only fifteen miles from Nui Ba Dien, and 15 clicks from C.border Since I wrote last I'd had a span of 72 hrs.with 1-1/2 hrs. sleep, but I've had two good nights sleep since then, so I'm almost back in shape again. This has been one hell of a 8 to 10 days period." Then we started going out on 1 to 6 day loggers (day sweep, night AP), we were on the move all the time, we were being jerked around like a yo-yo. The joys of being a ground-pounder in Vietnam.