[A/N] A segment in this chapter contains the coarse language found in the US military, as well as descriptions of violent death. The same segment also contains certain racial slurs which were common for the period. Although unpleasant, I feel that these inclusions are necessary for the continued development of this story. As always, my thanks and appreciation to my loyal readers.


Chapter 26
The Hill Fights

Friday, 16 October 1998
0630 PDT
Hotel Del Coronado
San Diego, CA

Mac was wide awake and was cradling Harm's head in her arms while his cheek resting against her breast. This would be their final morning at the resort, and Mac didn't intend to spend it sleeping.

"Wake up, sleepyhead."

"What's the matter?" Harm groaned.

"You said last night that we'd go for a run this morning"

"If I recall, both of us being rather vocal last night."

Mac kicked Harm in the thigh. "Smart ass."

"It's dark outside. And it's going to be cold," Harm insisted.

"You'll warm up after the first five miles."

"The first five miles. There's no way I'm running more than five miles."

"In that case, five miles will be fine," Mac answered in a smug voice.

"You tricked me," Harm complained.

"Imagine being tricked by a Marine. Now come on, get out of bed."

Mac began playfully pushing Harm towards the edge of the king size bed until Harm relented and went into the head.

Mac sat up and smiled. This gets easier every time I try it. It's painfully obvious that Harm has been without proper supervision for far too long. I will change that. My god! I'm beginning to sound like Trish.

Twenty minutes later, Harm and Mac were in their running gear and moving south along the beach. When they reached Naval Base Coronado they cut across the Silver Strand Highway, stopping at Glorietta Bay Park just long enough to shake the sand out of their shoes.

"North or south?" Mac asked.

"There's a golf course to the north, but it has no access to the bay. There's a path along the bay going south to Fiddler's Cove Marina. It's a nice run, but it will be more than a five miles. More like eight."

Mac smiled. "Now you're getting with the program. Always put out a little extra effort. That's the Marine Corps way."

"Then god help me."

"Your shoes are untied, Harm."

When Harm looked down to check his shoes, Mac raced away.

Damned jarheads

Harm quickly caught up with Mac. "You tricked me!"

"Yes, for the second time in under one hour. That's a poor performance, even for the Navy. Now pick up the pace, Flyboy. I don't want to miss the buffet breakfast at the hotel."


0235 local (Zulu +8)
02 May 1967
I Corps Tactical Zone near Hill 881
Thừa Thiên-Huế Province, Republic Of Vietnam

Click...Click-Click.

Lance Corporal Dennis Davis, the RTO (Radio Telephone Operator) for the 3rd Platoon, reached out and tapped the shoulder of 2ndLT Craig Walker, the platoon commander.

"Sir. Movement at LP (Listing Post) 1."

Walker tapped the shoulder of his Platoon Sergeant who was dozing next to him. "Mac. There's movement at LP 1. Alert the platoon."

"Aye aye, sir."

Staff Sergeant Joe MacKenzie silently climbed out of the fighting hole and moved around the improvised command post, alerting his entire platoon, or what was left of them. Four days of hard fighting had reduced 3rd platoon's strength to just 34 able bodies. Despite being under strength, 3rd platoon had been tasked with securing an area near a tree line, and they were stretched woefully thin.

Setting up listening posts further drained manpower.

Listening posts acted as the platoon's early warning system. Other than latrine duty, which was the polite term for burning 55 gallon drums filled with shit, LPs were considered to be the worst assignment; and for very good reason. LP's were seriously dangerous. In Vietnam, the NVA owned the night and they used darkness as a weapon. Those Marines assigned to LP's felt like tethered goats- little more than bait for the enemy.

"Check in with the other LP's," Walker ordered his RTO.

Click-Click...Click.

"Negative," a muffled voice responded in a barely audible tone.

"LP 2 reports no movement."

Click-Click-Click...Click. Click-Click-Click...Click. Click-Click-Click...Click.

"Negative response from LP 3."

"Mac, there's no contact from LP 3," LT Walker informed Staff Sergeant MacKenzie, who had returned to the command fighting hole. "I need you to find out what's going on out there," Walker ordered.

"Yes, sir," answered Mac, who began to low crawl the 100 meters which separated LP 3 from the main body.

Low crawl gives the lowest silhouette where enemy fire and observation is likely. Push both arms forward, move one leg up, and let the other leg drag behind...and repeat. Crawl, stop, listen. Crawl, stop, listen.

It was slow going.

There was no moon, but even in darkness, a human face is easily recognizable. In order to look forward, Mac bent his head at the neck, keeping the side of his helmet against the ground.

With considerable effort he could see the tree line, or what was left of it after Marine artillery had hammered the area all afternoon.

There was no indication of enemy activity, but what was in or beyond the trees was anyone's guess.

There could be an entire NVA division in there. This is a job for a full company, but battalion decided to secure the area with a single understrength platoon? Fucking brilliant!

Crawl, stop, listen. Crawl, stop, listen.

As he neared the LP, Mac raised his head ever so slightly.

He couldn't make out any movement inside the fighting hole, then he heard a faint Click-Click-Click coming over the handy talkie which was laying in the bottom of the hole.

Something stirred inside the hole, but didn't respond to the call from the CP.

They'refucking sleeping! Mac hurried his crawl.

When Mac reached the edge of the hole he placed his left hand on the left shoulder of Lance Corporal Charles Brown, who instantly came to life.

"I wasn't asleep," Brown said quickly.

"Bullshit."

"There hasn't been any movement," Brown reassured.

How would this dumb-fuck know when he's been sound asleep?

Mac scanned the tree line and listened for himself.

Nothing.

By now Brown's partner, Private Bryce, was awake.

Brian Bryce was fresh off the boat from Okinawa, and with less than one month in-country. There was precious little time for instruction in I Corps, and the learning curve in Thừa Thiên-Huế Province was short, meaning Bryce was on borrowed time.

"Stay frosty, and stay the-fuck awake," Mac had told Brown before beginning a slow crawl to inspect LP 2.

Mac had moved no more than 15 feet when he heard something.

In high stress situations the mind plays tricks on you. Mac knew that the most significant obstacle to listening was his own imagination. Even so, he froze like a statue.

Mac heard the noise again, but recognized it as the rustling sound of a small animal.

Probably just a field rat.

Private Bryce suddenly began screaming, "They're in the trees!" Bryce released the safety on the "clacker," lifted his head out of the hole to observe, and then command detonated the LP's three claymore mines which were daisy chained.

Boom, Boom, BOOM!

In a millisecond, everyone in 3rd platoon realized that something had gone horribly wrong at listening post 3. While Brown and Bryce were sleeping, the NVA had come forward and reversed the direction of the mines. Instead of being aimed at the enemy, the powerful claymores were now facing the Marines.

Three blast waves raced across the listening post, and Mac felt dozens of steel balls striking his lower body. Then came an unbearable burst of electric pain exploding in his brain.

Mac's legs were useless; he wasn't sure that they were still attached to his body. Survival instinct took over. Mac pulled himself hand-over-hand to the fighting hole where Brown dragged him inside.

"Corpsman!" Brown shouted.

"Radio...radio," Mac moaned. For the NVA eliminating a single corpsman was better than wiping out an entire platoon of grunts.

Brown used the radio to signal the CP for assistance and then looked over at Private Bryce, who had lifted his head above the edge of the hole in order to spectate.

Bryce's helmet had been blown off by the blast and his entire face had been ripped away. Brain matter was oozing out of several holes in the skull, leaving nothing resembling a human head above the shoulders.

Despite the thunder of the claymores and a peppering by a few stray steel balls, 3rd platoon's fire discipline remained excellent. Because muzzle flashes from rifle fire would give away their positions, the platoon held their fire, and held their collective breaths, while they waited for the enemy to launch an attack.

"LP 3 has been hit. One dead and one seriously wounded," RTO Davis reported to LT Walker. "Sir, the casualty is Staff Sergeant Mackenzie!"

"Shit," said Walker, who felt as though he'd been punched in the stomach. A platoon sergeant can literally make or break a young lieutenant's career and Joe Mackenzie was the best in the company, if not the entire regiment.

"First squad, up front," LT Walker ordered, and Sergeant Moses Smith, a large black man and the senior sergeant in the platoon reported.

"Sergeant Smith, LP 3 has been hit. One dead, one wounded. Take two fire teams and the corpsman to relieve them." Walker paused and then added, "Smith, Staff Sergeant MacKenzie is the casualty."

"Aye aye, sir," said Smith, who then formed his teams.

Moses Smith and Mac were best friends and his drinking buddy's. When both men were sergeants and Mac was selected to be platoon sergeant ahead of him, Moses Smith had no hard feelings and offered his congratulations. Now, rescuing his best friend was all that Moses' Smith cared about.

At LP-3, Mac was writhing in agony at the bottom of the fighting hole. "The CP says that help's on the way," Brown reassured.

With only his individual first aid, Brown began sprinkling sulfa powder over Mac's legs, which even in the darkness had the appearance of coarsely ground beef.

Sergeant Smith's team made good time to the LP.

When Moses Smith looked down into the fighting hole his eyes locked with Mac's, Mac reached grabbed and grabbed his friend's blouse. "Moe, I'm dying. I'm dying!"

"You're not dying you salty old son of a bitch. Corpsman, up front," said Smith, and Hospital Corpsman Third Class Dylan Dunson went down into the hole.

Dylan Dunson was not a Marine. The US Navy provided combat trained hospital corpsmen to serve with the grunts of the Fleet Marine Force. "Doc" Dunson trained, ate, and fought alongside "his" Marines, and he proudly wore the Fleet Marine Force Specialist Device on his uniform; the single most coveted insignia within the hospital corpsman community.

"Doc, I know that I'm dying," Mac pleaded.

"Maybe in another thirty years, but not on my watch!" insisted Dunson, who gave Mac a injection of morphine.

Mac wretched as the drug raced through his veins, then he sighed when he was engulfed in a warm blanket of relief.

"I can't do shit out here," Dunson told Sergeant Smith. "We need to get him back to the CP...fast."

Smith pointed to Bryce's lifeless body. "What about this one?"

"He's gone. Bag him and drag him," said Dunson, who had no recollection of ever seeing Private Brian Bryce.

Smith left two members of his team at the LP, while the others, including Brown, placed Mac and Bryce's body onto ponchos and began moving them back to the CP.

There was no firing from the trees during the Marine's withdrawal.

Were the NVA still there...or were they ever there? thought Smith.

You seldom saw a live NVA, and you rarely found a body.

The NVA went to great effort to drag away their dead. Where they took those bodies was a question to which no one had an answer. The only thing certain was that no NVA grunt came south with an expectation of seeing his home or his family again.

The moment the team reached the CP, Dunson began treating Mac's wounds.

Mac's flak jacket and helmet had protected his head and upper body, but the soft steel balls from the claymores had done horrific damage to his legs. Dunson had no idea about possible nerve damage, but by some miracle, no arteries had been hit and no bones appeared to be fractured.

Dylan Dunson surmised that Joe MacKenzie would keep both of his legs.

"How bad is it, Doc?" Mac asked. "Spit it out."

"You'll make it off of the Hill," Dunson reassured. "but you'll be riding out in a chopper and not walking."

"What about my nuts?"

"They're both still there, but finding a use them out here is your own god damned business!"

"Report?" LT Walker ordered SGT Smith, who provided what he knew about the events at the LP, which was next to nothing.

"Well, Brown?" the Lieutenant demanded of the lance corporal, who was trembling in front of his CO.

"Sir, Private Bryce heard what he believed to be the enemy in the trees and he fired the claymores. The gooks must have come forward and turned them around."

"How the fuck did you allow that to happen?"

"I regret to inform the Lieutenant that both Private Bryce and I were sleeping while on watch."

"Brown, you were senior man at the LP. Because of your dereliction of duty, I have one man dead, and my platoon sergeant critically injured. I'll bring you up on charges when we get back to Da Nang. Until then, you are busted down to private. Now, get the fuck out of my sight!"

"Aye aye, sir." Private Charles Brown left the CP in tears, and with his head hung in shame.

Brown was a member of Sergeant Smith's first squad and until now, Brown had been a good Marine. SGT Smith spoke up for him. "With all due respect, sir, Brown was up all day, as well as most of last night. Brown fucked up, but he had the balls to admit it," Smith explained.

"We're all tired, Sergeant Smith," said LT Walker, who had been awake for nearly 72 hours straight. "While Brown was sleeping, the gooks could have moved past the LP, wiped out the entire platoon, and then launched a surprise attack on the battalion."

"Yes, sir. Understood, sir."

Behind them, Mac began stirring. "I lost my rifle. I need a rifle. I need a rifle!"

"Shh. Shh. Quiet, Mac. I'll get your weapon."

Smith moved to the pile of M16s which had been left behind by the evacuated dead and wounded. After ensuring that the rifle was clear, Smith inserted an empty magazine, set the selector on safe, and then set the unloaded M16 down next to his friend.

"Here's your rifle, Mac. Locked and loaded, and on safe."

"Thanks, Moe."

"We'll get you out of here first thing in the morning. By tomorrow afternoon you'll be in a hospital in Da Nang with pretty nurses, hot chow, and you'll be in a real bed with clean sheets."

"The platoon's yours now, Moe. Look after them," Mac pleaded.

"No sweat. Now, just go to sleep." Moses Smith placed his hand on his friend's shoulder and Joe MacKenzie closed his eyes.

The next morning, and less than one hour after Joe MacKenzie had been evacuated, Sergeant Moses Smith's position took a direct hit from an NVA 82 mm mortar shell.

The dog tag which Sergeant Smith had attached to his left boot lace was used to identify his remains.

While attempting to give aid to those who were wounded during the shelling which had killed Sergeant Smith, Hospital Corpsman Third Class Dylan "Doc" Dunson was killed by an enemy sniper.

Later that same day, Private Charles Brown of Woodland Hills CA, single handedly attacked an NVA machine gun position with hand grenades. After silencing the first machine gun, Private Brown launched an attack on a second enemy position. Brown knocked its gun out of action before he was killed by enemy fire.

2ndLT Craig Walker restored Brown's previous rank and recommended Lance Corporal Brown for a Navy Cross, which was awarded (posthumously) in October, 1967.

On 29 January 1968 (now) 1stLT Craig Walker was killed by enemy artillery fire during the opening days of the Battle of Khe Sanh. Lance Corporal Dennis Davis, Walker's RTO, died alongside his Lieutenant.

The Hill Fights officially ended on 10 May 1967. Although the Marine Corps was quick to declare both tactical and strategic victories, Thừa Thiên-Huế Province remained a contentious and highly dangerous area for the remainder of the war.

More Marines would die in Thừa Thiên-Huế Province than anywhere in Vietnam.

Even so, the Hill Fights joined Belleau Wood, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and the Chosin Reservoir in Marine Corps lore. To have survived the Hill Fights made a Vietnam-era Marine a member of a special group.

Staff Sergeant Joe MacKenzie was counted among those who left Hill 881 alive, but he was never the same man.

Despite several months of rehabilitation, and own his best efforts to remain in the Marine Corps, Joe MacKenzie was permanently separated from the Corps with a Disability Discharge on 30 June 1968; two weeks before the birth of his daughter, Sarah.

VA psychologists speculated that it was Joe MacKenzie's separation from his beloved Marine Corps which triggered his descent into alcoholism.


0955 MDT
Friday, 16 October 1998
Southern Arizona VA Hospital
Yuma, AZ

Commander Martin Simpson, USN MC knocked on the door, and then stepped into the examination room where Joe MacKenzie was seated in a chair.

"What's the word, Doc?" Joe asked.

"I'm afraid that there is nothing but bad news, Joe."

"I'm not used to getting any other kind. Spit it out."

"You have Stage 4 Pancreatic cancer," said Dr. Simpson.

"I take it that's bad."

"It doesn't get any worse."

"Can you do anything for it?" Joe asked matter of fact.

There was no pleading or begging for a cure; Joe McKenzie only wanted a straight answer.

"The cancer has spread to the lymph nodes, and to the liver. At this stage there's nothing that medical science can do which will make a bit of difference in the outcome."

Joe nodded his head. "How much time do I have?"

"Five or six months."

Joe smiled. "Doc, the last time my death was predicted, a Navy corpsman gave me 30 years to live. That was 31 years ago. I guess I showed him."

"Joe, if you'd stop smoking and quit drinking you might gain a few extra months."

"To hell with that. I'm going to stop off at a liquor store on the way home and pick up fifth of Wild Turkey and a carton of Camels."

"Let's be serious. You're going to need palliative care, and soon. Is there anyone-"

"There's no one," Joe said emphatically.

"In that case, you should start looking for a hospice. In the meantime I'm going to write you a prescription for Dilaudid. It's a very strong pain medication. Much stronger than the Vicodin you normally take for your legs."

"I'm not hurting any more than usual," Joe explained.

"I'm prescribing the Dilaudid in case you want to make it easier."

Joe MacKenzie looked directly into his doctor's eyes. "That's a mortal sin, Doc. I was a horrible husband and a piss poor father. Despite all of that, I believe that even someone as miserable as I was to my wife and to my daughter still has something good waiting on the other side. I won't risk it."

Doctor Simpson nodded. "You've still got time, Joe. Go somewhere. Do something."

"Doc, all that I ever wanted to do was to be a Marine, and they took that away from me."

"I want to see you next week. Make an appointment at the desk."

"Sure." Joe Mackenzie got to his feet and offered up his hand. "Thanks for everything you've done, Commander. You're a damn fine man...for an officer."

Dr. Simpson grasped Joe's hand. "Good luck."

"I don't know what good luck is. I've never had any."

Joe MacKenzie limped out of the examination room, passed the appointment desk without saying a word, went through the hospital lobby, and then exited the building.

Once Joe was out on the street his first thought was, Where can a man find a drink at this time of the morning?


Friday, 16 October 1998
0935 PDT
Hotel Del Coronado
San Diego, CA

Following their run, Harm and Mac showered, changed into casual clothes, and then set out for the hotel's Crown Room to enjoy brunch.

While Harm waited for his egg-white omelet with spinach and feta cheese, Mac prowled the buffet line like a hungry cat searching for prey.

"Cinnamon waffles!" Mac exclaimed. She added the crisp waffle to the ever growing pile on her plate and then drenched it in maple syrup and butter.

After collecting his omelet, Harm saw Mac's plate and shook his head. "There's nothing on your plate but carbs, fats and sugars."

"Which happen to be the three finest food groups." Mac reached for the serving tongs, grasped a single strawberry, and then dropped it on top of the waffle. "Fresh fruit. Now it's healthy."

They move on to the patio to enjoy their breakfasts accompanied by a fresh sea breeze. "This place is magic, Harm. Thank you so much for bringing me here."

"It has been a wonderful two days. I wish that we could have stayed longer, but we're almost out of time," admitted Harm.

"Two days was enough for this trip, but I'd like to come back here next summer so that we can go to the beach."

"I'd enjoy that," said Harm. But if everything goes according to plan, next summer I'll be deployed aboard a carrier.

"I'm anxious to see Frank. We should head back to our room to pack," said Mac.

"Before we go to the hospital, how about a stroll along the beachfront?"

"That would be lovely."

As Harm and Mac walked hand in hand along the boardwalk, both understood that their special week in San Diego was nearly at an end.


[A/N] It is impossible to write a story like this one without technical assistance. I want to thank Rebecca and Brent, my two Marine Corps subject matter experts. I also want to give a special thank you to my own mother; a Registered Nurse (retired) who worked with cancer patients on a daily basis for over 25 years. Mom, I had to dumb it down, but I hope that I got it right. Your loving son, Mark