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That
sense of security was soon to be broken. One day we were following a trail
that went south through the dense jungle that covered the hilltops. After
an hour or so the jungle opened up to terraced hillsides growing corn. The
corn stocks were 8 to 10 feet tall. Some of the marines from the Midwest
were amazed that corn could grow anywhere other than on flat ground.
Following the trail down the hill we discovered that these corn plants
belonged to a Montagnard village located several miles upriver from Ca Lu. They were armed with machetes and vintage French
rifles. Happy to see us, they reported that they were armed because the NVA
had recently been traveling through their area on a regular basis.
Several days later a convoy of 11th Engineers
traveling from Ca Lu to a worksite near Khe Sanh
was ambushed. One of them was able to make it back to Ca
Lu. We were loaded on trucks and rushed to the ambush site at a stretch of
the highway making a 90 degree turn called the "Elbow". After
securing the area, we observed that it was the classic L shaped ambush. The
smaller lead vehicle known as a "PC” was let through so that a command
detonated mine could be detonated under a dump truck blocking the road to
the vehicles behind. The engineers were then caught in the crossfire set up
along the L. We finally located the survivors, who had crawled down the
bank and toward the river, and had taken up a defensive position. We sent
them back to Ca Lu and continued on looking for
the lead vehicle. As we continued up the road we found that it had hit a
road mine and was blown over on its side. The driver, the corpsman, and
another Marine were all injured. None of the members of that convoy escaped
injury.
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