LZ Grant - May 12, 1969
Al Christy
Mortar Platoon, Company E, 2/12th
Cavalry
I remember well, the evening of 12 May '69 and the morning of the 13th. I'd just transferred to E Company from Bad Bet and thought it'd be great to stash my rucksack somewhere and hang at LZ Grant. The idea of frequent trips to the river to swim/ bath and wash clothes, not having to hump the bush day in/ day out, no more unwelcome visits to NVA bunker complexes, etc., sounded just fine to me.
Jeff Spenzer of C Company (from the Cleveland area, near my hometown), Tommy Bills, Jerry Gann and I had been talking when I'd said goodnight to Jeff, who had guard about 3 bunkers down from our mortars, in front of the 1/77 guns. I took my boots off and stretched out on top of my parapet (Gun #2), and was soon fast asleep.
The next thing I knew, someone had emptied a clip right next to my ear, it was Tommy Bills, he and Jerry Gann (both were our FDC) had continued the conversation the 4 of us had been having. He killed two NVA between Gun #1 and their hootches, one had a satchel charge, the other an AK 50, we're fairly sure they were heading over to C Battery, 1/77 area to take out one of their guns. My neck was stretched out pretty good, and ripe for slitting, a likely outcome, as it was a company of NVA sappers that got in that night. Again, a heartfelt THANKS to my two MI buddies.
When Tommie Bills blew their element of surprise, we started receiving all hell. I rolled into my gunpit, got an illumination round up, and kept that up for a period of time. Guns #1 and #3 had been knocked out soon thereafter. Jerry Gann crawled over to my gun pit and asked, "Al, what can I do to help"? I asked him to strip all the charges off a dozen or so HE rounds, so we could keep most of the bastards off of us. It was dark, all I could do was shoot from the hip, I just stood the tube almost straight up, and we let em fly. We had ~12 rounds in the air, praying (second guessing myself) they cleared the berm. What a relief when the 1st round landed in our wire, and the others, I’d walked to the East, parallel to the berm, opposite the 1/77.
I remember guys yelling at me, “Christy, get the f… out of there”, as there were a lot of B-40’s, and grenades landing. The thought had crossed my mind to vacate the gun, but I thought, there’s really no where to go, LZ Grant wasn’t very big, and we needed to hold our ground. It finally became untenable, and I had join the rest of my platoon, behind an internal berm, adjacent to our area, where we could control NVA movement.
Illumination of the LZ ceased, for what seemed like an eternity when I was forced back, but eventually the 1/77 got a gun cranked up and they started providing light.
No need to get into it, but it was up close and personal until the sun came up. It was always great to see the sun come up! Unfortunately, not all of us that went through it, did so. Many fine young men lost their lives on LZ Grant.
Outside of R&R, and trips to the rear, I never took my boots off at night again till January 1970. Heck, I never slept again at night, unless I was somewhere where there was relative safety, e.g., Binh Hoa, Tay Ninh, Quan Loi, Cu Chi, Phuoc Vinh, Saigon, etc.
I’ve been told there were 58 dead sappers counted in the morning, I don’t know what the official record shows.