Give Me Tomorrow by Patrick K. O'Donnell

Author:Patrick K. O'Donnell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2010-11-04T16:00:00+00:00

While the Chinese mauled the middle and rear elements of the convoy, Sitter, Drysdale, and the tanks pushed forward with the armored First Dog Company tanks in the vanguard. George Company followed with the commandos. Without communications, they were unaware of the tragedy befalling the rest of the column. However, as dusk fell, George Company faced its own personal hell. The Chinese attacked, blowing whistles and bugles. Flares lit up the early evening sky.

“I was so mad. I was so goddamn mad. I could not stand seeing my Marines being shot. As the First Sergeant, I was supposed to be the first soldier. I needed to do something about it!” Zullo later reflected.

He soon got his chance. After a machine gunner on a .50 caliber machine gun went down, Zullo took over. He pulled back the belt and cleared the jam. Then Zullo barked to Frank Bove, “Get your guinea ass up here, and go find me some ammo!” Christ, Chinese are all around, he thought as his eyes scanned the ten or fifteen yards to his left and right.

After receiving several boxes of ammo, the burly Italian pulled back the bolt on the machine gun and threaded the copper and steel belt into the chamber. He adjusted the head space on the weapon and began cutting Chinese down like a scythe.

“It seemed like we hit the entire Chinese army. There was a lot of them,” recalled Bob Camarillo. “Zullo was throwing a lot of lead into the masses.” The rounds sprayed from the gun at a cyclic rate of over five hundred rounds per minute. The projectiles tore some men in half; body parts flew into the air. For nearly an hour, Zullo administered a steady drumbeat of death as the convoy drove through the Chinese assault.

“Bullets were flying everywhere,” remembered Zullo.

Bove heroically continued running up and down the convoy yelling, “Gimme ammo for the .50!”

He was still searching for ammo to feed Zullo’s hungry .50 when he went down. “He was a brave man, all over the place looking for ammo,” reflected Zullo.

The machine gunners tried to keep their units together. Ammo carriers frantically stayed close to the gunners, feeding them ammo as they maintained a steady hail of bullets. The gunners fired at muzzle flashes, and the men directed the tracers (the fifth round in every ammunition belt), which made a brilliant scene. Tragically, in all the melee and excitement, a Marine fell to his death under the treads of a Dog Company tank.

Suddenly, PFC William Baugh screamed, “Grenade!”

The grenade landed in the back of a truck as the men were dismounting. A bazooka man who was attached to George Company, Baugh faced a split-second decision: either hurl the grenade back out of the truck or dive on it to protect the men in the cab with his own body. Baugh heroically dove on the grenade and cradled it with his hands and chest, absorbing the entire blast. Moments later, the mortally wounded twenty-year-old private from Kentucky died in his comrade’s arms.

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