Hill 689
Earl Grissom
Written
I can’t remember if it was late night of June 26th or early morning of June 27th when Khe Sanh started getting hammered by mortars followed by rockets. It was a bad rocket and mortar attack. I’m not sure how many rounds of each, but the attack went on for awhile.
Early that morning, June 27th, we were informed that we were going on a patrol to look for the mortar sites from the attack the night before. I can remember looking at the overlay. I noticed that one of the checkpoints was the top of a hill numbered 689 that at that time was being hammered by phantoms. I found it strange that this patrol was going that far to a hill that was getting hit by an air strike - just to find some mortar sites. I remember me and Dennis (Dennis O’Connor) said as much and were told to....shut up.
Things went along pretty good. We got to the top of a hill (I think the number was 521 or 561). Anyway, that is not important. It was about the third checkpoint and that’s when we found the mortar sites. The pits were freshly dug, aiming stakes still in place. Some 82 mm rounds laying around. We knew that the NVA weren’t far away. They were still air striking 689 and we started realizing we were in some deep shit. We started off towards 689 when a spotter plane saw our patrol. I’ll never forget his call sign. It was CAT KILLER 2-6. Anyways he flew low and dropped a canister out with his radio frequency and his exact words were……”what in the hell are you doing?” We explained and he called off the phantoms and we started up 689. O’Connor was walking point, followed by I think Maz (Francisco Mazariegos), then I think me, and behind me were Shep (James Shepard) and Doc. I just know that us five were the first ones to top the hill. We came up on a spider trap and looking in we saw an ammo dump with mortar rounds. Cases of AK47 rounds, RPG rounds, or B-40, whatever you like to call them. Just a lot of shit and that’s when we knew we were definitely in trouble. O’Connor had seen another spider trap and said he was going to go over and check it out. I guess Maz had seen something else and took off. I turned around to say something to Shep and I saw O’Connor look down into a hole and a machine gun opened up on him and it seemed like the whole hill erupted. I turned around and dove into a bomb crater. I crawled up to the top of the crater and was doing what I could with my blooper (M-79) and I saw Maz fighting his way back towards me taking out one gook just before he got to the crater. A few minutes later he caught an AK47 round in the temple and he was dead before he hit the ground. I turned to Shep and said…”we’ve gotta get outta here” and he said…”we can’t I ‘ve been hit!” I reached down and grabbed Maz’s 16 and his magazines and got out of the crater. I couldn’t see where Shep got hit. There was no blood. Then I saw where the round had gone in right next to his neck in the soft area by the collar bone. At this time he was still alive so we tried dragging him down the hill. After a hundred yards or so he died. Two other Marines had survived from the back half of the patrol and to save my life I can’t remember their names. Anyways we got back to our C.P. and we had to go over to the main C.P. at Khe Sanh and give all the brass the run down about what happen and gave them the coordinates of the ammo bunker etc.
I’m sure that there is more to this than what I have written. As time goes on I’m sure more will be revealed to me but what I have written down here is a true and accurate statement from a survivor of the ambush on Hill 689 at Khe Sanh – So Help Me God.
Semper Fi
Earl Grissom
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