The remaining enemy soldiers dropped to the ground and scrambled for cover as they slowly started to return fire back at the Americans. The Chinese soldiers were now desperate to escape the ambush they had mistakenly walked into. As an officer or sergeant was identified by the Americans, they were killed off, leaving the remaining enemy soldiers leaderless at a critical moment. In less than two minutes, the enemy soldiers who were still left alive tried to break contact and began to fall back further down the hill, trying to escape the killing field.
Five minutes after they had opened fire on the Chinese soldiers, the short engagement had ended. Now, all they could hear was the cries of agony from the wounded and the dying that had been left behind by their comrades. They could still hear some of the enemy soldiers further down the hill shouting something in Chinese, but they were unable to make it out.
“Is anyone hurt?” Lee said over the team net, trying to do a quick assessment. Everyone reported back that they were fine, and they had only burned through a couple of magazines of ammunition. The machine gunners reported they had each burned through two 100-round belts, but were otherwise good to go on ammo.
While the team continued to assess their situation, they spotted dozens of vehicles now heading towards the base of the hill they were on. These vehicles were undoubtedly bringing additional reinforcements.
Chucky tried to get in touch with Sergeant First Class Obed Perez (call sign “Eagle Eye”), the ODA’s resident sniper. “Eagle Eye, set up that M82 and see if you can slow down some of those vehicles,” Lee ordered.
“Copy that Chucky. Give me a minute, and I’ll start hitting them,” Perez replied.
He immediately placed his M4 on the ground to the right of his position, and then unpacked and assembled his M82 Barret .50 sniper rifle. As he snapped the optics on, he placed his first 10-round box magazine in the rifle. He pulled the bolt back and chambered the first round, sighting in on the lead truck, which was carrying close to twenty enemy soldiers. He placed the red dot of his sight on the engine and pulled the trigger. The rifled recoiled hard into his shoulder, but no more than what he had expected. The half-inch round reached out nearly a mile in distance, and slammed into the engine block of the truck. A trail of smoke began to emit from the hood as the truck rolled to a stop. The soldiers in it immediately jumped out of the vehicle and started to take cover, not sure if another bullet might be aimed at them next.
A second truck, an infantry fighting vehicle, moved around the now disabled truck and began to head towards Hill 079. The turret gunner turned his 30mm autocannon in their direction and began to fire. Everyone dropped back down behind their cover as the 30mm rounds began to tear through the trees and vegetation around them.
As tree branches and leaves fell on Eagle Eye, he aimed at the turret, hoping he might kill the gunner or vehicle commander with his next shot. He squeezed the trigger and felt the weapon kick as his next round reached out and hit the turret, punching a small hole into it. Then he aimed just slightly to the right of his first round and fired again. He placed two more quick shots into the turret, and it stopped firing at them. He was not sure if he had killed them, but he had stopped them from shooting at his comrades and that was all that mattered.
While he had been focused on that ZBD-04, two more opened fire with their own turrets. One was equipped with a 30mm autocannon like the first one that fired at them, and the second was equipped with a 100mm cannon. As the Chinese began to fire, a tree not more than twenty yards below them exploded. Additional 30mm rounds began to rake their position as well.
While the 30mm gun was causing them problems, the 100mm cannon needed to be taken out first. Eagle Eye aimed at the turret of this ZBD just like he had the first one, and fired several quick rounds into the turret. He dropped the box magazine and replaced it with a fresh one. Just as he took aim at the third infantry fighting vehicle, a Type 99A main battle tank fired its 125mm cannon in his direction, its high explosive round hitting not more than 15 feet away from his position. He felt like multiple sledgehammers were hitting his back, legs and right arm. He momentarily blacked out.
When he opened his eyes, he hurt everywhere. He tried to move his right arm, only it didn’t respond. He turned to look at his right arm and saw that it was barely being held together by some muscles and tendons. With each pulse, he saw more blood squirt out, pooling on the ground around him. “This is Eagle Eye. I’m hit bad. I need help,” he managed to say in a weak voice that was barely audible over the sound of battle.
The team’s medic, Sergeant First Class Rich Tory (“Doc”) came out of nowhere and landed right next to Eagle Eye. “Let me look you over, Buddy,” he said as he immediately began to assess his friend’s wounds.
“Oh, this is bad my friend,” he thought as he saw Eagle Eye’s right arm and his back. His limb was nearly ripped off and he had several deep gashes in his back. Doc pulled a tourniquet out of his bag and immediately tied it off an inch or so above the wound. He began to apply pressure on it until he saw the wound had finally stopped squirting blood. Then he started to apply several bandages on Eagle Eye’s back, pouring some quick clotting powder in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Then he pulled out a bag of plasma and started an IV.
While Doc was working on stabilizing Eagle Eye, the rest of the team was doing their best to keep their heads down as the Chinese moved hundreds of soldiers to the base of the hill. The PLA started storming up the hill, firing at the team as they went. Just as the enemy fire was starting to peak (with the armored vehicles and tanks below adding their own fire to the battle), Jordy signaled to Lee that he had a pair of Marine F/A-18s inbound to provide support.
The valley below and the area around the enemy airfield began to light up with anti-aircraft fire, throwing thousands of 25mm and 30mm rounds into the air. Then they heard the unmistakable sound of jet aircraft flying through the valley at high speed. Multiple 500 lbs. bombs began to land among the armored vehicles below, scoring multiple direct hits against the tanks and other armored vehicles. Hundreds of enemy soldiers who had not yet started up the hill were also caught in the bomb’s blast, killing or maiming most of them outright.
The remaining enemy soldiers continued to advance up the hill, firing into the American positions now that they knew where they were. Occasionally, several of the Chinese would pause to launch an RPG at them. One of the downed pilots screamed out in pain after an RPG hit near him. He was yelling for a medic at the top of his lungs, clearly in agony and pain. Doc left Eagle Eye bandaged up with the IV bag of plasma, and ran over to Major Wood’s position.
The Marine aviator had a horrible gash in his abdomen. Part of his intestines were visible, poking through the wound. He was trying to use his hand to push them back inside his own stomach.
Doc immediately grabbed a pressure dressing from his bag and some quick clotting powder. “Woods, I need you to lay down. I know this hurts. I’m going to give you a quick shot of morphine, but I need you to lay back so I can wrap up your wound, OK?”
Major Woods nodded in agreement through gritted teeth. As he laid flat on his back, Doc could better see the wound. He grabbed the intestines and pushed them back into the wound, pouring the quick clot over the wound and then applied the pressure dressing to hold everything in place. Then Doc grabbed the syringe of morphine, biting the cover off with his teeth, exposing the needle, which he immediately stuck it into Major Wood’s right thigh.
He spat out the cap. “Hang in there,” he told his patient. “Our extraction chopper is not that far away.”