For the first time in more than a month, quiet reigned between Plei Me and the Chu Pong massif. The dead were gone from the field, and the living took their rest. The battered North Vietnamese regiments that suffered 1,950 dead in the five weeks of battle had disappeared—perhaps deeper into the mountains, possibly into Cambodia. The American 1st Air Cavalry, which took some 240 dead and 470 wounded in the largest U.S. weekly casualty list since the Korean War, remained in charge of the field. With the guns silent, the men themselves grew talkative, recalling the vivid episodes of humor, horror and heroism that the weeks of wild fighting had etched in their minds.
Up the Creek. They talked with wonder about John Bade, a 22-year-old sergeant from Toledo, who was leaning half-conscious against a tree with three bullets in him when a Red officer walked up, raised his pistol and shot Eade through the eye. The bullet lodged in the back of his skull but didn't kill him, and Eade was back in the States for Thanksgiving. They talked with humor about Lieut. Bill Shiebert of Albany, N.Y., who wants to become a Catholic priest when he gets out of the Army next year. During a sharp fire fight, Shiebert suddenly stood up, and grinned: "Why, I'm not afraid of the sons of bitches. Why don't they bring on their fight?" They talked with respect of Sergeant Eugene Pennington, 25, a laconic Kentuckian who during an ambush methodically counted the North Vietnamese facing him (84), the number of heavy weapons they carried (four mortars, five recoilless rifles), and even the number of shots they fired back while being mowed down (two). Said Pennington: "That's what the captain said I was to do."
Equally methodical was Specialist Fourth Class Nolan King, 20, a gangling, sleepy-voiced Georgian in the best Sergeant York tradition. In one day, he killed 14 Communists, captured 21, and seized seven weapons. "I walked off by myself up this little creek," he explained. "There was five of them up there by this little straw hooch they had made. They was just sittin' there coolin' it. I shot four of them. Then I went on up the creek some more and three of them jumped up. They looked like they were going to shoot, so I put my rifle on them. They all took off running so I shot them. I saw five of them around a little ditch. I shot four and the other jumped into the ditch. I went along through the woods then, and they kept jumping up and shooting and missing, and I kept shooting them."