West Saint Paul Antiques

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Story #1

Letter

By David Snider

Delta Company 68/69

The story below is a reprint of a letter to Joe Kuchta, brother of Empire State team member John Kuchta. John was killed in February of 1969.

Joe was trying to gain information on a Walther P-38 that was returned to him with John's personal effects.

Patrol members were Lt. Mann, Cpl. O'Campo, Cpl. Mundorf, L/cpl. Kuchta, L/cpl. Contraras, L/cpl. Cuenca, L/cpl. Martinez, "Doc" Snider, and L/cpl. Molina.

Patrol insert Jan. 7 69

The then current members of Mayfly/Vesper Bells and Empire State had always operated in the mountains and this patrol was the first time that we were asked to operate in the lowlands, specifically in the rice paddies. Dodge City in the Arizona Territory was probably the worst patrol area we could have drawn. It was a huge area and was heavily populated with VC and frontline NVA. The area had numerous villas and contained the famous Go Noi Island. You are aware that the patrol was comprised of Marines from both teams. The most seasoned were chosen for this patrol due to the different nature. I recall that we were told that we were the forward elements of a regimental sized operation, operating about 2-3 days in front of the op. However, I noticed in the patrol papers that we were used in support of the 1st Marines without specifically mentioning an operation name.

We originally were supposed to walk in after fording a river. We were trucked out of Camp Reasoned in covered 6X. We carried an m-60 (Molina) with 1000 rounds of ammo (I humped 300 rounds for him), Cuenca carried the M-79 as well as his M-16 along with 40 rounds of HE. I truly remember these amounts of ammo because afterwards we were astounded that we had not 60 rounds or 79 rounds left. We managed to fire them all up. The rest of us carried M-16’s with anywhere from 20 to 30 magazines apiece. I carried 27, 4 magazine pouches and 7 in a bandoleer. We also carried 4 frag grenades each and each a claymore mine. I do not recall the 4 laaws mentioned. When we got to the river we had to sit around most of the afternoon, as we were not supposed to kick off until nightfall. This was another change from our usual patterns, as we were going to move across the paddies at night and lager up during the days. Our mission was to find and map all bunker systems, enemy concentrations, ammo stashes, etc. When we were fragged for the patrol, we all felt that it was something out of a Hollywood grade “B” movie. It certainly was a different snooping and pooping than we were accustomed to.

Long about dusk we started out and immediately met with failure. There had been recent rain and the river was swollen. Our point, I think it was O’Campo, went under and we had a devil of a time pulling him out. We dinked up and down the river looking for a better place to ford, but were unsuccessful. We radioed back to Bn and they came out and picked us up. The next day we were trucked out to a ROK camp (Republic of Korea). The Koreans were super friendly to us and treated us well as we again waited for nightfall. They gave us Kim Chi, which is fermented cabbage that is extremely hot, as in peppers. If I recall, it had a milky juice. I must admit that I didn’t have the courage to try more than a mouthful. We again waited until nightfall to start the patrol. I want to say that it was after 9 when we kicked of. As a diversion, the ROK’s had a fireX from their lines and we snuck out and headed towards Dodge City. The first night out, several clicks from the ROK’s, and I’m surprised this wasn’t mentioned in the patrol notes; Ocampo hit a trip flare on one of the paddy dikes. We all froze and used good discipline until it burned out. We were scared shitless, but nothing came of it. Apparently, it was an old grunt trip flare that was never taken in. We found numerous bunker complexes, fighting holes and bivouac areas. This was the first time any of us had seen this type of fortifications. We were amazed. During the day, we holed up on small hillocks (unsure of spelling, but the little rises in the paddies that were usually concave inside). It seemed that everywhere we looked we say VC or NVA. Many were dressed in what appeared to be new uniforms. They had web gear and their equipment well taken care of. The physical appearance suggested that they were well fed and rested. Certainly they walked around the area without fear.

On the morning when we first made contact, I was asleep when I heard the M-60 clatter. Molina was standing up firing the 60 from the hip. We had been in a 50% watch and the other watch members started opening up with their 16’s. When I got to the beam of the hillock, I could see 2 NVA running like the devil around 50 meters away. I recall that they were beating feet towards a tree line just to the front of our position. All 8 of us were shooting and I swear we did not kill one of them. I can only think that Lt. Mann was doing the body count thing. But then again, memories are dangerous things.

Following this initial contact, we called Bn and told them of the contact and asked for an emergency extraction. We were told that all choppers were tied up supporting the ground operation behind us and that we should just change our position. We proceeded to move approximately 2-300 meters across open paddies and away from the tree line the NVA escaped into. We found another hillock to hide in which was shaped like a peanut shell. The hillock was concave and ringed with small scrub trees. There was nothing in the center of it. I, Molina, Marinez and Mann were at the end closest to where we had come from. John and the rest of the team were at the other end. After being there for about 1-2 hours, John’s end of the hill erupted in firing. Someone called for me to get my ass over there. I crawled to their end and slid down the side of the hill into the paddy. I crawled over to where John and one of the other team members were crouched over 3 bodies. One was already dead, I recall that his chest was totally ripped open, but two more were alive. Later we were told by John that these three just waltzed across the paddy and into our position. I immediately started to work on the two wounded, they were both officers and we were excited about taking them as prisoners. During this time Mann again was calling for an emergency extraction and was again told that it was not possible. I rolled one of the NVA officers over to look for other wounds and he was lying on the P-38. As was our custom, the shooter gets first dibs on any captured weapons. I recovered the pistol and handed it to John. I remember thinking to myself then that “what in the hell was a gook officer carrying a Nazi weapon”? I wasn’t thinking too well or too worldly to remember that area had known war for centuries and that WWII wasn’t that long ago. I got both of the NVA patched; IV’s started and moved them to the center of the hillock. About an hour after this we started taking fire from the tree line we had originally vacated. It was sparse at first, but soon picked up in volume and tempo. Again, I distinctly remember Mann calling for an emergency extraction and being denied. He called for a fire mission but was told that we were too far out and that there were no batteries that could reach us. This is no shit Joe, I can’t figure out to this day how we were “too far out”. Who knows? Mann was now getting mad and screaming at the radio. We started returning fire to the tree line just to keep their heads down. About an hour after this, I now think it was late afternoon, 1500 - 1600 hrs, the amount of incoming was terrific. The tree limbs and leaves were falling down around us; some of the trees were cut down by the incoming. Mann was getting near to a panic and was demanding extraction. Again we were told that there were not any choppers available for use, as they were all being used to ferry 1st Marines into battle and picking up their medivac. We were told that there were no gun ships available for support either. I remember Mann yelling something over the radio to the effect that they didn’t give a fuck about us and were going to get us all killed.

Sometime later, we were told that they had gotten us air support, 2 OVH-10 Broncos were available. These were neat planes used by the USMC to do spotting. They were slick aircraft with twin tails. In a way they reminded me of the WWII P-38 Lightning. One would be on station and then be replaced by the other. In this way they could rearm and refuel.

The Broncos saved our bacon. They alternated on station for several hours. There were several attempts by the NVA to come across the paddy and it was the Broncos that kept them in line. The planes were equipped with WP rockets and 60’s. Dusk was soon upon us and would be totally dark in 20 - 30 minutes when we were told to saddle up for an extraction. We were told that 2 CH-46’s were 10 - 15 minutes out and would be accompanied by 2 Huey guns. When we saw one of the 46’s start their spiral in, we fired up all of our claymores, we weren’t going to recover them or leave them and we headed to the paddy. We had the two NVA in ponchos, I was carrying one with Cuenca, but don’t remember who was carrying the other one. The pilot landed about 50 meters from us and we took off for him. It was about this time that all hell broke loose as the gooks tried to down the chopper. The amount of fire was tremendous. It was then that they fired RPG’s at the chopper, impacting between the bird and us. This was when 4 of us were wounded with shrapnel. None of us were wounded seriously. The fire was so heavy that all of a sudden we heard the engines change pitch and the 46 pulled up and away. We were within 20 meters of the damned thing when this happened. After we were safely out we talked about our feelings when we saw our savior take off. The general consensus was that we all accepted our death at that point. There we were standing out in the middle of a rice paddy with an estimated company of NVA shooting us up. I remember thinking that I was not going to be killed with out taking some of them with me. The scene was total chaos. We were standing in the middle of the paddy screaming obscenities at the NVA, laughing hysterically and having a great old’ time firing our weapons for all we were worth. I remember Cuenca standing to my left and almost walking into my fire. He turned and looked at me with a stupid grin on his face as my rounds were inches from him. I placed my 16 on the NVA’s head, put it on auto and put an entire magazine into him. The muzzle flash lit up the area and I can still see the red and gray of his brain splattering and blowing into the air. Later I had to throw my trousers away as I was totally splattered with blood and pieces of brain. I regret today, that I wasted him, but at the time it seemed appropriate.

As this was going on, and I’m sure it wasn’t the hours that it seemed, the two gunships swung into position and opened fire on the tree line. They were hanging about 50’ off the deck, not moving, firing everything they had. The 46 rolled in behind them and set down close to us once more. We ran to the bird and the crewmembers jumped off and helped pull us aboard. We started firing our weapons out the windows and I swear the gooks were trying to come across the paddy even with the fire from the gunships. They were definitely pissed and wanted our asses. As our chopper pulled up, it had to fly over the tree line. The muzzle flashes were unreal and seemed like there were thousands firing at us. I know that is not true, but sure seemed that way.

We went to the Danang Naval Hospital and dropped off our last prisoner. We then went to Camp Reasoned and were debriefed. We captured two rucks that the NVA were carrying that were full of maps of the Danang area showing all the military units and their call signs. The amount of Intel carried by those officers was extraordinary and also scary. They had overlays of all the unit positions, call signs, bunkers, machine gun towers. In February 69, the Danang area and specifically the air base were hit by sappers and numerous planes and tank farms were destroyed. This was also the same night that Division headquarters and 11th Engineers were overrun. I was assigned to 1st Med at that time and responded to the Engineers to extract the wounded. It was our opinion that the Intel we captured was linked to this offensive.

After the debriefing, us 4 wounded were taken to 1st Med for treatment of our wounds. I and one other were kept for two days due to infections.

Andy Androes, radioman of Mayfly/Vesper Bells had the original roster of that patrol. He would make a sheet with their names, service numbers, weapon numbers, etc. so that if he had to report any WIA, KIA, lost weapons, he would have all the pertinent info. If you recall, Andy was the fellow with me in Philadelphia. I will add the sheets of his notes for this patrol and the patrol he was on that was operating with John’s team when John was killed. There is a 3rd patrol sheet showing a patrol into the Garden of Eden also dated 1/1/69. Vesper Bells was originally slated for this patrol and was totally made up of Vesper Bells Marines. This patrol was cancelled and the new patrol for Dodge City was put together, again as I previously mentioned with more seasoned troops. You will notice that on the cancelled sheet my name does not appear. I had already received my orders transferring me to 1st Med. When they changed the patrol to Dodge City I volunteered to go with it because no other corpsmen were available to go out with them. I wasn’t going to have my team in Dodge City without medical help. The missing name was L/cpl Molina. Also, if you look again at the patrol notes and do the math, it doesn’t add up. Mann lists one POW, which we had, and two KIA. These were the two KIA from the 2nd encounter. If we killed one of the dinks from the first encounter, Mann would have claimed 3 confirmed.

Joe, I hope this meets your needs. I did not embellish anything intentionally this is how I remembered it. I look forward to hearing the final outcome of this journey and hope that you can finally reach some peace as to John’s record. He was a good Marine I would and did trust him with my life.

Semper Fi and Pax, Dave

Story #2

DaNang Rocket Attack

By Will Aalbertsberg

1^st Force 66/68

I was wondering if your book is finished and if not may have a short story you could use. I don't remember all involved but it happened on 7-18-67 I believe. Simple guard duty on the hill overlooking Reasoned that you drove to by going around the PX and then up. I believe it was the first use of 122mm rockets in the Da Nang area and they hit the Air Force base. At first we thought it was two jets flying over low and crashed and we called it in. More rockets followed right after the NVA saw it was a hit. This all took place after midnight and the camp was woke up and patrols ready to be sent out. We marked the launch site and snoopy was called in and gave them hell. At sun up the patrols found many more rockets in the lake next to where they were fired from. I believe the Air Force lost 38 men in the attack. It just shows that in a war zone even simple base guard duty is important to the protection of our troops and not to be taken lightly. It was right after the rocket attack that they decided to build a tower up on the mountain for better observation and keep us safe from a tiger that liked to surprise us at times.

Sgt. William Aalbertsberg 1st Force 9/66-7/68

Story #3

The Year 1968

By John Bowcock

1^st Force 1968

The year was 1968 and as a nineteen-year-old Marine in Vietnam, I encountered many things that are still fresh in my mind. It was as if they happened yesterday. The first trip firm Da Nang to Phu Bai, then the fight in Hue City, and the many first-hand accounts of bravery by other Marines. It was January and I had just arrived “in-country”. My first stop was Da Nang, where I was assigned to First Force Recon and convoyed to Phu Bai. We were ambushed continually along the way to Phu Bai, but took no casualties. Upon arriving in Phu Bai, Force Recon was assigned to Task Force XRAY. The job was implanting electronic sensors to detect the enemy. These electronic devices would also broadcast information as far as fifty miles through relays. While doing this they encountered contact with the enemy on our patrols near Hue City in the era just prior to the 1968 Tet. These reports were generally ignored and caused no excitement to the Big Brass. Then one day we convoyed to Coa beach so that the teams could conduct rubber boat training. On the way to the beach in are two-truck convoy we encountered a roadblock, and were ambushed, then radioed that we were in enemy contact. It was difficult to believe that we were right in Hue City itself, and that this was happening to us. We had regarded Hue as Libertyville. We were all fighting for our lives then the fighting stopped. After that day in Hue City, things continued much the same. I went on recon missions with eight Marines and one helluva platoon sergeant and made contact with The VC almost every time we drove highway 1 from Phu Bai to the Lanco Bridge. During the next several months, I witnessed many numerous acts of bravery. From what I can remember, some of the honors earned were one Navy Cross, Ten Silver Stars, twenty-four Bronze Stars, and numerous other awards of valor. This also told me of the caliber of men that I served with. Our Unit strength was only one hundred twenty-five men, and we had sixty men from Company “C”, First Force Recon Battalion, but we were a force to be reckoned with. In looking back at that year, there are still stories to be told or written about. But, what I will always remember is my trip from Da Nang to Phu Bai, the fighting in Hue City, and my fellow Marines and their many individual acts of bravery and aggressive fighting spirit. Is it really possible that all of these things happened in the short span of one year? Could this be only 1968? One would have had to be there and experience firsthand in order to understand how long one year can really be.

Story #4

Purple Heart #2

By Leonel Perez

Charlie Company 66/67

This was to be a short patrol, just two days. My team mostly took care of the rear, but on this day my team was put up front as point. The idea of running point didn’t thrill me one bit. I had one man up front running point and I was close behind him with my map and compass keeping us on course. We were going up a small hill, a heavy grass area, about 5 to 6 feet high. I was checking out our course when my pointman stopped, got down and signal me up. I stopped the rest of the patrol and worked my way up to my point man to see what was up. He said that he kept seeing something in the grass that would shine at times when the sun would hit it just so, but wasn’t sure yet of what it was. I moved just passed him to take a look, when I saw, what looked like a trip wire running thru the grass. All that came to my mind was “Oh Shit, lets get our Asses out of here!” I told him that we were going to work our way back the same way we came in, to follow me. I stepped back passed him to lead the way out, and “Bang” I stepped on the boobie trap. When it blew all I remember was a loud dull explosion and the smell of black power and smoke. I felt vary light and the sky was spinning. I guess that I was in the air only a few seconds, but it seemed like forever. Then I hit the ground hard and rolled down the hill towards a tree line and finally came to a stop. Thru all of this I still didn’t feel any pain. I just lay there on my back with most of the wind knock out of me. Still no real pain, but I knew I was hit, and hurt bad, but how bad I didn’t know yet. I tried to move, but couldn’t move my legs. I tried like hell to get myself up, when I finally managed to sit up. That’s when I think I really lost it. I still remember seeing from my knees down all red with blood, my right foot just split open and a large hole in my left leg. I could hear someone screaming, than I realized it was “me.” I guess that was when panic and shock hit me. I finally got some kind of control of myself. What came to mind next was getting the hell out of here. Then I hear movement around me, and that’s when I really got scare. I started looking around and reaching for my weapon. “No weapon” then I started to panic again. All I could think of was that I’m not going to let those Mothers get a hold of me, and drag my ass off and cut me all up, no way in hell!! I pulled a frag from my belt and started to pull the pin as I held it against my chest. If those “Mother’s” came out to get me I was taking them all to “hell” with me. As I lay there, scare as hell, ready to meet my maker, I said my good-byes to my parents and my brother. Just than, like a whisper from heaven I heard my name being called out, very softly. I don’t know as of this day that came out to get me, but “bless” him who ever he was. He call my name again, I tried to look back, but I couldn’t see who it was, he just said give me the frag, took it away from me, then he grabbed me by the back of my pack and dragged me up the hill, where I saw Lt. King and the corpsman. I could hear the radioman calling for a medivac chopper. The pain, the fear all started to really set in; all I wanted to do was go “home”. I still remember the corpsman, telling me, as he was getting ready to give me a morphine shot that I was going to feel a small prick from the needle. All that came to mind was “f¼k the needle, give me the shot, it’s really starting to hurt like hell! Lt. King stood with me until the chopper came. Off and on with the morphine working on me someone kept asking me, what happen to my point man? I remember seeing him as they found him and brought him in with large bloody holes in both his legs. Then I would fade off and wake back up again. If I remember right I believe that I told the Lt. that I could hear the choppers coming, he said that they weren’t hear yet. And then long and behold there they were, like “Angles” coming from heaven! Then I thought I heard the radioman talking with the choppers that they might have to bring me up on a cable. I remember asking Lt. King to “please” make the chopper land. “Lt. King, you’re alright”, he had the chopper land! Then I remember being picked up and put into a chopper. The gunner looked at me with an “Oh shit” look on his face. The next thing I know I’m in a field hospital with the doctors getting me ready for surgery. They gave me a spinal, then they lay me my on my back. They put this white sheet in front of me, so I couldn’t see my legs. Then this one doctor looked at me and said, “Hey Marine, how are you doing, do you know what happens when you step on these things?” I just looked at him, and I knew for sure that I had lost both my legs. He said that my left leg was going to be “OK” but I did loose my right foot, but you will walk again on your own. Believe it or not, I feared the worst; these were words that put my world back together again. I just said “Thank You” They put the gas mask over my face; I closed my eyes and went into a long peaceful sleep. I made it; I was going “Home”

Cpl. Leonel R. Perez 1st Recon Charlie Co

Story #5

MASTER GUNNERY SERGEANT LENNIE P. MILLER, USMC

By Leonel Miller

Delta / Echo Company 67/68

When asked to write about my career as a Reconnaissance Marine, I contemplated what it was that I wanted to tell. There are so many fond memories and equally as many stories that can be told about that time in my life. I hold dear to me, not only the experience of being a Recon Marine, but with those with whom I had the pleasure to observe and to serve side by side with. But with all stories, there must be a beginning and an end. For the purpose of this writing, I will begin where it all started. Camp Pendleton, California!

I was in Infantry Training School and we were all called to the parade deck to listen to a representative from Reconnaissance School. He was there to locate volunteers for these so-called elite Marine Corps Special Force. I say so-called because we had heard very little about Recon back then. We knew there was such a unit but had very little understanding of what their mission was and how they performed it.

SSgt Robert E. Pinkard was the representative who gave us the presentation. Pinkard had a voice of sand and you had to listen carefully to hear him. He stood impeccably dressed in his heavily starched utilities and began with a 15-minute dissertation on what reconnaissance was and how they worked. I could not help thinking that this sounds like a tough bunch of guys with difficult missions. We learned that Reconnaissance Marines worked behind enemy lines in small teams. We also were told that they went to scuba school and even jump out of perfectly good airplanes. Pinkard told us that many of their missions were covert and that they were the eyes and the ears of the infantry. I found all this interesting but had no desire to do anything other than be an Infantry Marine. The more he said, the less interested I became. My desire to be an Infantry Marine was fueled by the death of my childhood friend, Reavis Montrey, who was killed on November 1, 1965.

Reavis was not a school buddy but a friend who I played baseball against all my life. Reavis was destined to be a Hall of Fame pitcher in the Major Leagues. His record for as long as I can recall was remarkable. He pitched more no-hitters than any kid in St. Louis during his high school years. A fierce competitor all of his life, it made sense that he would join the toughest military organization. It didn’t make sense that he gave up a full-ride scholarship at Missouri University to trade a baseball for a rifle.

When the message of Reavis’ death arrived, I was devastated. I kept thinking, what a waste of talent and human life. After his death, I began to research heavily on Vietnam. I became obsessed with knowing all that I could. I wanted to know all I could about how a guy with so much ability could allow himself to get into such a position to cost him his life and career.

The more that I learned about Vietnam, the more I wanted to go. I wanted very badly to walk in the footsteps of Reavis. The decision came easily as my entire family had once served in the Marines. My Great Grandfather, Grandfather, Uncle’s on both sides and cousin all served as Marines. I had no choice. I would have easily been banished to a life of exile had I enlisted into another branch. In June 1966, I walked into the Marine Corps Recruiting Office and enlisted as an Infantry Marine. I left for boot camp in September of that same year. This was my first step to being an Infantry Marine and going to Vietnam. So here I was standing listening to so guy talking about how being something I never wanted to be in the first place.

As Staff Sergeant Pinkard gave us his pitch, my good friend, Harry Governick came unglued with envy of this Recon thing. Every minute or two Harry would nudge me and say, “Hey Lennie, this shit sounds great. Let’s volunteer!” I would simply reply with a look at Harry, with eyes that could kill. I kept telling him to shut up and let’s just be satisfied with being infantry Marines. But no, that was not good enough for Harry. He had to have more. Harry’s taunting kept up and I kept ignoring his silliness. Eventually, Pinkard was finished with his sales pitch and it was time to answer questions from the Battalion standing there listening. It appeared that the enthusiasm was declining with every question that was being asked. This shit seemed dangerous and not many guys were willing to push the envelope. Except for Harry, that is. Harry’s pursuit of this challenge was not to be denied! Harry and I had met at the Processing Station in St. Louis and signed up on the buddy program. I knew that if Harry was going to do this, he was going to drag me along!!

Finally, Pinkard was at the point where he was having those interested fall in where he outlined an imaginary circle. One, then two, then five and finally he had about 20 Marines willing to take the plunge. This was not enough and so he continued to answer questions. Harry, now in a fever pitch, said he was going with or without me. At that moment, a Marine asks Pinkard what the life expectancy was for a Recon Marine in a “hot landing zone.” Pinkard replied, “The life expectancy for a Recon Marine in a hot landing zone is about 2 minutes and 36 seconds,” he said laughingly. A split second prior to that, I agreed with Harry that we would go together. I made the first step and Harry was behind me to my left. When I heard the question and the answer, I was no more than a few steps from my original spot. I stopped like I had been shot and absolutely froze in stride. I wanted to retreat gracefully and so I turned to find Harry still in place. Staff Sergeant Pinkard had seen my move towards the circle and flagged me to turn back around and go to the circle. I told him that I had changed my mind and he would not allow me the retreat I desperately wanted. Harry was locked in his position and a bulldozer would not have moved him at that moment. So Harry stayed in the grunts and I was forcibly pulled to Recon School at Camp Horno. I didn’t talk to Harry again for 34 years! By the way, Harry spent 3 months in country and was wounded, medically discharged and became an actor in Hollywood.

I finally arrived in Danang, Vietnam in March of 1967 after enduring the most physical challenge of my life in Recon School. By this time, I was well indoctrinated to the new direction and was ready to take up whatever missions the Marine Corps assigned me. I was assigned to “Bravo Company”, commanded by the infamous Capt King Dixon. Fortunately, for me, I was assigned to the best of the best, “Dunn’s Raiders.” Dunns Raider’s was led by then Capt. John Dunn, a former enlisted Marine who had won a battlefield commission. Under his direction, was Sgt Ray Taylor, who was to be my first patrol leader and I was his new M-60 Machine Gunner. In retrospect, I could not have had any better.

Taylor was from New Jersey and had that Jersey accent. His reputation was renowned as a great patrol leader. Ray made me feel at home with my new surroundings and introduced me to the rest of the team, “Bull Rush.” My first impression was that they were a team of rag-tags. One of the first I met was a Marine named Willard Smith. Willard appeared half Chinese and half American. When I met Willard, he was sitting atop a cot crouched like a Vietnamese, smoking a cigarette and holding it in the most awkward manner I had ever seen. He spoke methodical and had extraordinary vocabulary. I could tell he was well educated. The next guy I met was like a big teddy bear. His name David Gugich another man who seemed very well educated and more mature than most. David was always the guy who spoke ethics and talked a lot about the real life issues. The man who made perhaps the greatest impact on me was from New York. Tony Velez was my mentor! In of the first conversations with him he told me in no uncertain term, stick with him, do what he said and I would not only survive, but be as good as they get. Over the next three month, I stuck to Tony like super glue, did what he said and I survived. Whether I lived up to his expectations in the bush, I will never know. I tried to find Tony many years later and couldn’t locate him. In 1996 I found Ray Taylor and discovered that Tony had killed himself after a long on the job injury as a New York policeman. I never got the chance to say “thanks.”

My time with “Bull Rush” was interrupted after three months when the Battalion was reorganized and many were sent to “Delta” company to fill their ranks. I was one of those to go. I was now considered a Veteran of the bush and so they felt my service would be better served as a machine gunner there. Sgt Taylor and his band of warriors were the best I had ever served with. His leadership and those in the team carried me along way. In many ways, when I became a patrol leader, I fashioned myself after Taylor’s leadership style.

In July 1967, I was assigned to Delta Company, 3rd Platoon (Antifreeze and Melody Time) as their machine gunner. I ended up walking point early on and then back to the gun. I really enjoyed the machine gun. Maybe it was a security issue having a couple thousand rounds of ammo to fight with. I must admit it really got heavy at times!

When I got to “Delta 3”, I was the vet and most of the new blood looked up at me with adoration. Gunnery Sergeant Everett Cannon was the patrol leader. Gunny was a typical country fellow but had tremendous respect for the enemy. He was a careful man and one who enjoyed his men. Our patrols were always well rehearsed to the point we all knew exactly what, when, where and how before we stepped on a chopper. Cannon did not like making contact with Charlie. We were always a team that avoided contact rather than exploit it. Once we were moving up a hill and behind us was a long valley where there was a trail. Our point man observed movement and the Gunny moved us quickly up the slope of the hill, where he stopped us and had us lay flat on our backs while the VC move past us. Originally we thought that it was only about 5-10 VC but as it turned out it was about 75. We laid on the side of the hill with trees between up our crotch so we would not move. It took almost a half hour for them to get by us before we could move. Easily, the Gunny could have engaged the enemy and we probably could have beaten them. But the Gunny decided to let them go and called fixed wing aircraft and artillery in on them. In the end, we killed about 40 of the VC and the others took off to the winds, totally disorganized. The VC never did know where the team was!

My tenure with Delta was a good one. I met many wonderful men and unquestionably some of the greatest warriors in our history. Many of them decorated for their valorous deeds in combat. Names like, Lt. Andy Finlayson, Lt. Peter Badger, Lt. Lenyar Little, Lt. Bill McClusky, Lt. Paul Young and Capt. J.P. Cahill. Each of these men was some of the finest in the battalion. I also had the privilege of serving with Eli Smith, Donald Pack, Danny Thompson (the best point man ever), Bob Hooks, Joe Clark, Pappy, Dan Landry, Bill Smallwood, Bill Rash, John Tepper, John Willis, “Doc” Stomp (best Corpsman ever), Porter, Joshua Israel Butler, Hugh Leighton Turk III, Bob Silvia (shortround), Heads, Glen Ray Hicks, Melvin Riley, Lizinski, Murdoch, Mike Hvranek, Ervin Lovell, Cobb, Faulkner, Phillips, Mike Leonard, Tony Hutchins, Scott Smith, and Skip Bachman (best radio man ever). I cannot recall one patrol where I felt in any danger with these guys around me. I trusted them unconditionally. I knew in my heart that we would all fight to the bitter end if the situation arose.

One of my most vivid memories was when we were on an area reconnaissance during the monsoon season. It rained miserably day and night for days. We were all soaked to the bone, with leeches doing all they could to find a spot anywhere on our bodies. It rained so hard, we could not use a match to burn them off and we had no lighter fluid to put on them. Miserable may be understating the condition! As we set in at night, it continued to rain and so we picked a partner to be with. I picked Joshua Butler, a burly black guy from New Jersey. Josh was our radio operator and he and I put our two shelter halves together and our wet poncho’s inside of the shelter halves. Then we climbed in together like lovers and literally hugged to keep warm. I kept telling him how bad he stunk and he kept worrying about my sexual orientation! I promise I never even tried to kiss him!! Besides, I was married and had absolutely no interest in an interracial relationship. Josh became one of my closest friends on and off the field of battle. I have not seen Josh in all this time since Vietnam. I hope someday we can get together and share some laughs from yesterday.

Perhaps one of the funniest times involved Skip Bachman another of the radio operators. We were on an area reconnaissance mission to blow a small bridge that was being used for a supply route. On the way to the objective, a VC force, much larger than our own, hit us. Instead of staying in a fight, we made contact briefly and began running to where we had safe cover, concealment and the ability to establish a good fight. The terrain did not provide a lot of what we needed, so we kept hitting and running, calling in fixed wing and gun-ships to help deter the VC from aggressing. All that we did was not working. The VC was relentless and so Gunny Cannon decided to get us the hell out of there. We had already been compromised and so the mission was a dead issue. The Gunny called for 46’s to come and get us out but we had to find a landing zone for the choppers. This was when I kept thinking back to Infantry Training School and why Harry froze on me. I kept thinking, “2minutes and 36 seconds!” Shit, this is not the way I am going to die! I refuse to die this way.

We finally located a suitable landing zone and the fixed wing and gun-ships were doing their best to keeping the VC off of us. All of the patrol was engaged with the VC and still trying to manage to get to the LZ. The choppers had begun making their way in under extraordinary conditions and the Marines in the perimeter began loading one at a time, all the while firing. Skip Bachman had his radio in one hand and his M-16 in the other. Skip was burning it up and jumped into the chopper with me right behind him. Once we got aboard the choppers, we discovered that the windows had not been broken out. Shit, it was a brand new CH46! Who in the hell sent us a new chopper and especially did not have the insight to take out the windows. Especially in a combat zone!

Once on the choppers, we busted out the windows and began returning fire to the hostile forces that were all over us. The chopper lifted off as the gun-ships powdered the enemy and we were all firing through the portholes of the chopper. As we flew out of range, Bachman turned towards me and looked at me with amazement. In one move he reached up to his war-belt and pulled out his K-Bar and started cutting away my tiger striped utility pants. I reached down to move his hand and screamed at him to stop cutting my pant leg. He just pushed me away and said I had been shot because I was bleeding through my trousers. I kept screaming at him not to worry about it and stop cutting my trousers. Everything I did, he fought until he had my tiger striped trousers totally cut from my leg. Once the pant was cut away, Bachman finally saw that I had not been shot but fell getting on the chopper and had a bad cut from the threshold of the chopper door! I was pissed off that he had just cut away and ruined a brand new pair of light nylon tiger striped utilities. Skip promised to buy me another pair. He never did! Skip and I got together in 1989 on his birthday for the first time since Vietnam. We got drunk and laughed all night long! We are still friends and talk quite often.

The guys I met in Delta were truly all team players. Everyone wanted to participate in our combat missions. The administrative clerks in the office and supply guys as well. One of the guys who worked in the supply shack was Glen Ray Hicks. Glen was from Oklahoma. Glen was married and wanted to get out on patrol just once. He bugged me all the time about doing something besides being a supply chief. I kept telling him that he needed to do what he was doing and not worry about what anyone would think of his once he got back to the states. This wasn’t good enough for Glen though. He worked his way onto a patrol and was later killed. I was called to identify his body along with John Rizzo!

In the late fall of 1967, I was once again transferred to another company. This time to the new and reorganized “Echo” Company The necessity for recon’s services, seem to escalate and so we had to form another company. A goodly number of us were sent back to Okinawa to under-go jump school as the Corps was planning to execute some night jumps for it missions. This time I was there to help form the company and worked in the rear for a time and in the communication shack. I was no longer going out on area reconnaissance patrols and my duties were isolated to stationary observation posts. On these patrols we would take 12-15 Marines to a stationary point on a hill and do surveillance for current or future infantry operations. I enjoyed the stationary OP but did not like being a sitting target for 7 days and 6 nights. We were generally well equipped with beans and bullets in the event of a major uprising where we had to fight to defend the hill. It was like being in the Alamo without walls!

Echo Company was led by, Capt. Pete Badger. The Sergeant Major was Maurice Jacques. Jacques was a tough Marines Marine. Tattoos up and down his upper extremity and looked like the kind of guy you would not want to meet in a bar. Hard to the core but he loved his Marines with every ounce of his Marine Corps blood. As it turned out, there was not a Recon Marine in his company that would give his life for Jacques. Anytime we had casualties, you may have well placed a dagger into his heart. He took it bad when we lost a Marine.

The reorganization of Echo Company again robbed the other companies of their talent. But when they did that, arguably they put together one of the finest companies in recon. Echo truly had the best of the best, in not only the Platoon Commanders and Patrol leaders, the most seasoned radio operators, machine gunners and point men as well. Echo Company was prepared to for any mission that was assigned to them.

Staff Sergeant Bill Rash was one of the patrol leaders who lost his life fighting for his country. I knew Bill very well and thought of him as a leader and overall good person. He was not the kind of guy who made notice of his talent. He was the “quiet man” of the Company. In retrospect he reminded me of the Gary Cooper type.

Bill had been scheduled to take a team out to “flip flop” with my team. The mission was southwest of the An Hoa valley. Bill and I spoke about the patrol and felt that it was a good mission and one that had the ability to present some excitement. The mission was to provide intelligence on enemy movement on both sides of our position. There were two long and wide valleys that seemed to fork together. Heavy cover and mountainous terrain outlined the valleys. The hill we were to occupy was where the valley’s separated like a fork so the view was very open. The hill also presented a problem we spoke about and that was the fact that we were very much exposed. Except to the rear of our position where the terrain climbed more than 100 feet in elevation and was all dense forest/jungle. This we felt was an easy route for the VC to take in getting to the hill. Both of us however, felt that we could defend the hill should that occur.

That same evening we both went to the outdoor theatre for a re-run of a movie. I told Bill that I had received my mission order and was leaving the day after tomorrow. We had small talk for a few minutes, settled into the movie and met up later at the club for a hot Ballantines Beer. In between the time the movie was over and I went to the club, a young PFC approached me from H&S Company named Scott Gary Smith. PFC Smith was a supply clerk with H&S Battalion. He walked up to me and asked if I was Sgt Miller from St. Louis? I told him that I was from St. Louis and he asked me what school I graduated from. I replied, “Berkeley High School.” He looked at with amazement and said that he too graduated from Berkeley in 1966. Needless to say, I was taken aback that 15,000 miles from home, I run into a guy who graduated from the same high school.

Scott had told me that he had arrived a short time before and was the supply clerk for H&S he was not happy that he was in supply and wanted to go out on a patrol with me so he could feel like he had done something besides dish out bean and bullets. He really had a burning desire to serve in the field. By this time, I had run 30 plus patrols and had a fairly good reputation and so coming from the same neighborhood, Smith felt that I would see his point of view and let him go along. I thought for a minute or two and then told him that I would not entertain his request. I explained that if I was to take him with me and we got into a serious firefight and he were to get killed; I would have to go home with that on my conscience. I felt strongly that it was not in his or my best interest no matter how much he wanted to serve. I did offer him an alternative in that I was on my way to the club to meet SSgt Bill Rash who was going on a stationary observation post and was flip flopping with my team. PFC Smith came with me to the club and we got together with Bill Rash. Always the nice guy, Bill offered him a spot on his team. PC Smith was like a kid with a new toy. He was as happy as they get to have the chance to go on a patrol and thanked me every time he saw me for the next day and a half!

Our call sign was “Scandinavia.” The team was 12 men strong and we headed for the objective where we were to remain for 7 days to provide intelligence for the grunts that were soon going to be running an operation.

Our time on the hill was not without incident. On the outer edge of the valley was about an 80-acre clump of jungle mass with heavy cover. In the late evening we sighted what we believed was a tank that had come from out of the tree line and made a couple turns (for no apparent reason) and returned to inside the cover. We had a BC scope and kept monitoring the area where the tank emerged to the edge of the tree line and then back again. I called in to our base “Grim Reaper” and gave them the information we had had on the possibility of the tank. Grim Reaper’s reply was not what we had expected. They said we were “nuts” and no intelligence supported the claim of the VC having tanks in the area. I got the feeling they thought we were smoking dope! None of us were! Grim Reaper kept telling us that we were seeing a Water Buffalo but I know what we were seeing even into the night the tank moved in and out as though it knew we knew it was there and were taunting us.

The next morning we called Grim Reaper to again report the sighting and wanted fixed wing to come in and do their thing. Grim Reaper finally conceded that something may be there and so they sent out fixed wing, which we directed and then we followed that up with artillery that virtually leveled everything in its path. Needless to say, from our vantage point, we could not see anything that resembled a tank or even a water buffalo. It just didn’t make sense!

The sighting was on the second day of the mission. We were to be there for 7 days but the monsoon season was preventing us from getting off the hill. Each time the choppers would come out, the heavy fog would preclude them from getting in to the Landing Zone. Even if we would get a small hole in the clouds and fog, it would close up as fast as it came. Our food and water supply was limited and so getting off the hill started to be a concern on the 9th day. We ended up being there for 12 days! It got to the point that we were eating anything we could find: old c-rations that were molded and some bugs was all we had. We were out of smokes and so that really mad us cranky.

By the time we were taken off the hill we had been probed by the VC two or three times. It seemed like half hearted attempts to just keep us on our toes. We figured that either they did not have enough troops to mount a serious assault or they were just trying to get us to move off the hill and begin running. Neither was going to happen! If there was to be a fight, we were ready, willing and able. When the choppers came in to pick us up and drop off Staff Sergeant Rash and his crew, there was not enough time to discuss anything. The intelligence reports were enough to alert Bill that we had a sighting and that we were probed. I was hopeful that he would be on his toes. As the crews changed I met Bill and simply shook his hand and gave him the thumbs up. I saw Scott Smith, the young PFC who I hooked up on the patrol. He was grinning from ear to ear. The two crews exchanged position and we went on back to the dry warm area in the rear where we ate everything we could find. It was good to be back! That evening, we all settled in to read and to write letters back home. About 10:30 p.m. a runner from the communication shack ran into the hooch to tell us that Rash’s crew had just been hit by a large number of VC. Five hours earlier we had left the same battleground and we all looked at each other with enormous concern. I ran to the com shack to hear what was going on and met there the Battalion Commander, Company Commander and Sergeant Major Jacques. Bill Smallwood and I were standing there listening to the fight as it was going on. The Battalion Commander looked at me and asked me what the terrain looked like and I drew him a diagram of the hill and where I thought the attack was coming from. I tried hard in my mind to visualize what was going on there. In the back of my mind was the thought of PFC Smith, who I had sent out with Bill Rash. We monitored the communications for nearly two hours glued to the radio communications. The ensuing battle seemed to be getting worse and not better. Obviously the VC had a sizable force and had done well in their own battle planning well in advance before launching the attack sandbag bunkers were the only cover on the hill and so I knew that a fight like this one did not sound good especially when you are outnumbered 4-1. By the time 0100 rolled around, the team was taking a beating. Several were wounded and things looked liked they were going to be overrun. The message traffic was slow to come in and the radio operator tried hard to keep us informed as to who was wounded and who was dead. Finally the message had come in that PFC Smith was a fatality. I was so busy talking on the radio that I could not display any emotion. I think my heart sunk to my feet when his name was decoded. Then as if Smith death wasn’t enough, it came in that Bill Rash had been killed. My disappointment turned to anger then to rage. Sergeant Major Jacques, face burnt red, picked up a chair a flung it across the room and broke it in pieces. “We have to get out there now. We have to get a reactionary force ready to go,” the Sergeant Major said. The Battalion CO concurred and Jacques left to assemble the reactionary force for Echo Company. At 0430, we were all on the launching pad waiting to go. Everyone wanted to get on the reactionary force. People from every company wanted terribly to be included. We all wanted to get some ass! The choppers arrived and we were off to the hill. We all knew what to anticipate. The hill had been overrun and just how many dead or wounded, we had no idea. The communications had been cut off for the most part! The Gun ships and the 46’s with the reactionary force arrived to the hill as the daylight hours approached. As we touched down, we made our exit and laid down a perimeter of security while Corpsman attended to the wounded and we began a survey of the damage. The VC had left the hill as though they simply rolled over the Marines position, killing and wounding everything in their path. Sgt John Tepper was the patrol leader with Rash dead. Like everything else on the hill, he was a mess. You could see the anguish in his face and just how exhausted he was. In one of the bunkers was PFC Smith, his body burned with C-4. PFC Henry was shot up badly and later had part of his leg removed. Sgt. Kiester was missing from the hill and was found hiding of the hillside in some bushes and Rash laid dead from a piece of metal from an exploding grenade that was the size of a pin hole in his heart. Bill Rash was trying to put the American Flag up when he was hit. They had position the flag and evidently fell during the fight. This fight was tough for all of us. It was tough on my team because just hours before we had left that same hill. It was tough because we lost some close friends and fellow Marines. It was tough for me because I had sent a young man who had no reason to go to the field other than for the honor of going! Echo Company was also a proving ground for young Lieutenants. My team “Scandinavia” was scheduled for another observation post on Hill 425. The mission was to do like all other OP’s and observe any enemy movement. The hill we were atop was accessible from 3 sides only. One side was a sheer cliff for nearly 300 feet to a valley. To the west, opposite of the cliff, was a long finger that went to the high ground. The north and the south were gradual slopes that led to the valley below. On this patrol, I had to break in a new Lt. Named Lenyar Little. He was southern fellow who looked studious, worn the dark birth control glasses and had the appearance of a professor more than that of a Marine. Our mission on 425 was Lt. Little’s birthday. I could tell he was frightened to be heading on his first patrol. I was the patrol leader and he was my shadow. That is how we broke in the new guys, letting them go out with another seasoned Officer or enlisted patrol leader. On the hill, we had 10 Marines and all combat worthy vets except for Lt. Little. While there, we ended up observing the VC running arms and ammunition from the south to the north on a major travel route. They were smart because they had women and children among them for cover. This presented problems for us, as we could not call artillery in on them or fixed wing. There was absolutely nothing we could do except let them move their goods without interruption. Then we got the idea to go ahead and call in artillery and walk it in on them, hoping that when the rounds began to fall, that the VC would head one way and the civilians would run into a separate direction to get away from the hostile fire. It was a decision made purely on speculation! I called the artillery battery, “Lung Point Kilo” to do the shooting. We started the artillery rounds away from the VC and civilians at some 200 meters and started walking them in one at a time. We did not want to fire for effect until we knew for certain that the VC and civilians would separate. As the rounds grew closer, the hunch paid off and the civilians did all they could to separate themselves from the VC? We fired for effect and made an idea turn into a successful shoot. Over the next several days we played the same game day in and day out. They never seem to get the hint that we were not going after the civilians. In the seven days, we killed more than 125 VC. However, what we did was piss them off and when they discovered where we were, they came after us with all they could muster. Just at dark, the VC began penetrating our perimeter with grenades and then small arms fire. We had no idea that they were this close. We did observe a small patrol coming in from the southwest but felt they were a reconnaissance team sent to see how many men we had and the hill and what firepower we had. We were all on alert because of the situation and so the VC made no surprise on our position. As time went on into the evening, the confrontation escalated into a full-blown assault by the VC. We estimated some 15 VC making their best effort to get on top of us. Our position was well fortified though with sandbag bunkers and well made fighting holes so we felt that it would take an assault of far more than 15 VC to pull us from our fighting positions. The assault on our hill carried on for several hours in what I felt was more probing than an all out push to pull us from our fighting holes. The VC seemed to be disorganized at time, not knowing what kind of firepower to throw at us I had called for gun-ships and had “Puff the Magic Dragon” to help deter any heavy onslaught from the VC. It seemed to keep them off of us for a time but then they gave us all they had. I had Puff dropping its guns to within 15 meters of our position. The gun-ships were giving it their best effort but the attack was beginning to become much more intensified. Then as though somebody called a cease fire, the VC halted their attack on us. Our thoughts were that the VC had been whipped to submission but we knew better. There seem to be total calm. Our Corpsman Doc Peters, scurried about the hill. Many times in total disregard for his safety, patching up, to the best of his ability, those who were wounded. I felt the need to be extracted as soon as possible, given that we had been compromised, so I called into Grim Reaper for choppers to come and take us from the hill. Lt. Little seemed delighted that we were going to get off the hill and back to our safe little houches. I made my way around the hill taking a survey of the damages and what resources we had left. Everything except the machine gun position was in place. The gunner and three others were wounded including me. The spray of shrapnel had hit me in the lower leg and foot. Of coarse when it happened I thought my leg had been blown off! I didn’t even realize that I had been hit for a minute or two and then I felt the pain. I could see the blood but it was not as bad as I was thinking it was. In other words, I was being a big whiner. The blow was enough to knock me down but no enough to keep me there. Shortly thereafter, we heard a moaning coming from about 20 meters outside the bunker where the machine gun had been set up. It sounded like a wounded VC and it sounded as though he was in bad condition. I sat behind the bunker and listened to his groans for about ten minutes hoping they would end but they didn’t. I decided to take L/Cpl Cobb and we would go out and retrieve the wounded VC. Cobb took the M-49 grenade launcher and I had a shotgun. We cautiously worked our way to the VC. We could hear him very clearly but we did not want him to hear us. We also considered this may be a trap and so we were especially careful. Cobb and I finally got to a point where we could see the wounded VC. He was laying face down and we thought for sure he was hiding a grenade or weapon beneath his body. It was dark so we could not see a lot. All we could see is the VC and no weapons. We stopped for a minute and watched him for perhaps 2 minutes and through hand signals decided that he was not worth risking our safety and more than he already had. We began to track backwards and all of a sudden we heard a “thud” on the ground next to our feet. It was a chi-com grenade. Cobb and I could not move. Our feet were frozen! The grenade did not go off. It was a dud!! Needless to say, we praised the Lord for days after that. I bet it took a week for our eyes to get back to their normal size! Suddenly the VC started another attack. This time they were to the opposite side of the hill and there was no way to defend with artillery because I would have to shoot directly over our heads. Puff and the gun-ships had left because the grunts were taking a beating elsewhere and they had to support them. Fixed wing was sent in for us and so we were limited to artillery and fixed wing. The problem with fixed wing is that they can’t get as close as Puff or gun-ships so I elected to use artillery. As it turned out, we had to shoot in a line from the south to the north, directly over our position. The problem was that if a short round were to hit, it could have taken all of us out. I discussed briefly the situation with the Lt. In fact, I think I told him what we were going to do and he was not a happy man. He ordered me to withhold doing that and wanted us to use small arms fire to repel the VC’s attack! The Lt. recanted his displeasure when we saw that things were escalating to a point where we could easily be over-run. I was not willing to sacrifice our position and was more willing to kill my own guys than to have the VC kill us. I did not want to give them the satisfaction! I called Lunga Point Kilo, our artillery battery for a fire mission. They could not shoot for us because they were already overwhelmed working with the grunts. I kept thinking that this is bull-shit. We are up here on this hill, getting our asses handed to us and they can’t send us gun-ships, Puff and now artillery! Lunga Point Kilo did give me a frequency for another battery that was operated by the Army. Oh well you do what you have to do I thought I called the battery and the were pleased to help us. I gave them the fire mission and ask them to fire one round of WP for range. The round came in and was about 200 meters out from us. I then began to walk the artillery in on top of the attacking VC. I dropped 50 meters at a time until they rounds were within 50 meters of our position. Each time a round came in over our heads, it felt like you could reach up and snag it with a catcher’s mit! The Lt. was livid hunkering down in his fighting hole. He kept saying he was going to get killed on his birthday and by his own people! At times, even in combat, people have to have a sense of humor. The Army battery was doing a great job and the VC were being held but now I wanted to get off this hill while we could all still climb on a chopper. I called for our extraction and was informed once again; they had no choppers available or gun-ships. Now we were really screwed. I called the artillery battery and told them of our situation and that I may need fire for several more hours. They were willing to help us but told me they may be able to get me an Army extraction unit out to get us off the hill. Within a minute or two they gave me a frequency to call and without hesitation, the Army asked my coordinates. They were sending out enough choppers to get us off the hill! Perhaps a half hour went by and I got the call from the Army pilots. They had 5 Huey’s on the way and two gun-ships as their escort service. As they neared the hill, they asked for the situation and I briefed them. I halted the artillery fire and the next thing I knew, we were watching the gun-ships work the VC over. The lead chopper requested smoke and we popped the designated color. The VC were really giving us all they could give us and the Army gun-ships and Marines on the ground were all fighting giving the VC every bit in return. Under heavy fire, the choppers came in one at a time until we were all off the hill. The gun-ships worked like I had never seen any work in the past. These guys put on a display that was absolutely incredible. The pilots were no more than 23-25 years old. In November 1968, my time had come to go home. Twenty-one months of Vietnam was enough. I look back in retrospect and I don’t feel that anything I did was any different than that of any the men with whom I served with. There were many who gave their lives for a common cause and many who gave their lives for their fellow man. There are so many stories of valor and so many more stories of absolutely common men who challenged their limits. Reconnaissance Marines are a special breed of men that few know about. They need not boast of their deeds, nor do they expect recognition and decorations. Recon Marines, as I know them, are as modest about their exploits as they were covert in that time. Recon was a place where the tough were made tougher and a place where the camaraderie is life-long. I miss the closeness of that day. I have not experienced anything like it since and regrettably, will never again. For those of us who returned home, we will all remember those who did not, forever. Their names and their faces are frozen and etched in our memories. Their service and their last devotion of duty should always be that ember that burns forever in our hearts. Over the past 34 years, my service to the Marine Corps has been a special time. I have loved every minute I have had the privilege to wear this uniform. If I am to be judged for my service, I would like to be judged for my life as a Reconnaissance Marine and no more. It was that time in my life that has left its greatest mark. I hope in some way, I have been a sound advocate of the Vietnam Veteran in these years since Vietnam. I carry the belief that for each of us who served in Vietnam, history will judge us fairly. I also believe that when we close our eyes for the final time, it is the highest authority that will judge our service to our country. To that end, I will end my story with a quote from a speech I did in Vincennes, Indiana in July, 1967 before the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Moving Wall “While our fallen comrades have raised to the greater Glory we who are the survivors of Vietnam must march in lock step. We must show the world that our greatest Glory still lies ahead.” MGySgt Lennie Miller, USMC 6/97

Lennie Miller Master Gunnery Sergeant United States Marine Corps Vietnam March 1967-November 1968 1st Recon Bn, Bravo, Delta and Echo Companies

Story #6

Master Gunnery Sergeant Lennie Miller's Retirement Articles

A Warriors Thought

By Manel Garicia

Delta Company 67/69

I don’t know how he got me, I just know he did. I was only eighteen and still a virgin. I didn’t know much about the world but I knew what it felt like to feel, to trust, to love, to be happy and cool to hang out with the “vatos” (guys), to cruise and flirt with the “jainas” (chicks) on a Saturday night. It was heaven.

I knew that no matter how much I tried to ignore him, he would eventually find me. He liked guys my age. He was so smooth that one day I fell right for his old bullshit, “come on over, “ese” (dude), let’s see what kind of “huevos” (balls)¼ you’ve got,” he whispered. “If the wimpy Tony could go and come back, so could,” I uttered to myself.

So I got ready for him, even though deep down inside I hoped that the day would never come. In six months I was in this backyard ready to kick some butt. It was the biggest yard I had ever seen. I knew he was watching me but again I pretended to ignore him. I didn’t have to go far to see the faces of other dudes who had seen him, smelled him and felt him. They looked into my eyes and somehow I knew what they were wondering. Was I, or wasn’t I going to make it. As the days went by, I challenged him “come on¼ do it! Do it now while I’m fresh.” He ignored me. The place was packed. Whites, Okies, Blacks, and more vatos like me. All of us had one taught in mind, “to make it.” That’s when I came to the realization that sooner or later he would find me. And if he did, so what¼I was getting tired of playing his stupid game. Besides by know I was starting to get a little cocky. I was ready.

Every day I would look for him and every day I would hear of someone else getting it. I would see their names and wondered what it like was. I would visualize the pain and sorrow their loves ones would have to go through. And I would hold my breath, because I knew I had to be strong. This went on until one day he let his presence known my zapping our leader in the head. I held back my tears until I could no longer stand to see his wounded body. As I looked away I saw more beds filled with wounded warriors all looking at my direction. I looked towards the sky and wondered if this is the way it had to be. I knew I couldn’t ask for any favors, all I wanted was to be strong; tears began to drip, so I quickly left not wanting anyone to see a Marine cry.

Suddenly there he was! “Please God, I’ll do anything¼don’t let him get me. Let me dream another night.” I got my wish that night but his signal was loud and clear; he would be back for more. I pleaded with God some more, “give me courage.” And then it happened, “this bastard can’t hurt me, and if he did, so what,” I was pumped up! Maybe I’ll go back early, (like my leader) or to heaven¼where all good warriors go. The next day he came bright an early, holy shit! He’s coming right at me. Face to face, my time had come. “I got to give it to him¼no, maybe I can talk my way out,” I murmured to myself. “Pura Madre!” (Bullshit) I’ll give it to him like he would me! Yea, all the way¼more, more, and more” I was winning, it was thick, and it was hot. It felt so good; I closed my eyes and hollered”tenga cabron!” And then it was over. “Where did he go?” I wondered. I knew I had just whipped him. I felt him, I saw him. The BASTARD faked me out. He put someone else in his place. My legs begin to wobble, “stop it dammit! Stay in control, I’m in control, I’m all right,” I kept saying.

I knew after that day that I was nothing to him. I was only one body out of thousands he could have, anytime and anywhere. This was his playground. As each day went by, I went along hoping he would forget my face. But I was ready just in case. I read some more names, and I wondered once again, how? How did he do it?

Finally the time arrived when I could go home. He was letting me go. As I walked to my plane, I saw the new faces that had come to play. They looked at me and I looked away, I didn’t want to know who they were or how they looked. I just went home and wondered how many he would spare. I did my best to screen him from my life, but every now and then, I feel his mighty sword penetrate me hard and slow. He has marked me for life. I know him and he knows me. Semper Fi

Manuel G. Garcia 1st Marine Division, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion Delta Company - Empire State December 27, 1967 to January 20, 1969

Story #7

5 Minutes ‘Til Forever

By Gary Husar

Alpha & Delta Companies 66/67

In '63, John Kennedy, lay rotting in his grave. Some say he died, before his time, but he never had to see, how it came to be, that a dollar wouldn't even buy a dime! 5 Minutes 'Til Forever and forever's a long time dead; a man stood with a rifle, and aimed it at the President's head. 5 Minutes 'Til Forever, 5 Minutes more to live; soon people would sadly say: How much more does a man have to give?

At 17, I first wore the Green, of the proud, of a few good men; tho' a man I wasn't yet, then.

On a LST, a thought came to me, of Kennedy, and '63; and proudly I then stood for my flag, praying silently I wouldn't come home in a damn body bag. No one said to me, we weren't fighting for old' Liberty, 'til long after I was there. You'd think someone, somewhere would care, and that Americans are fighting and dying over there!

My one thought was in staying alive . . . and the year was '65. 5 Minutes 'Til Forever, and forever's a long time dead. 5 Minutes from a place called Chu Lai, as young men silently prepare themselves to fight ... and die? The Viet Nam War, Oriental Whore, and the thoughts that ran thru a young man's head 5 Minutes 'Til Forever and forever's a long time dead. The heat of Hell, and the rains always fell; alone in an unfriendly land; a man has to prove he's a man, by doing the best that he can! Well, at least I'm now getting a darn good tan! Who said war is Hell? Ask that of the Marine who just fell . . . dead. This place is beginning to smell . . . bad.

With a map on the wall in the kitchen, while half of America is bit chin' and saying we shouldn't be there, they watch the 6 o'clock news, 'cause they have a son over there. Deadly hush envelopes the room, and their faces foretell of the gloom of doom, as the man names a place called Chu Lai; there's a tear in one father's eye, afraid that his son would soon die. A real man would never cry! But, dammit, 18 are just too young to die! Dad shakes his head once more, as they hear of the blood, death and gore, of these young men who died all alone. God, but he wished his son just would come back safely home! 'Cause Dad's seen it all once before, in a thing called the Second World War. 5 Minutes 'Til Forever, and forever's a long time dead. With a gun in my hand, here we take a stand, in the heat we wait in ambush, and I crouch down behind this small bush. Down the trail walks the shadow of a man, a walk straight into Hell not his plan; but no one can see, what holds destiny, not him, not you, bro, and not me! Booby-traps made of bamboo sticks, and the year is '66.

I line up the sights, and my muscles are tight, I dare not breathe at all, as the hammer's about to fall. Sweat runs down the crack of my ass . . . everything happened so fast! The outcome only time will tell. .. . And he lay in the dirt where he fell . . . dead as Hell! When the Reaper came, he didn't have my name, and I earned my 'steak and eggs' that day, with a man now dead but a few feet away. Thank God, I heard some dude say, it wasn't me today. The real world seemed a very, very long way away. Back in the rear with the gear, you just can't hide your fear, in a bottle of Black Label beer, and think back without shedding a tear. What the hell am I doing here? 5 Minutes 'Til Forever, and forever's a long time dead. Now there's Agent Orange . . . nothing rhymes with orange, but somehow that just seems to fit, 'cause this whole damn mess here is a big crock of--I'm still told there's a God in His Heaven, and the year is now '67.

As I step from the plane, in the sunny California rain, I've 'field-stripped' my last cigarette. My throat is dry, there's a tear in my eye . . . I'm home and without a regret. What's a man suppose to do, when he played by the rule, but the rules are constantly changed? First a beer, then a girl, and give living a whirl! Then a shrink if I'm not yet over the brink, and have my fool head re-arranged being back, home in 'The World' again feels really strange. 5 Minutes 'Til Forever, and forever's a long time dead, but I'm not dead yet, Fred.

Marines are still going thru Heaven's Gate, and the year is '68.

Too many dead before their time, and the year is '69. And no matter what you may hear, you just can't drown your fear at the bottom of a Blue Ribbon beer. 5 Minutes 'Til Forever, and forever's a long time dead.

Today the factory closed down; isn’t a job I this whole damn town, or nowhere for miles around. I’ve a wife and a child; last winter was mild; but what happens come next year? It’s the damn future that I now have to fear. 5 Minutes ‘Til Forever, and forever’s a long time dead. “We don’t need you here anymore.” Never felt this way before. A new decade, any more promises made; the year they come and they go. All too often, much too slow I’m not sure of the year anymore; wish I could sell my body like an effendi whore, at least my family could eat, like before!

‘69 or ‘79 or 1982, on the wings of time it all flew. The good times that we knew, are just memories that make you feel blue. 5 Minutes ‘Til Forever, and forever’s a long time dead. Isn’t had a job for so long, done forgot what color they are! I’ve two hands and a back that’s strong . . . The house is now long gone; and yesterday they took the damn car! Damn it, I think they’ve now gone too far.

There’s a long black “V” in Washington, D.C. dedicated now to their memory. Those men gave all that they could give, but, what of those of U.S. who lived? What’s the future now hold, for you and for me, bro, now that we’re now backing with our family? I sit in a room full of blue; and the year is 1982.

Then came the time, when food stamps were the next thing in line. The cold wind blew: it was about then that I knew that this man was about out of time. A man I be, but no gonads on me; medals I have in a drawer; but they don’t cash in medals at the grocery store. Said I’d starve before I’d go to the store, with a booklet of that “funny money.” But she came to me, and quite tactfully, said: Don’t worry, I’ll go, honey. Food Stamp is as good as money, to me. 5 Minutes ‘Til Forever, and forever’s a long time dead. How she did it I’ll never know, the damn gas bill continues to grow; couldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. They going to shut it off? She answers me, no. I don’t think I’ll ever again be me; and the year is ‘83.

And I heard my son say, to his mother one day, that when he became a man, to be like his daddy was his plan. The smile of pride soon faded and died; the rest of his plan, you see, was not to have to work . . . just liked me! 5 Minutes ‘Til Forever, and forever’s a long time dead. A man all alone with a gun, a gun pointed at his own head. 5 Minutes ‘Til Forever, 5 Minutes more to live; I have nothing more to give . . ..In ‘63, John Kennedy . . . But, she was by my side, saying: “Swallow you damn foolish pride!” With a tear in her eye she said, “If you die, who’s gong to take care of our son? ‘Because they won’t be burying just one . . . Things are bound to improve, maybe we ought to move? But, my God, don’t do this to me! If not for yourself . . . think of your son, and me. Honey, put the gun back on the shelf.”

There isn’t a gun in our home anymore; often I stand and look out the front door; it might not be as good as before; but I’ve got my wife, and my son . . . ‘Because she wouldn’t let me use that damn gun. I thank God each day, in my own way do I pray, that someday it’ll be like before. But, for now, we’ll hang in there, a little while more . . . at least. 5 Minutes ‘Til Forever, but, forever need no mean dead! I keep hearing the words that she said: “Who’s going to take care of our son? ‘Cause they won’t be burying just one; don’t you see?”

My God, don’t do this to me!

It wasn’t always easy for Vietnam Veterans to come back “Home” back to “The World” again after having served in ‘Nam. For one thing, we didn’t all sudden come back to the States en mass like at the end of World War Two. We drifted back, alone, when our individual “Tour of Duty” was over. And, to what kind of reception did we return? Were we hailed as heroes?

Hell no! We were spat on and called horrible things like “Baby Killers.” And, our own fellow Americans--literally our peers--were publicly protesting our involvement in Vietnam. What the hell was going on here? We go over there, we risk our lives, and limbs, and a helluva lot of us bleed, and some 58,000 plus were to damn die, and for why, to come home and be spat on?

Story #8

TRAUMA

By Michael Harder

Alpha Company 1967

I arrived in Vietnam in mid August 1967. I was sent to 1^st Recon and began a two week Recon training. It was mostly physical – running miles and miles with a full pack and weapon, rappelling, etc. I came in second out of 52. I was then sent down to Chu Lai to join Alpha Co. I was shot out on the insertion of my first patrol – it was very exciting. I did two OP patrols in Chu Lai, and then we moved back up to DaNang. I was sent to Demo School for a week, and then went on my first real roving patrol. I loved the jungle, it was incredibly beautiful. I loved sneaking around like John Wayne. On October 15, 1967 we were inserted in the late afternoon into a place called Elephant Valley. We usually went with 10 guys, but we had a bunch of new guys in the Company, and were told to take them to get experience. There were 19 of us trying to be swift, silent and deadly in the jungle. We humped for a while and then set in for the night. The following day we humped incredibly difficult terrain. We don’t walk on trails, so with 19 guys breaking through the jungle, we were not exactly quiet. In the afternoon we spotted 5 VC, so we moved around this finger to avoid them. We then crossed this very well used wide trail. There was no way we could cover our trail with 19 guys. We moved into this valley and set in a 360 harbor site in late afternoon. We normally just sit for about a half-hour and listen before we take off our packs. I noticed a small camouflaged lean-to just in front of my position. Two guys go to check it out. An AK goes off on the other side of the perimeter, and then two guys open up and then quiet. We could hear them moving around us. Then about 30 feet away from me I see 4 gooks walking on line, I reach over and get Kelco’s attention. He says “well shoot them”. I open up on full automatic. All I remember today is the surprised look on the gooks face, and him falling over. Then everyone opens up and there are rounds flying everywhere. I was so excited that I was yelling, “I got him, I got him.” I am rolling around on the ground trying to get another magazine out of the pouch. But, I put too many in there and it was stuck. Rounds were hitting the rotten log in front of me and debris got in my eyes. I could here the rounds hitting leaves. It got quiet again and no one was hurt. We threw CS gas and broke contact. We moved about 500 meters up this ridge line and set in for the night. We called in artillery and an air strike. We set claymores out and were on 100% alert. I could here movement during the night, but no contact was made. At first light we moved off the ridge in kind of a gully to go down to the rice paddies for extraction. I think I was number 3 off the hill. We got about 100 yards down and the tail-end Charlie opened up on automatic. I remember turning to my right and hesitating, just looking for movement. Cpl Lothian yelled “fire.” Then everyone was firing on full automatic. We set up in a 360 and called COC. It got quiet again. The Gunny wants to move downhill to be extracted, but HQ wants him to assault the hill. We know they are up there. The Gunny argues, but this f¼.ing Maj. Timmons threatens him with court marshal if he doesn’t go back up the hill. Cpl Lowthian tells me to stay behind and set off two claymores facing downhill when we move out. After we begin to move out, I wait until Lowthian signals me and I blow the claymores. I am trying to catch up when Sgt Young is almost to the top of the hill. He opens fire, and then we started taking machine gun and automatic weapons fire from three sides. All hell broke loose, it was complete bedlam. Everyone is firing and yelling and trying to move back downhill and get in a 360. It seems like it is all in slow motion. I am looking right at the Gunny shot in the neck with the Doc holding him trying to stop the blood. There is a big hole in his neck and blood is just pumping out. The Gunny is trying to talk, but is just blowing bubbles. The Doc had the look that said the Gunny would be dead soon. Everyone is yelling obscenities and the gooks are yelling back at us. Wright is sobbing “Oh lord, Collier is dead, Oh lord collier is dead.” Collier had taken my position in the column, I should be the one dead. I am standing firing my M-16 on full auto to the left. I can see muzzle flashes coming from the bushes. The smell of gunpowder is overwhelming. Someone yells at me to get down. Rauch, the radioman is right next to me one arm’s length away. He was from San Francisco. He was calling the COC one minute, and then when I looked back at him he was staring with a hole in his head. His eyes were open with a blank stare. He wore glasses and was just staring at me. Guys were yelling for the Doc. Things slowed down a little, and then I saw a grenade coming in slow motion out of the trees above. It had a wooden handle and was smoking. People were yelling and diving out of the way. More grenades started dropping in. Hancock is screaming at me to get the radio to him. He is hit in the right side bad with shrapnel. Rauch’s legs are blown off. I cut the radio pack off of Rauch and give it to Hancock. He is screaming hysterically into the radio “We are going to be overrun.” I was completely shocked. I looked around, and all I could see was bodies of dead and wounded. It finally dawned on me that I was going to die. I took my K-bar out and stuck it in the ground next to me. I thought this was it. At this point I made a deal with the god that I grew up with – get me out of this one, and I will go back to church. All they had to do was keep coming then and it would have been all over – but they didn’t. Firing became more sporadic, but you could see the gooks moving around really clear. Doc Mecurio is walking around patching guys up like nothing is going on. He seems to be moving in slow motion standing up in the middle of a firefight with rounds going everywhere – he never got a scratch. He tells me to help Basco. He has a hole in his chest under his left arm with clear gooey shit oozing out. He seems OK, so I put a bandage on him, and he keeps shooting. We haven’t been able to get any gunships or Medevac because of the weather. We can hear the gunships, but they can’t see us because it’s raining and the canopy is thick. Cpl Lothian is now in charge, and he is calling in arty on our position. The gooks stay real close to us, so there really isn’t a choice. Shrapnel is flying through the perimeter. An RPG comes right through the middle of the perimeter, and doesn’t hit anything. A machine gun is keeping us down low. At this point there are only six of us not wounded. Things were slowing down a little, and we had been pinned down for about 6 hours. I was out of ammo, and the Doc collected magazines from the dead and wounded and passed them around to us. The weather started to clear, and Lowthian signaled our position with an air panel because we were out of smoke. The gunships began strafing, some of it coming into our perimeter, so we called them off. A medevac chopper hovered and lowered a jungle penetrate for four of the worst WIA’s. I was later told that the helicopter took 8 hits from a .50 cal while trying to get in. Once the weather cleared, the firing slowed way down. We were told that they were sending a company of grunts to save our ass. It had been quiet for about an hour when I heard something directly below me. Someone yelled Marines, and then the grunts came up to us. I remember feeling completely exhausted, and just kind of sitting there staring off in shock. The grunts formed a perimeter around us, and began checking for gooks and blood trails. I remember getting up and walking uphill to one of my kills. There was a couple of grunts kind of standing around him. I went up to check the body and cut some ears. I remember stripping him and checking his pockets. He had some money, a lighter, and a picture of a woman holding the hand of a young little girl maybe five years old. I stared at the picture for a minute or so and then I put it back in his pocket. I then took out my K-bar and the grunts said “Yeah, get some.” I knelt down and put my knife to his left ear. Then I just looked at him and noticed he had a fresh haircut. I stood up and walked away. Those few moments changed my life forever. It was starting to get dark, so the grunts put us in the middle of their column and we moved out down a trail that was close by. We walked all night. I remember feeling so tired I could barely walk. In the middle of the night the point man opened up on three gooks coming up the trail. I remember just sitting down in the middle of the trail – I didn’t give a shit anymore – it just didn’t matter. We got down to the rice paddies about mid morning. Helicopters took the rest of the wounded and the dead bodies. The bodies were stacked on top of each other. Rauch’s legs were on top of him, and my buddy Covington sat next to them. The five of us not wounded got a ride out down the river in an Amtrak. We then hitched a ride on a 6x. Along the way we came across a truck with some donut dollies on the side of the road. They had milk and cake. I remember just stuffing the cake into my mouth by the handful. The donut dollies were just smiling and looking at us not saying a word. Then one of them got this strange look of either disgust or shock on her face looking at me. I kind of looked around and then looked at my hands that were stuffing the cake into my mouth. They were caked with dried blood. I felt like an animal¼¼.

I feel really sad when I think that just going through this event was not enough. I am so tired of thinking about it for the last 38 years it just doesn’t seem right……... Michael Harder Team Texas Pete Alpha 3rd Plt. Aug. 67 May 69

Story #9

A Reunion to Remember

By Micheal Holmes

Delta Company 66/67

Group of Vietnam veterans rediscovers bonds that can't be broken

By Micheal R. Holmes Special to Empire Life Jan. 14, 1990

In early 1988 I was at the Pentagon on a writing assignment for the Department of the Navy. On an impulse that was half whim and half hope, I dialed a number and reached out to touch Ronald E. Benoit, Captain, United States Marine Corps, Retired. Ron Benoit was my Recon Team commander in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. He took me and a group of other teenage boys deep into the jungle and tried to keep us alive while we did things that still keep some of us awake and screaming into the dark. Ron couldn't save us all, but he tried.

Our job was reconnaissance. A small group of us would get on a helicopter at our home base in Chu Lai and fly west for a while. We'd get dropped off deep in the bush, as we called it, and sneak around for several days, hiding or moving at night and looking for whatever the people who directed our lives wanted us to find. To enter the bush on patrol was to enter a place so strange and twisted that our experiences often approached the mystical. The bush was hostile, it was foreign, and it was very dangerous.

At the least, a patrol meant walking bent over for day at a time, not speaking above a whisper. Besides the men and women who waited to kill you and the deadly little surprises they buried in the ground, it meant poisonous snakes, gorillas, tigers and small, slimy gray things that fastened themselves to your body and sucked your blood. In the summer the bush meant heat stroke that could kill you standing up. In the monsoon seasons it meant "immersion foot" so bad you could almost hear your toes rot. At all times it meant bad food, stale water and body odors so foul they'd hang in the air like a stain. And for me, it meant fear.

I was afraid my entire time in Vietnam. Sometimes, at night, in the jungle, I was so terrified that I'd hallucinate in vivid, shimmering colors. I saw Jesus once, with long hair and flowing robes, standing right in the middle of the trail. He was smiling sadly and shaking his head.

Another time I took a step and everything disappeared - the guy in front of me, the jungle, everything. I stood on the shore of a vast ocean that stretched off into a cloud bank and actually took three or four steps out into the water before everything got green and leafy again. .

Everybody knew I was afraid, too. You don't know all there is to know about someone you serve in combat with, but you do know everything about part of them. But I did my job and anyway, the hallucinations were a lot less weird than what some of the guys were into. Some would catch and cook rats. Once I saw a dried ear thrown into a mess tin of scrambled eggs. There was also your basic stuff like sticking the ace of spades into a dead guy's mouth. But my friend, J.J. who went crazy with only 10 days left, really summed it all up.

J.J. was a short, fat guy with a big wide smile like the entrance to a fun house. J.J. refused to look into mirrors. He'd shave by sense of touch, and once shot a metal mirror off a pole with a .45 automatic. He would explain himself with a small, quiet laugh: "If I can't see myself," he'd say, "then I'm not here."

That was the thing about the bush. It was' always there. You had always just come back from there, were on your way there, or couldn't stop thinking about there. The bush was an absolute, and absolutes are almost impossible to come by anymore, at least in this country. That's why, I think, so many of us are still there.

It's sure as hell where I was when I heard Ron Benoit's voice on the phone. His voice hadn't changed in 22 years, and he said "Mike?" and I said "Lieutenant?" and he laughed and said "Call me Ron" and I couldn't call him anything because I smelled the green, wet bush again and heard the thump-thump-thump of a Huey gunship and the tears were starting to come so I just made a kind of choking sound and then just sat there and stared into a hole in the air that was a thousand miles deep.

Then we talked. And among 10,000 other things we talked about a reunion. I was skeptical. I told him I didn't think we could locate enough of the guys. "I can find a few," Ron said, "and maybe I've got way of finding more. Anyhow, there was the thing with Charlie down in Louisiana. His lawyer found a few of the men through that. I've still got their addresses."

Charlie had come to the team, gone on a few patrols, seen some bad stuff, gotten wounded and gone home to Texas. He got married, settled down then started having problems. His wife left him and took the children to her brother's house in Louisiana, Charlie went after her. When his brother-in-law met him at the door with a gun, Charlie pulled his own and shot him dead right there on the doorstep. He was arrested and found not guilty by reason of insanity. The insanity was Vietnam, and Ron and some of the guys had gone down there to testify.

"Well," I said, "maybe we can get the ball rolling." I said that, but to me it was like raising the Titanic. The possibility was there, but the reality was down so deep and who knew what the years had eroded. Anyhow I'd thought and hoped and remembered all those years, but that didn't mean anyone else had. But a seed had been planted. Sometimes you just have to believe because even if it doesn't come true, believing is the right thing to do. I came back to Spokane a few days later. Time passed and I thought about it, but it was ashes from a cold fire. Then one day Ron called me and said, "I think I've found Darrell up in Minnesota." I'd seen Darrell get his third Purple Heart when Charles, another Charles, hit a trip wire on point.

It was a setup the VC liked to use where the trip wire ran across the trail and then snaked back, unseen in the grass, to a booby trap about 30 feet behind it. This would get more people because it'd blow up about, the middle of the column.

That's what it did, and it got several of us, as well as setting off a CS gas grenade which confused things even more. Anyhow, Willie and I crawled over to Darrell, who was lying still on his stomach. We thought he was dead, but we rolled him over anyway to make sure. His face was black with burns, but he opened both eyes and grinned and held up three fingers for three Purple Hearts, which meant he was going home. And Willie and I said, "All right!"

So I called that number and Darrell was still alive and real and he said, "Hell yes, man! Hell yes I'll be there, just say when and where, and, hell yes, I'll be there!" In his big Minnesota Swede accent he said that and a bell rang, and man, it started. That was our omen that was our sign. From then on we could do no wrong and Ron would find names and I'd call or write and at first there'd be disbelief and then a guy would say, "Hell yes, man! Hell yes, I'll be there!"

Nine months went by. My wife Melissa and daughter Michal had picked out clothes for the trip and I had the plane tickets hidden in my sock drawer. The reunion was to be in Washington, D.C., in the last part of August 1989, some 22 years since we'd seen one another. It was a long way to travel for some of us, but the symbolism was so obvious, and of course The Wall - the Vietnam Memorial - was there, so everybody agreed it was the only place.

On the first day of the reunion, we were talking to Ron and his wife Barbara down in the hotel lobby. And then Tim Fonderlin was there, introducing his wife Diane and son Shane, who could have passed for Tim last time I saw him. Timmy was older and had a beard, but he still had that kind of quiet self-possession that made him one of the best natural bush leaders I ever saw.

Willie Ridgeway was there, too, still in the Marine Corps but a first sergeant now with 24 years of service behind him. He had a gravel voice and gimlet eye like the former drill instructor that he was, but he was still Willie.

We moved into the bar filled with overstuffed chairs and open to the lobby and we talked and laughed in short nervous bursts that gradually slowed down and flattened out as we settled into this strange new feeling.

As we were talking, a tall, white-haired guy in a designer tennis outfit walked in, went up to the bar and sat down. He ordered a beer and sat there looking at us. Ron was talking about something when suddenly the guy got up, walked over and stood in the middle of our little group. He looked at Ron. "Is that Ron Benoit?" he asked, and choked on the word "Benoit." Benoit nodded and stood up slowly.

"Who're you?" he, asked with a kind of wonder in his voice.

"I'm Danny Thompson," the man said, and then lurched forward with his arms out.

"Jesus Christ," somebody said, and it was probably me.

Ron tried to step back, but a table blocked him and suddenly the man was hugging him and crying and Ron was trying to hug him back but it happened too fast so he stopped and just stood there. Then the moment swept us all up and Barbara Benoit was crying and Tim and I had Danny around the shoulders.

So Danny came into our little circle with his white hair and young old face. "Click-click," he said "Click-click." Ron nodded and they talked about it.

Danny was out in the bush as a radio operator with a new lieutenant after Ron and I were blown up it was night time and the VC was all around them in the dark. Danny could hear the soft rustling noises as they got into position and he whispered into his radio that it wasn't safe to talk any longer.

Ron was helping with the radio net back in a rear area. "I understand you are surrounded," he transmitted. "If that's so click your hand set once."

"Click-click"

"1 understand you are about to get overrun. Is that' so, "click-your handset again."

"Click-click"

Then the VC opened up and rushed forward out of the dark, firing into the team. The new lieutenant was shot dead and an AK-47 round took the radio out and that was the last anyone heard of Danny and the other guys until the survivors were found a day or so later.

So that day passed and ended, and the next morning we turned the hospitality suite into a time capsule.

A huge Recon emblem went up, a skull superimposed on the blue and white diamond of the First Marine Division. A Marine Corps flag was tacked on one side and a large map of the Republic of South Vietnam on the other. A long table was scattered with Nam pictures and slides and the soundtrack of "Platoon" wailed from a rented tape deck.

We had a tub full of ice and beer, a couple of bottles of wine and soda. The room swirled with people for a while, but finally settled into a pattern. The guys sat in a rough circle on more overstuffed couches, drinking beer, talking and laughing. Our wives moved in and out of the circle and our children, ranging in age from 10 to 22, mostly sat over by the food and watched. Marilyn Thompson, Danny's wife, floated quietly around the room with a video camera.

The talk rose and fell in waves. In the occasional silence we looked over the tilted bottoms of our beer cans. Ed sucked the moment in through our eyes.

People began to arrive and every guy who suddenly appeared in the open doorway just stood there, riveted, until one of us got up from the circle and put our arms and we touched each other, my God how we touched one another.

I went up to Darrell Lindgren and I didn't just hug him, I dug my fingers into his shoulders and kneaded him; when Bill Howard stuck his big round Alabama face in front of mine and blinked and grinned at me I had to touch him, I had to have my arms around his neck; I didn't even flinch when he kissed me on the cheek, and I saw that even though wrinkles had collected around his eyes like flotsam around the edge of a pond, the centers were still blue and clear.

We talked of many things, expressing ourselves in Phil Rogers' Alabama drawl, my Northwest twang and Danny's East Coast staccato. Finally, we talked about the hill where Joe Barnes got killed and our team ceased to exist as we first knew it.

The choppers put us in on a finger ridge near the South China Sea to check out an area before a major landing was to take place. We came in under heavy fire from two machine guns and immediately ran for a cluster of large boulders a few yards away. When we got in there, the whole world blew up.

Hidden NVA, the infantry reaction force told us later, were watching us through binoculars and touching off bombs and artillery shells buried beneath us. Joe Barnes was moving to check the perimeter when a hug explosion erupted right under him and he was blown into a red mist. We found a piece of his leg, wrapped it in a rubber poncho and took it with us. His family didn't even get that.

Benoit got both eardrums broken on that hill, Doc Brodie got his back broken and shrapnel in his brain, Mac was shredded red from eyebrows to belly button and Davy screamed when a swatch of Joe's pubic hair hit him in the face.

Those are some of the things we had in common as boys, and it was one reason why we loved each other as men.

The reunion went on and we drank more beer and we talked; next morning we got up and went to Arlington Cemetery and the Vietnam Wall. We got "rubbings" on pieces of paper from several names carved on The Wall and stood in a tight little circle there and said a prayer. People filing by stopped and looked at us and I wonder what they saw.

Wednesday night all 24 of us sat down to dinner in a reserved section of the hotel restaurant. Ron Benoit gave a speech and we gave him a plaque. Willie Ridgeway gave several speeches and we gave him a set of Sergeant Major chevrons for his upcoming promotion. We ate and drank and toasted one another and folded away lists of addresses and phone numbers.

That was pretty much it. We decided that Tim and Danny would set up the next reunion, two years later. Nobody knew yet where it was going to be and nobody cared. All we knew and cared about was that we'd found each other again and that we'd never in this life let go.

It was a simple thing that happened, a coming together of people who discovered they loved each other, who drew healing from that love and who went away with a new capacity for life.

I'm crying now, as I think about it, as I remember it. We did something once that was bigger than ourselves and we did it as a team. We found our way back to that team, thank you God, and for a while we found our way back to that thing that was bigger than ourselves.

Micheal R. Holmes is a free-lance writer based in Spokane.

 Story #10

Okinawa

By Bob Bruno

Alpha Company 67/68

I left the nam after 8 1/ 2 months and my date to get out was 4 May 68. It was now January 25th and I was assigned NCO in charge of orienting men coming and going to and from the nam.

There was this long counter with Marines behind it almost looking like an old time DMV. When notified, Marines would line up at the counter, have their orders cut and a date was placed when they would board a plane outta there. It held about 400 Marines (the building) Anyway, before I made my appearance I could tell if they were coming or going to or from the bush. The ones going would be coughing, talking loud pushing chairs around with their feet, laughing, talking etc.

I don't know, maybe it was all from not knowing what they were about to get themselves into. Nerves I guess. So when everybody got in the room I would come out in front of the counter and tell they "You'll be here no more than 5 days, the PX is by the (whatever) and the chow hall is by the (Whatever) and you get liberty twice while here but only till midnight and answer all other questions they had.

NOW on the other hand, the nam vets came in and without going out there I didn't even know they were there. Finally there was a Marine who told me they were in place and ready for their talk. I'd walk out and it was so fricking quiet, one would have thought someone died right there in the building. No coughing, no talking, NO NOISE, period. So one could tell which way Marines were going by the noise or lack of it.

I would be dressed in short sleeve class A's with three rows of ribbons, not a wrinkle anywhere and one squared away Marine. I would give them the spiel and no one said a word, I'd ask if anyone had any questions, not a word. I'd look around for questions and no one even looked at anyone else. I'd say o.k. file up to the counter in an orderly fashion and we'll get you outta here and to your barracks.

This went on until around 18 March 68. We only had one day off a week, but the building was used 24/7. I had the 4 to Midnight shift. After about almost two months of watching their eyes and knowing where they were going, it was getting pretty boring.

So this one night, a group of nam vets came in, and I could feel their plight. But remember, for two months these guys were like statutes. I felt for them. NONE of them ever said a word. I guess the ribbons on my chest let them know; I too, was where they were. Or at least we were all combat vets (for the most part) SO this one night, I thought I would liven things up and get a reaction out of these guys. I did my spiel and then I said (Only once)" Now, for a mere $300.00 we could get you on a plane tonight and you'll be outta here." I'm telling you, Bob, that got me in more trouble than you can imagine. The men charged the counter, I saw them coming and JUMPED over it. I got a folding chair and stood up and told them I was only trying to get a reaction. These guys wanted to get out of here and outta here NOW. Anyway, the Lieutenant was in a hallway standing way in the background and overheard everything. By the way, the men took it pretty well, probably the first laugh most of them had in a long while. The LT didn't laugh though. The men came up to the counter and I assured them, they would be outta here ASAP! I could feel their plight and in 2-3 days they'd be gone.

The LT called my Sergeant and me into the back hallway and proceeded to chew some ass. He was walking back and forth with his hands behind his back. We stood and rigid attention. Then, something went awry. The Sergeant looked over at me, I could feel him looking and I looked back. (Like, what's up?) Well, he noticed that the LT had been doing some serious drinking and I mean serious drinking. We went from a rigid attention to kind of parade rest, to kind of just hanging out. We began looking around wondering when this BS was going to stop. HE mumbled and rambled on for another 10 minutes and finally couldn't remember why he was there. He walked off and TWO days later I was on a plane to Treasure Island. (With the explanation that anyone leaves a combat zone having less than 90 days left in the corps, they can leave if they want to. I guess I wanted to, because I was on a plane out of there!) 21 Mar 68 was my official last day. It was set for 4 May 68 but I got this early out.

I guess this is the first time I noticed my attitude was going south. I'd look at the men going and in my heart I knew that only half of them would be back here when their 13 months were up. Sometimes it was really hard to get up in front of those guys. Knowing what I knew. I was kind hearted with those going over AND coming back, except for that one time. I guess it was all starting to get to me. I knew what was and what was to be. After the ass chewing I got, I told them "men we are working overtime' (Higher gear) blew off the LT and the NEXT day every single man coming back was on his way home. SO, I redeemed myself and got a lot of attar boys out of it. A day later, I was outta there. But I took care of the men and did’t care what happened to me. I figured no one was sending me back to the nam, so what the hell? What were they going to do? AND that's what happened at Camp Butler. At TI I was there several days and about 11 of us were to muster out that day. One by one they were leaving. At about 1620 I was sitting outside admin and was beginning to believe that I was not going to get out that day. I walked in, all squared away and was met by this female 1st Sgt. She was a brute. She had a national defense ribbon and good conduct, as I remember. I was polite (Because I wanted OUT) and asked if I were going to muster out today. She said in a firm voice "You'll get out when I'm ready" Again in my class A's. She may have been intimidated or could have cared less. Probably cared less anyway about 45 minutes later, she bellowed out my name and I went in. She said "Here's your orders, get outta my building!" Instinctively I said, and everyone heard it, not loud mind you, just talking, I said, F---off. Orders in one hand and a sea bag strap in the other, I drug my sea bag to the main gate, and I was on my way home.

The corps was the BEST time in my life. ALL FOUR years! I volunteered for the nam. Not sure why, but I did. Spent the first year at Horno and trained at Del Mar, 2nd and third year at Pearl harbor and then I was asked where I would like to go East or west? That was the beginning of the end of sanity as I knew it.

God Bless and Semper Fi

Story #11

Mustn't scare the womenfolk

By Chuck Fenwick

Charlie Company 69/70

It was midnight and I was the only Corpsman on duty. The ward was quiet and I had just finished charting for the 25 or so patients. The ward was the dirty-ortho ward at Great Lakes Naval Hospital. It being a "dirty-ortho" ward meant that every patient had difficult-to-treat infections and bone involvement---usually several severe fractures and/or missing limbs. The welfare and recovery of the patient dictated ward duties which consisted of: Changing bandages every 4 to 6 hours, starting and hanging IVs, pouring and passing medications, bedpans, bed baths, changing linen, hanging and adjusting traction, casts, shots, x-ray, transporting, meals, minor surgery, vital signs, nursing rounds, and of course, that dreaded charting. At night though, things would settle down and at most, only two Corpsmen were needed, but in a pinch, one would suffice.

I decided that since things were quiet and considering these were Marines, I should make rounds and check on the patients. Since all of the patients were confined to bed there is always something that needs to be done---quiet or not. "Hey, Doc, my urinal is full." "Say...uh... Doc, my pillow fell on the floor. Can you hand it to me?" No complaints or bed lights coming on, just, "Hey, Doc," when the chance presented itself and as a Corpsman I wanted them to have that chance.

I quietly started walking down the long row of beds with their sleeping occupants. I checked the drip-chamber of an IV here and the weight on some traction there, making my way toward the end of the first row. About halfway down the ward a sudden noise distracted me and I turned to my left. No sooner had I turned to look than from behind me a Marine swung out from the bed and wrapped what was left of his two legs around my neck and pulled me up against the frame. He laughed and said, "Gotcha, Doc! Nice ambush, huh?" Then his partner in distraction laughed too. Funny man, that Marine he was notorious for asking visitors to scratch his foot for him. We finally had to make a rule, "Mustn't Scare the Womenfolk!" Now he just picked on Chaplains and Corpsmen.

I continued on with my rounds until my last patient. He was in traction for a fractured femur. In the daytime he was a good natured, extremely large black Marine who reminded everyone of a pirate. Tonight, though, he was making a little bunny rabbit out of his sheet and cooing to said bunny rabbit. I got up close to him and asked, "What's the matter with you, man?" No answer except for that baby talk to his little white rabbit. I looked in his eyes and, yep, nobody home.

I went back to the nursing station and started checking his records. He was on Ampicillin, some vitamins, something for itching, Surfak, codeine--PRN for pain and Seconal for sleep. Nothing odd there so I checked his history. A gunshot wound, fractured femur, pseudomonas infection and that was it. I checked a little deeper. Ah ha! He had been in the hospital on another occasion with a head wound, from a previous tour in Vietnam. Head wounds and barbiturates don't go together. We would have to figure out something else to help him sleep.

Thus it went, day after day, night after night on that ward. The patients were some of the wars worst wounded. We never lost a patient though. The Corpsmen, Doctors and Nurses worked hard to make sure of that. Yet, it's not just the medical that carried the patients through to recovery, it was a certain spirit that the Marines had.

The ward was a place of laughter and smiles and high spirits. The Marines didn't complain or lose their tempers. They were polite and always said, "Thanks, Doc", but in an odd, almost complimentary way they seemed indifferent to their medical treatment. It's as if they knew they would get the very best that the Corpsmen, Nurses and Doctors could offer. There was something different about the Marines on our ward. Over the years I have worked on Dependent wards and in civilian hospitals and they are not like the Marine patients, but at the time I couldn't quite put my finger on that difference. Truly, I did not understand because I could not understand--I was an outsider.

I think that most Corpsmen notice this difference and that is what draws the men and women of the Hospital Corps to the FMF. My father had been an FMF Corpsman in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. I had been through all the schools, but as yet had not been given a duty station with a combat unit. Treating the wounded in a hospital is one thing, but applying your skills in the field and following in the footsteps of Corpsmen like your own father or Doc Bradley, Lipes, Ingram, Ray and a whole host of others, well, that is a different dance altogether.

The third time I volunteered for Vietnam, I got it! My turn at the wheel had come.

Combat Medicine and the Fleet Marine Force

The Honorable James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy during World War II, had these words to say about the men and women of the Naval Hospital Corps for their singular attainments during that deadly conflict. This was the first time in military history any single corps had been commended by that office.

"Out of every 100 men of the United States Navy and Marine Corps who were wounded in World War II, 97 recovered.

That is a record not equaled anywhere, anytime... So, to the 200,000 men and women of the Hospital Corps, I say, well done. Well done, indeed!"

Secretary Forrestal described the horrific conditions under which the Corpsmen tended the wounded.

“... While shell fragments ripped clothing from their bodies and shattered plasma bottles in their hands..."

From World War II until this day, of all the Medals of Honor presented to naval enlisted personnel, Corpsmen own the lion's share with well over half the number awarded.

Other personal medals such as the Navy Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Hearts won by Combat Corpsmen number in the multiple thousands and are almost too numerous to count. During WWII, the cost was high with 1,170 hospital corpsmen killed in action with thousands more wounded.

Korea was no different. During the Inch on-Seoul operation of 1950 in the period between 15 Sept and 7 Oct, Corpsmen attached to the 1^st Marine Division treated over 2,800 casualties.

Of the seven Medals of Honor awarded to naval personnel during Korea, a total of five were conferred upon Corpsmen for their heroic service.

The Corpsmen, Doctors, and Nurses manning the hospital ships in the Korean waters off those beaches found themselves in no better conditions handling 20,000 combat casualties, 30,000 non-combatant casualties and 80,000 outpatients.

In Vietnam, Navy Corpsmen were awarded 4 Medals of Honor, 30 Navy Crosses, 127 Silver Stars, 290 Bronze Stars and 4,563 purple hearts. Records show that we treated 70,292 Marine and Navy casualties and multiple tens-of-thousands of civilians. Our own death toll was not light at well over 600 killed in action.

Esprit de Corps

The men and women of the Hospital Corps did not suffer and die for themselves, but presented their minds and bodies to their units for a greater purpose. This willingness to serve is the esprit de corps to which they were drawn.

HM2 Chris Pyle wrote the following letter home just before being assigned to the first 1st Marine Division in Vietnam.

Many people have died to save another. The Navy Corpsman has had more honors bestowed on him than any other group. My life has but one meaning, to save or help someone. Soon I will be going over to Vietnam. I have my fears and beliefs, but they lay hidden under my emotions. That's why God has made me so. Someday I will see before me a wounded marine. I will think of all kinds of things, but my training has prepared me for this moment. I really doubt if I will be a hero, but to that Marine I will be God. I am hoping that no one will die while I am helping him; if so, some of me will die with him. Love for fellow man is great in my book. It's true they make me mad at times but no matter who it is, if he's wounded in the middle of a rice paddy, you can bet your bottom dollar that whatever God gave me for power, I will try until my life is taken to help save him, and any other.

Five months later, on 28 May 1969, HM2 Pyle was killed in action.

As Americans we would do well to learn from their struggles and the men they loved. From faceless heroes came priceless information which revolutionized the world of medicine and surgery. To this day there is no medical practice or attendant service which has not been touched and enhanced by Combat Medicine.

Medical Excellence

Yet, what is so unique about Combat Medicine that it eclipses all other forms of Emergency Medical Technique? Probably the best way to answer this is to tell what the field is not.

Combat Medicine is not just First Aid, First Response, or any of the other euphemistic terms for, "keep 'me alive until the doctor arrives." Neither is it Alternative Medicine which is suddenly being "rediscovered" by the masses. It is definitely not crude or improvised, unless the saving of lives can be considered crude. Combat Medicine is the very best of all of the above, and without question, it is much, much more.

Field Corpsmen are trained to not only respond, but to be the only response in obstetrics, mass casualties, surgery, pharmacy, orthopedics, nutrition, and sanitation - even pest control. When there's no 911 to call, ambulance, medevac, aid station or emergency room, whether on a hunting trip or atop Mt. Suribachi, the basic principles of Combat Medicine cannot be equaled when it comes to the survival of the patient.

What is accomplished in the field is often done without the aid of the marvelous life-saving machinery found in sickbays, emergency rooms and ORs. Combat Medicine is a technique borne by the heart, mind and hands of the individual responder which insures the survival of the sick and injured.

In its simplest, the Navy takes a man or woman, gives them a few weeks medical training, a medical bag and puts them in the field with the Marines. The Navy and Marines will expect the Corpsmen to perform their duties by caring for the sick and injured in a manner which exceeds the success rate of any civilian hospital or trauma center. They will accomplish this in all weather, terrain and, if called upon, while under fire.

The Rewards

As of the writing of this article, America is responding to one of the worst natural disasters in our history. For the civil authorities, the area of devastation caused by hurricane Katrina has produced a logistical nightmare, the likes of which are usually seen only in war. There are families trapped in their homes and no way out. There is no potable water. Communications do not exist. What little medical help is available is rapidly being inundated with patients. Law enforcement officers are overwhelmed.

It should be no surprise that the U.S. Navy and its resources have been called upon to aid in America's response to this unparalleled catastrophe. One of those resources is Navy medicine, in particular, the Corpsmen, Doctors and Nurses with the Fleet Marine Force.

Ships like the USS Bataan with its LCAC hover crafts, the USS Comfort and the Iwo Jima have responded. The Bataan is a combination troop carrier and hospital ship designed for combat landings as well as tending to the sick and injured. I have no doubt that the men and women who man these ships will perform their exacting duties and, without fail, carry forward over two centuries of a tradition of excellence in medicine.

My Pleasure and Honor

I had the pleasure and honor of serving as a Combat Corpsman with the 1st Marine Division, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion--RVN, 69-70. I served on other bases in hospitals and dispensaries around the world, but it was as a Recon Corpsman that I came to realize what we did affected the future in ways we might never understand of suspect.

I had been medevaced to Guam to recover from a concussion and hearing loss. While awaiting orders back to my Recon unit, I was working in a dispensary. As is par for the Navy, my Chief "suggested" that I, without delay, go get my hair cut.

So I, without delay, went to a small PX where Marines and Corpsmen took their turn being shorn. My barber, who looked to be from Guam or Okinawa, began snip-snipping away with his long scissors. He was one of ours, U.S. Navy First Class, a Steward. I had a name tag that said Fenwick and was wearing my insignia and rank. Suddenly the man stopped cutting my hair and pointed his scissors at me. I swear they were pointing at my throat and he wasn't smiling. In a strong voice he asked, "You Ralph Fenwick's boy?" My mind was racing as I tried to figure out what my Dad could have possibly done to make some guy point scissors at me.

I finally said, "Yes, I am."

The Navy Steward said, "Tell your Daddy I said, 'Thank you.' “He then went back to cutting my hair. I mumbled that I certainly would. I could breathe again and was happy just to be alive.

After a few moments, I asked, "Do you mind telling me what I'm thanking him for?"

He paused, pointed those scissors again and said, "Your daddy liberated me from a Japanese POW camp!"

When I went back to the dispensary I called my father in Oklahoma and told him what had happened and asked if he remembered the man's name. He didn't remember and as he put it, "Oh hell son, we did a lot of things and I don't remember the names."

It made me think about who I might be working on. It might be Marine, or child or an old woman who needs a bandage on her hand. It might also be a future George Washington or someone's grandmother who was thought to be lost. And to "Ralph Fenwick's boy" they are just a swirl of faces or some injury that needs tending.

Passing on the Spirit

I teach now. I founded Medical Corps in 1995. The "Corps" in Medical Corps is named after the Marines--just because I could do it. We teach Combat Medicine to the public, the military and our private contractors. We are the only people in the world who do this. I always ask if there are any Marines in class and there always are. There are also Air Force, Army, Navy and Coast Guard. Doctors and nurses, mothers and fathers, missionaries and policemen will be there too.

I look at the class. They are a sea of bright smiling faces and they expect something from me because I am a U.S. Navy Combat Corpsman.

Happy 230th Anniversary!

Chuck Fenwick HM3 1st Recon Charlie Co. 3rd Plt 69/70

Story #12

1^st Recon Company of Korea

By Robert Luster

1^st Recon Company 54/55

In June of 1953, I graduated from Cathedral High in Bellville, Illinois. In a few brief weeks I went on job interviews and soon learned my draft status of 1A was an obstacle to any meaningful employment. In 1953, a young man did not seek a series of military deferments or flee into Canada. He instead did what was expected of him. It was time for me to put aside my private life and make a real pledge of allegiance to America.

On July 13, 1953 in St. Louis, Missouri, I raised my right hand and swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and obey all lawful commands of the United States Marine Corps. I said farewell to my family, boarded the streamline Santa Fe Super Chief bound for Marine boot camp in San Diego, California.

In the next 14 weeks I learned how to drill, to fire the M1 Girand and most important to respond like lightning and without question to orders given by my superiors. Upon graduation, I went home on boot leave forty-five pounds lighter. When I walked up to my mother in uniform; for a moment, she did not recognize me. I had to introduce myself. I knew I was carrying orders to report back to Camp Pendleton for advanced combat training but I did not discuss those orders with her, as I did not want to cause her any undue stress. I relaxed and enjoyed a few days of liberty and then become anxious to return to duty on time.

The thirty days of combat training flashed by quickly, then a week of cold weather survival training at high altitude in California Sierra Nevada mountains.

On December 23, 1953, I boarded an MSTS transport ship with thousands of U.S. Marines as part of the 39th replacement draft bound for Korea.

When we disembarked in Korea I was wearing standard leather boots and every piece of cold weather gear issued including a parka. The cold radiated up from the concrete docks into my bones and I shivered uncontrollably. In all of my Midwestern winters I never, ever, had experienced cold like that January day in Korea. It would be many weeks before I would become hardened to the Korean winter.

The 39th draft formed into a column and moved inland to the troop train cars that would take us to a distribution point and then a truck ride. My destination was 1stMARDIV, HQBN, radio school. After a study of PRC-6 walkie-talkies, the PRC-10 and other radio gear, I was sent TAD, temporary additional duty, first to HQBN guard duty for 30 days, and then to Baker Co. shore party for KP. In all the shuffling around, I began to lose my sense of belonging to a unit. The aqualung was relatively new and I had a deep desire to learn and use SCUBA equipment.

When I returned to HQBN, I asked my tent mates about who in the U.S.M.C. used SCUBA gear. Over and over, the answer was 1stMARDIV, Recon Co. The Marines around me also told me that recon duty was dangerous, very dangerous. I noticed the awesome respect they had for Recon Marines. When I said I want to transfer I got derisive laughter. Are you crazy? Nobody gets a transfer out of HQBN.

The next morning I requested mast with my platoon leader. The lieutenant said no. So, I asked to see the captain who was company commander. The CO said no. So, I asked to see the colonel who was Battalion Commander. The Battalion CO told me if I stayed where I was I would be relatively safe and might even make sergeant. If you go to Recon, he said, they would probably send you home in a box in less than six months.

Sir, I said, learned how to operate the radios used on patrols, a qualified rifleman and an expert swimmer. And, I want to learn SCUBA. I was told to return to my company area and wait for his decision. At 1400 hours I got word to pack my gear and standby for weapons carrier transportation to 1stMARDIV, Recon Co. at 1800 hours.

All during the sixty some miles north towards my new duty station, I was wondering if I could handle the physical and mental stress of being a Recon Marine. Can you do this duty? I asked myself over and over again. Can you cut it? The answer was, by the grace of the Almighty God, I will do everything humanly possible to achieve this goal.

1st MARDIV, RECON CO

AFTER THE ARMISTICE

After the North Koreans signed the Armistice, they immediately started sending insurgents across the DMZ. Recon Co. was reassigned to Kang WA Do Island where a base camp was established. Recon Co. new mission was to stop the insurgents and gather intelligence by patrols along the DMZ, night and day. A reasonable person would assume that the Korean War was over with the signing of the armistice. No longer were there attacks where wave after wave of North Koreans rushed up the hills to kill and to die. But North Korea has never been known as a reasonable place. North Korea had hundreds of reasons to delay, postpone and stall with many excuses for not signing. Meanwhile, US Marines and soldiers of all nations were wounded and died in battle.

After the armistice was signed, hostility and aggression continued. North Korea sent patrols across the DMZ into South Korea and insurgents slipped across the line often under the cover of night. When we captured them and they were pulled off fishing junks and inflatable boats, we found them carrying huge amounts of cash, maps, firearms and some explosives. These agents were determined to sabotage murder and undermine the peace of South Korea. These agents would not hesitate one second to kill anyone who got in the way.

During the summer months LCM landing craft were utilized to navigate the many waterways in the area assigned to the patrol. During the winter months when ice and wind made navigation impossible, USMC Sikorsky helicopters were used to fly patrols into position. As we approached the demilitarized zone, DMZ, the choppers would fly in low between the mountains to the assigned drop area. Small fishing villages and rice farms dotted the area. Sometimes partisan South Korean agents working in North Korea would provide advance information about the route and/or destination the enemy insurgents would use. At that point, a Recon team would stake out the fishing village at night in the area where the enemy was expected. After being captured, South Korean interpreters who were with us had a long list of questions they wanted answered. Other patrols were sent to observe what the Chinese Black Dragon division was doing and how they did it. At times we were close enough to see them clearly without binoculars.

New Years Eve 1954, our patrol was sent to destroy a buried outdated partisan ammunition dump. The enemy was clearly visible across the river, queuing up outside their mess tent. The rusty ammo was uncovered and stacked into a wall about 30 inches high and over 100 feet long and then detonated. Two W/P mortar rounds made a huge arch out across the river and the Chinese troops in the chow line ran in all directions. There was uncontrolled panic across the river after the huge explosion. Our patrol of fewer than a dozen went back to our base camp. It was the most exciting New Years Eve party I ever attended. 1955 had started with a big, big Bang! I still laugh when I think of how a handful of Recon guys sent waves of panic through a Chinese division.

On one patrol, my squad leader spotted a circle of vultures in the sky. He recognized trouble at once and had me radio other Recon units. We moved in to investigate. We found the body of a young woman floating face down in the river. She had been disemboweled. Her hands had been tied behind her back and several small arms holes were found in her arms. Yards of her intestines trailed down the mud flat out behind her. When the body was recovered, it was decayed to the point the stench was overwhelming. Worse than the stifling odor of decay was the full realization of the cold-blooded brutality and cruelty that our enemy did not hesitate to display.

I volunteered to extend my fourteen-month tour of duty another six months in Korea to stay with Recon Co. When the Division pulled out of Korea, I was selected one of seven radio operators to stay behind and act as rear guard for the units moving south to board ships and go home.

Stateside, Recon Co. was assigned to Camp Pendleton barracks 15-B-9. We continued to train with the new landing craft nylon (LCN) inflatable boats and we received considerable training on SCUBA equipment. We trained new Recon troops and I was discharged honorably a sergeant from 1stMARDIV, HQBN, Recon Company on July 13, 1956.

When I left Korea in 1955, many of the big buildings in downtown Seoul had no roofs, no windows and were marked by the shells that hit them in the many struggles to take and retake the city. There had been back and forth battles over Seoul and much of that area now South Korea. Most of the people were dressed in white, mourning lost family members killed in the war and those who lived struggled to survive in primitive lifestyle.  Wondered how the people of South Korea have fared in the fifty years since 1stMARDIV returned to the U.S.A.

Recently, one evening I watched--the Discovery Channel on TV program called Super Ships. I watched thousands of South Koreans as they did final assembly on a new super tanker 1200 feet long, with a propeller 30 feet in diameter! This was in a modern shipyard, building a modern miracle the biggest tanker in the world. The people of South Korea are now working in ultra modern cities and enjoying their freedom and prosperity completely unknown across the border to the north, where slavery and starvation are commonplace. As this giant tanker, HELLESPONT FAIRFAX, slid down the ways at launching, I felt a sense of warm pride. In a small way, I did everything I would do as a Recon Marine to help these people of South Korea. Now, it looks like they have created more than one miracle.

I am now seventy-one years old and as we move from one world crisis to another, I sleep soundly at night. It is reassuring that 1stMARDIV, Recon, has reorganized. Recon is no longer a company of some 200 men. Recon is now a full battalion of dedicated well-trained, hard charging U.S. Marines. Today Marines are serving inane elite, all volunteer Corps. They have the spirit, courage and ability to handle any mission assigned to them.

I would like to say in closing, GOD BLESS AMERICA; and to all Marines everywhere,

SEMPER FI

ARMISTICE JULY 27, 1953

PANMUNJOM

GENERAL MARK W. CLARK

CHINESE WITHDRAW FROM KOREA

OCTOBER 26, 1958

Story #13

Reflections on a glorious birthday

By Paul Young

Alpha Company 67/68

The first Marine Corps Birthday I attended was at Subic Bay in the Philippines; Nov 1959. I was stationed at Marine Barracks Cubi Point, a dedicated post flanker on my third year in the Corps, seventeenth month in the PI; holding down and serving well the grand rank of Private First Class--proud as punch of that stripe. On previous birthdays I'd pulled duty and only got part of the cake but none of the party. That night would be the first time ever to actually be present and accounted for at a Marine Corps Birthday Party. Anticipation in the off duty section of the barracks was high; shoes were shined to a high gloss, uniforms pressed, emblems coated, brass polished, piss cutters set at a rakish angle--the Cubi Marines were ready, and damn, we looked good! Off we went. The party was held Main side at a brand new club and things started out just peachy. Several of us from Cubi were seated around a table, spiffed to the nines in our class a tropical minus ties. San Miguel beer flowed like water and a dance band played "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "As Time Goes By", and the like; however, there were only about three Filipino women present among roughly one hundred Marines from both Cubi and Main side, so not a whole lot of dancing took place. But the testosterone was there. It wasn't long before we were all pretty mellow and enjoying a high degree of fellowship as each of us grew more handsome and intelligent with the downing of each beer and the telling of each sea story. The cake arrived, was cut by the commanding officer, Col Cash, the ceremony played out and we all enjoyed cake and beer--not an unusual combination at that point in our lives. Back to more beer not long into the evening, a fight broke out at one of the tables behind ours. Not to worry, we did a lot of that in the PI and a fight was generally part of the evening's entertainment in that fair and exotic city of Olongapo and we were quite used to them. Seems some Sailors and a couple of Marines were in disagreement; which was not unusual either and another thing not to worry about. When the dust settled, the few Sailors who had come were gone. Then a fight between some Main side and Cubi Marines broke out. Now things were getting personal. The band sagely struck up the Marine Hymn and we all abruptly snapped to attention amid a clutter of broken bottles and puddles of beer. The fighting stopped. The hymn ended and we took our seats and continued downing beer, although a tad on the edgy side. Then another fight, only this one spread out a bit and involved a few more tables; which began going over with loud crashes. And then a few more tables. More beer bottles flew thru the air. The Marines at Young's table put their backs to the wall and stood their ground, wisely not entering into the fisticuffs and acting only as observers. By now, the floor of the club was awash in beer and broken bottles as fists continued to fly and Marines cursed and struggled. The band again struck up the Marine Hymn and for a brief moment, we all came to attention. Then someone threw a bottle at the band. Then some more bottles. The band quickly decamped, the singer hiking up her evening gown above her knees and sprinting like a cat in high heels for the nearest door. The fighting grew and spilled out of the club onto a surrounding field. One of Young's buddies was jumped by a Main side Marine and down they went. Another Marine jumped in and now it was two on one against a Cubi Marine. Things were really personal now and a wrong had to be righted! Young grabbed one of the two and were in turn grabbed from behind by some guy who was strong as an ox and hit like a mule! Down they went and Young was saved by the fact that he landed on top and began to hammer on the mule guy with everything he had; barely holding his own. Young's collar got ripped from his shirt, left hanging by a thread. His lip got fattened and a gash appeared on his forehead. Realizing that if he let go of the mule and for some reason stopped pounding on him, Young would get the beating of his life He hung on with everything he had and pounded away; trapped, CAGED! And wondering how it the hell was he going to get out of this mess--there was no letting go! Whistles started blowing from every quarter; AFP and Shore Patrol raced onto the scene and swung into action with their clubs; whacking first and asking questions later---which was the norm at the time. To the sound of thumping bellies and much yelling and cursing, the fighting abruptly ended. Young was rescued from his battle with the mule, which at that point was not going at all well-Off we scattered like quail. A Sailor staggered out of the dark holding a bleeding head, claiming he'd been hit by a brick, small pockets of Marines continued to fight out of range of the AFP, sirens screamed as patrol cars and paddy wagons arrived. Young and several of his buddies were stopped, shoved inside a paddy wagon and transported to the AFP station near the main gate. The brigs were full, so we sat on benches lining one wall; somewhat sobered and subdued by the evening's event and our new surroundings. And there was Young at the pokey, bleeding from the head, a fat lip, loose teeth, collar hanging by a thread, trousers grass-stained and muddy, formerly spit-shined shoes scuffed and filthy, brass dull, aching from head to toe And grinning from ear to ear. It had been a glorious Marine Corps Birthday My first and never to be equaled, real, Marine Corps Birthday One to be cherished until my dying day. It was wonderful with a fight scene just like in the movies! We were released at midnight and returned to our barracks, chewed out by a cigar chomping 1st Sgt by the name of Armond who seemed to mistake every Marine within reach as, a "low-down, yellow bellied skunk!" and returned to duty. And that was the end of that Semper Fi and Happy Birthday. Paul R. Young

 Story #14

From an email received Jan 2^nd, 2006

Used with Doc's permission

By Bill Davison

Charlie Company 69/70

Please forgive the lower case....I am holding a 2 day old baby girl in my left arm.

I first became acquainted with marine recon in Feb., 1968, when I was transferred to camp pendleton, ca, from 2nd hospital company, camp lejeune, nc, to camp pendleton for two weeks then onto Vietnam, I was told, it was September 1969 when I finally got orders to go to 'nam at Danang airport I actually volunteered for 1st recon, and why not for I had spent about a year and a half with 5th recon Bn in sunny and rainy cal-i-for-ni-a..I will use upper and lower case now for I have put my 2 day old baby to sleep in her crib for a little while Uh, I was a Navy Corpsman who served with the Marines for almost 3 of 4 years. FMF Training in North Carolina, 2nd Hospital Co, Camp Leguene, 5th Recon at Pendleton, 1st Recon, then 1st Med Bn in Vietnam.

Feeding time and back to lower case......ok.......

4 years in the Navy mostly as a Hospital Corpsman...almost 3 years attached to the Marines including a tour in 'Nam but sometimes I felt like I did nothing at all during those 4 years. But as I think back on those times, I thank God for everything I was not subject to and to everything I did not experience for in the long run, in any run, it is God who controls the lives and paths of we mortals. And try as I have, I cannot blame God for all that I did not do and all that I did do during those times. Oh how good it feels not to have developed hepatitis or to be plagued with the complications of Agent Orange and other things. No VD...no visible wounds...no one dying in my arms...what more could a man ask for? In my case years without guilt from having survived my part in Vietnam Years of guilt thinking about those bandages I did not put in place. How stupid was I? Pretty darn stupid as I think back! What happened to me then and since then was and is in the hands of God.

Today, I continue to be in the hands of God. Today, at 58 years of age this Vietnam Vet is the father of a 2 day old healthy baby girl free from all those illnesses and ailments and nightmares I dreaded for some 35 years! The health community was right...I was not exposed to all that then, and nor a lot since then. A very healthy 2 day old baby girl! Gone is the guilt from having come home in one piece! Gone is the worry of having contracted something in 'nam!

Gone and replaced with a 2 year old baby girl... and the health to enjoy life as a father. Thank You God! I wish all Recon Corpsmen and all Recon Marines could enjoy the same in 2006 but I am aware of all who died in "nam and since then. I am aware of the missing Reconnaissance then and now and I shall always remember them and fight for their return home alive or dead. As long as I live, others could still live. Why me and not others? God controls all and the answers are his to tell or not tell. But at this special time and the hours before ... 1220 hours, 30 December 2005...and the birth of a very special and healthy baby girl all feel quite wonderful with the world! I shall not forget the others who served a yesterday and I shall never forget those who serve today. Being a Marine was never part of the plan for me for my father and "three" of his brothers were World War 2 Army, three more brothers and Uncles, were WW 2 Army, another Uncle, U.S. Navy, was killed in action in WW 2... And my brother was Army during the early days of Vietnam. And I, U.S. Navy, become attached to the U.S. Marines. How ironic... or whatever it turned out to be. Through it all, which was not my plan, all turned out well for beside me in her hospital crib is our 2 year old daughter! Semper Fi is not part of my Navy vocabulary but what are "Happy New Year" and God Bless to all! Bill Davison....CHARLIE CO. SEPT 69 TO AUG 70

Story #15

When I arrived in Vietnam in November 1969

By Robert Farmer

1^st Recon Company 55/56

I never expected to find any evidence or vestige of the original Marine units that landed over the beaches of Da Nang in 1965 - but I did. Not in any material things but in the language. The GI/Japanese slang being used in 1969 four and a half years later.

The 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) that arrived in Da Nang in 1965 came from Okinawa and Japan. In fact, the 3rd Marine Division had been in the Far East since 1952. I personally served with 2nd Battalion, Third Marine Regiment in 1956 and 1957 in North Camp Fuji, Japan. The air components of the 9th MEB came from the 1st Marine Air Wing that had been in the Far East since 1950 and home stationed in Iwakuni, Japan. The helicopter units came from Futema, Okinawa.

Those units would bring to Vietnam a unique vernacular that is best described as GI/Japanese slang. This slang was mixed with Vietnamese and French into a patois that lasted to 1975 and perhaps to this day.

When I got to An Hoa, the main firebase of the 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I was assigned to the S-5. I was a Staff Sergeant 0369 (Infantry), but I had just completed a 47- week Vietnamese language course and the Regimental Sergeant Major assigned me to the 5th Marines S-5 shop because they needed a SNCO who could speak Vietnamese. You can find out more about An Hoa by reading James Webb book Fields of Fire. I reported in to Captain Carter OIC of S-5, an outstanding Mustang Officer who had a huge responsibility. He told me I would be in charge of Psychological Operations for the Regiment. The S-5 was also the Civil Affairs responsible for any inter-action or dealings with the Vietnamese, from garbage contracts to barber shops. In Vietnamese the S-5 was Phong Nam? or Civil Affairs? Dan Su Vu? The S-5 had a number of Vietnamese workers on a permanent and daily hire basis. The NCOIC Staff Sergeant Pedro (Speedy) Gonzalez introduced me to some of his regular workers and the first Vietnamese he introduced me to was "Honcho" Bob. I was a little surprised because Honcho means the boss or the one in-charge in Japanese. I didn't yet fully understand how extensive the GI/Japanese slang was used.

The daily hires went out on working parties with a Marine in-charge. They did all the menial work like burning crappers, filling sandbags, etc. The first time I heard a Marine say "Papasan di mau!" I thought to myself, Papasan - Papasan, am I hearing right? Papasan is Japanese GI slang for older man, san meaning Mr. or Mrs. in Japanese. But why would they still be using GI/Japanese slang words in Vietnam? I already knew that "di mau" was Vietnamese meaning to hurry up or go faster.

Other terms were left over from the French occupation like "beaucoup", meaning a lot, much or abundant. Examples were "beaucoup bac" meaning big battle or firefight and "beaucoup VC" A lot of Viet Cong. Or you could say I love you beaucoup. Old China hands will remember the word "chop or chop chop". Chop chop meant food. And beaucoup chop chop meant a lot of food. Boom boom meant making love and beaucoup boom boom meant you were a skivvy honcho.

I heard the words taksan (big), scoshi (small), benjo (toilet) used at one time or another - all Japanese words. There are probably other terms and words that were used, but escape me right now. Other Vietnamese phrases that stand out were, "dinky dau" meaning crazy or nuts. It seems that when Americans are sent to as new country for the first time they will always find the word meaning crazy or out of your mind. What they were actually saying in Vietnamese was "dien cai dau" (crazy in the head). Vietnam Veterans have heard many times, Papasan beaucoup dinky dau. It is an expression that used Japanese slang, French and Vietnamese all in three words. Lai day meant come here and used beaucoup.

What was really funny was I discovered that the Marines, except for a few who had served in Japan, thought those terms were Vietnamese and the Vietnamese thought they were American. Then it hit me that since the Vietnamese thought they were American words and Americans rotate every 12-13 months, the Vietnamese themselves, were perpetuating the GI slang thinking they were speaking American English. Honcho Bob thought that Honcho was an American word meaning the boss man. Also the numbering system used in Japan was alive and well number one being good and number ten being bad. There were even higher numbers for really bad. I heard Speedy say many times that something was ichi-ban - number one. The Vietnamese thought that ichi-ban was English meaning good. Also, Speedy was the best "cumshaw" man I ever met, but that is another story. There were several Vietnamese kids that worked for the Marines at An Hoa that had become quite good at English. They were Marine trained and had some unique names bestowed on them by Marines of earlier years. One day a Marine General was touring the area, and he spotted several of the Vietnamese kids lined up in front of the S-5 bunker smiling at him. He asked the first kid what his name was. He snapped to attention, all five feet of him and said, "Sir my name is John Henry Sir!" The General smiled and ask the second kid his name. He stood as tall as he could and replied, "Sir, my name is Charlie Brown, Sir!" The general said, "And I suppose this is Peanuts, right?" Charlie Brown said, "No Sir - his name is Snoopy". We all had a good laugh that day.

There is an aphorism that goes something like this, "Even more dangerous then someone who can not speak the language - is someone who thinks he can".

Six months after arriving in Vietnam I was transferred to 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines as the S-5 replacing a Captain. One morning on Hill 65 I was awakened by a Marine outside my hooch, "Gunny Farmer, we have a VC prisoner - we captured him last night!" I ran to the guard hooch and there was an older man with his hands tied behind his back lying on the ground. I stood him up and thought that he just didn't fit the profile of a VC. I looked at his capture tag and it said, "Acting suspicious". I turned to the Corporal and ask him, "Tell me what happened?" He said that the old man was caught outside one of the hamlets down the hill at about mid-night. The Corporal said he ask him some questions and the old man didn't give the right answer. What do you mean - you questioned him? The Corporal said he spoke Vietnamese and he asks the old man where his wife was and he didn't know. I told the Corporal to ask him again, in front of me. He turned to the old man and said, "Mamasan o (sounds like uh) dau?" (Where is your mamasan?) I said, "Hey Corporal he doesn't understand the word mamasan. That is an old Japanese slang word. He didn't know what you were asking". I ask the old man what happened. He said, "Hom qua? Gan muoi hai gio Toi phai di Dai Toi di nqoai nha VA Toi bi my bat! Toi so lam VA khong hieu ho noi". Last night close to midnight I had to go take a piss - I went outside of my house and the Americans captured me. I was scared and I couldn't understand what they were saying.

I ask him a few more questions and I was satisfied that he was a farmer. I said let him go and I shoved about 500 Piaster in his hand and told the Corporal to take him back to his village. He seemed happy. A few weeks later I was riding in my jeep on my way to Hill 37 and I saw him a standing on the side of the road and he was still wearing his capture tag - like a badge of honor. He saw me, smiled, waved, and yelled "Chao Ong". Hello Sir. I waved and returned the greeting.

A few years ago I was walking in one of the Vietnamese shopping malls up in Orange County, California. An older woman saw my USMC cap with Da Nang on the front. She walked up and said, "Me work for Air Horse Da Nang Me Mamasan." The housemaids were all called Mamasan. I smiled and we chatted for a while about where these last 35 years have gone.

Story #16

Early Days

By Randy Kendall

Delta Company 64/67

We jumped on the 34's at LZ Quail and flew up and away from the Ocean of the Bn CP at Chu Lai a very large patrol compared to changes that slowly moved thru the Bn as far as numbers sent out to one area. Later small teams dropped into areas that crossed each other but worked alone Swinging into the drop area just as we had done in training in the states and Okinawa whit the ground and moved to the tree lines for cover. Nervous would be an understatement, and switching the selector from semi to full auto on the M-14 was like a nervous twitch. Some in the platoon had the new M-16 but many didn't trust the weapon yet and we had the choice of which to carry, along with how much ammo and frags and smoke or WP. We moved thru the jungle searching for anything, but saw nothing...this would later haunt us at the debriefing. Then a village came into sight and the plan to move in and make a search started. One can hear your own heart rate at this moment... the sound of an M-79echoed thru the trees along with the M-14 on full auto, then silence. Moving into the villa we saw a large water buffalo on its knees still alive but dying with many' M-14 holes in his side. Then a poncho with the body of a young VC in it, the M-79 took him out of a tree on the edge of the villa. Doc gave him a morphine shot, but he was not doing well. Two captured from the village were separated and waited for the 34's to move them back to be questioned. Searching the rest of the village we found many papers and maps and everything was gathered up to take back to the Bn Hqt. We moved thru the jungle and set up for our first night in the bush, and it rained just enough to make it soggy. Watching into the night at trees that seem to move or maybe not became common but the dawn finally came and we moved on. Clearing the ground of vegetation to expose dirt brought the leeches out for play, by putting your hand in the middle of the cleared ground they appeared from no where and followed the heat of you hand...much like a game you could move them right or left without touching them. During the night many found parts of your body to hook on to for a free meal, we removed those at the first rest area in the morning. A second villa was found but it was empty but it was still warm with those that fled in haste. Along with more papers we took the chickens and put them in cages that were in the small camp area. The pigs were killed as they stood or ran after the firing started .We moved down on old creek bed to the LZ for pickup, all the time the chickens were not quiet and only the thought of fresh eggs saved them. The Gunny was less than happy but went along with the thought but we never moved animals again the 34's came into sight, "what a great sound they make to this day" we boarded the platoon along with the chickens.........one surprised crew chief helped us in and after we had moved some distance he opened a box that had homemade cookies in it and that was a taste of home I recall and can almost taste today Quail came into sight, the Ocean and the tents on the sands of Chu Lai....the Bn area never looked so good. The papers we brought back translated by the S shops gave us a new look at our enemy we had come to fight. The location of landing, numbers in the group, weapons direction of movement was all on paper but had never been sent out .We sat and rethought the mission and what we saw or should I say what we didn’t see we lost no one that mission but learned a lot about this country and its enemy and the fresh eggs idea never worked, they never gave us one egg and never gained enough weight to egg fresh chicken either..........another lesson learned far from home.

Randy Kendall Delta 64/67