Robert J. Arrotta--The Mightiest Corporal in the Marine Corps

“Close air support was considered the most important mission of Marine aviation, and the Marine Corps focused the lion’s share of its aviation effort on refining and developing its close air support capabilities. As the senior aviator in the Marine Corps [Major General Keith B. McCutcheon] put it just months before the siege of Khe Sanh, ‘Marine aviation is a tactical air arm. Its sole mission is to provide support to ground forces.’ ”

—LtCol Shawn P. Callahan,
“Close Air Support and the Battle for Khe Sanh”
Marine Corps History Division, 2009

At no time would Major General Keith B. McCutcheon’s words about the importance of close air support ring truer than during the siege of Khe Sanh Combat Base and the surround­ing, strategically important hills during the Vietnam War.

By December 1967, the North Vietna­mese presence around Khe Sanh Combat Base had grown considerably. The 304 and 325C divisions had crossed into South Vietnam and were approaching from the west. To the east was the 320th Division, operating near the Rockpile, as well as an enemy regiment and an additional battalion whose mission it was to prevent move­ment along Route 9.

This buildup in enemy strength was monitored closely by Lieutenant General Robert E. Cushman Jr., the commanding general of III Marine Amphibious Force. By 9 Dec., 3d Battalion, 26th Marine Reg­iment was diverted from another mission and sent to Khe Sanh. Elements of the battalion strengthened key hilltop outposts. Company K, 3/26 was positioned atop Hill 861 and immediately began patrol­l­ing west of Khe Sanh.

Farther to the west was Hill 881S. The highest of the surrounding hills, it was key to Khe Sanh Combat Base defense. Khe Sanh was dependent upon resupply and reinforcement by air. Should the NVA hold the hill, aircraft taking off or landing from the west would be extremely vulnerable to enemy fire. The mission of holding the hill fell to the men of “India” Co, 3d Bn, 26th Marines. Among them was Corporal Robert J. Arrotta, who, during the 77-day siege, would earn the title “The Mightiest Corporal in the Marine Corps.”

In 1967, Arrotta had finished a disappointing freshman year in college when he received his draft notice. He volunteered for service in the Marine Corps, telling his family, “If I am going to go to Vietnam, I want to go with the best.” He arrived in country 15 Aug. 1967, assigned as a radio operator to Headquarters and Service Co, 3/26. He began training as a tactical air controller.

The North Vietnamese Army had launched a series of assaults against Marine positions in and around the Leatherneck Square area, a roughly square piece of ground bordered by Con Thien and Gio Linh to the north and Cam Lo and Dong Ha to the south. By the end of August, 3d Bn was ordered to Con Thien. Enemy ground activity in the area had increased significantly. It was there, during Operation Kingfisher, that Arrotta had his first real taste of combat. Hit hard in heavy fighting with the 812th NVA Regiment, 3d Bn sustained more than 240 casualties, including 56 killed in action. Arrotta later wrote about his experience:

“On 10 September I was with Mike Com­pany when the battalion was attacked … by an entire NVA regiment. No medevacs could get into my landing zone because of overwhelming enemy firepower. I spent the night in the LZ with the battalion’s most seriously wounded and all of the dead that were able to be brought to the LZ. The next morning we had to retrieve the dead that couldn’t be brought to the LZ. … To carry these bodies and put them on waiting helicopters was the hardest thing I had to do in my life.”

Badly mauled, 3/26 moved to Camp Evans to rebuild. During that time Arrotta received additional training that would make him a legend on Hill 881S. During the heavy fighting near Con Thien, the battalion had lost its forward air control­lers. In late September a CH-46 pilot, First Lieutenant John Root, was assigned to 3/26 to serve as a forward air control­ler. Root used the extended time at Camp Evans for training the radio operators in the fundamentals of bringing in close air support, aiding Marines on the ground. In late 1967, when the battalion deployed to Khe Sanh, Arrotta and his best friend, Cpl Terry L. Smith, both radio operators, were assigned to Hill 881S.

On 20 Jan. 1968, Captain William Dab­ney, commanding officer of India Co, 3/26, conducted a reconnaissance-in-force up Hill 881N. India Co engaged an entire NVA battalion moving south. The siege of Khe Sanh and the surrounding hills had begun. Both the combat base and the hills were completely dependent on resupply by air and close air support to keep enemy forces at bay.

A few days into the siege, the forward air controller on 881S was hit by shrapnel from an incoming mortar and was medically evacuated. Dabney later stated:

“At about the same time, the weather socked in, and it was several days before [we] could bring in helicopters. When it did clear, we got the radio batteries we needed to talk to the close air support aircraft but no new forward air controller. When I remarked on the lack of a FAC, Bob [Corporal Robert J. Arrotta] told me he could handle it. I had nothing to lose, plenty of targets, and all the CAS aircraft we could use, so I stood by and watched as he ran the first few missions—flawlessly. I was impressed not only with his technical knowledge but also with his demeanor as a corporal giving instructions to officers through the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was assertive and unfailingly professional.”

It wasn’t long before the Marines of India and Mike companies began calling Bob Arrotta “The Mightiest Corporal in the Marine Corps” for the vast amount of firepower he could bring down upon the enemy. First Lt Richard Dworsky, Weap­ons Platoon, I/3/26, recalled: “Bob and a couple of others looked like Energizer bun­nies moving around and coordinating mul­tiple air and fire support missions. It was dangerous, but always needed, work. … The hardest part was trying to keep all the fire support in order to prevent midair collisions.”

Despite the skill of the young corporal, there was at least one close call. Both Dab­ney and Arrotta trusted the close air support skills of Marine Corps pilots. As a rule, however, they usually ran both Air Force and Navy flights on targets two or more kilometers from the hill. Early on during the siege, an Air Force pilot dropped his ordnance without being “cleared hot” by Cpl Arrotta. As Dabney and Arrotta stood together on the hill, someone shouted a warning. The two Marines looked over their shoulders to see the aircraft coming right at them on the hill.

“Just as we caught sight of him, four bombs dropped from under his wings, and we dove for the bottom of the trench with Arrotta calling, ‘Abort! Abort!’ on the radio. Too late. Dust, shrapnel, tree stumps flying all over the place, both of us—and many others—were deaf for hours. Had he been accurate, we’d have lost perhaps 100 Marines. I lost my cool instead,” Dab­ney remembered.

In February, Arrotta suffered a loss that would impact the rest of his life. In a re­cording made on Hill 881S he stated, “I grew up a lot today. My best friend died in my arms.”

Cpl Terry Smith was in a bunker with Arrotta when a helicopter approached the landing zone where the North Vietna­mese had registered heavy mortars. Approaching the hill without prior notice, the helicopter’s mission was to pick up resupply nets that had been dropped the previous week. The two young Marines usually took turns running out to the landing zone to attach the external slings to the “birds.” Enemy mortars registered on the hill were lethal.

“We could usually hear the [mortar] tube pop, and we had about 25 seconds from pop to impact, so it was vital to get the birds out in 20 seconds maximum, then take cover,” Dabney explained. Realizing the danger to the helicopter crew, Arrotta attempted to contact the pilot by radio, but was unsuccessful. Smith prevented Arrotta from leaving the safety of the bunker and ran across open ground, signaling to the helicopter to take off immediately. As the helicopter took off and before Smith could take cover, he was hit by shrapnel from the incoming mortar rounds.

Many years later Arrotta wrote, “I held onto Terry and yelled and screamed into the radio for the helicopter to come back and pick Terry up. The chopper returned and the corpsman and I picked Terry up and threw him on the chopper while the mortars were impacting all around us. … I don’t believe there has been one day in the last thirty years that I haven’t thought about that horrible day. I remember how helpless I felt and how it should have been me lying there dying, and not Terry.”

Dworsky noted the toll that day took on the young corporal. “I was wounded late in February and had to go to the small hill [where Mike Company was] to get medevacked. Bob and I carried another wounded Marine to the LZ. We all got out, although [we] took quite a bit of fire on the way. I asked Bob … why he went to the new LZ especially since they already had another team there. He told me that he didn’t want the wounded and dead to be alone. He believed that it was part of his duty as a Marine to perform that simple act of faith. He never was satisfied that he could do enough to help.”

Years later, Colonel Dabney, who was awarded the Navy Cross for his leadership on Hill 881S, commented on the service of Arrotta. “During the Siege of Khe Sanh, an operation called Niagara was in place. Essentially, it required that any close air support aircraft returning from aborted missions in the general area check in with the Khe Sanh Direct Air Support Center [DASC] before pickling [dropping] their ordnance.

“Since it was the end of the monsoon season and there were many bombing missions along the DMZ [Demilitarized Zone] and in North Vietnam that had to be aborted because of bad weather, plenty of aircraft with all sorts of ordnance [was available almost] every day. The base at Khe Sanh itself was in a bowl, so [they] couldn’t use [that ordnance] unless they had an airborne forward air controller, so they’d often pass them off to us … sitting atop a 3,000-foot hill, we didn’t need an airborne FAC, and we always had plenty of targets.

“Several times we got two or three flights of bombers passed off to us simultaneously. Bob got quite adept at ‘stacking’ them based upon how much fuel they had left and using them based on the ordnance they were carrying. Sounds simple, I guess, but under fire, without prior notice, it took superb organizational skills to both manage the air assets and direct the marking rounds our mortars fired to designate the targets for the bomber pilots.

“Bob did all of that in his head, sometimes juggling as many as three flights at once. My input was simply to tell him what targets to hit. He’d take it from there, stack the flights, range the mortar marking rounds and run the bombers in. In effect, he was his own DASC.”

In his 77 days on Hill 881S, Cpl Rob­ert Arrotta had the tactical call sign of “India 14,” identifying him as the close air support representative of the company. During this long siege, he directed some 300 close air support missions, all resupply of the hill by helicopters, and in coordination with the helicopter support team, all medical evacuations.

Arrotta left the Republic of Vietnam in the autumn of 1968. During his tour he was awarded a Bronze Star medal, as well as a Navy Commendation Medal.

The latter’s citation states: “Assigned to Company I, Third Battalion, Twenty-Sixth Marines as a Forward Air Control­ler while that unit was located on Hill 881 South during the siege of the Khe Sanh Combat Base, he repeatedly distinguished himself by his courage and composure un­der fire. On numerous occasions, he fearlessly exposed himself to enemy artillery and mortar fire in order to direct Marine tactical air strikes on hostile positions and coordinate vitally needed helicopter resupply and medical evacuation missions. As a result of his diligent and tireless efforts, the combat effectiveness of his unit was greatly enhanced.”

Years later, still carrying the emotional wounds of Vietnam, Arrotta wanted to be close to a Marine Corps base, and in 1980, he moved to Southern California.

“It was at that time I realized the effect helicopters had on me. All sorts of military aircraft fly up and down this coastal community. But it’s always the Hueys, or the sound of their rotors, that causes me to flash back to Vietnam. I stop whatever I am doing and stare at the sky, waiting to see the ‘bird’ and remembering.”

In 2006, Major William C. Hendricks, assigned to the Air Officer Department, Marine Aviation and Weapons Tactics Squadron 1 at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz., invited Arrotta to speak to the Air Officer Course. Arrotta agreed and suggested that former Sergeant Glenn Prentice, an artillery forward observer, also be included. The presentation, which included a series of photographs depicting life on 881S and the critical role played by close air support in their survival, was successful, and they were invited to speak to numerous classes.

Arrotta was extremely proud of his con­tinued service to the Marine Corps, and, in addition to his work at MCAS Yuma, he addressed a number of fixed-wing and helicopter squadrons prior to their deploy­ments to Iraq and Afghanistan. To those in the audience, Arrotta “knew what it was like. Having him speak to us tied together the legend of the Marine brotherhood.”

Robert J. Arrotta died unexpectedly in November 2009, at the age of 64. He had been scheduled to speak at MCAS Yuma in April. Instead, prior to a brief given by Glenn Prentice, Maj Thomas Campbell asked everyone in attendance to take a few moments to reflect on the service and sacrifice of “The Mightiest Corporal in the Marine Corps.”

Col John Root said, “Bob was almost relaxed on 881S even as he was dealing with mortar fire, small arms and sniper fire, trying to get helos in and wounded out. He was very composed and a highly professional Marine who lived up to the highest traditions of the Marine Corps.”

Staff Sergeant Nathan Jacobson, who met Arrotta at MCAS Yuma, said simply, “He was a living legend, an inspiration, a real man who did amazing things. I was humbled to be in the same room as Rob­ert J. Arrotta.”
First Lt Richard Dworsky, who also served with India Co, said, “Bob was honored by the love of the people who attended his funeral. All were veterans and Khe Sanh survivors. There was a flow in how Bob lived his life and how he viewed the Marine Corps. Duty, honor and teamwork were bigger than the individual.”

Editor’s note: Sometime in March 1968, United Press International photojournalist David Powell made his way to Hill 881S. In an article titled “Only Two Ways Off Hill 881S,” Powell wrote, “ ‘Stay down and stick around’ is the byword here. Stay in your bunker during the day and you live. … A few have daytime jobs, like ‘The Mightiest Corporal in the World.’ ” That’s what they called Cpl Robert J. Arrotta of La Canada, Calif., because he went out in the midday sun to coordinate the air strikes around the hill. Some of the very best photographs recording the dramatic action in and around Hill 881S and the Khe Sanh Combat Base were recorded by David Powell.