The date, April 30, 1967. The place, a few miles northwest of Khe Sanh. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 3rd Marine Division are preparing to assault Hill 881 and dislodge the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces emplaced in fortified bunkers on the hill. With 105 mm artillery at their backs and the new M16 rifles in hand, it seems like nothing can stand in their way as they attempt to take the hill.
Within just a few short hours, however, nothing is going according to plan. Because the defenders on the hill are more numerous and far better dug in than anticipated, the air strikes and artillery bombardment preceding the assault have had little practical effect. To make matters worse, Marines have been experiencing serious problems with their high-tech M16 rifles—critical malfunctions are causing them to seize up in the heat of combat. It seems nearly inconceivable that the U.S. military would issue fatally flawed equipment, but the Battle of Hill 881 and several other conflicts during the Vietnam War serve as grim reminders that it did indeed happen.
So, why were soldiers and Marines using rifles that often malfunctioned in battle? To understand how and why this happened, we need to travel more than a decade back in time and thousands of miles away to a small office complex in Hollywood, Calif.
Fairchild Airplane and Engine Company created its ArmaLite division in 1954 to design and produce firearms. As a subsidiary of a major aerospace contractor in the 1950s, ArmaLite’s designs were unconventional and highly innovative. Where a rifle was traditionally constructed out of a milled or pressed sheet steel receiver mated to a steel barrel in a wood or metal stock, ArmaLite’s AR-1, AR-5, and AR-7 rifles made heavy use of space-age materials like aluminum and fiberglass.
In the mid-1950s, ArmaLite engineer Eugene Stoner designed a revolutionary new military rifle he hoped would replace the venerable M1 Garand. Stoner’s rifle, designated “AR-10,” was a radical departure from conventional designs. Its barrel, operating components, and stock were all arranged in a straight line, trans-ferring recoil directly back into the shooter’s shoulder and minimizing muzzle rise on full-auto. With its aluminum receiver, fiberglass furniture, and composite barrel, the AR-10 was a full pound or more lighter than any of its more mainstream competitors. Unfortunately, military trials showed that the AR-10 was perhaps too far ahead of its time, and without years of refinement behind it, the rifle suffered a number of teething troubles which couldn’t be corrected quickly enough to prevent its disqualification from the trials. The U.S. Army would ultimately go on to adopt the T44E4 prototype, essentially just an improved M1, as the M14 rifle.
PFC Tommy Gribble displays his M16 rifle, which was hit by a round from an enemy AK-47 on Sept. 6, 1968. The round pierced Gribble’s forearm, passing between both bones, then smashed through the Marine’s rifle stock. Gribble, assigned to Co I, 3rd Bn, 5th Marines, was walking point during a patrol in Vietnam when the round hit.
But all was not lost for Eugene Stoner and ArmaLite. The Department of Defense was investigating a small-caliber, high-velocity rifle cartridge concept based on research and testing from the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in the early 1950s, and they wanted ArmaLite to help develop the new ammunition and a lightweight rifle to fire it. While Stoner worked on the design for the pro-jectile itself, ArmaLite engineers L. James “Jim” Sullivan and Robert Fremont worked with Remington on the design for the case. What they came up with was a more powerful version of the .222 Remington capable of propelling a 55-grain full-metal jacket projectile at an astounding 3,250 feet per second from a 20-inch barrel.
To go with this new so-called “.222 Remington Special” or “.223 Remington” ammunition, Sullivan and Fremont created a new rifle based on the AR-10. It used the same operating principle and retained many of the same desirable features as its predecessor, but testing showed that the new prototype was capable of superior accuracy and reliability. They called it the AR-15.
The first AR-15 was an impressive weapon for its time. It was demonstrated to have better reliability and accuracy than the M14 while being nearly two pounds lighter. The new .223 ammunition was much lighter and produced less recoil than 7.62 NATO, allowing infantrymen to carry twice as many rounds and fire accurately in both semi-automatic and fully automatic modes. A 1959 test by the Army showed that a squad of five to seven men armed with AR-15s was just as effective as an 11-man squad armed with M14s.
Despite its lighter weight and lower recoil, the new high-velocity ammunition produced devastating wounds in soft targets. Whereas conventional rifle bullets had the potential to pass through their targets and leave behind small wound tracks, high-velocity projectiles had a tendency to fragment shortly after impact. Jim Sullivan would later recount an informal test at a shooting range between a conventional 7.62 NATO rifle and an .223-caliber AR-15 wherein the ArmaLite employees shot at jerrycans filled with water. The full-power rifle punched a hole straight through a can—the bullet went in one side and out the other, leaving nothing behind but a pair of holes. The AR-15, firing ammunition nominally half as powerful, caused a can to explode from the sudden shock. Battlefield reports later confirmed the lethality of this effect on enemy combatants.
The AR-15 showed great promise as a combat rifle, but it couldn’t have come at a worse time. The Army and Marine Corps had just adopted the M14 after 12 years of development and amid a great deal of controversy; they weren’t about to go out and order hundreds of thousands of AR-15s. Furthermore, top generals were extremely conservative about small arms designs, and the AR-15 was easily the most innovative and unconventional rifle of its time. By this time, ArmaLite was on the verge of bankruptcy. Years of work on the AR-10 project without a major contract to show for it had left the company in deep financial trouble, and the Army passing on the AR-15 was the final nail in the coffin. ArmaLite was finally forced to sell the rights to the AR-15 to a larger and more established arms manufacturer. Colt quickly snapped up the new design and began shopping it around to militaries around the world, as well as creating its own version lacking the fully automatic functionality for the civilian market.
The initiating event that led to the AR-15’s popularity in military service for the past half-century and counting was not an elaborate multi-year military R&D program, but a backyard barbecue party.
July 1960. Richard Boutelle, former president of Fairchild (ArmaLite’s parent company) is hosting an Independence Day party in his backyard. Among the high-powered friends on the guest list are Colt representative Robert Macdonald and legendary Air Force General Curtis LeMay. Eager to show off the capabilities of the AR-15, they offer to let Gen LeMay test the new rifle on some watermelons. A few magazines and a lot of pulp later, LeMay is so impressed by the rifle that he immediately places an order for 80,000. At that time, Air Force security personnel were still using the M2 Carbine. A variant of the M1 carbine, it was popular with troops when it was adopted during the Second World War, but by the early 1960s the design was beginning to show its age. The airmen still using it appreciated its light weight, but the carbine lost much of its lethality and accuracy beyond about 100 yards.
Congress delayed LeMay’s order, but other top officials soon came to realize why he was so enamored with the new rifle. After another brief round of trials, the AR-15 entered service with the United States Air Force and United States Army special forces. It would see its first combat use by American advisors in a bush war that was just beginning to heat up in the small, relatively unknown country of Vietnam.
The United States Army and the Marine Corps went into the Vietnam War using the M14. According to conventional American military doctrine of the time, infantry combat would take place at long range, therefore accuracy was king. The M14 worked well with this theory, firing the powerful 7.62×51 mm NATO round with an effective range farther than most people can identify a man-sized target. However, the jungles of Vietnam were suited to a very different kind of combat, a kind of combat with which the NVA and Viet Cong insurgents were intimately familiar. The thick brush and rugged terrain reduced visibility and obscured targets from view even at relatively close range, forcing combatants much closer together and making conventional long-range marksmanship all but impossible at times.
In an effort to simplify logistics, U.S. military officials had intended the M14 to replace most of the small arms in the inventory. However, the rifle was too light and too powerful for fully automatic fire to be useful, yet too long and heavy for effective use in close-quarters combat. NVA soldiers, by contrast, were using Soviet-designed rifles supplied by communist China, namely the AKM—an improved variant of the AK-47. Lighter and much more compact than the M14, it fired the 7.62×39 mm Soviet cartridge. Sacrificing effective range to achieve lower recoil, the AKM could be fired in bursts with reasonable accuracy. These traits suited the AKM perfectly for poorly trained soldiers fighting in the jungle, allowing them to overwhelm even seasoned American combat vet-erans through sheer volume of fire. Furthermore, the M14 suffered from an unexpected problem of its own—in humid conditions, its wooden stock would swell and place uneven pressure on the barrel, causing the rifle’s point of impact to shift dramatically.
Marines during Operation Desert Storm deployed with M16A2 rifles and M60E3 machine guns.
The AR-15 could not have come at a better time for the United States military. Initial testing suggested that it surpassed the M14 in accuracy, reliability, and projected combat effectiveness, so the only thing left to do was bring it into service with the Army and Marine Corps. Yet another round of military trials resulted in the AR-15’s official adoption as the M16 rifle in 1964. Con-tracts were signed, hands were shaken, and Colt began converting its civilian tooling for the military variant. Within a few years, the first M16s began to show up in the hands of U.S. military advisors and special forces operatives in theater.
Initial combat reports were positive. Its light weight and high volume of fire suited it well to the dense jungle environment of Vietnam, and the enemy quickly learned to fear the so-called “black rifle.” According to co-designer Jim Sullivan, enemy combatants wounded in the arm or leg by the new M16 would often die from blood loss due to the fragmentation effect of the projectile. One of the M16’s first trials by fire was at the Battle of Ia Drang in November 1965. Elements of the U.S. Army 5th and 7th Cavalry, numbering approximately 1,000 men total, were able to repel nearly three times their number in hardened veterans from the NVA.
When Marines were first issued the M16, its lethal reputation preceded it. But what they didn’t know was that it would soon develop a reputation for a very different kind of lethality.
All of this brings us back to the Battle of Hill 881. Some combat reliability prob-lems with the M16 had begun to show, but the Marines of 3rdMarDiv didn’t know about any of this. They found out as soon as their rifles began jamming in combat. The rifles ran extremely dirty, causing the delicate mechanics inside to seize up at the most inopportune times. Furthermore, spent casings would often get stuck in the chamber with no way to knock them out except by disassembling the rifle while under fire or by shoving a cleaning rod down the barrel. And the rifles weren’t issued with cleaning kits.
PFC Ricardo King, 3rd Bn, 1st Marines, cleans his early-pattern M16 aboard the helicopter assault ship USS Valley Forge (LPH-8) along the coast of Vietnam, Dec. 19, 1967. Early M16s required careful maintenance to withstand the humid jungle environment of Vietnam.
The so-called Hill Fights ended in a strategic American victory. The North Vietnamese were pushed out and the U.S. Marines were able to secure the area around Khe Sanh. But the question remained: what had happened to the rifles? What went wrong? This revolutionary new piece of technology that had promised to give American fighting men a decisive advantage now appeared to have cost many men their lives. The answer lies in a place almost no-one would immediately think to look—the military acquisitions system.
Recall that the M16 had been designed around the 5.56×45 mm M193 cartridge designed by ArmaLite and Remington. It was loaded with thin sticks of so-called “Improved Military Rifle” gunpowder, specifically IMR 4475, supplied by Du Pont Chemical. In Army testing, the am-munition yielded an average muzzle velocity around 3,150 feet per second—blisteringly fast, but about 100 feet per second lower than the specified velocity. In order to remedy this perceived problem, the Army had Remington switch to a different type of gunpowder, known as WC846, supplied by Olin Mathieson. The pressures and velocities looked just fine on paper, but like with many things, the devil is in the details. The new powder came in the form of small grains, coated in a special chemical blend to improve shelf life. The only problem was that the Army, thinking the powders to be interchangeable, didn’t test the rifles with the new ammunition. The new powder placed additional strain on the M16’s gas operating mechanism, and the protective coating left chalky deposits inside the rifle’s delicate internals. A seemingly simple change to the ammunition was able to multiply the rifle’s failure rate by six without anyone noticing.
The Marines of the 2/3 and 3/3 didn’t know any of this. What they did know was that their fancy new rifles, which had been billed as “self-cleaning,” ran so dirty that they often stopped working—sometimes after only a few rounds. Without training on how to clean the rifles and no cleaning kits to do so anyway, the chalky residue clogging up the rifles became a deadly problem.
Marines of C/1/3 move out on an early morning patrol in Vietnam, 1969. (Photo by Cpl Philip R. Boehme, USMC)
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the humid jungle environment of Vietnam created microscopic deposits of rust inside the barrels and chambers of the M16 rifles. Once the invisible rust pitting in the chamber of a rifle was severe enough, cases would begin sticking inside without any way to remove them.
When the M16’s numerous problems began to surface, Congress had a field day. A committee, led by Congressman Robert Ichord of Missouri, set out to identify the causes and solve the problems to get American soldiers and Marines a weapon that wouldn’t get them killed. The corrosion problem was the easiest to fix. All barrels and bolt carrier groups rolling off the production line at Colt would be coated in a thin layer of chromium metal, preventing the underlying steel from rusting. The fouling issue, however, was a little bit more difficult. Du Pont had long since stopped manufacturing IMR 4475, and the military desperately needed large supplies of ammunition as soon as possible. Contrary to the Ichord committee’s recommendation to immediately switch back to the old powder, the new powder was reformulated slightly and the rifle’s recoil buffer system redesigned to accommodate it. The most controversial change of all was the addition of the for-ward assist. This button on the side of the receiver was designed to engage with scalloped cuts on the side of the bolt carrier to allow it to be forced into battery. Eugene Stoner and the other ArmaLite engineers who had designed the system were vehemently opposed to this change—testing showed that failures to feed were only worsened by forcing the action closed. Nevertheless, these changes were incorporated by Colt onto the next pattern of M16 rifle, the M16A1.
The reliability problems all but disappeared when the M16A1 entered service, but the damage to the rifle’s reputation was done. Hardliners continued to deride the futuristic-looking rifle with its small-caliber ammunition and plastic furniture contract-made by Mattel. But most of all, what the M16 showed the world was that the assault rifle paradigm was the way of the future. When the Warsaw Pact began issuing select-fire intermediate-caliber rifles like the AKM, military strategists in the West had derided it as a “peasant’s weapon,” designed to maximize the combat effectiveness of a poorly trained conscript army. What the M16 proved was that even the best-trained fighting forces in the world could take advantage of the lighter weight and higher volume of fire provided by this revolutionary new weapon.
Recruit Jared C. Seeland, Plt 3229, “Kilo” Co, 3rd Recruit Training Bn reloads his M16A4 Service Rifle in the standing position at Edson Range, Weapons and Field Training Bn, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., Nov. 24, 2014. (Photo by Cpl Jericho Crutcher, USMC)
In the 1970s, NATO member countries began developing their own 5.56 mm rifles and tinkering with the ammunition to optimize it. The Belgian SS109 cartridge, based on the earlier American M193 but with improved penetration on hard targets, was adopted by most of NATO as stan-dard. When the Marine Corps requested an improved version of their rifle in response, Colt modified the M16A1 slightly to create the M16A2, which entered service in the early 1980s.
With the A2 variant, the M16 had finally fully matured. It used a different barrel for better accuracy and compatibility with a wider variety of ammunition types. The sights were made more adjustable, improving the individual rifleman’s ability to hit targets at long range. Even though most infantry combat thus far during the 20th century had taken place at 300 meters or less, a rifleman armed with an M16A2 could reliably hit man-sized targets out to at least twice that.
The M16’s final evolution in Marine Corps service was the M16A4. Taking a cue from the civilian aftermarket, the M16A4 is essentially just an M16A2 with enhanced modularity. The rear sight and carry handle assembly was made re-mov-able so an optical sighting system could be mounted, dramatically increasing the rifle’s combat effectiveness. The currently issued Trijicon TA31 RCO can mount to this rail with two thumb screws, a far cry from the intricate machining required to mount optics on previous service rifles.
The round plastic handguards were replaced by long segments of MIL-STD-1913 rail, where Marines could attach a variety of accessories to fit almost any kind of mission. Even after the Army switched to the shorter M4A1 carbine, the Marine Corps continued using the M16A4 until a few years ago. With its longer barrel, the M16 is able to reliably hit targets, well past the effective range of the M4. While the M27 IAR has already replaced the M16A4 in frontline infantry units, hundreds of thousands of M16 rifles are still in Marine Corps inventory and will continue to see use for many years to come.
Editor’s note: This article is the first in a serious of features detailing the small arms U.S. Marines have used since 1775. What were your experiences like with your issue weapons? Do you have a favorite one you would like to see featured next? Let us know at [email protected].
Author’s bio: Sam Lichtman is a college student and licensed pilot. He works part-time as a salesman and armorer at a gun store in Stafford, Va., and occasionally contributes content to Leatherneck. He also has a weekly segment on Gun Owners Radio.
Featured Photo (Top): A Marine armed with an M16A1 checks in with his command post via field radio during Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada, Oct. 25, 1983.
First Lieutenant Harris Himes stabbed holes around the side of an empty C-ration can. He ignited a heat tab inside and warmed his breakfast over the flame. The alien aroma of beans and weenies flared his hunger pangs, gratefully supplanting the reek of diesel fumes thickening the air. Two of his tanks idled on the road nearby. Himes commanded the 1st Platoon of “Bravo” Company, 3rd Tank Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, with five tanks under his charge. Infantrymen bustled about the area preparing for the mission at hand. Each had begun their day long before dawn. Now, a tired sun stirred on the eastern hills, reluctantly ascending over the battle-scarred landscape of Khe Sanh Combat Base.
An M48A3 Patton tank in Vietnam: 1stLt Harris Himes’ platoon operated five of these armored giants. Note the TC’s cupola attached above the rest of the turret, with the TC standing exposed in his hatch. A ring of rectangular vision blocks surrounds the bottom of the cupola, offering limited visibility from inside. Also, note the factory-installed machine gun inside the cupola has been removed and replaced with a “sky-mounted” gun on the exterior. (Courtesy of the USMC Vietnam Tankers Association)
Corporal Fred Kellogg waited impatiently outside the supply hooch, holding his M3 submachine gun. A line of grunts formed ahead. The sergeant in charge doled out bullets like a munificent millionaire dispensing Halloween candy from the portico of his mansion. When his turn arrived, Kellogg approached with his antiquated weapon extended, an empty bucket desperate for a treat.
“Good morning, Sergeant. I really need some new magazines for this grease gun. The springs are all worn out. They won’t hardly feed anymore.”
The sergeant glared at Kellogg. This was not the first time the tanker had come whining about his worthless weapon.
“Corporal, if the Marine Corps wanted you to have new magazines, it would have given you new magazines! Now get the hell out of my tent!”
A litany of profanity hounded Kellogg back to his tank and trailed off below the rumbling diesel engine. Kellogg climbed aboard and dropped into the tank commander’s (TC’s) hatch, tossing the grease gun aside with a slew of opinions about the supply sergeant. He ignored the looks from the rest of his crew as he prepared to roll out.
Marine engineers repair a bridge along Route 9 near Khe Sanh. In April 1968, Operation Pegasus successfully relieved the beleaguered combat base and reopened Route 9 for traffic. (Courtesy of the USMC Vietnam Tankers Association)
Kellogg positioned his tank, call sign B-12, on point leading out the Khe Sanh gate. Cpl Adrian “Buzz” Conklin com-manded B-13 in line behind him. The remainder of Himes’ platoon staged behind in a separate supply convoy. The two lead tanks would accompany an advance party of grunts from Fox Com-pany, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, sweeping ahead in search of mines laid overnight or an enemy ambush lying in wait. Today, of all days, that prospect felt surely to become reality.
It was May 19, 1968, Ho Chi Minh’s birthday. Intelligence reports streamed in over the preceding week. The North Vietnamese Army (NVA) around Khe Sanh seemed hell-bent on blocking the road out of the base and perhaps, after months of siege warfare, finally overrunning the American encampment as a gift for their leader.
The infamous siege of Khe Sanh was already over in the eyes of the world. The combat base and surrounding hill outposts had held. The NVA had failed. Much of the air support so critical to sustaining life through the siege was diverted. Virtually all the media attention shifted elsewhere. To the Marines who remained, however, a steady dose of enemy rockets and mortars belied the prevailing attitude.
Just the month prior, American commanders organized Operation Pegasus for the overland relief of Khe Sanh. Ma-rines and 1st Cavalry Division sol-diers struck out westward from their base at Ca Lu, while the defenders of Khe Sanh surged from their fighting positions in a coordinated effort. By mid-April, engi-neers cleared or rebuilt the impassable stretches of the main supply route be-tween the two combat bases, called Route 9.
Even after the official conclusion of Pegasus, Route 9 remained a tenuous 16-kilometer gauntlet. Himes’ platoon spearheaded the armored relief of Khe Sanh, arriving at the combat base at the beginning of May. Within days, the tank-ers battled through an ambush along Route 9 while escorting the platoon they relieved back to their home base in dire need of repairs. Himes’ mission now was to protect convoys moving along the treacherous route.
Himes issued assignments to his Marines the night before the May 19 supply run, placing Kellogg and Conklin with the mine sweep and two additional tanks with the main column that would depart once the advance party returned. Nearly his entire platoon held a role in the day’s mission. Himes served not only as the lieutenant in charge of the tankers, but one of the most experienced. He arrived in Vietnam in July 1967. That August, Himes was seriously wounded while com-manding a tank in combat and was evacuated to a hospital ship. He returned with his arm still in a sling to finish his tour. Much of his platoon rotated home at the end of the year and a fresh batch joined in January 1968. Several newcomers, like Kellogg, arrived as green lance corporals but were promoted and assigned as TCs in short order. Their limited combat exper-ience notwithstanding, Himes trusted their instincts and judgment.
Kellogg tested B-12’s internal comms. Charles Lehman sat to his left as loader, servicing the tank’s main gun and coaxial-mounted .30-caliber machine gun. Carlos Trinidad sat in front of Kellogg as the gunner and Stanley Williams occupied his own compartment forward as the driver. Kellogg loaded bullets into his faulty grease gun magazines. He placed the weapon in the rack behind his seat with the tank’s cache of hand grenades. He counted 19, an unusually high number. Since the M48A3 Patton tank possessed a 90 mm main gun, tankers rarely found the need to pop out of their hatch and toss a grenade.
Kellogg inspected the .50-cal. machine gun mounted inside his cupola. The space was so cramped that nothing more than a 50-round belt of ammo would fit preloaded into the weapon. Worse, some engineer back in the States decided to save space by mounting the gun on its side, oriented to fire in a way it was not designed. Tankers cursed the weapon and its tendency to jam even before the paltry 50 rounds fed through. The gun’s most valuable purpose served as an additional block of metal in front of the TC’s face. This “additional armor” saved Himes’ life when he was evacuated the previous fall, shielding him from a direct hit by a rocket propelled grenade (RPG).
Courtesy of the USMC History Division
Lehman extracted a 90 mm canister round from a honeycomb storage rack and shoved it into the main gun’s breach. Experience thus far proved these tank-sized shotgun shells most effective at disrupting an enemy ambush. Fox Company Marines moved ahead with their mine sweepers. Kellogg waited for them to exit the wire. He turned back, surveying Conklin’s tank and the rest of the convoy readying behind him. Himes stood in the road, breakfast in hand. He flashed a smile and thumbs up. Kellogg returned the gesture as the tank throttled up and rolled out.
It was 7 a.m. Innocent morning rays illuminated a pristine blue sky, clear and fresh before the midday heat. Preceding months of conflict left the area barren. Ghoulish trees cast gangly shadows across exposed red earth. Emaciated shrubbery punctuated irregular patterns of bomb craters in every direction. The road out of Khe Sanh led directly through this no man’s land, linking up with Route 9 in the surrounding hills. Uncle Ho’s expected birthday violence hung heavy over the column. How far would the convoy make it this time before the NVA attacked? The Marines pressed on, their incipient sense of disaster kindling.
The grunts worked their mine sweepers back and forth. Less than half a mile outside the gate, Kellogg’s radio crackled to life.
“Charles is in the area.”
Every Marine knew “Charlie,” the commonly held term for enemy, but “Charles?” What was the radio operator trying to say? An AK-47 opened up from a hedgerow in prompt explanation. Less than 100 feet away, concealed NVA sprang the ambush. Kellogg dropped into his seat. A ring of vision blocks sur-rounded the bottom of his cupola offering limited visibility outside. Grunts in the kill zone hit the deck, cut down by enemy fire or taking cover. Kellogg shouted through the intercom to Williams.
“Let’s go! Kick it in the ass and get us up front!”
The 50-ton machine surged forward. Bullets ricocheted off the armor as Kellogg directed Trinidad onto the bushes. The canister round boomed, devastating everything in its swath. Kellogg toggled a switch, changing the trigger controls from the main gun to the coaxial-mounted machine gun. Trinidad unleashed .30-cal. rounds as Lehman removed the spent 90 mm brass and inserted another main gun round.
Marine tanks support infantry clearing a stretch of Route 9 near Khe Sanh. (Courtesy of the USMC Vietnam Tankers Association)
Kellogg triggered his .50-cal., spraying five-round bursts along the hedgerow. Maliciously on cue, the machine gun jammed. His efforts to correct the prob-lem proved futile in the constricted cupola. Mayhem enveloped the tank. Dozens of NVA soldiers attacked from bushes and bomb craters at point-blank range. Kellogg directed Trinidad as he fired another round through the main gun, while simultaneously guiding Williams around the Marines exposed outside. How could they possibly fire, or even move, without killing one of their own?
“Traverse right.”
The thought breached Kellogg’s internal monologue without prompting, an overwhelming premonition without explanation. He obeyed. He clutched the TC override controls, arresting command from Trinidad, and spun the turret right as fast as it would move. When the main gun stood out at a 90-degree angle, the tank rocked violently as an RPG detonated on the turret. Kellogg’s intuition saved the tank. The well-aimed shot hit squarely on the gun shield, the thickest point of armor.
Smoke cleared from the vision blocks. Trinidad’s frantic voice screamed through the headset.
“I see them! I see them! I see them!”
The enemy RPG team stood in the open, taking aim once again. The tank’s gun pointed directly at them, loaded with a high explosive round. Kellogg estimated the range; they looked too close. Internal safeties prevented rounds from detonating before they reached a specified distance from the tank. Kellogg instantly decided he had to fire first. He squeezed the trigger on his override controls. The round blasted into the dirt at the RPG team’s feet, reaching bare-minimum range to explode. The enemy soldiers vaporized into pink mist.
Back inside the combat base, Himes wrapped up his morning routine brushing his teeth. His blouse clung to his sweaty back as he bent and spat out the toothpaste. To live in Vietnam was to endure habitual humidity. The sun had yet to perch on its high, oppressive throne. Staccato small arms echoed in the distance. The quickening tempo bade each Marine within earshot swivel and stare. Finally, the unmistakable crescendo of a tank’s main gun tolled. Barely half an hour passed since the mine sweep departed. Lance Corporal Jack Butcher sprinted up as the battle reverberated with a fever pitch.
1stLt Harris Himes, shortly after arriving at Khe Sanh in early May 1968, is pointing to the spot where an RPG detonated on the turret next to his cupola during an ambush along Route 9. Just days after arriving at Khe Sanh, the tankers battled through an attack while escorting the platoon they relieved back to Ca Lu, their tanks in desperate need of repairs (Courtesy of Harris Himes).
“Lieutenant! One-Two and One-Three have really gotten into something! I was monitoring the radios, and it sounds like it has really hit the fan!”
Himes ran with Butcher back to his tank, B-15, and climbed into the cupola. He ordered Cpl Rene Cerda, B-15’s TC, to collect his crew and crank up the engine. Himes grabbed a helmet. The battle played out through his headset in excited spurts.
“… over to your right …”
Machine-gun fire smothered the words.
“… a whole load of ‘em in the bushes … ”
A 90 mm roared.
“Bravo One-Two, this is Bravo One, over,” Himes chimed in on the net. Heavy breathing followed a long pause.
“Bravo One … this is One-Two … over.”
Kellogg’s reply sounded more animated than ever.
“One-Two, what’s going on out there?”
“Looks like we woke somethin’ up. Started out small, just a couple of shots after the grunts … ”
Static interrupted the words.
“ … then we got into the show and all hell broke loose.”
“One-Two, you’re breaking up. How are you doing?”
“OK so far. Busy.”
“Roger, keep at it. Keep me informed when you can.”
“Roger, One-Two out.”
Himes raised Conklin’s tank.
“Bravo One-Three, this is Bravo One, over.”
“One, this is One-Three,” Conklin replied. “SITREP the same. Lotsa enemy scramblin’, over.”
“Roger. Do it to ’em. Let me know. Out.”
Himes stood on the TC seat, half exposed above the cupola. Cpl Cerda waited further instruction.
“Rene, get over to the comm shack and try to raise someone from regiment,” Himes ordered. “We need permission to get out there and help Fred and Buzz right now!”
Himes dropped back inside the turret with the radio. Another quarter hour ticked by, the battle raging within earshot dreadfully narrated through his headset. Cerda had still not returned. Himes ordered his platoon sergeant to get the remaining tanks ready to roll, then took off for the comm shack. He found Cerda exasperated, radio in hand.
“They’re still looking for someone, Lieutenant. Nothing yet. Not sure regiment even knows what’s happening out there.”
“Stay with it.”
Himes walked back towards B-15. His remaining tanks occupied the road. Infantrymen staged in silent company listening to the chaotic show. What the hell was taking so long?
B-12’s main gun thundered once again, spraying canister fire through a row of bushes. Kellogg squinted through the vision blocks searching for additional targets. Miraculously, numerous Marines outside survived the onslaught thus far. To avoid running them over, Kellogg knew, would be the greater miracle. A lone grunt flashed into the scene framed by his vision block. Haggard, bleeding, and armed with nothing but his Ka-Bar fighting knife, the Marine charged head-long into a bomb crater full of NVA. He stabbed and slashed in a frenzy of gory violence until the tank turned block-ing Kellogg’s view, the grisly scene jettisoned in its wake. A bush rotated into the pic-ture. As if on cue, a World War II-vintage “potato masher” stick grenade arched up and away from the bush, landing in front of the tank near a scattering group of Marines with the fuze still burning.
“Drive over it!” Kellogg shouted.
Williams stopped the tank on top of the grenade, smothering the blast between the road wheels. The tank pushed forward unfazed to the bush where an NVA soldier ducked away into a spider hole. Straddling the hole, Williams threw the tank into a neutral steer, one tread moving forward while the opposite moved backward, rotating the machine in place. The treads dug into the earth, snagging the enemy soldier and crushing his hiding place. Williams shifted both treads forward, dragging the doomed enemy out of his hole and through the tread’s rear sprocket.
Enemy fire increased from B-12’s opposite flank where B-13 sat motionless on the battlefield. Through the drifting smoke, Kellogg noted his sister tank’s main gun blast deflector canted at an odd angle, damaged by an enemy RPG or mortar. Firing the main gun in this condition could mean catastrophic failure for the Marines inside the turret. Kellogg raised Conklin on the radio.
Marine tanks support a convoy along Route 9. The varying terrain enabled enemy ambushes at numerous points along the road. (USMC)
“Bravo One-Three, this is One-Two, over.”
No response. He tried several more times. Conklin finally responded.
“One-Two, this is One-Three.”
“One-Three, your main gun looks like it was hit and may be out of trunnion.”
“Roger, well I’ve been shot, and I’m not stickin’ my head to take a look!”
Unknown to Kellogg, Conklin somehow had been shot in the face, a wound that would result in the loss of one eye. B-13 sat defenseless against the renewed wave of NVA. Kellogg keyed his internal comms.
“Get us over there behind Buzz!”
Williams wheeled around to the other side of B-13, placing B-12 between Conklin and the bulk of enemy fire. Grunts hugged the dirt, pinned down across the front. A radioman directed B-12 toward a group of enemy attacking from bomb craters less than 50 feet away. At that close range, Trinidad could not depress the turret low enough to bring his guns to bear. With his .50-cal. out of commission and his turret-mounted guns useless, Kellogg resorted to the only weapons he had left.
He ordered Williams to hold course along a line of enemy-held craters, then snatched his grease gun and a handful of grenades from the rack behind him. Kellogg stood, half exposed above the cupola. The muffled sounds of gunfire inside the turret erupted into a deafening roar. Bullets zipped and cracked and pinged all around the tank. Kellogg flipped his grease gun upside down and opened fire. He prayed his unconventional firing technique might enlist the force of gravity to aid his faulty magazines feeding the bullets into the weapon. The tank approached the nearest crater. Kellogg pulled the pin on a grenade and lobbed it into the hole. He ducked as the explosion killed or stunned the sheltering NVA sol-diers. Kellogg resumed firing his grease gun upside down at near point- blank range. The next several bomb craters dotted the earth in an approaching batch. Kellogg steered Williams along-side, then tossed a grenade apiece into the holes until each fell silent.
Several stubborn enemy targeted Kellogg from a small crater in the tank’s path. Kellogg returned fire until the tank drove immediately alongside. He leaned out and dropped a grenade down into the hole. As the bomb exploded, Williams performed another neutral steer, crushing and grinding the dead and dying NVA beneath them.
Kellogg expended all 19 grenades wiping out enemy-held craters. His heart threatened to pound through his sternum as he collapsed back inside the tank. Some-how, despite the terrible toll the Marines exacted, NVA fire only in-creased. More than two hours had passed since they left the combat base. How much longer could they possibly survive?
Shell casings piled up inside B-12, further constricting the cramped turret. Trinidad sighted in another target. Lehman slammed in another high explo-sive round. Kellogg waited to observe the destruction his team efficiently wrought. A violent yellow flash suddenly blinded him. A terrific impact struck like a major leaguer’s bat to the chest. Kellogg folded on the turret floor. As he lay in utter silence, his memory inexplicably recalled a story from his youth of a relative who stopped breathing for several minutes in the hospital before doctors brought her back to life. Resurrected with the relative were the wonderful, luminous descriptions of the heaven that she wit-nessed while suspended between this life and the next. The sun-bathed glory she described had always impressed Kellogg. Now, he lay freezing, drowning and staring into a barren, black abyss.
“Oh, hell, I’ve gone to the wrong place.”
Cerda gathered his tankers in the road next to B-15. He lost track of how long Himes had been gone. When regiment finally located someone with authority, they denied the lieutenant’s request to support B-12 and B-13. Cerda never witnessed Himes lose his bearing, but this morning Himes was livid. After multiple requests, delays and denials, Himes stormed off to address the reg-imental office in person.
“The lieutenant said as soon as we get permission to go out, he’s riding in our tank as TC,” Cerda told his crew. “I’m going out with him. That means one of you has to stay behind.”
No one volunteered. Cerda made the Marines draw straws. Jack Butcher, his loader, came up short. Cerda assumed his spot inside the turret while LCpl John Cox took his place as B-15’s gunner and LCpl Clayton Larabell dropped into the driver’s seat.
Himes finally returned with orders. B-15 and B-14 were tasked to reinforce the beleaguered mine sweep along with the remainder of Fox Company. Himes instructed grunts to board his vehicles. The sun, now teeming with radiant fury, broiled the infantrymen crowding on top of the tanks and baked the crews hemmed inside. Cerda inspected his ammo racks and weapons. Sweat dripped from his nose as he leaned forward and rolled both pants legs to his knees. He stood in the open hatch above his head. Himes stood to his right in the TC hatch shouting orders into his headset and gesturing to the grunts swarming the road. A dozen Marines surrounded the turret, holding on wherever they could. A dozen more clung to B-14 behind them like barnacles to a ship’s bottom. The remainder piled into a 6×6 cargo truck or spread out on foot.
B-15 lumbered forward. Before lower-ing into his hatch, Cerda noticed a flak jacket tucked into the rack on the outside of the turret. Somehow, at some point, Butcher commandeered an army-style vest, more snuggly fitting and a superior construction to Marine-issued flaks. Cerda normally shunned the extra weight in the crowded interior but snatched the jacket and fastened it over his torso before wriggling down into his position. Just before 10 a.m., the two tanks and depleted infantry company surged out the gate.
The RPG penetrated B-12 through the side of the turret, detonating inside with the crew. Kellogg absorbed the brunt of the blast. He lay in a pile of shell casings drowning in his own blood. Trinidad slumped in his seat, alive but incapacitated. Lehman remained the only crewmember inside the turret able to fight. Ignoring his wounds, he struggled into a position around Trinidad and took over the trigger, laying down suppressive fire. He glanced at Kellogg. Surely, the TC was dead. When the gun ran dry, Lehman moved back to reload.
“One-Two, One-Three, this is Bravo One, over,” Himes hailed on the radio.
“This is One-Three,” Conklin replied.
“One-Two,” Lehman called in Kellogg’s stead as he fed a belt of ammo into the gun.
“Get back to base. We’ll take it from here. Well done.”
B-15 and B-14 halted near their fel-low stricken tanks. Grunts leaped from their sides and streamed out of the truck behind them. Himes ordered B-15 into the assault and commenced firing as soon as the grunts were clear. B-14, commanded by Cpl Pat Baddgor, followed into the fray.
Lehman poked his head through the loader’s hatch. Bullets cracked by and bounced off the steel around him. A blazing fire in the exterior cargo rack seared his face. The acrid smoke drove him back inside, hacking up black phlegm.
“Williams, the cavalry has arrived! Get us out of here!”
With his periscopes cracked, Williams operated the tank virtually blind. He threw the tank in reverse, backing away from the battle. The tank pitched suddenly forward, tossing Lehman across the turret. Without stopping, the tank abruptly pitched backward before level-ing out. Lehman stood in his hatch. The frame of a 6×6 truck lay ahead of B-12 in the road, hastily left in the tank’s path as the grunts poured into the battle, now flattened like a rolling pin. Lehman stooped inside the tank and gulped a breath of fresh air. He stood exposed, once more guiding Williams in reverse all the way back to Khe Sanh’s gate.
Now nearly three hours into the battle, the NVA escalated their effort in even greater proportion than the Marines. Enemy soldiers materialized seemingly everywhere. They dashed into the fight with polished parade uniforms wrapped in plastic and stowed in their backpacks, ready to don for their anticipated victory parade. They fought with fanaticism, as though Ho Chi Minh himself watched from a nearby hilltop impatiently waiting to collect his promised birthday present. Mortars and recoilless rocket fire rained down.
Within minutes of reaching the battlefield, Himes looked helplessly on as a mortar exploded in a group of Fox Company Marines, knocking out several officers and senior enlisted leaders. The company commander was quickly shot and killed. While Cerda, Cox and Larabell maneuvered the tank and poured continuous fire from the main gun, Himes remained exposed, hanging out the TC hatch and screaming to leaderless elements of grunts, directing them toward the enemy.
Cerda lost all sense of time as he loaded round after round into the main gun. Spent casings piled so high so quickly inside the turret that the hot brass burned his bare calves and singed the hair on his shins. A rapid succession of bullets thudding unsuppressed off metal above him stole his attention. His hatch stood wide open, leaving Cerda vulnerable.
“Would you look at that!” Himes shouted, as much to himself as to anyone else. “Those Marines are fighting hand-to-hand!”
Desperate for a glimpse, Cerda jumped up. The world outside brimmed in savage chaos. Marines and NVA soldiers collided in craters with buttstrokes and bayonets ordaining the victor of each individual struggle. Cerda returned to his seat after fewer than 30 seconds. Less than 30 seconds later, an RPG round detonated on the hatch still open above him. The concussion slammed him down to the turret floor. Shrapnel stitched across his back, absorbed by the flak jacket. His ears rang, his eyes watered uncontrollably, and his nose bled. He wiped his face until his vision cleared then lurched upward and secured the door.
Napalm explodes on NVA positions during the battle on May 19, 1968. Marine pilots dropped their ordnance danger-close to Marines, finally breaking the enemy’s will to fight. (Courtesy of Peter D. Hoban)
B-15 fought on unhinged. Cerda maintained a relentless pace, feeding ammo to the insatiable guns while Cox tore the enemy apart. Ricocheting bullets pinged off the exterior armor in a neverending cacophony. The sharper thuds of ricocheting RPGs signaled more imminent danger. Several times, shell casings piled so high they blocked Cerda’s access to additional rounds and interfered with the rotation of the turret. Cerda opened his hatch long enough to shot put the empty shells through the opening.
Himes rotated in his cupola calling out targets. He pivoted just in time to witness an enemy RPG team staring down the sights directly at him. Before Himes could react, the NVA soldiers exploded into pieces. B-14, situated on Himes’ flank, spotted the enemy and the tank’s gunner, Cpl Rick Oswood, obliterated them with a high explosive round.
“One-Five, this is One-Four,” Baddgor called. “You’ve got Charlie climbing on your tank!”
Himes peered through his vision blocks. Several NVA soldiers mobbed the vehicle, scaling the rear away from the main gun.
The crew inside B-14 loaded a canister round while the turret rotated. Oswood locked B-15 in his sights and pulled the trigger. More than 1,200 steel pellets erupted at close range. The shrapnel ripped the radio antennas from the outside of B-15 and destroyed everything left in the exterior racks. The unfortunate, brave NVA soldiers who mounted the tank fell to the ground in mangled heaps of flesh.
B-12 reached Khe Sanh with the fire still burning in its cargo rack. Marines extracted each member of the wounded crew. They placed Kellogg on a stretcher awaiting immediate medical evacuation. Doctors assigned a Navy corpsman to remain by Kellogg’s side to keep him alive. NVA mortars exploded around the landing zone, forcing helicopters away. The corpsman and a battalion surgeon plugged the worst of Kellogg’s bleeding holes and started four IVs, one in each arm and leg, replenishing the tanker’s system with a barrage of fluids. A monstrous sense of helplessness overwhelmed Kellogg as someone finally loaded him onto a chopper. Door gunners opened up with their machine guns as they lifted off, showering the floor with spent brass rolling around Kellogg’s stretcher. All four fluid bottles ran dry. The corpsman looked frantic as he hooked up four more, clearly concerned he might fail to keep his charge alive.
A flurry of doctors met Kellogg aboard the hospital ship and rushed him down to surgery.Someone leaned over Kellogg’s battered face as they ran alongside his stretcher wheeling across the deck.
“Do you want a priest?”
Kellogg never considered himself especially religious but knew enough to understand that last rites were usually reserved for those crossing death’s doorstep.
“Do I need one?”
The battle outside Khe Sanh raged beyond midday. Time conspired against the Marines. Cerda swapped barrels on the .30-cal. when it overheated. He ran low on 90 mm rounds. An RPG detonated on the turret next to him. The metal inside glowed with bright orange spalling, barely containing the brunt of the explo-sion. Still, shrapnel blasted through the turret, peppering Cerda’s side. The flak jacket again saved him from catastrophic injury. Hot metal sliced through the communications cord attached to his helmet. One piece dug into his wrist, cutting cleanly through his watch band. Another RPG penetrated the turret, wounding Cerda a third time along with the rest of the crew. Exhausted, dehydrated, disoriented and bleeding, the tankers fought on.
The armored giant became the favored target of every RPG within range. Multiple penetrations into B-15’s engine crippled the transmission and ruptured the fuel tanks. Unable to move and running low on ammo, the tankers persevered. When an RPG damaged the remote firing mechanism for the coaxial machine gun, Cerda took over triggering the weapon. When the turret lost all electrical power, Cerda worked the hand crank, manually traversing the main gun. Smoke suffused through the rear of the turret from the engine compartment. Within minutes, the Marines inside choked down every breath.
“Put your gas masks on!” Himes ordered.
The tankers donned their masks and continued fighting. The infiltrating smoke soon morphed into licking fire. Himes called to his Marines through the smoke and kindling flames. Cerda leaned over the .30-cal., looking more dead than alive. Cox and Larabell, muffled by their gas masks, sounded in nearly as rough of shape. B-15 faced the irreversible end of its role in the battle. Himes weighed their options aloud.
“OK gents. Looks like we’ve got two choices. We can either stay in here and burn up with the tank or jump out and get shot. What do you want to do?”
Each crewmember threw off their gas masks and scrambled outside. Cox and Larabell leaped down and sprinted toward a nearby bomb crater. Himes discovered Cerda nearly limp and stuck inside the turret, severely weakened from blood loss. Himes grasped his arms and hoisted him out onto the fender. Cerda drifted in and out of consciousness, lying in the open while Himes jumped to the ground. Enemy fire poured on unabated. Himes snatched up Cerda over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Grunts lay down a barrage of covering fire as Himes plodded toward the crater with Cerda’s weight exacerbating painful shrapnel wounds in his legs. He stumbled and fell into the hole, his entire crew miraculously intact.
The tankers joined the grunts in shoot-ing, armed only with pistols and a grease gun. A jeep zipped past the bomb crater laden with ammo. When it circled back empty of cargo, Himes clambered out into the driver’s path with arms waving over his head. The driver halted long enough to load the wounded tank crew aboard, then sped back toward the combat base.
B-15’s crew underwent the same rapid triage as the B-12 tankers. Another med-evac chopper swooped in, lifting Himes and Cerda away. Elevated high above the battlefield, Himes spotted B-14 still under heavy bombardment. B-15 remained conspicuously paralyzed like a forbidding monument erected in memory of the tankers’ heroic deeds, a conflagration beneath a billowing plume of black smoke.
After nearly six hours of fighting, the battle’s outcome remained undecided. B-14 suffered multiple penetrating RPG hits, severely wounding crewmembers in-side before finally returning to base. The platoon’s fifth and final tank, B-11, deployed with another reinforcing wave of Marine infantry. Despite everything he already endured driving Kellogg’s B-12, Stanley Williams returned to the battlefield driving B-11. Golf Company, 2/1, advanced from Khe Sanh, along with Echo 2/3 sweeping in from another direction.
The fresh wave of infantry waded through a thick field of carnage. Dead bodies clogged the ground along their path. Discarded and damaged equipment littered the ravaged landscape. The Marines rearmed themselves along the way, commandeering machine guns and bayonets cast aside. They steered clear of B-15, still burning with rounds cooking off inside. They pushed into the fray, close enough to hear NVA jeers in accented English hurled their way alongside the bullets. The grunts fired back with, “Ho Chi Minh sucks!” and a serenade of machine guns.
Napalm finally broke the enemy’s back. A-4 Skyhawks streaked in so low the grunts could see the pilots’ faces as they dropped their terrifying ordnance. The firebombs exploded danger-close to Marines scattered across the field, some as close as 50 yards away. The Marines shielded themselves and gasped for breath as the flash inferno sucked the oxygen from the air and burned the enemy soldiers alive.
Both contestants embroiled in the birthday battle outside Khe Sanh suffered dearly. Eighteen Marines from 2/1 died, with several dozen more wounded. One of the KIA, Private First Class Patrick Riordan, would posthumously receive a Silver Star for his heroism. Lieutenant Colonel William R. Duncan, the battalion commander of 2/1, also received a Silver Star. The whole battalion received a Mer-itorious Unit Citation. According to the 3rd Tank Battalion command chron-ology, May 19 cost the NVA 165 confirmed KIA. The number of dead dragged away or wounded to escape the battlefield will never be known.
In terms of percentages, the tank platoon withstood perhaps the most shocking casualties. Eleven tankers received Purple Hearts, more than half of the platoon. Six of these required medical evacuation. All five of Himes’ tanks absorbed at least three RPG hits each, with B-15 incinerating on the battlefield as a complete combat loss. Miraculously, every tanker survived.
Surgeons counted 73 shrapnel holes spread across Kellogg’s body. They ex-tracted the largest pieces and stitched over the rest. Kellogg recuperated on the hospital ship for two weeks before stabilizing enough for a flight to Japan. He spent nearly a year fully recovering back in the States. The Corps assigned him as an instructor at the tank schoolhouse in Del Mar, Calif., to finish out his enlist-ment. For his role in the battle, Kellogg eventually received a Bronze Star with combat “V.”
Himes returned to the unit following his recovery. He walked with a cane but was determined once again to be with his Marines. After 10 months leading a tank platoon in combat and two harrowing medical evacuations, the battalion ordered Himes to finish out his tour in the rear. He remained on active duty following his time in Vietnam for another two years, eventually retiring as a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve.
Cerda shuffled through multiple hos-pitals after May 19. He spent several days fighting a blinding headache before doctors at a U.S. Air Force hospital finally X-rayed his head. They discovered a large chunk of metal embedded in his skull and rushed Cerda into surgery. Like Kellogg, Cerda finished out his enlistment and left active duty. In recognition of his part in the ambush, the Marine Corps presented Cerda with the Silver Star.
The passage of time has clouded the memory and significance of May 19. Today, the ambush exists in the shadows of larger events that took place around Khe Sanh. The exception lies within the battle’s survivors, who lived their lives in memory of their fallen brothers and defined by the experience. Kellogg en-dured decades of vivid nightmares that began before he was even evacuated from the battlefield in his semi-conscious state. He was convinced he had accidentally run over Marines during the battle. The compressed chaos surrounding his tank made the possibility inevitable, he believed. He refused to discuss the battle, despite its inescapable grip and undeniable impact on his later career in law enforcement. Not until 2003 at a reunion of Vietnam tankers did he begin to open up. The decision ushered in a new phase of camaraderie, understanding and healing.
Kellogg eventually connected with veterans from 2/1 who also survived the battle. He met a grunt who watched Kellogg’s tank in action throughout the engagement from less than 20 feet away. The veteran confirmed that Kellogg never ran over any Marines. For Kellogg, the news washed over like a cleansing rain. His nightmares vanished.
Veterans of the May 19 battle sit for an oral history interview at a reunion of the USMC Vietnam Tankers Association in Colorado Springs, Colo., in 2023. From left to right: Doc Michael Pipkin, a U.S. Navy corpsman assigned to Fox Co, 2/1; Fred Kellogg, B-12 TC; Harris Himes, platoon commander, 1st Platoon, Bravo Co, 3rd Tank Battalion; Rick Oswood, B-14 gunner and Rene Cerda, B-15 tank commander. (Courtesy of The USMC Vietnam Tankers Association)
In 2008, Himes led an effort to reunite survivors on the 40th anniversary of the battle. Marines gathered from around the country at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Va., to reminisce and fill each others’ gaps in understanding. Himes, Cerda, Kellogg and many others from the platoon all joined numerous others from the infantry units that played a part. The resulting picture of May 19, 1968, proved more complete than ever before.
“A focused mission that can cost you your life is something that will forge a relationship that deserves to be kept,” Himes reflected during the reunion. Those relationships forged nearly 60 years ago persist even now.
The medals for valor some of the tank-ers received were downgraded from Himes’ original recommendations. Himes submitted Cerda to receive the Navy Cross. The rapid disintegration of his platoon also led to awards less than fitting for the heroism exhibited. Himes penned Kellogg’s award citation in the days following the ambush, large-ly unaware of the depth of courage and specific actions Kellogg had taken through–out the engagement. Those details would only be filled in over the ensuing decades. Eventually, Himes learned that Cox and Conklin both received the Silver Star, Larabell a Bronze Star with “V,” and Baddgor and Oswood both a Navy Commendation Medal. To this day, Himes remains convinced the valor of his men deserves much higher recognition.
“Heroism is just doing your job even though it’s scary and sometimes you’re a little scared,” Himes stated today. “The circumstances just pile up and it’s the aftermath that says whether you’re a hero. As far as I’m concerned, all my men are heroes.”
Author’s bio: Kyle Watts is the staff writer for Leatherneck. He served on active duty in the Marine Corps as a communications officer from 2009-13. He is the 2019 winner of the Colonel Robert Debs Heinl Jr. Award for Marine Corps History. He lives in Richmond, Va., with his wife and three children.
Featured Image (Top): Cpl Fred Kellogg seated on his cupola, covered in dirt after riding the second tank in line during a road march. Kellogg arrived in Vietnam in January 1968 and was quickly promoted to his role as TC. (Courtesy of Fred Kellogg)
It was Dec. 18, 1965, and First Lieutenant Harvey “Barney” Barnum maneuvered east along a dirt road that crossed hills of dense jungle and wound around flooded rice paddies of the Quế Sơn Valley with the rest of Company H, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment. The road was designated Route 586, but no vehicle could traverse it.
According to Nicholas J. Schlosser’s pamphlet titled “In Persistent Battle” about Operation Harvest Moon, Barnum had arrived in Vietnam 10 days earlier and was designated Co H’s artillery forward observer. His deployment was a 90-day temporary duty assignment from his duty station at Marine Barracks Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. In 1965, the Marine Corps sent company-grade officers and senior en-listed for three-month deployments to Vietnam to gain combat experience and lessons learned to share with their home units. Marine Barracks Pearl Harbor had only one allotment available, and as the only bachelor among the officers, Barnum volunteered so the others could spend the holidays with their families. The rest of Company H had been in Vietnam for five months already and were expected to be there after his tour ended. Despite being the newly assigned forward observer in an experienced infantry company, Barnum would bring them to safety from the brink of annihilation over the next few hours.
Company H was serving as the rear element in 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment’s column movement along Route 586 as part of Operation Harvest Moon. Co H was attached to 2/7 to replace the beleaguered Co E, 2/7 on Dec. 13 after combat casualties and immersion foot made the company combat ineffective, according to Schlosser. In the days since, they had covered more than 30 kilometers of flooded roads and paddies on foot. On Dec. 18, the battalion planned to reach Route 1 by nightfall, before all visibility would be lost due to the thick cloud cover of a winter monsoon. They expected this to be the last day of the operation and that the trucks awaiting them at Route 1 would bring 2/7 to Chu Lai and Co H back to Da Nang.
Operation Harvest Moon, which intended to clear the 1st Viet Cong Regiment from the Quế Sơn Valley, had begun 11 days earlier. With brigade-strength task forces of U.S. Marines and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) soldiers, this was the largest combined operation of the conflict to date, according to “U.S. Marines In Vietnam: The Landing And The Buildup, 1965,” by Dr. Jack Shulimson and Maj Charles M. Johnson. Unfortunately, the operation did not go as planned. In the first two days, am-bushes by the 1st Viet Cong Regiment reduced the combat power of one ARVN battalion by one-third in only 15 minutes and overran another ARVN regiment, killing their regimental commander. By the third day, the Marine Corps task force commander was relieved and cooperation between the Marine Corps and ARVN deteriorated, according to Schlosser.
However, the operation continued, and Barnum and the rest of Co H trudged on. For the Marines, the weather was the greatest enemy of the operation so far. Despite a resupply of thousands of socks, many Marines suffered immersion foot. After months of jungle hiking, their boots were rotting away. So were their chafed feet. Company E 2/7 evacuated 54 Marines for immersion foot before Company H 2/9 attached to the battalion. Barnum later recalled in a Congressional Medal of Honor Society interview that when he first heard gunfire ahead, “I didn’t think much of it.” The main body of the column had reached the small market town of Ky Phu—only 9 km before Route 1. Around 1:30 p.m., the previously distant gunfire erupted along the column. The battalion had experienced sniper fire in the days prior, but this was different. This was a well-coordinated ambush of the entire battalion.
Two companies of the 1st Viet Cong Regiment stretched 1,000 yards in entrenched, well-camouflaged positions. Movement by 2/7 halted in the face of the sudden barrage of machine-gun fire. The lead element in the column, Co G, established a defensive position east of Ky Phu as they started to receive mortar fire. Fortunately, many of the mortar rounds sank into the muck around them. After days of rain, the saturated soil made the fire much less effective, according to Schlosser. Viet Cong snipers, however, were undeterred and killed several Co G radio operators in the opening minutes of the ambush.
On Dec. 10, 1965, Marines advance along rice paddy dikes in pursuit of enemy forces.
The battalion commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Leon Utter, lost contact with much of the battalion as the radio operators were killed. In the turmoil, some radio traffic went out on the wrong nets and the battalion’s column started to separate. Two platoons of Co F were sent to relieve Co G in the defensive positions east of Ky Phu. The rear guard, Co H, however, was still about 500 meters west of the village. Two Viet Cong companies attacked from north and south of the road to exploit this gap. When the attack intensified on the western perimeter of the village, Co F was ordered back west.
As Co F raced west, the VC unleashed a flurry of fire upon Co H. Effective rifle, heavy machine-gun, recoilless rifle and mortar fire from entrenched and camouflaged positions curtailed any movement from Co H. In a 2021 interview with the Department of Veterans Affairs, Barnum recalled, “The enemy knew what the hell they were doing, and it was hellacious.” He first sent a call for fire to the artillery battery to take out the machine-gun emplacement on their right flank. The enemy positions were so close, he said, that “the first fire mission I call[ed] was in on that trench line. The first rounds we took some ‘shrapmetal’ in our positions.” Barnum ceased fire after two rounds. He could only adjust fire for missions that weren’t overhead because the targets were at the battery’s maximum range and the missions were dangerously close.
Meanwhile, Barnum saw Hospital Corpsmen Wesley “Doc Wes” Berrard streak by, yelling, “The skipper’s down! The skipper’s down!” About 50 yards ahead, he saw a pile of Marines. Among them were Co H Commanding Officer, Captain Paul L. Gormley Jr., and his radio operator, Lance Corporal Savoy. Fifty-seven millimeter recoilless rifle fire hit them in the opening salvos of the ambush. Doc Wes was shot several times in his dash to the CO. So was the artillery scout sergeant, Private First Class McClain, who followed him.
Barnum was still adjusting artillery fire when he realized that in a matter of moments, the company CO, radio operator, corpsman and scout sergeant were all down ahead of him. Now Barnum raced forward, but it was too late to help Savoy—he was already dead. Barnum carried Gormley back to a covered position as the firefight continued all around him. He had been with the company for a matter of days. Now the commanding officer was dying in his arms.
Marines of G/2/7 search for VC during Operation Harvest Moon in 1965.
Back at Ky Phu, the battalion began establishing defensive positions around the village. Company H, however, remained pinned down 500 meters away, with a dead commanding officer and radio operator and no radio connection to the leadership.
All around Barnum, the platoon commanders of Co H were in their own firefights. As he held his dead CO, he realized that the radio was still out there. To reestablish communications with the battalion and provide direction to the company, he had to retrieve it. Barnum raced back to Savoy’s body and slung the radio (and its telltale 3-foot antenna) onto his back. He later explained in an interview, “I think the PRC-25 saved our lives.” He immediately contacted Lieutenant Colonel Utter to report the situation, to which Utter replied, “Young man, it sounds like you have a grasp of the situation. Make sure everyone knows you’re the skipper.”
Although airstrikes from Air Force B-52s helped to drive out the enemy, the hills had to be combed on foot by Marines.
Utter also warned, “Lieutenant, you’ve gotta come on out. We can’t come get you. We’re in our own fight in here. Can’t come out and get you. It’s getting dark. If you don’t fight your way out, you’re there by yourself tonight.” Barnum was the only artilleryman in the company of infantrymen, but he was now the one in command. He later reflected, “When I took over that company, they didn’t even know my name, but I had a bar on my collar and they knew that lieutenants were supposed to give orders. So when I started giving orders, they did exactly what I tasked them to do.” He was grateful that he was only three years out of The Basic School, where every Marine Corps officer is trained in the principles of leading as an infantry platoon commander.
Barnum needed to evacuate the dead and wounded and break through the enemy ambush to rejoin 2/7 in Ky Phu. He recalled, “These young Marines who were pinned down and scared, all they wanted was someone to give them direction. And when I started doing things, they got motivation going. So, at that point, I launched a counterattack on that trench line to our right.” The consequences of command soon weighed on Barnum. “I just got four Marines wounded, and I turn to the next four and say, ‘OK, it’s your turn,’ ” he relayed in an interview with the VA. But he maintained his composure and continued to lead: “We mounted a charge, and I led it. I didn’t say, ‘Go get ’em,’ I said, ‘Follow me.’ And I took off and they were right behind me.”
Now one enemy machine gun was out of action, but the attack continued unrelenting. An hour and a half after the ambush began, close air support arrived: three UH-1E Iroquois, armed with 3.5 mm rockets. Barnum put his experience as a forward observer to good use. His first target was a nearby trench line. He marked it with white phosphorus and talked the pilots onto the target. Barnum continued marking targets until he ran out of white phosphorus, and then, according to Schlosser, he “stood up there and was pointing with [his] arms outstretched at the targets, and the chopper pilots flew down the axis of [his] arms at the targets.”
Company H rallied under Barnum’s leadership. Slowly, they fought back the attack and established a defensive position around a small hill north of the road. Barnum still had to manage an evacuation, so he sent engineers out to blow down trees to make space for a landing zone. After four hours of fighting, they were still repelling the ambush south of the road but had prepared a landing zone on the north side. Barnum explained in his Congressional Medal of Honor Society interview, “Doc Wes was shot five or six times, and he would not let us evacuate him. … He was still giving instructions on how to handle the other cases that were serious and he was the last one he would let me put on a helicopter. … He got shot for the seventh time, but he lived.” Company H’s defense of the landing zone ensured the UH-34 Seahorses evacuated all of the company’s dead and wounded.
Following the loss of his company commander and radio operator to enemy fire, 1stLt Harvey Barnum assumed command of his unit, moving through heavy fire to rally and reorganize his fellow Marines. Barnum urged his troops forward in a successful counterattack, exposing himself to direct enemy fire. After the attack, Barnum coordinated the landing of two transport helicopters to evacuate the dead and wounded, ensuring the safety and recovery of his men. Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze presented Barnum with the Medal of Honor in a ceremony held on Feb. 27, 1967.
Barnum and the company still had those 500 meters of open rice paddies to cross under heavy fire to rejoin the rest of the battalion in Ky Phu. It was over a quarter of a mile of hell for Co H. Barnum collected all the inoperable radios, ma-chine guns and other equipment, and he had his engineers destroy them to lighten the load. Next, he had the company drop their packs in a pile to burn them. Barnum explained to the company, “Marines don’t leave anybody on the battlefield. Someone drops, you pick him up and bring him with you. So that’s the reason I made you light.”
Relying on his early training, Barnum started moving the company across the rice paddy in fire team rushes. He soon realized that he would never maneuver the entire company across the dike while still receiving intensive fire. Barnum contacted 2/7 and had them provide a base of fire so that he could rush squad by squad across the dike. As each new squad prepared to rush, he told them, “You run as fast as you can. Don’t even stop. The only time you stop is if someone gets shot and you pick them up.” It took almost an hour, but Co H made it into Ky Phu before dark.
Two days later, Co H returned to 2/9, and an infantry officer was assigned command. Shortly after, Barnum was informed that Lieutenant General Walt, III Marine Amphibious Force Commander, had nominated him for the Medal of Honor. Just over 14 months later, Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze presented Barnum with the medal at a ceremony at Marine Barracks Washington, D.C.
Then-Capt Harvey “Barney” Barnum, USMC
Barnum served in the Marine Corps for another 24 years. In that time, he returned to Vietnam to command Battery E, 2nd Battalion, 12th Marine Regiment; taught at The Basic School; commanded 2nd Battalion, Recruit Training Regiment, Parris Island, S.C., and served as Chief of Operations, U.S. Central Command, among many other assignments. After the Marine Corps, his life of service continued as the principal director of Drug Enforcement Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense; assistant secretary of the Navy for Reserve Affairs; acting assistant secretary of the Navy (Manpower and Reserve Affairs) and in leadership positions with several nonprofits.
Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus shakes hands with retired Marine Col. and Medal of Honor recipient Harvey C. Barnum, Jr. during the renaming of the Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, DDG 124 at Marine Barracks Washington, July 28th, 2016. The destroyer was renamed USS Harvey C. Barnum, Jr. Barnum earned the Medal of Honor for his actions in Vietnam as a first lieutenant. (Marine Corps Photo by Lance Cpl. Dana Beesley/Released)
Barnum’s quick action, composure and sound leadership saved the lives of over 130 Marines and corpsmen of Co H on Dec. 18, 1965. In the Congressional Medal of Honor Society interview, Barnum reflected on that day, explaining that he wears his Medal of Honor “in honor of those corpsmen and young Marines that I had the opportunity to lead on the field of battle that day. And anytime I put this medal on, I think of them. And any actions I do or decisions I make, I make it in their name.”
Author’s bio: William J. Prom was a Marine Corps artillery officer from 2009-2014 and now serves as Development Director for the nonprofit veteran service organization, NextOp. He is the 2022 U.S. Naval Institute Naval History Author of the Year, and his work has appeared in Naval History and Proceedings.
Featured Image (Top): Radio operator Cpl Patrick Iacunato, left, and 1stLt Harvey “Barney” Barnum pose for a photo together on Dec. 20, 1965, two days after Barnum’s actions during Operation Harvest Moon, which resulted in the Medal of Honor.
Noncommissioned officers (NCOs) perform one of the most critical functions of the Marine Corps. They serve as the first line of leadership in every small unit and can make or break the officers over them. In combat, the significance of their role expands greatly as they make decisions with immediate impact on the lives of their Marines.
Active-duty personnel and civilians on Marine bases around the world dedicate their full-time efforts to the professional military education (PME) of up-and-coming NCOs. In Quantico, Va., the College of Enlisted Military Education enjoys the benefits of their proximity to the National Museum of the Marine Corps and all the resources it can offer.
One of the most important resources comes from the experience of docents who volunteer their time to help preserve the history on display and educate the public. Ronald Echols has served as a docent since 2008. He left the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant in 1968 after four years of service. At first glance, his lowly rank and time in service may seem unremarkable, but for those who know him, Ron’s time on active duty proved an action-packed whirlwind of combat, leadership challenges and, ultimately, a battlefield commission. As a result, today he helps lead a portion of the PME for new sergeants during their four-week primary course.
“I try to explain to them that caring for the Marines under them is the most important thing they’ve got to do,” Ron said. “It’s like being a parent. All of them are now in charge of somebody and they’ve got to take care of them. I have the students for about 45 minutes, and it always makes me feel good to feel like I’m giving something to these young Marines.”
Baptism by Fire
Ron joined the Marines in 1964 at the age of 18. He received selection for sea duty and spent two years aboard ship before joining the 2nd Marine Division rifle team at Camp Lejeune, N.C. He made sergeant in less than three years, and in June of 1967, deployed to Vietnam. Assigned to “Mike” Company, 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines, Ron endured his baptism through fire in short order. The battalion operated in the northern part of South Vietnam along the Demilitarized Zone. Through the summer, several Marine units were bloodied and nearly wiped out by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) near Con Thien. 3/26 arrived in September for their turn in the melee.
The battle opened on Sept. 7. Ron’s company witnessed their heaviest action three days later.
“We had four tanks, two Ontos, and a battalion of Marines,” Ron remembered. “Who is gonna mess with a battalion of Marines and all that armor? Well, the 324th NVA Division attacked us. Within 15 minutes, we had one Ontos left, and the tanks were blown all to crap. It was raining artillery on us. For seven and a half hours, it was on, with hand-to-hand and everything.”
At one point during the battle, Ron pushed forward with his Marines. A punch to his face temporarily stunned him before he surged ahead again.
“He’s hit!” screamed one of Ron’s Marines.
“Who’s hit?” Ron yelled.
“You’re hit!”
Ron discovered a splash of blood across his flak jacket increasing in size. He put his hand to his face and lowered it covered in red.
“Well, give me a bandage then!”
This immersive exhibit at the National Museum of the Marine Corps allows visitors a glimpse into the world that SSgt Ron Echols and other 3/26 Marines faced during the siege at Khe Sanh. Kyle Watts.
SSgt Ron Echols, left, and one of the Mike Co Navy corpsmen on Hill 881S during the siege at Khe Sanh. (Photo courtesy of Charles McCarty) He continued fighting until the next day when he could be evacuated to the hospital ship. Doctors discovered a bullet entered his cheek near the mouth and exited the other side of his face in front of his ear. Miraculously, no bones or nerves were hit. A plastic surgeon went to work, and less than a month later, Ron returned to the front lines. He counted as one of 434 Marines from the battalion wounded in the fight around Con Thien where 55 had been killed. Due to the attrition his company suffered, Ron was appointed the platoon sergeant. He would hold the responsibility for his platoon for the rest of his time in Vietnam.
The remainder of 1967 proved mercifully less eventful for Company M as a whole. October and November held several significant events for Ron, however. He received a second Purple Heart during one patrol when an ambush caught them with mortar rounds. Shrapnel peppered his leg, but Ron completed the mission without evacuation from the field. Later, on another patrol around a U.S. Navy Seabees gravel operation called “the rock crusher,” Ron further increased his reputation as a bold and decisive leader.
Ron volunteered one morning to take out a recon patrol of eight Marines, in place of a squad leader who typically led the daily tours around the perimeter. As they moved down a dirt road, friendly mortars suddenly exploded nearby over the crest of a distant hill. Ron grabbed the radio as the patrol found cover.
“What the hell is going on?”
“We’ve got a large group of Viet Cong in the open!” Replied a voice on the other end.
“Well, you’re almost on top of us!”
Sprinting figures appeared over the top of the nearby hill, holding AK-47s and heading directly toward Ron’s patrol. More followed behind the lead group. Even more sprinted up and over the crest behind them. Ron moved the radio back to his face.
“I see them! They’re coming over the hill right in front of me!”
“Act as a blocking force!”
Ron laid eyes on the seven other Marines of his patrol. At least five times their number of VC were already over the hill and coming on fast.
“Do you know who you’re talking to?” Ron asked, presuming the voice believed Ron was at the head of a company, or even a full platoon.
“Yes! Now act as a blocking force!”
Ron dropped the radio and ordered the Marines into a ditch alongside the road.
“Stay down! Nobody shoots until I do!”
The first group of enemy stopped alongside the road less than 20 yards away. They waited in the open as more VC poured over the hill. Within minutes, a group nearly 50 strong gathered by the road catching their breath.
“I swear to God, I do not know what made me do this,” Ron remembered recently. “I jumped up and shouted, ‘Stop!’ in Vietnamese and every one of them threw their hands straight up in the air. The only thing I can figure is that they had just gotten through being mortared like crazy and they thought they had run into some big unit, so they surrendered.”
The Marines led the group of prisoners to an open spot in the road and surrounded them as they lay on the ground. Ron radioed for immediate help. The closest available unit was a group of Australians.
“I don’t care who they are,” Ron advised. “We need help now!”
As seen in a view from Hill 881S, this ridgeline several hundred meters away from the Marine positions proved a source of continuous enemy fire. Accordingly, it became the target of friendly airstrikes and artillery fire. The initial plume of an explosion can be seen bursting up in the center of the photo.
A dust cloud soon formed in the distance as a convoy of Australian vehicles approached. The Aussies tucked prisoners into every nook and cranny of their trucks to transport their haul away. The Marines moved aside as the convoy sped off. As the engines faded into the distance, Ron turned to his stunned men.
“This patrol is OVER!”
They returned to base safely and found the platoon commander and company commander waiting for them inside the wire.
“Sergeant Echols,” said the captain, “You come with me.”
The officer immediately filed paperwork for Ron’s meritorious promotion to staff sergeant. Less than three weeks later, with just over three years total in the Marine Corps, Ron received his promotion to staff sergeant. After Ron’s elevation to platoon sergeant, several new lieutenants cycled through. Some were wounded, some were fired, but either way, the end result left Ron ultimately responsible. He excelled in his role as acting platoon commander to such an extent that existing and incoming officers deferred to him, and left Ron in charge of his platoon.
Mike Company veteran Charles Martin carried an 8 mm video camera during his tour in Vietnam, capturing incredible footage from Hill 881S, the Khe Sanh airstrip and various other locations. This screenshot from the video depicts a machine-gunner returning fire at NVA soldiers.
By the end of December 1967, 3/26 received orders to support the looming conflict at Khe Sanh. Ron and the Marines of Company M occupied a front-and-center role in the siege, positioned west of Khe Sanh Combat Base on Hill 881 South.
In another screenshot from the video taken by Charles Martin, SSgt Ron Echols is shown carrying his favored pump-action shotgun. This portion of the video was shot immediately after Ron saved Martin’s life by cutting down several NVA with his signature firearm. Courtesy of Charles Martin.
“That wasn’t some training evolution, that was a real firefight,” SSgt Ron Echols said recently. “If I would have known at that time he was taking a video, I’d have grabbed that camera and stuck it where the sun don’t shine!” Courtesy of Charles Martin.
Marine defenses on 881S spread across two distinct hill tops, separated by a low saddle in between. Company I, 3/26, occupied the higher hilltop. Two platoons from Mike took over the lower side. Ron arrived with his Marines and found basic defensive positions carved out of the hill by its previous occupiers. He immediately ordered his Marines to dig deeper. They placed multiple layers of concertina wire outside the trench line, designed to funnel any oncoming enemy into the Marines’ machine guns. Ron directed his platoon to complete their defensive barriers with a tall, barbed wire fence immediately outside of their trench line, preventing any approaching enemy from jumping into the trenches. The Marines spaced mines and claymores around the entire perimeter. When they ran out of claymores, Ron found an abundance of detonators remaining. He improvised by filling empty ammo cans with spent rifle brass and explosives lining one side, then connected a detonator as a homemade anti-personnel device. Ron directed his men to save their empty C-ration tins and place several small rocks inside. The lid was then bent over a strand of the perimeter wire, creating a noise-making early warning device.
“I don’t even remember who our platoon commander was, but I remember Ron” said Charles McCarty, Ron’s radioman for the duration of the siege at Khe Sanh. “He was doing everything a platoon commander would do. There was this old comic book character called, ‘Sgt Rock,’ and that’s what we used to call Ron, because he was hard as a rock.”
As days turned into weeks on the hill, the trench line surrounding Mike Company evolved from a shallow ditch to a six-foot-deep channel, lined with sandbags and bunkers dug underground. Ron insisted on underground shelters, as their position proved a favorite target of NVA artillery and rockets.
Air Force B-52 bombers routinely conducted “Arc Light” strikes around Hill 881S during the siege at Khe Sanh. The power and devastation of these attacks left the Marines on the ground in awe. DOD.
Incoming of some sort hit 881S every day. Snipers kept the hill continually under fire and observation. Another hill less than a mile away, designated 881 North, acted as a NVA stronghold and observation post. Nobody knew exactly what enemy strength 881N housed. Marines patrolling that direction suffered numerous casualties without successfully reconnoitering the hill, included a company-size movement by Company I on Jan. 20, 1968. The Marines on 881S became increasingly exhausted under the constant threat of attack.
Bombs from a friendly airstrike throw up dirt in a valley between Hill 881S and a nearby ridgeline. Bomb craters can be seen across the ridge as well, from which NVA soldiers harassed the Marines on a daily basis. Joe Darrell.
U.S. air power afforded the garrison its best chance of survival. The Marines called in air strikes on any suspected enemy position. On one occasion, a sniper harassed Mike Co for several days. Finally, Ron had enough. He grabbed a pair of binoculars and kept watch over the area where the rounds originated until, finally, incoming shots gave away the sniper’s position. He found the sniper perched high in the fork of a tree branch.
“Ron saw him and he says, ‘well, I can take care of that,’ ” remembered Charles Martin, a squad leader in Ron’s platoon. “Ron called in jet. That thing circled the tree one time and came in from the back side. The sniper was climbing down when a bomb hit the base of the tree and blew it in a million pieces.”
A ridgeline several hundred meters away from 881S proved a continual source of incoming NVA artillery and rifle fire. The ridge was close enough that individual enemy soldiers were easily seen moving around. Despite its close proximity, B-52 “Arc Light” strikes rained down continuously across the ridge.
“Have you ever seen video of an arc light?” asked Charles McCarty. “To this day, when I say the word, ‘arc light,’ I get chills.”
Marines who knew what to look for might spot contrails high in the sky, signaling the coming devastation. For those unaware, the bombs fell out of nowhere. A line of explosions suddenly plumed up at one end of the ridge and worked their way across. As the explosions continued, the sound of the falling bombs, followed by their explosions, reached the Marines in a deafening roar. Shockwaves tossed the hill beneath the Marines like an earthquake. Finally, after three B-52s emptied their bomb bays of nearly 30 tons of ordnance per aircraft, nothing but a barren landscape remained.
A CH-46 touches down at Hill 881S, delivering critical supplies and extracting wounded. The “Purple Foxes” of HMM-364 provided much of the support for Marines on the hill. Joe Darrell.
“B-52s hit that ridgeline every day,” remembered Ron. “They told me on the radio to have the men get in the bunkers, put their fingers in the air, and hold their mouths open. They hadn’t dropped one that close to friendly troops before. I cannot begin to describe the noise. The whole hill was shaking like we were on a ride at the fair or something. There were big rocks falling out of the sky and I thought someone would be killed. It was just unreal.”
USMC History Division.
In this screenshot from Charles Martin’s video, a stream of Marines can be seen rushing into the back of an aircraft still running on Khe Sanh airstrip. In the video, immediately after the plane is loaded and takes off, an artillery round strikes the runway. Courtesy of Charles Martin.
Despite the impressive show of air power, the NVA dominated the hills and jungle surrounding Khe Sanh. Hill 881S was inaccessible by land and could only be resupplied by helicopter. The NVA shot down several choppers attempting to resupply the Marines on 881S. Even so, the brave helicopter pilots, primarily from the “Purple Foxes” of Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 364, continued coming. Eventually, a “super gaggle” of jets and attack helicopters proved necessary to strafe and bomb the surrounding jungle to cover the resupply choppers. The enemy threat, combined with daily fog and inclement weather, often prevented the Marines from obtaining the critical supplies they needed.
Harry W. Jenkins arrived at 881S as the new captain in charge of Company M, in March 1968. Jenkins, who later retired as a major general, was shocked by the conditions on the hill yet impressed by the level of morale and preparedness maintained. Dirty and bearded Marines in tattered clothing filled the trenches. He found several Marines with visibly decayed teeth.
“I asked the Marines where their toothbrushes were,” MajGen Jenkins said. “They told me they were using them to clean their rifles. Under the circumstances, I couldn’t argue. That’s just one minor example, but things like that led to emergency resupply orders for any number of things. I just couldn’t believe it. We had astronauts in space going around the moon, but we couldn’t get toothbrushes to 881 South.”
Ron rationed food and water among his platoon as critical supplies ran short. At one point, the Marines ran out of C-rations and went for nine days without food before a resupply finally made it into the hill. They spread tarps out over the ground each night, capturing the morning dew to save as drinking water. A mountain stream north of the hill tantalized the Marines. The flowing sounds carried up the slope, but an unknown number of enemy in a parallel trench line stood between Mike Company and the water.
One day, while walking the perimeter, Ron heard movement outside the line, coming up the south slope. He shouldered his shotgun and prepared to fire. At the last second, three Marines appeared through the brush carrying full canteens. After Ron scolded them for being outside the wire and almost getting themselves killed, the Marines explained that they discovered a spring in a gully down the hill, where they had filled their personal canteens. Ron informed them the following day, they would be going back down to the spring with the rest of the platoon’s canteens to draw water for everyone else.
By April, Marines on the hill grew exhausted. Lack of sleep, lack of supplies, and isolation pushed them to the brink. Continual bombardment by the NVA, without real opportunity to retaliate, created a high level of aggression. On April 14, 1968, Easter Sunday, the Marines of 3/26 got their chance to let their aggression out. The order arrived to finally oust the NVA from 881N. Ron’s platoon advanced alongside Marines from Company K, down 881S to the base of 881N. A furious bombardment preceded their attack. Direct fire from 106 mm recoilless rifles on 881S soared overhead as the Marines advanced up the hill. Ron prayed none would fall short into the advancing Marines. The fight ended quickly. Six Marines died in the effort to take the hill. More than 100 NVA bodies littered the abandoned enemy emplacements. An American flag flew over 881N long enough to signal the victory to those observing from 881S, before the Marines backed down the hill once more and choppered out to Khe Sanh Combat Base. This Easter assault marked the end of the siege for Mike Co.
The battalion received a short respite following Khe Sanh. All too quickly, though, they returned to the front lines, attacking into a place ironically called, “Happy Valley,” deep into the mountains Southwest of Da Nang during Operation Mameluke Thrust. The enemy remained determined to send Ron home in a body bag.
Cpl Charles McCarty arrived in Vietnam just days after the battle at Con Thien in September 1967. He became SSgt Ron Echols’ radioman at Khe Sanh and remained by Ron’s side in that capacity for the duration of the siege. Courtesy of Charles McCarty.
During one patrol in their new area of operation, Ron’s platoon walked through chest high elephant grass. They spotted movement in the grass and Ron called the Marines to a halt. As everyone took cover, Charles Martin moved slowly around to a hill on the other side of the suspicious area and began working his way back. Ron gave hand signals directing Martin down the hill toward the area as he crept up from the opposite direction.
Charles Martin displays his flak jacket, punctured by an enemy round, following the incident where SSgt Ron Echols saved him from three NVA soldiers. Courtesy of Charles Martin.
Throughout his time in Vietnam, Ron’s weapon of choice was a pump-action shotgun. He shouldered it now once again as he approached Martin. Three Vietnamese soldiers suddenly popped up out of the elephant grass between Ron and Martin. One took off sprinting away from the Marines. Another opened fire at Martin. Martin unloaded a few rounds before a bullet knocked him off his feet. He fell to the ground gasping for breath.
Ron squeezed hard on the shotgun’s trigger and pumped the forestock as fast as he could, instantly emptying seven shells into the grass. He rotated the gun on his shoulder and loaded more shells into the magazine tube. As he slid in a third shell, an enemy soldier appeared out of the grass with rifle raised. Ron shot him down, then continued up the hill.
“I could hear Ron running up the hill after he shot two or three more times saying, ‘Marty, don’t die on me, damn you! Don’t you die on me!’ ” Martin remembered today. “He came up there and rolled me over and slapped me and said, ‘Are you OK?’”
A quick evaluation revealed the bullet tore a hole through Martin’s flak jacket but missed his abdomen. One enemy soldier escaped, and one lay badly wounded in the leg. The Marines found the third soldier dead in the grass, ripped apart by Ron’s initial volley of shotgun blasts.
On May 29, Company M choppered into a newly cleared landing zone (LZ) in the mountains. Ron boarded one of the last CH-46s to depart with 11 Marines from his platoon.
“Once we land, ya’ll need to get the hell off here!” the crew chief screamed to Ron over the noise of the engines. “We’ve been taking heavy fire up there all day!”
The mural in the 881S exhibit at the National Museum of the Marine Corps recreates the view from the hill with stunning accuracy. From the India Co positions on the higher side of the hill, visitors can look down to Mike Company’s side of the hill, where Ron can still point out his old bunker’s location. Kyle Watts.
As the helicopter approached the LZ, enemy bullets punched holes through the aluminum skin. Hydraulic cables across the entire roof of the interior caught fire and the bird plummeted towards the ground. Tons of small arms and mortar ammo brought in by previous flights remained staged in the LZ. The doomed chopper crashed directly into it and rolled on its side. Ammo began cooking off around the burning wreck. One Marine on the ground near the LZ was killed by flying pieces of the helicopter. Shrapnel stung across Ron’s back, but miraculously, he and all seven of his Marines survived the crash and exited the chopper before it exploded.
Active-duty Marines attend several professional military education events (PME) throughout the year at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. The museum tour and PME that Ron and other docents conduct for the Sergeants Course at Quantico has expanded to include other groups of active duty or reserve Marines, and even other branches of service. Rebecca Jackson.
Well-Deserved Commission
Official recognition of Ron’s role as a platoon commander finally came through in the last month of his deployment to Vietnam. In the weeks following Khe Sanh, Capt Jenkins submitted the paperwork for Ron to receive a battlefield commission. This distinguished achievement proved exceedingly rare during the Vietnam War. Numerous outstanding NCOs were plucked from combat and sent home to attend Officer Candidates School and The Basic School as part of the Meritorious NCO Program. Others received a temporary commission that reverted at the conclusion of their deployment. An incredibly select few, however, skipped these training steps of the commissioning process, remained in combat, and retained their commission as a permanent rank. Some famous names, such as the legendary Force Recon Marine Major James Capers Jr., are included in this tally. The rest are Marines such as Ron Echols, whose names, reputations, and combat exploits are known only to the Marines with whom they served.
In June 1968, Ron was called out of the field to receive a physical. Wondering why a physical was so important to call him away from his platoon, Ron was informed a physical was necessary for his promotion. In short order, the officers over Ron removed his staff sergeant chevrons and replaced them with the gold bars of a second lieutenant. The fact that Ron’s date to leave Vietnam drew near mattered little. The promotion formally recognized the position he had held all along, through all the trying times his Marines endured.
Ron arrived back in the States the following month. Just four years earlier, he stood on the yellow footprints at Parris Island as a recruit. Now, he faced the end of his enlistment as a battlefield-commissioned officer with a combat distinguished Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. A third Purple Heart for injuries received in the helicopter crash never came through. With a lifetime of experience far greater than his age of 22 might let on, Ron elected to leave the Marine Corps. Mentally, he had had enough.
Like many Vietnam veterans, Ron dove into civilian life after leaving the military and it was years before he reconnected with the Marines he fought beside. In the early 1990s, Ron began attending 3/26 reunions, and continues to this day. As he reflected back to his time in Vietnam, Ron realized his biggest regret; through all the combat and harrowing situations he and his Marines faced, he had never found the time to recommend any of his brave men for the awards they deserved for their heroism.
In 2007, the reunion group met at the National Museum of the Marine Corps shortly after it opened the previous November. The veterans of Khe Sanh found themselves transported back in time and airlifted to their old positions in the immersive exhibit dedicated to 881S. The mural surrounding the CH-46 ramp recreated the hill with stunning accuracy, and Ron could immediately look down to Mike Company’s side of the hill and point out where his bunker had been, and where some of his comrades had died.
“There is no question that there are Marines alive today thanks the superb leadership and attention to duty displayed by Ron Echols under the most trying conditions,” said MajGen Jenkins today, who also attended the 2007 reunion. “He clearly is one of the best combat leaders I ever served with. Some of that experience is passed on today, as he is often called upon to speak to classes of NCOs and enlisted Marines in various courses at Quantico.”
A Lesson in Leadership
Ron began volunteering at the museum in 2008. He and other docents began their work with the Sergeants Course at Quantico several years ago.
“Going to the museum is not technically a part of our curriculum, but by proximity, we take advantage of the museum and take the students over there,” said Master Sergeant Christian Tetzlaff, the staff noncommissioned officer in charge of the sergeant’s course in Quantico. “The docents are always energetic to help, and they take the opportunity to tell the students about events from their experience and background. Students are pretty impacted by them. It’s real stories from real people who are from their heritage.”
The museum tour comes during the “heritage” portion of the four-week long course. The curriculum covers battlefield case studies on places like Inchon and the Pusan Perimeter from the Korean War. The trip to the museum provides students with a more tangible understanding of the events covered in the classroom. Anywhere between 30 to 70 new sergeants reap the benefits offered through museum and the docents’ class. They begin with Ron in the theater, where Ron walks them through his time on 881S, and what it looks like to work “tirelessly to ensure the safety and well-being of his men,” as is stated in his Bronze Star citation read aloud to the class. The students then proceed to other docents stationed around the museum to learn more from their experiences.
“For sergeants, this course is really about reinvigorating their core values,” said MSgt Tetzlaff. “They are still sponges, trying to figure out what the Marine Corps is really all about and if they’re staying for the long haul. They see representatives like the docents who have no real reason to keep coming to the museum and volunteering their time, other than the fact that they are proud of what they are a part of. Demonstrating that to these young Marines, they’re going to look at these guys and think, ‘they are so passionate, and so thankful for all their experiences,’ knowing that they have experienced tough times,” Tetzlaff said.
Veterans of 3/26 reunited at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in 2007. From left to right: Capt John J. Gilece, CO of Mike Co, 3/26, at Khe Sanh until he was shot by a sniper; 1stLt John T. “Tom” Esslinger, Executive Officer, then-CO of Mike Co following Gilece’s wounding; SSgt Ron Echols; MajGen Harry W. Jenkins, USMC (Ret). Courtesy of Ron Echols.
“These interactions at the museum are not little things. They are profound moments that embody our culture of, ‘once a Marine, always a Marine.’ A lot of young Marines might look at that and think it’s just a cliché, but then they see it in action and see these docents volunteering their life to serve the betterment of the Marine Corps and keep our heritage alive. There is a lot of opportunity for reflection.”
In late September 1968, Bob Skeels stepped off a plane at Quang Tri Combat Base. The aircraft delivered three of Bob’s friends to Vietnam alongside him. The four men shared much in common. All were young, newly minted second lieutenants. All had recently graduated from training as 1802 tank officers. For Bob’s part, a surge of personal patriotism drove him to the Corps after college despite growing disillusion with the war at home. Vietnam was the war of his generation, and he wanted to play a part, just as his parents had in World War II. He pursued a career as a tanker. He preferred the idea of a heavily armored carriage with massive firepower carrying him to battle in relative safety.
The four lieutenants hauled their gear off the plane and entered a building to check in. Their crisp new uniforms and beaming golden bars stood out among the faded, drab background of the base. A gruff and weathered lieutenant colonel summoned them into his office. They lined up and snapped to attention. The officer got straight to the point.
“Sorry to tell you this, gents, but a curveball is coming your way. We are short on infantry platoon commanders, so for your first 90 days in country, you will be assigned to a grunt battalion. Welcome to the infantry.”
Bob swallowed hard stifling a wave of emotion. Scuttlebutt had reached the states that 1968 was the war’s worst year yet to be a new Marine infantry officer. Grunt lieutenants held a low chance of survival. Bob gathered his strength to remain upright and breathed a hardy, “Yes, Sir.”
“We couldn’t make a noise because we could tell the guy was a hard ass and he’d bust you right there on the spot,” Bob recalled today. “I was in fear, but your eyes can’t show anything, your words can’t show anything. What are you supposed to do? You just obey your orders.”
The four tankers left the lieutenant colonel’s office and parted ways. Bob received his orders to “Echo” Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines and his spirits faded further when he learned the officer who had informed them of the temporary assignment would later be his battalion commander. The man seemed even less pleased with the situation than the tankers had been.
Bob collected the weapons, clothing, and 782 gear issued to a new grunt bound for the bush. He loaded onto a chopper heading west for Vandegrift Combat Base. The sun disappeared behind distant mountain tops as the helicopter set down. Someone directed Bob to a tent on the perimeter to spend the night. Another chopper would deliver him to his unit at Khe Sanh the following morning. Several NCOs invited Bob to join their card game and dealt him in. In the twilight, ridges and valleys extended for miles, nestled beneath a perfectly painted sky. Could a place like this really be a war zone?
Bob stripped down to his skivvies as they played. The oppressive heat seemed the only blemish on the otherwise beautiful country. An artillery round suddenly exploded 150 meters away. Bob scanned the table, gauging the reactions of other Marines. A second round hit 100 meters away. Everyone ran outside. A third round came 75 meters away. Someone screamed, “Get in the goddamn trench! We’re on the gun target line!”
A view of the mountainous terrain immediately south of the DMZ, photographed by LCpl Pat McWilliams during a patrol with 3rd Platoon, Co E, 2/4. The words on his helmet capture the general sentiment of the Marines who endured and survived that jungle. (Photo by Patrick McWilliams)
One of only three photographs taken by Bob Skeels while he was in Vietnam captures the view from a hill on Mutter’s Ridge looking down into the valley where his platoon would make the initial contact of a multi-battalion operation on Dec. 8, 1968. Courtesy Bob Skeels.
Six Marines dove headlong into a water-filled hole next to the tent. Wearing nothing but his skivvies and hard-rimmed glasses, Bob plunged in after them. He sank to the bottom and struggled not to drown as the tangled mass of bodies all took cover. Someone knocked Bob’s glasses off and they disappeared into the muck.
When the incoming fire finally stopped, the Marines clawed their way out of the trench. The tent which housed the card game hung in shreds. Naked, soaked, and blind without his glasses, Bob never felt so vulnerable.
“I was so embarrassed. I learned to never go to bed without being fully dressed. From that point on, I always went to bed with my boots on and rifle on my chest. I found out later the incoming rounds were misfires from friendly 105 mm howitzers nearby. That was my first night in country. What a hell of a night.”
In the morning, Bob boarded another helicopter and flew farther west. The chopper descended into thick fog, completely socking in the jungle beneath him. The helicopter crew chief shouted back as Bob peered out the door.
“OK, Lieutenant, you’re here!”
Bob stared, completely befuddled. A white sheet hung in the air, veiling what seemed the entire world outside of the chopper. “What?”
“You’re here, Hill 881 North.”
“Are we on the ground?”
“No, but we’re only about 10 feet off. You’ll be alright, go ahead and jump.”
Bob cursed the Marine, the fog, and the hill somewhere below as he slid into his pack. With over 125 pounds of gear on his body, he jumped. The helicopter noise muffled any cracking sounds from his body as he collided with the ground. He lay on his back catching his breath as the helicopter departed. A driving rain began, pelting his face as he stared toward the sky. Men snickered in the distance. Bob hurt too much to care. A Marine finally approached.
“You Lieutenant Skeels?”
“Yeah,” Bob muttered. “My back hurts like hell.”
“Jesus, sir. We gotta get you out of that dead cockroach position.” He helped Bob roll over and get on his feet. “You’re 3rd Platoon Commander. They’re all waiting for you over there on the east side of the hill.”
An aerial view of FSB Russell in late February 1969 after the base was overrun by NVA sappers on Feb. 25. Skeels’ platoon spent many nights on Russell in November 1968 carving the site out of the hilltop and were there the night it was attacked. (USMC map and photo)
Bob located his Marines, collected under several ponchos tied together. The platoon sergeant stood as Bob entered their shelter. “Welcome, Lieutenant.”
“Thanks. It’s good to finally be here. I’ve had a couple rough days.” The Marines smirked and shot glances around the group.
“Well, you’re about to have tougher days. What do you want to do now?”
Bob gathered the platoon sergeant, squad leaders, and anyone who was on their second tour. The Marines arrived as Bob decided what to say. One of the grunts beat him to the punch.
“Lieutenant Skeels, before you get started, can I ask a question?” Bob braced for impact.
“Sure.”
“How the hell did we wind up with a green tanker for a damn infantry officer?”
“You guys gotta give me a break!” Bob replied. “Sure, I am green, but looking at your brand new uniforms, some of you guys are just as new as I am. I’m here to learn from you guys that have been here the longest, and we’re all going to be in this together.”
A silence followed Bob’s retort as the Marines traded looks and considered their new leader. Finally, the Marine who offered the challenge let on a smile.
“OK, Lieutenant. We’ll let you have a chance. But no orders for crazy frontal charges!”
Echo Company departed Khe Sanh shortly after Bob arrived and headed north toward the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Bob’s platoon separated from the rest of Echo Co and spent the next two months patrolling the jungle. The unit operated autonomously, rarely seeing other Marines in the bush. The shortage of true infantry officers became evident. Bob’s company cycled through multiple commanding officers while he patrolled the Vietnamese mountains.
Bob learned quickly the hardships of a grunt in war. He and his Marines engaged daily in battle with the jungle. Rats three times the size of those stateside moved in from every corner of the country to follow Marines and feast on garbage left behind. Bob cinched his poncho high around his face every night, lest he find a rat perched on his chin in the morning looking for crumbs. Often, this happened anyway. Just like the rats, he constantly scrounged for food. Inclement weather often prohibited resupply and the isolated Marines survived many days on one C-ration.
Heat and humidity left the Marines constantly wet. Everyone developed jungle rot. Even as his knuckles seeped and split open, Bob called in medevacs for Marines with cases far worse than his own. Leeches dominated the environment, ready to suck out any amount of life the Marines had left. Bob developed his morning routine which included a full-body sweep and removal of leeches with a flame or salt, sometimes up to 30 leeches at a time.
“It was like an extended camping trip with occasional periods of sheer fright,” reflected Patrick “Mac” McWilliams, one of the grunts in Bob’s platoon. “I tell people most of my time in Vietnam was spent battling the elements. We just lived out there, digging a hole every night.”
“Everything we did, we did for our brother in the hole with us,” remembered Bruce Brinke, another Marine serving under Bob. “We didn’t have any grand ulterior motives, we just put one foot in front of the other and tried not to think of the whole 13 months. When you’re a lance corporal, a ground pounder, you just do what the squad leader tells you, and he just does what the platoon commander tells him. You don’t have much of a grand view.”
One of Bob’s squad leaders, Cpl Alvin “Twink” Winchell, struggled finding words to describe his time in the jungle as he recounted the memories recently.
“My daughter is a nurse with experience helping veterans,” Winchell said. “She helped me explain how I survived the jungle. She said, ‘Soldiers are trained to go into survival mode mentally and physically. Some did it well, some caved. The jungle was a site like none other could imagine. Those of you that perfected survival mode attempted to come home. Most of you who are still alive are still in constant survival mode.’ This is how I am to this day.”
LCpl Patrick “Mac” McWilliams on patrol in Vietnam. McWilliams served as point man for Bob Skeels’ platoon on Dec. 8, 1968, during the battle on Mutter’s Ridge. Courtesy of Patrick McWilliams.
When his platoon was not patrolling, Bob received orders to help establish new fire bases on remote jungle hill tops. At the future sites of Fire Support Bases (FSB) Alpine and Argonne, the Marines dug holes and set up security as helicopters lifted in heavy equipment to remove the trees. Bob endured the drain of sleep deprivation on these long nights while checking his positions.
One night, as Bob watched through a Starlight scope, he picked up something unknown moving around the perimeter. He investigated in the morning and discovered fresh tiger tracks. From then on, Bob performed his nightly rounds with a pistol in one hand and a 12-gauge shotgun in the other. He had always worried about getting shot in the dark by a probing enemy soldier or even a trigger-happy Marine. Now, the thought of a 400-pound cat ripping him to shreds boosted his anxiety to a whole new level.
In November, the platoon humped all day to the top of another hill where the next FSB would become reality. Soon to be known as FSB Russell, the hilltop proved critical to supporting grunt operations in the surrounding area.
Nights at Russell brought sightings of a species other than tigers. Listening posts (LPs) set 150 meters out from the perimeter radioed in constantly reporting enemy movement. Starlight scopes revealed human forms moving slowly through the jungle, probing the new defenses and mapping out the perimeter. Bob requested permission to engage the targets but was denied so as to not give away the defensive positions. He walked the lines and out to the LPs each night on high alert, shotgun and pistol in hand. With all the enemy sightings, sooner or later, contact felt imminent.
Before dawn on Dec. 7, 1968, word came down of an upcoming operation. For the first time since Bob arrived with 2/4, the entire battalion would take part in an assault. Several other units would also join in the massive cordon and search. The objective was a well-known and well-fought over terrain feature immediately south of the DMZ known as Mutter’s Ridge. Somehow, out of six participating battalions and their subordinate units, Bob’s platoon drew the task of pushing across Mutter’s Ridge on point for the entire operation.
“You’re gonna get your platoon a lot of ribbons on this one,” the battalion sergeant major told him. “That place is a hell hole. This happened in 1966. It happened in 1967. Now, it’s our turn. We gotta go in there and clean them out.”
Bob Skeels at Mutter’s Ridge on Dec. 9, 1968. The peaks of “Objective Bravo,” the main objective of the operation, can be seen across the valley in the background. Courtesy of Bob Skeels.
Cpl Alvin “Twink” Winchell, a squad leader in 3rd platoon, while recovering on USS Repose (AH-16) in December 1968. Winchell received his second Purple Heart after being wounded during the Battle of Mutter’s Ridge on Dec. 8, 1968. Courtesy of Alvin Winchell.
Bob tried not to dwell on the stupidity of an annual operation where Marines died to simply drive the NVA back across the DMZ. Less than eight hours after receiving the initial frag order, the Marines loaded into choppers and flew to their insertion LZs.
The main objective, designated “Objective Bravo,” occupied the highest hill of Mutter’s Ridge. The rushed timeline planned for Bob’s platoon to secure Objective Bravo the same day the entire operation was conceived. The sun sank lower and lower into the western sky as 3rd platoon moved across Mutter’s Ridge. When Objective Bravo finally came into view, Bob saw not one, but three distinct hill tops rising into the twilight. Storming a single enemy-occupied hill would be difficult. Tackling three such hills seemed nearly impossible—in the dark, surely suicidal. Bob called his platoon sergeant over.
“How the hell are we supposed to take that? It’s got three tops! It would be crazy to try to take that in the dark.”
The staff sergeant stared blankly back. “It’s your call, Lieutenant.”
Bob considered Objective Bravo in silence. Finally, he called up his radioman and raised the company commander. “Echo Six, this is Echo Three. Request permission to set up at our present location for the night and attack the objective in the morning, over.”
An unfamiliar voice replied. “Echo Three, the CO’s not gonna like that. He’s gonna be pissed you’re screwing up his operation.”
Bob struggled to place the voice. Could it really be another new company commander? Whoever it was, Bob didn’t care. “Just ask him.”
An excruciating pause followed. Finally, the voice returned with orders.
“Echo Three, patrol over to the base of Objective Bravo, then return and hold your position for the night. Resume the advance tomorrow morning at 0630. Out.”
Bob set down the radio and breathed a sigh of relief. He passed the word to his squads. They found nothing on their final sweep of the day to the base of Objective Bravo, then returned and dug in. Bob passed the night walking the lines.
Dawn broke over the jungle. 3rd platoon roused early and geared up for the coming assault. Shortly before the appointed hour, Bob’s radio came to life.
“Echo Three, Echo Three, this is Six. Operational change. Foxtrot Company has been tasked with securing Objective Bravo. You will proceed east along the ridge and act as a blocking force for their assault.”
Bob set the radio down. The Marines around him waited for his word. He wrestled with the sudden change in orders. Why now? He knew trying to understand was futile. Their job as point for the operation was now someone else’s job, their fate someone else’s fate. Third platoon’s job now was to simply execute the new orders.
They marched out down a ridge line. The three peaks of Objective Bravo jutted out of the sky to the north with the rest of Mutter’s Ridge extending west out of view. It took most of the day to reach the end of the ridge where it dropped off and opened into a valley leading north to the base of Mutter’s Ridge. In the late afternoon, the point man suddenly called a halt. Bob moved forward. Ten pots of boiling rice sat abandoned on the jungle floor, still simmering. Bamboo tables and chairs surrounded them. Marines crouched on high alert.
“It was a pretty big outpost we encountered,” Bob recalled. “You see something like that, and your sphincter muscle starts to fire. You know you’re going to have contact very soon.”
FSB Russell on Feb. 26, 1969, the morning after it was overrun. Marines from Skeels’ 3rd platoon, including Alvin Winchell, Bruce Brinke and Patrick McWilliams, occupied the site and survived the battle. Patrick McWilliams.
Bob called over Cpl Alvin Winchell’s squad. He gave Winchell five map checkpoints in the vicinity to investigate. The six-man squad set out down a hill towards the first checkpoint on the valley floor. The rest of 3rd platoon started digging in for the night.
Patrick McWilliams took point for Winchell’s squad. The 20-year-old lance corporal volunteered for the spot, even though he had never run point before and had not seen combat. They neared the first checkpoint in a thicket of bamboo and elephant grass. McWilliams crested an embankment running across the valley. The embankment revealed itself to be the edge of a trench line. In the trench directly below McWilliams, a NVA soldier sat eating. Before McWilliams could shoot, the enemy soldier bolted and fired wildly back towards him.
McWilliams considered jumping into the trench after him, then a bullet tore through the hand guard of his rifle, grazing his finger. Machine-gun fire peppered the embankment, creating a dust cloud behind McWilliams as he sprinted back toward the rest of his squad.
He reappeared through the elephant grass as a roar of automatic fire rose above the embankment. Before Winchell could learn what McWilliams had seen, AK-47 fire ripped apart the foliage around him. A sudden sting in his leg dropped Winchell to the ground. He grabbed the radio and found Bob already waiting on the other end.
“What’s going on down there?!”
“We walked into something, it’s a hornet’s nest!”
Winchell switched frequencies to talk with the company’s 60 mm mortars. He directed their fire into the trench and surrounding area. The NVA maintained such a rate of fire that he could not even raise his head to watch the rounds impact. He estimated their range from the sound of the explosions and swept rounds across the valley.
The machine-gunner in Winchell’s squad opened up with his M60. Another Marine shouted, “They’re flanking us!” Meanwhile, the NVA raked the Marines’ position as they advanced. Winchell called the mortars in closer. Grenades suddenly landed between the Marines. Winchell grabbed his own grenades and threw them back. The back-and-forth went on until a grenade finally found its mark. Winchell’s radioman screamed in pain as the explosion blew apart his knee. Winchell moved the radioman farther back, then called the mortars even closer.
“We called it, ‘hugging the belt,’ where they’d try to come in so close that you were afraid to call in mortars on your own men,” Winchell remembered. “Well, I kept bringing them in.”
When the battle opened less than 200 meters down the hill, Bob ordered his remaining two squads to saddle up. The new company commander radioed again demanding updates.
“We’ve made contact with the enemy down in the valley,” Bob told him.
“Well, get someone down there to sweep,” the voice replied.
“Already did. That’s who is getting hit.”
“Hold on, I’m coming up there.”
As the rest of 3rd platoon prepared to move, a second lieutenant appeared. Bob determined this must be his new company commander. Automatic fire raked the ridge line as Bob explained their current situation. Leaves and limbs rained down from the branches above their heads.
“Get your ass down there and get those guys!” The lieutenant ordered.
Bob bit his tongue. No point in getting into it with a senior lieutenant right now.
“On my way.”
The platoon’s remaining two squads advanced off the ridge toward the gunfight. They discovered three enemy bunkers built into a hill on their right flank as they worked their way down toward their fellow Marines. Bob realized they could not risk leaving them occupied by the enemy to chew his platoon apart as they moved toward his trapped squad. He adjusted course for the bunkers. Enemy fire slowed their progress as the platoon strung out through the jungle. The point squad finally reached the bunkers and found them unoccupied. Bob sent a runner back through the line to get a count and let everyone know they would resume course back towards Winchell. The runner returned with unexpected news.
“Lieutenant Skeels, we’ve got two missing.”
“What? What do you mean, missing?”
“They went missing some time during on our movement. No one back there saw them.”
Bob fought to keep his bearing as his heart sank to the pit of his stomach. His radioman approached. Fixed wing aircraft held station overhead, ready to pummel the valley floor. Bob still hadn’t located Winchell’s squad. Now, with two Marines missing somewhere in the area, he couldn’t risk jets dropping their bombs. He called the aircraft off and formed up his remaining Marines to move out toward Winchell and search for the missing men.
Bob witnessed at least 20 uniformed enemy soldiers 400 meters away, safely perched on a hilltop near Objective Bravo and firing into the valley. They obviously felt impervious to the battle raging as they added their fire into it.
More Marines fell wounded as the platoon advanced. The man next to Bob was shot in the chest. Bob rolled him over and removed his shirt, revealing a large exit wound. He moved the Marine back uphill toward the abandoned bunkers where a casualty collection point formed.
A small observation plane soared in over at treetop level. The pilot came up on 3rd platoon’s radio and advised he spotted a Marine lying motionless on the jungle floor, shot dead center in the chest. Bob called for volunteers.
“I need two volunteers to come down there with me to look for our MIA.”
One of the remaining squad leaders chimed in. “Lieutenant, you can’t go, you’re the lieutenant!” Without hesitation, two other Marines spoke up. “We’ll go, Lieutenant.”
LCpl John Higgins and PFC Paul Dains stepped forward. Bob didn’t know what to do. Two Marines were missing, at least one probably dead. One squad was trapped in a fight for their lives. Aircraft and artillery waited his word to obliterate the valley. Multiple casualties required evacuation. Darkness threatened to consume Mutter’s Ridge at any minute. The senior company commander demanded answers.
“All right. Look, just get down there. Take a look and get back here. You’ve got five minutes. Just take a look and get back here!”
Back in the valley, Winchell continued calling mortars for what seemed like an eternity as the rest of 3rd platoon tried to reach him. He inched the explosions closer and closer. Mortars rained down merely 20 meters away. Shrapnel cut down trees and vegetation around the Marines. A piece of searing metal tore into Winchell’s knee. When other Marines also suffered friendly shrapnel wounds, Winchell ceased the fire. The NVA retreated from the area. The mortar barrage saved them.
He rolled over and rose to his good knee. Suddenly, through the trees, he saw LCpl Higgins walking alone 30 meters away in the direction where the NVA fire had originated and where they had retreated. Winchell caught his attention and frantically pointed toward the enemy positions. Higgins acknowledged him and proceeded on, disappearing back into the jungle.
One of the enemy bunkers found by 3rd platoon during their sweep and initial contact at the Battle of Mutter’s Ridge on Dec. 8, 1968. In total, more than 50 similar enemy positions were counted in the vicinity where the Marines made contact. Courtesy Bob Skeels.
Bob Skeels, left, with several of his Marines in early 1969 after joining Co B, 3rd Tank Bn, 3rdMarDiv. During this time, Skeels learned of his old infantry platoon’s involvement in the tragedy at FSB Russell. Courtesy of Bob Skeels.
Back with the rest of 3rd platoon, Bob checked his watch. Five minutes came and went. Five more minutes passed. As Bob debated what to do, movement down the hill caught his eye. A Marine staggered through the trees. Not Higgins or Dains, but one of the Marines who went missing earlier. He appeared badly wounded, purple in color, and missing his helmet and rifle. The Marine stumbled and fell. Bob rushed down the embankment and picked him up. He struggled back to the perimeter with the Marine over his shoulders. He ordered his radioman to call for a medevac as he lay the Marine with the other casualties.
Dusk settled in and it started to rain. The wounded had to get out now. The only chopper available or willing to come was an Army Chinook. Bob praised and thanked the pilot as he helped load nine Marines on board the helicopter.
More good news arrived shortly after the chopper departed. Winchell’s squad made it safely back up the ridge and linked up with the other elements of Echo Company. All six Marines were wounded, but all six made it back alive. Winchell and his radioman were evacuated due to their wounds. The word helped Bob remain positive. Higgins and Dains had to be out there somewhere, waiting out the darkness, waiting out the NVA.
The sun rose quietly over Mutter’s Ridge on Dec. 9. Bob moved out with his diminished platoon at first light. Echo’s 2nd platoon joined them in searching for their missing Marines. The enemy had completely abandoned the valley, retreating to their stronghold on Objective Bravo. Bob’s platoon located the Marine spotted from the air the day prior. PFC Charles Hall Jr., was no longer missing, but was now the platoon’s first confirmed KIA.
Nearby Hall lay the lifeless body of PFC Dains, similarly cut down by a sniper’s bullet. They proceeded on toward the trench where Winchell’s squad made first contact. A later count revealed 52 enemy bunkers constructed beyond the trench line. Lying next to one of these bunkers, the Marines found the body of LCpl Higgins.
Echo Company spent the rest of the operation blocking the eastern flank of Mutter’s Ridge as Foxtrot Company assaulted Objective Bravo. On Dec. 11, 1stLt Steven Broderick led the assault across the three-topped hill, his platoon in the position Bob’s was intended for before the operational change. Broderick died in the battle, moving among his squads and directing them under fire. He posthumously received the Silver Star.
Twelve other Marines were killed and 31 wounded while taking the objective, later renamed “Foxtrot Ridge.” Over 170 enemy bunkers were counted there, stuffed with ammo, weapons, and supplies. In all, less than 60 dead NVA were left on Mutter’s Ridge to be counted. Commanders deemed the operation a sweeping success and a prime fighting example of the Corps’ mighty air/ground team.
Bob remained with 3rd platoon through the end of December. He wrote up LCpl Higgins for a posthumous Silver Star. The citation recognized Higgins’ bravery under fire throughout the day of Dec. 8, his initiative in volunteering to seek out the missing Marines, and courage for continuing on alone toward Winchell’s squad, where he died trying to help them.
Bob’s 90 days as a grunt ended as the new year rolled around. He left 2/4 for Bravo Co, 3rd Tank Battalion on Jan. 3, 1969.
Having adopted the mold of an infantry platoon commander, Bob struggled at first remembering how to lead a platoon of five tanks. Near the end of February, Bob and his tanks stood guard over a bridge along Route 1 near the DMZ. One evening, radio traffic trickled in about a fire base near Mutter’s Ridge that had been overrun. Bob’s ears perked up when he heard the name FSB Russell. Having spent several weeks carving Russell out of the jungle, Bob could never forget the place. His platoon occupied Russell, alongside numerous others, when Bob left them. On the night of Feb. 25, over 200 NVA sappers broke through the perimeter and overran the outpost. In the ensuing terror, 26 Marines were killed and 77 wounded.
Bob begged his new CO to let him go to Russell and check on his old platoon but was refused. Winchell, McWilliams, Brinke and all the others would have been there. Bob did not know if any of them survived.
Bob supported infantry operations along the DMZ for the remainder of his tour. He worked with numerous grunt battalions moving in and out of the bush. Every time he went out, Bob loaded his tank with extra C-rations and passed them out to the grunts. He knew they were always hungry. When grunts were wounded in battle, Bob sometimes evacuated them, riding on the fenders of his tank. He knew helicopter evacuation was not always possible. Every time he went out for two or three days, he thought of the infantry enduring weeks at a time in the jungle.
Bob, like so many other Vietnam veterans, spent the next 40 years trying to forget the war. In the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Bob found a patriotic spirit that inspired him to join the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He formed new bonds with veterans who shared experiences similar to his own. They inspired strength to dig deeper into his past. Bob visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. He found John Higgins, Paul Dains, and Charles Hall on panel 37W of the wall. He searched each line for other names he’d recognize. He bowed his head in thankfulness, discovering that no more of the Marines he had ordered evacuated on Dec. 8 had died of their wounds.
Bob located a website published by the LZ Russell Association. Here, he finally connected once again with Winchell, McWilliams, Brinke, and other Marines from 2/4 who survived Mutter’s Ridge and the nightmare at LZ Russell. Winchell received the Bronze Star with “V” for heroism on the night Russell was overrun. Brinke was wounded and received the Purple Heart. Bob learned that 2ndLt William Hunt, the lieutenant who replaced him in 3rd platoon, was killed there.
The Marines asked Bob to fill them in on the operation at Mutter’s Ridge and what had happened leading up to their making first contact of the operation. This proved yet another plight of the grunts, to obey orders without question, while not always understanding what they were doing, where they were going, and why they were there. Bob did his best to explain the broader picture and took the opportunity to tell them what they had meant to him all his life. “I came away from those 90 days with the belief that the grunts deserve everything,” Bob reflected today. “They deserve all the support that anyone else can give them. Dec. 8, ’68 was a terrible day in my tour. My worst day. I only spent 90 days as a grunt. I don’t know how they endured that jungle for 13 months. It was truly the honor of my lifetime to serve alongside those Marines.
The author, left, first met Bob Skeels, second from right, in 2018 at the 50th anniversary reunion of Skeels’ TBS Class. This was the first time the author ever heard of the battle at Mutter’s Ridge. Courtesy of Kyle Watts.
Patrick McWilliams, left, and Alvin Winchell, right, in 2010. Courtesy of Alvin Winchell.
Bob Skeels reflecting at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., in June 2018. Panel 37W holds the names of John Higgins, Paul Dains, and Charles Hall, the three Marines from Skeels’ platoon killed at Mutter’s Ridge on Dec. 8, 1968. Courtesy of Kyle Watts.
It was late afternoon Dec. 24, 1970, and I stood on the low ground that was to be our night defensive position. I looked up at the mountains and ridges which were fast disappearing into the heavy fog that had unexpectedly descended upon us. The change in weather had canceled out our normal resupply choppers but I wasn’t too concerned about it. The previous night we had discovered a rice cache and one of our mechanical ambushes had bagged a large, wild pig. If necessary, I knew we could feed the whole company for two more days. The worst of it was that the failure to resupply meant no delivery of the item we valued above all others—the mail. Infantrymen will always grumble. It comes with the first issue of boot and brass polish, but on this particular Christmas Eve, the grumbling was louder and a little more bitter as we dug in for the night.
We were “Charlie” Company, 2nd Battalion of the 1st Infantry, 196th Infantry Brigade, U.S. Army, and I was the company commander. Naturally, when the word was sent out, I was the first to get it. “Christmas truce tonight,” the battalion S-3 informed me over the radio. “You know the rules of engagement.”
“Roger,” I replied in a voice that must have betrayed my cynicism. “No offensive actions, all patrols are to be defensive in nature and avoid contact whenever possible.”
“You got it. Have a good Christmas Eve.”
“Roger. Enjoy your mail.” I couldn’t resist that last little dig. What line officer could?
It was only 4 p.m. and already the fog was nearly at ground level. We were in the Antenna Valley, west of Da Nang, in what used to be the tactical area of operations of the United States Marines. Oh, the Marines were still around, but they were gradually standing down, and during those times, except for some advisory teams to the South Vietnamese, they were generally much closer to Da Nang. Years of Marine Corps campaigning in the valley were much evidenced by the scores of well-chosen and well-policed old defensive positions in the area. A Marine officer had given me my pre-operational briefing on the valley a few days before. It wasn’t my first tour, and I was pretty salty myself, but I was impressed at how well he knew his business.
Night came fast in I Corps and by 5 p.m. it was dark. The truce went into effect at 6 p.m. At 6:20 p.m. I received a call from the 1st Platoon. “A platoon of NVA just marched across our front, about 200 meters out.” The 1st Platoon was sitting on a small knoll 10 grid squares closer to the valley’s mouth. “How’d you see ’em in this weather?” I asked skeptically.
“We spotted them when the fog broke for a minute,” the platoon leader answered. “They walked right between us and our ambushes. But that’s not all.”
“What else?”
“The last guy in line actually turned around and waved at us! Some of the guys swear he wished them a Merry Christmas!”
“He probably wished them something,” I said as I went off the air, “but I doubt if it was a Merry Christmas.” I was worried that our mechanical ambushes had been spotted, that maybe our guys were in too much of a hurry to get back before the fog and night set in and had been a little careless.
Since the claymore mines were detonated by the tripping of a strand of nearly invisible fishing line (which caused the completion of the electrical circuit of a 9-volt transistor radio battery and thus set off the fuse), once the mechanical ambushes were in place, they were too dangerous to move until morning light. Then again, maybe that platoon of NVA had just been lucky.
At 7:30 p.m. one of the claymore ambushes in front of our position exploded. As required by regulations, I reported it to the battalion headquarters and went on about my business, expecting to check it out in the morning as was the established routine. I was shocked when the S-3 came back with, “Check it out. We may need proof that it was a defensive action in case we get charged with violating the truce.”
“It can wait until morning,” I answered with customary defiance.
The battalion commander came on then. “I want it checked out.”
So much for defiance. The squad that placed the claymore was sent to survey their results. Even in the fog I felt their glares as they trudged by in the darkness. The last man out, Private First Class Robinson, paused long enough to lay a hand on my shoulder and whisper, “Don’t sweat it, Captain. Ain’t no biggie.”
Twenty minutes went by with no report from the patrol. I grew more anxious by the moment, worrying that they had gotten lost in the muggy darkness and might well be unknowingly wandering into the kill area of another squad’s mechanical ambush. I reached for the radio to call them back when suddenly the night was pierced by bursts of M16 fire, a short return blast by an AK-47, more American shots and the explosion of a fragmentation grenade. Filled with angry thoughts at those men who forced me to order young men out unnecessarily on Christmas Eve, I sat holding the microphone, calm on the outside while fuming within.
The call came quickly from an excited PFC Robinson. “The squad leader’s been hit! We need a Dust Off [helicopter] right away!”
“Hold on, I’ll send a medic out to you right now. Can you move your wounded man?”
Robinson was calmer when he replied, “No, I don’t think so. He’s bleeding pretty bad.”
My radio operator scurried off to chase down the platoon medic, Doc Ybarra, who was already coming on the run. He hunkered down beside me as I talked to Robinson. “Are you still in contact?”
“Negative.”
“Okay, tell me your situation.”
Robinson’s voice was well-composed now, He was clearly becoming more comfortable with being the man in charge. “Roger. First, I just sent Hale and Fergy back to the perimeter to guide the Doc.”
“Good thinking. Now, what happened?”
“We walked right up on three NVA. They were dragging a body away from the ambush site. Harder than hell to see out here and we were on them before we saw ’em. Luckily, they didn’t see us either. Sergeant Gray fired first and got one of ‘em. The others fired back and took off. Gray went to throw a grenade and it went off just as it left his hand. He’s really hurting, Captain. You better get the Doc out here fast.”
Ybarra was gone, following the panting guides, Hale and Ferguson, who had made the sprint back to the perimeter in less than two minutes. “Doc’s on his way,” I told Robinson. “I’m going to order up a medical evacuation. Have Doc call me and give me a situation report.”
Behind me I heard my radio operator curse.
I turned quickly to him, “What’s the matter?”
I couldn’t see him very well, but I knew from the sound of his voice that he was positively livid. “I went ahead and started the Dust Off procedure on the battalion radio, sir. They won’t come out!”
He was right. The S-3, whom I knew to be a good officer, despite the fact that we didn’t much like one another, told me, “Sorry. The CO of the Dust Offs has grounded his birds due to the bad weather.”
I put the S-3 on hold and went back to the other radio. Doc Ybarra was calling in. “Minor frag wounds in the arm and neck,” he reported. “Most of the blast hit him just behind the right wrist. It’s pretty badly mangled but I think we could save the hand if we get him out of here quickly.”
Back to the other radio. “I need that medevac, weather or no weather.”
The S-3 was doing his best. “Stand by. I’ll try them again.” It took him an hour. I looked at my watch. Actually, the whole affair was less than 20 minutes. The S-3 returned. “Still no dice.”
“Did you talk to the CO?” I asked plaintively.
“No, just the duty officer. Everyone else was gone to the company Christmas party. What’s the status of your man?”
I put him on hold again and went back to Doc Ybarra. “He’s gonna live, Sir. But unless we get him out of here, he’s gonna be without one hand for the rest of his life. That ain’t too good when you’re a carpenter like Sgt Gray.”
By this time the S-3 had come on the platoon frequency. “I’ll try again.”
I was about to agree when a new voice joined in. “Hello, Army, this is the United States Marine Corps,” the voice said in a pleasant but twangy Texas drawl. “Call sign, Delta Two-Seven.”
I was in no mood for any interservice fraternization at the moment. “What can I do for you, Delta Two-Seven?”
“I think maybe it’s what I can do for you. Are you the ground commander?”
“Roger.”
“Well, we’ve been listening in for a while, and since I’m in your area, I thought I might drop in and give your man a hand—so to speak.”
“Negative, negative!” The S-3 chimed in. “No aircraft allowed in this area due to weather.”
Delta Two-Seven talked right over him. “I think maybe the bad guys are trying to jam you, Army. You hear somebody else on the line?”
“Nothing but a lot of fuzz, garble and static.”
“Me too. Listen, I should be over you pretty soon. When you hear my engines, give a light to guide on, okay?”
“Will do.” I paused to go back to my own people. “Doc, you got a good LZ out there?”
“Roger. And I’ve got my signal light with me, too. But it’s gonna be tricky because we’re awful close to those ridges.”
I was about to reply when the sound of twin helicopter engines came right over us. Damn, he’s really low, I thought to myself. “Delta Two-Seven, you just passed right over us!”
The reply was a little higher pitched but still cool. “Okay, comin’ back around again. Your guy wasn’t kidding about you being close to those ridges!”
“Ah, Roger, Two-Seven. Sounds like you’re directly south of us now.”
“Good. That’s what I figure too. Hold on, be right back.”
“Doc, when you hear the engines get loud again, give ‘em the light.”
A few seconds passed and then he was on us again. “Oh my God,” I thought aloud. “He’s coming too fast—he’ll never get over the ridges!” Somehow, he made it. I don’t know how. There was no way he could have seen them in that fog, but he made it.
“Hey, Army, what happened to the light? I think I saw one flash and that was all.”
“Doc?”
“Batteries went dead. Got off one flash is all. What are we gonna do now?”
Delta Seven’s next message made it clear that we had to come up with an answer and be quick about it. “I’ve got just enough fuel for one more pass. No light, no land! Sorry.”
My radio operator banged me excitedly on the shoulder. “Sir, when the patrol left, I saw a trip flare on Robinson’s shoulder harness!”
I had time only to grip that 18-year-old’s hand hard as I grinned into the microphone. “Robby, you still have that trip flare on your harness?”
Ybarra yelled his reply loud enough that I swore I heard him without the assistance of the radio speaker. “Yeah, he’s got it. Oh man, that’s great!”
Delta Two-Seven was with us again. I looked out toward the direction of the patrol and was rewarded by the sudden pop and fog diffused light of an ignited trip flare. Delta Two-Seven laughed, “I got it, Army, I got it! Heads down, fellas, here we come!”
The guy was good, no doubt about it. The helicopter couldn’t have been on the ground more than five or six seconds when I heard the engines rev and the faster whooshing of the rotor blades. “Got your boy, Army. I’ll have him in Da Nang in about 10 minutes courtesy of the United States Marines.”
The men around me cheered. I was privately thankful that the wetness of the night had dampened my face. “Thanks. I’ll stop by the officers’ club and buy you a drink in about 10 days when this mission’s over.”
“Uh-uh, too late. This is my last flight. I’m homeward bound day after tomorrow. Appreciate the offer.” Just before the sound of the engines faded from Antenna Valley I heard him say, “Merry Christmas, Army.”
We all answered together—me, Ybarra, the S-3 and even the battalion commander who must have been listening in for a long time without saying anything—”Yes, and Merry Christmas to you too, Marine.”
The next time I was in Da Nang I walked into the Marine officers’ club and bought the house a round, paid the bill and left. I didn’t explain, and they didn’t ask.
This painting by John DeGrasse illustrates the scene when a Christmas truce was called on Dec. 24, 1970, in the Antenna Valley, Vietnam. John DeGrasse.
