Charlie One Five: A Marine Company's Vietnam War

Preface

xxiii Preface M y friends and family have often asked why I must tell these stories. First and foremost, I’m determined to write the truth about the Vietnam War as I experienced it—how it tasted and smelled, looked and felt, and how it is remembered by those who rose to the challenge of serving their country, risking everything in that worthy endeavor. Much of what has been written and most of what was made into movies about the Vietnam War focuses on caricatures of aberrations: a renegade general being pursued by a drunken army captain; drugged-out sergeants turning on each other, Americans killing their own. These lurid stories are mostly made up; if incidents similar to them did occur, at least in my experience, they were the rare exceptions, not the rule. For the most part, those who experienced combat in Vietnam served their country and the South Vietnamese with honor and then returned home and went on with their lives. That’s the Vietnam War I choose to write about. When asked to describe the fighting during the battle for Iwo Jima in the South Pacific in World War II, Adm. Chester W. Nimitz summed up the Marine fighting spirit with these few powerful words: “Uncommon valor was a common virtue.” These words aptly describe the vast majority of the Marines who fought in Vietnam. I write about the Vietnam combat veterans of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines because they are true Americans who have done some rather amazing things as they served their country and Corps with honor and distinction and because they are my friends. I will never forget the Marines of Charlie One Five. All of them seemed so very young, yet many of them displayed an awesome courage, a gut-wrenching toughness and determination that allowed them to stand up in the face of certain death and somehow overcome their fears and push forward toward the sounds of gunfire. Over and over I witnessed these young Americans as they overcame those all-too-real fears to defy the enemy trying to kill them, somehow overcame adversity, and, in virtually every single battle during the Vietnam War, emerged victorious. Preface: xxiv I also can not forget the exotic sights, smells, tastes, and sounds of the beautiful country called Vietnam. If ever a place fit the description of an exotic foreign land, Vietnam does. A picture taken from almost any spot in Vietnam could instantly become a best-selling scenic picture postcard. Vietnam’s coastlines boast hundreds of miles of palm-lined, white sandy beaches splashed by the clear, blue green water of the South China Sea. Her western highlands are dominated by towering, junglecovered mountains overlooking huge expanses of emerald green rice paddies, and beautifully framed, nearly magical villages and hamlets are interspersed throughout the lowlands. Yes, Vietnam was and is a beautiful, exquisitely scenic place, although many disturbing blemishes scarred its countryside during the war. I can not forget the smell of death and the constant and shattering scenes of destruction that the war machines of both sides wreaked upon this beautiful but unfortunate land. Nearly every day of my thirteen-month combat tour in South Vietnam I witnessed, up close and personal, just how ugly a picture postcard scene could become when blasted by a 250-pound bomb, or some daisy-chained 105 mm artillery shells set up as a command-detonated bomb, or napalm, or mortar fire, or the sustained concentration of small arms fire from machine guns and other automatic weapons—or worse, when littered by shattered animal and human bodies. Many such scenes remain etched in my memories, and in my soul, indelibly, forever. But most important, I can not, and I will never, forget the US Marines, the young American heroes who served with Charlie One Five during the Vietnam War. I can’t forget what they said and what they did. I have forgotten some of their names, but I can’t and won’t forget what they looked like. Their faces appear as canvases in my memories—canvases upon which the complete scale of human emotions played out. I saw laughter and happiness on those faces, because even in the most difficult and trying circumstances, those guys could somehow find humor. I saw the joy and elation of survival on those faces, but almost always those particular emotions became shaded with guilt, because they experienced joy from a victory in battle, which meant that they...