COL WILLIAM E. RILEY, USMC

I have just learned that Colonel William E. Riley, Jr., USMC reported to Marine Barracks, Heaven earlier this summer. Colonel Riley was my battalion commander in Vietnam about whom I have written here, here, here, here, and here.

The Colonel was a tremendous combat leader, having served in Korea as a lieutenant and then in Vietnam, as Commanding Officer, 1st Battalion, Fifth Marines, 1st Marine Division. It seemed to the junior officers of the battalion that he never forgot what it was like to be a small unit leader. He trusted his subordinates and it showed. He was one of those men who other men eagerly follow, no matter how unpleasant the trip might be. Acts such as the implicit trust he placed in a 19 year old squad leader to adjust a supporting arm that could have killed us all earned him our undying trust, respect, and devotion.

Semper Fidelis.

42 YEARS AGO TODAY

The President of the United States
in the name of
The Congress
takes pride in presenting the
Medal of Honor (posthumously)
to
JIMMY WAYNE PHIPPS
Private First Class
United States Marine Corps

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, as set forth in the following

Citation:
While serving as a combat engineer with Company B, 1st Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division on 27 May 1969 in connection with combat operations against the enemy, PFC Phipps was a member of a 2-man combat engineer demolition team assigned to locate and destroy enemy artillery ordnance and concealed firing devices. After he had expended all of his explosives and blasting caps, PFC Phipps discovered a 175mm high explosive artillery round in a rice paddy. Suspecting that the enemy had attached the artillery round to a secondary explosive device, he warned other Marines in the area to move to covered positions and prepared to destroy the round with a hand grenade. As he was attaching the hand grenade to a stake beside the artillery round, the fuse of the enemy's secondary explosive device ignited. Realizing that his assistant and the platoon commander were both within a few meters of him and that the imminent explosion could kill all 3 men, PFC Phipps grasped the hand grenade to his chest and dived forward to cover the enemy's explosive and the artillery round with his body, thereby shielding his companions from the detonation while absorbing the full and tremendous impact with his body. PFC Phipps' indomitable courage, inspiring initiative, and selfless devotion to duty saved the lives of 2 Marines and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

“I LIKE MARINES,” THE AIRDALE SAID.

And finally the orders came. Our flight date was Friday, 12 December 1969. On that date, I was to “proceed and report to Commanding General, 2d Marine Division, FMF, Camp Lejeune, NC for duty.” On Wednesday morning, 10 December, Pottenger came running into the S-4 bunker. “Hey, Mac, Ayers has the Regimental Commander’s Huey (UH-1 helicopter) that can take us to Danang, but we have to go right now.”

I grabbed my sea bag and headed for the LZ. Mike and Jerry were already there, appearing like wraiths in the mist and fog. We boarded the chopper and were on our way. I was sitting in the middle of the bench seat on the after bulkhead, looking forward between the Aircraft Commander and the co-pilot. Suddenly, a CH-53 materialized in front of us.

“[Universal modifier] me.” The words came through our headsets loud and clear. We banked hard left and climbed, as the 53 banked to our right and dove. The rest of the short trip was completed in absolute silence.

We were dropped at the LZ at 11th Motors/5th Marines (rear) where we turned in our weapons, helmets and flak jackets. To be walking around outside with no weapon or protective gear was eerie. We contacted the Lieutenant who was the Division Special Services Officer, a 1/5 alumni, who offered us a place to bunk that night. (The Special Services Office was also at 11th Motors. We could not report in to the Transient Center until the day before our flight.)

Mark was a good guy who had been injured while serving with Tom in Bravo Company. Any time one of us was a pay officer, we usually stopped by to see him. Among the items he had in stock were cartons of paperback books. He would let us take our pick and then take a couple of cartons back to the battalion.

We decided to walk up to the Division Command Post at Hill 327 and hitch a ride over to Danang Air Force Base. Mark declined our offer to join us. The famous DOOM Club (Danang Officers Open Mess) was said to have a really great menu, and we intended to sample it at least once.

As we walked up the road in our scruffy utilities, a couple of officers crossed the road in front of us. They were wearing green gym shorts and white tee shirts, both bearing the Division patch, and gym shoes. They were carrying racketball rackets.“Boys,” Mike muttered. “I have a feeling that some of us were invited to a different war than others of us.”

We caught a ride to the air base, arriving at about 1700. As we entered the DOOM Club, we saw numerous men leaving air-conditioned trailers dressed in polo shirts and khaki slacks heading for the mess. Our dress caught more than a few eyes.

At the entrance to the dining room, the Vietnamese maitre de informed us that our attire did not conform to Air Force standards for the main dining room. We could see tables set with linen, china and silver. A five piece orchestra was playing and a Filipina singer was belting out a tune. We were about as welcome as a goat at a wedding.

“But you can get something to eat in the informal bar, if you wish,” he offered.

We headed for the bar and started drinking. I think we ate something, but we were pretty hacked about our treatment by our airdale brethren.

A friend later told me that he was treated the same way on Guam. He had been wounded and evacuated to Naval Hospital, Guam. When he was well enough to do so, he and a couple of other Marine officers were given liberty. They headed for Andersen Air Force Base and its officers club.

Andersen was a Strategic Air Command base during the Vietnam War. Operation Arc Light, in which B-52s dropped bombs on North and South Vietnam, was an Andersen operation. The crews would tuck their kids in bed, kiss their wives, go to the office, fly to Vietnam and blow the stuffing out of someone or something, and be back home for breakfast with the family.

The Andersen club had a tradition in which the crews that had flown in combat that day were paraded into the bar. At the command, “Make way for the combat crews,” all persons at the bar were expected to move away.

The three Marines walked into the club and up to the bar and ordered their drinks. Suddenly, the command was given. “Make way for the combat crews.” The Air Force personnel at the bar quickly moved away. Our three hearties turned, leaned against the bar, drinks in hand, and watched a column of twos enter the bar and march towards them. The airdales were clad in blue flight suits with silk scarves knotted around their necks. None of the Marines moved.

A Major shouted again, “Make Way For The Combat Crews!” The column of twos was getting nearer. The Marines stood fast. The bar was deathly silent.

His face a scarlet red, the Major (who was the Club Officer) raced up and put his face just inches from my friend’s. MAKE WAY FOR THE COMBAT CREWS!!”

My friend, who had been wounded about 40 miles from anywhere out on the Lao border while leading a patrol from First Force Reconnaissance Company looked the Major in the eye. “[Universal modifier] the combat crews. What are you gonna do if I don’t? Shave my head and send me to Vietnam?”

The pilot leading the column, a colonel, heard that and doubled over, laughing.

“Never mind, Major. They are M.A.R.I.N.E.S. We’ll be glad to drink with them.”

Back at the DOOM Club, we were still drinking at about 2300. There were a few Air Force types in the bar who started ragging on us. A lieutenant colonel, dressed in a flight suit, shushed them. He came over to us.

“You’re Marines. I like Marines. Let me buy you a drink.” Agreeing that we had something in common (“We like Marines, too.”) we invited him to sit down. Our drinks arrived and we toasted the Corps.

“What do you do around here, Colonel,” Tom asked?

“I command one of the Spooky gunship squadrons.” We then allowed as how we liked Spook and bought the Colonel a drink. By midnight, Pot was asleep at the table, Mike and Jerry were leaning back in their chairs quite relaxed, and the Colonel and I were still enjoying our drinks. The bartender came over to announce that the bar was closing.

“Where are you boys billeted,” our host asked?

“Over at 11th Motors, Sir.”

“Great. You get your buddies outside. I’ll get a truck and take you back there.” He left.

I got my three shipmates to the front door just as a grey Air Force pick up truck pulled up. The Colonel jumped out and helped me pour the guys into the bed of the truck.

“You navigate,” the Colonel commanded. I got in the truck and off we went. As we passed through the main gate, a thought popped into my head.

“Colonel, you command a Spooky squadron, right.”

“Yup.”

“Well, how come this truck says ‘15th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron’ on the door?”

“Hell, son. I said I’d get a truck. I didn’t say from where.” I wondered if he and Sergeant Henderson were related. Then I spent the rest of the trip worrying that on my next to last night in country I would be nabbed for grand theft auto!

The trip was interesting. I sort of knew where we were going, but after midnight, the ARVN set up checkpoints on the road. That didn‘t faze the Colonel. He blew right through them. We finally got to 11th Motors and headed for the rack. I convinced the Colonel that he should spend the night with us.

About 0400, we were awakened by small arms fire and rounds flying through our hooch. We bailed out and spent the rest of the night, unarmed, hiding under the hooch. Apparently, a couple of ARVN patrols got into an intramural firefight out in the paddy, so we were relatively safe.

Thus ended my last firefight. No runs, no hits, no errors, four men left on base, waiting to go home.

© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.

THE END IS IN SIGHT

Mike, Tom, Jerry Ayers and I finally got our orders to depart Vietnam “on or about 12 December 1969.” As near as we could determine, we were the last to leave country of the 142 lieutenants who arrived on 20 December 1968. Then, about 1 December, my relief came aboard. Tom Pottenger and Mike Koch also had reliefs who were anxious to get to work in their new assignments. That worked for us.

The next night, I sent Sayne and another Marine down to the LZ to guard the pre-staged supplies for the battalion. We had been getting reports that the supplies were being “rat-f_____d” by the LZ personnel, i.e., someone was opening cases of C-rats and removing the more desirable meals and taking other goodies, such as SPs.

We were hit at about 2100. I grabbed my rifle and headed for the LZ to make sure my Marines were OK. They were, but I was dinged in the helmet and flak jacket by some shrapnel.

When I got back, my relief, a Captain, dressed me down but good. He reminded me that I had only a week and a half to go and that he would have to write the letter if I did something stupid and got myself killed. I was ordered to stand down.

One of the advantages of being assigned as a pay officer was the opportunity to go to Danang to pay hospitalized troops. Among the “sights” in Danang was the Freedom Hill Post Exchange, which rivaled many PX’s then extant in the US. Having a captive audience (no malls in Danang, boys and girls), many merchants opened “stores” in Vietnam.

The Big Three auto makers had kiosks outside the Exchange where a Marine could purchase a car to be picked up at home on his return. They hired “round eyes” to man the sales booths—young American women who, back home, might not have gotten a casual glance from a hormoned up teenager, but who, in Vietnam, were goddesses. I suspect that the sales in a week paid for one of the girls for a couple of months.

Every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine was issued a “ration card” which had to be presented at the time of purchase. Rationing was designed to slow down resales to the black market. Among other things, officers and Staff NCOs were allowed a ration of six quarts of alcohol per month. Of course, those in the bush were not buying or using alcohol, but the folks back at An Hoa did occasionally consume adult beverages.

Before heading to Danang, pay officers would collect ration cards and take orders. The prices were incredible, even in those days. As I recall, a quart of Chivas Regal went for three bucks. It was not uncommon for a pay officer to return from Danang with 18 to 24 bottles of hooch.

So, after my tail chewing by the Captain, I began to join Mike and Tom in a nightly “celebration.”

Our routine was to eat supper at the mess hall and then retire down to the Charlie Company sea bag tent for the evening. The sea bag tent was the storage point for the sea bags that the troops had brought in country—holding their stateside utilities, leather boots, summer service C uniform (for R & R) and other sundry clothing and equipment they did not want or could not use in the field. There were probably 200 sea bags stacked in the tent.

We would begin drinking shortly after 1800 and would continue until sleep overtook us. We would either sleep on top of the stacked sea bags, or we would stumble back to our respective bunkers. One "morning after," Mike showed up with cuts all over his arms. He had gotten a little off course on his walk back to his hooch and had fallen into some concertina barbed wire. Tom and I were sympathetic and supportive. Yes we were!

One night, I got back to the S-4 bunker in time to catch the end of the night’s cockroach races. The cockroaches in that part of the world grow to over an inch in length. The interior wooden walls of our bunker were streaked with spray painted trails resulting from our efforts to corral champion roaches. Someone would spot a roach crawling across the wall. He would grab a can of spray paint from the paint locker and begin to paint the bug. Roaches do not like to be painted, and they would scurry across the walls, leaving a winding path that Bil Keane would have been proud of.

We also had a large circle painted on the deck. Different colored roaches would be dropped at the center and the race would begin. The first to leave the circle was the winner and got to race again. The losers were squashed. As I write this, it sounds gross and not particularly exciting, but in country, it was the acme of sport. I had a yellow roach that won 10 straight races. I was sorry to step on him when he finally lost, but rules are rules.

One night just three or four days before we left, I returned to the S-4 bunker from our cocktail hour. It was about 2200 and it was raining. My boots were muddy and I was a bit unsteady. Suddenly, a large, pregnant rat scurried across the deck.

Someone called “Rat,” and I whipped out my K-Bar combat knife and dove for the beast. I missed, but managed to cut deep into my left wrist. Someone put a battle dressing on the wound and I was driven down to Battalion Aid Station 1/5. The duty Corpsman had been with Charlie Company and had given me my shots earlier that day. He looked at the cut and announced that it would take a couple of stitches to close it up. “I can give you something to numb it, Lieutenant, but it will be four sticks to deaden it and four sticks to sew it. What do you want?”

“Aw, hell, Doc, I’m already a little numb. Just sew the damn’d thing up.” Big mistake on my part.

The first stitch went in just fine. So did the first half of the second, but on the way out, the needle hit a nerve. My penance, I presume.

The rat was not seen again—probably off telling all the other rats about the idiot with the knife.


© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.

SPOT, THE INVISIBLE DOG

Beginning in the late 1990’s, in the afterglow of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the landings in Normandy, the American people re-awakened to the valor of the American fighting man. The motion picture, Saving Private Ryan, with its savagely accurate, bloody 20 minute opening depiction of the landings on Omaha Beach, was a turning point. World War II veterans who had remained silent for decades were finally encouraged to speak about their experiences in what Studs Terkel christened The Good War.

For some time before that, author Steven Ambrose had been collecting oral histories from WWII vets of Company D, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Regiment (Ox and Bucks) and E/506/101 Airborne, which he then converted into Pegasus Bridge and Band of Brothers .

[Some interesting trivia: On 6 June 1944, Captain Richard Todd, 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion, dropped in after glider-borne Company D/Ox and Bucks, had landed and captured Pegasus Bridge. In 1962, he appeared in the movie The Longest Day as Major John Howard, Officer Commanding, Company D. Talk about art imitating life.]

After the success of Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg collaborated to bring Band of Brothers ("BOB") to television with a ten-hour adaptation that aired beginning on September 9, 2001. Unlike “popular” movies about the Vietnam War, including Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, which portrayed the fighting men as either cartoon characters or as stoned murderers and misfits, BOB and Ryan depicted honorable men who did their duty with class. In particular, the dialog in both WWII films caught the native wit and wisdom of the American soldier at war.

After the success of Ryan and BOB, two additional war films were made and distributed that capture the essence of the American warrior: We Were Soldiers (2002), about 1/7/1 Cav in the Battle of the Ia Drang in 1965 and Flags of Our Fathers (2006) about the Battle of Iwo Jima, focusing on the men who were involved in the iconic flag raising on Mount Suribachi. Once again, the writers captured the feel of how soldiers and Marines in combat think and talk to one another.

Finally, in 2010, Spielberg and Hanks produced The Pacific for HBO. This time the focus is the ground war in the Pacific in WWII. Spielberg frankly admits that the impetus for The Pacific was the post-BOB requests from vets of “that other little fracas” on the other side of the globe from France and Germany. And again, the writers have done a good job.

Marines in combat are still young men, young American men, with the wit and repartee that makes them Americans. The dialog in all of the positive films I mention above captures the men I know and served with.

In the second or third episode of BOB (I have loaned out my copy and cannot check), Lieutenant Winters mentions to a fellow platoon commander that “General Taylor is pleased with Easy Company’s performance yesterday.”

His exhausted comrade, leaning against a door frame, mutters sleepily, “That’s why I came to France—to please General Taylor.”

More recently, in The Pacific, on Guadalcanal, after experiencing intense combat and suffering significant casualties, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines has finally gotten mail. Robert Leckie reads a letter from home to his shipmates, including a post script from his father: “Your Mother wants to know if we should send you your dress blue uniform.”

Leckies says, “I guess she thinks we are having a lot of fancy dress balls out here.”

Another Marine says, “If we do, ‘Lucky,’ will you ask me?”

“Nah, you’re too ugly. I’ll ask Hoosier.”

Without missing a beat, Hoosier, who is cleaning his rifle, in a droll drawl says “Take a number.” He never stops working on his weapon.

And that led me to think of some of my Marines.

John Gibson, my radio operator, was a poet and a philosopher—at 18. A radio operator and his officer are inseparable, never further apart than two arms lengths, so that the radio handset can be passed from one to another. They share a fighting hole, chow, and time.

Once, we were discussing our favorite cold beverages, how many we would down when we got “back to the World,” and the relative value of ice.

“You know, Lieutenant, this war is gonna turn out a whole generation of Americans who will go to a backyard barbeque and if somebody drops a ice cube, he’ll pick it up, pop it in his mouth, and never even look to see if anybody’s watching.”

When I was teaching the Law of War at TBS in 1983-85, one teaching point was that the lieutenant must be on the lookout for Marines who are in danger of going over the edge emotionally. I called it “terminal weirdness.”

All Marines in combat are weird. But when someone is terminally weird—cutting ears off bodies or extracting gold teeth from corpses—you need to get him out of their before he does something so seriously wrong that he can end up in the brig.”

To differentiate between weird and terminally weird, I told them about Gibson and Spot.

As I mentioned earlier, the Skipper had a standing order that we were not to adopt dogs as pets, or even play with them. It was an appropriate order; any Marine bitten by a local dog would be evacuated for an obligatory 14 day series of anti-rabies shots.

When we were in the Arizona, and morale was low, Gibby turned to me one afternoon and said, “You know what would perk the guys up, Sir?”

"Please, Gibby, inform me.”

“A dog, Lieutenant. We need a dog.”

“Well, that’s not a bad idea, except that the Skipper has said ‘No.’”

“Oh, I got a way to fix that, Sir. We’ll get an invisible dog that only Charlie 3 can see.”

For the next couple of hours, he walked around the perimeter, taking “Spot” for a walk. Most of the troops from Third Platoon played along. Then a runner came from the CP. “Skipper wants you, Sir.”
I reported to the Company Commander. He was stirring a can of C-rats over a home-made C-4 stove.

“What the hell is with your radio operator?”

“Sir?”

“The Gunny is ready to kill him. He was talking to my radio operator and all of a sudden he yells ‘Gunny, look out!’ The Gunny almost broke his neck taking cover. Gibson says, ‘You almost stepped on Spot, Gunny.’ I don’t think the Gunny caught him yet, but you better keep him out of sight for a day or two. Fix this!”

I walked back to my hole. Gibson was in the hole, laying low so to speak.

“We got to get rid of Spot.”

“Why, Sir? The guys like him.”

What now, Lieutenant? “Ah, the Skipper is worried that because no one else can see him, he might get hurt.” That ought to do it.

“Oh, I can fix that.” He jumped up and headed for the bomb crater that we were using as a trash pit. A few minutes later, he returned holding what appeared to be a leash. He had scrounged some parachute cord and then stiffened it with baling wire from a couple of C-ration cases. There was a loop for a collar and another as a handle.

“Now that I got him under control, he’ll be safe!”

At TBS, I would end the story by saying, “Gibson was weird, but not terminally weird. See the difference?”

It was a popular parable, but the class that took it most to heart was the last group I taught, Warrant Officer Basic Course 1-85. Warrant Officers are enlisted men who have been selected by a board convened by the Commandant. They tend to have some technical specialty and are appointed to fill the need for officers in that specialty without using up a slot for a commissioned officer. (Warrant Officers in the grade of W-1 are “appointed" officers; Chief Warrant Officers 2 through 5 are commissioned.)

When they were about to graduate, they presented me with a photograph taken during one of my last classes with them. As I was about to finish, the classroom became exceptionally tense. Suddenly there was movement to my left rear. I spun, to see a Warrant Officer, wearing “bug-eyed” glasses and carrying a very reasonable facsimile of Spot’s leash. The rest of the class was on its feet, cheering.

I still have and treasure that photo.

2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.

“I’M CLEAN, I’M CLEAN.”

The S-4 shop was located in a prefabricated bunker at the top of the battalion street, where it joined the regimental street. Prefab bunkers were designed to be erected quickly. They were above ground, a real benefit in the rainy seasons. The standard prefab bunker was made of 12 x12 posts and beams, sheathed in 2 x 12 boards on the walls and roof. The floor was plywood. The bunker was 12 feet by 20 feet. Ours was a double wide (24 x 20), which we shared with the S-3 shop. It was then protected by a wall of sandbags that was 6 feet thick on the sides. At the roof level, there were three layers of sand bags, a layer of steel runway matting, another 3 layers of sandbags, another layer of matting and a final 3 layers of sand bags. I was told that there were some 25,000 sandbags on and around this one bunker.

We felt that we were fairly secure from mortars and rockets.

One afternoon, a couple of Marines from Bravo Company walked in. “Sir, our CO told us to bring this to you.”

He proffered a steel tube that looked strangely familiar. “What is that?”

“It’s a blooper barrel, Sir.”

Oh, yeah. The M-79 40mm grenade launcher was one of the weapons carried by a rifle squad. It was nick-named “the blooper” because of the sound it made when fired. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

“He says it needs to be cleared, Lieutenant.”

I looked down the muzzle, expecting to see light. Nope! There was a high explosive round stuck half way down the barrel. “Clear the bunker, dammit! Call EOD.” I very gently put the barrel on the deck and beat a hasty retreat. All I could think of was the terrible effect an explosion would have had confined inside our little fortress.

The EOD techs arrived and nonchalantly took the tube away. (Because the round would not arm until it had spun a significant number of times, it was probably safe, but I was short.)

Marines. Ya gotta love ‘em.


As vietnamization continued, it was becoming clear that the leadership of the Marine Corps was looking to the day when we would all be out of country.

General Leonard F. Chapman, USMC, had assumed the Commandancy in 1968. Among the many things this great leader of Marines did in his tenure was to prepare the Corps for the end of the war. Having served in WWII and Korea, he was familiar with the pains of a post-war reduction in personnel and funding. As a result of plans and policies he put into place, the Marine Corps did not suffer the Army’s angst in the mid-70s when it forced officers to resign or retire as part of a reduction in force.

Even in 1969, it was apparent that we were returning to a peace-time mentality—at least in the area of logistics. The embarkation conference in Danang in August was but one harbinger of new times. We began to see requirements that we account for the equipment that had been sent to the battalion.

Now, I do not mean to suggest that there was any malfeasance involved. It is just that in wartime, supply accounting can get a little loose. When a man is killed or wounded, his shattered helmet or torn flak jacket may be discarded and never returned to supply for proper accounting. Things get blown up or are lost in the confusion of battle, or just wear out. Very understandable.

Of course, rifles were another matter. A Marine’s rifle either went on the med-evac bird with him, for collection at the receiving medical facility, or it stayed with the unit and was returned to the armory. Even so, rifles were sometimes informally exchanged in the field, and the paperwork might not catch up. When I checked out of the battalion, I turned in the pistol that I had been issued in December 1968.

“Uh, Lieutenant, there’s a problem with your pistol,” the Armorer said.

“Really? What’s wrong?”

“Well, Sir. It’s got the same serial number as the one you checked out. That just don’t happen much, ya know?”

At any rate, word filtered down from Division G-4 that we should begin looking at our supply accounts and getting them into some semblance of order and accuracy. You can imagine how that might go over in a rifle company in the field. Here you are, a Company Commander, in contact with the enemy, trying to accomplish your mission and keep your troops alive, and some REMF wants a list of the serial numbers of all of your weapons. More than once I was told to “be fruitful and multiply.” Or words to that effect.

Two particular incidents stand out.

During the eight days in the rain, the company providing the palace guard was attempting to move. As part of a field test of equipment, the battalion had been assigned a small tracked vehicle that was being considered as a replacement for the mule. Approaching a stream that was now a surging river, the company commander halted.

“Musk ox, this is Charlie 6, over.”

“Musk ox Charlie 6, Musk ox.”

“Musk ox, I need to speak to the 3, over.”

“Charlie 6, this is Musk ox 3, over.”

“Three, this is Charlie 6. We are at the west bank of the stream. The vehicle commander does not think he can cross the stream. He says the banks are too steep.”

“Charlie 6, this is Musk ox 3. Nonsense. He can make it. Now cross that stream.”

There was a pause of about two minutes. “Musk ox 3, this is Charlie 6. At this point, the stream is 18 feet deep. I can tell that because the vehicle’s antenna is 20 feet tall, and I can see about two feet of it above water.”

“Charlie 6, this is Musk ox 3. Damn!” No one was hurt, but the vehicle was gone.

But that is not the end of the story. A couple of weeks later, the officer assigned to do the JAG Manual investigation into the loss—a routine affair that every lieutenant has performed at one time or another—came to see me.

“I know why the vehicle sank,” he proudly announced.

“Hell, we all know that. The banks were too steep and when it hit the water, it just kept going.”

“Nah, Mac, there’s more. It was overloaded.”

“Oh, yeah? By how much?”

“Well, as near as I can tell, by about 70,000 pounds!”

Thirty-five tons? Not bad for a vehicle with a capacity of three-quarters of a ton. It seems that every piece of gear assigned to Charlie Company and the Command Post group that could not be accounted for “must have gone down on that vehicle.” And who could argue?

A couple of days later, at about 1645, I was preparing to go over to the mess hall for supper. It had been dry and windy for a couple of days, and the regimental street was already dusty. Suddenly, in the distance, I heard a familiar ker-ruuump of a mortar round detonating. One of the batteries must be adjusting its pre-planned fires.

Ker-ruuuump. KER-rummmp. KER-RUUUUMP. WHAMMM. BLANG. I was huddled on the deck in the bunker as five more 120mm mortar rounds walked across An Hoa. The fifth round sounded as if it exploded right outside the bunker and the last was behind us.

I ran to the back entrance of the bunker that led to our police shed and paint locker. There was a towering plume of smoke just beyond the police shed. Two Marines were standing on the sandbagged roof of the police shed, taking pictures. I could hear smalls arm ammunition cooking off and an occasional round passing overhead.

“Get down , you damn fools, before you get shot.” They did. “Now, get some buckets from the police shed and follow me.”

We moved cautiously over to 3/5’s area. The battalion armory, located in a strong-back tent, had taken a direct hit and was now a raging inferno. The battalion Supply Chief, who I knew, was shouting for people to stand clear.

“They are all OK. They went to early chow. I was covering the armory. There’s no one inside.” He was discouraging anyone from taking unnecessary risks by trying to rescue the armorers. We had lucked out.

Just then, 3/5’s Supply Officer came running up. He was a mustang First Lieutenant (an officer commissioned from the enlisted ranks). He took one look and then turned and ran into his office. A minute or two later, he came back out carrying a drawer from a filing cabinet.

A couple of his clerks followed, similarly laden.

He ran over and tossed the complete drawer into the blazing armory. Turning, he took another drawer from a Marine’s arms and sent him back for more. Into the fire went drawer after drawer of records, followed by the empty file cabinets.

All the while, I could hear him gleefully shouting “I’m clean! I’m clean!”

Happily, no one was killed or wounded by the mortar attack. Three-five’s armory was the only structure hit and was, of course, a total loss, but the fire did not spread. After the “tragic” loss of all of 3/5’s supply records which, as the JAG Manual investigation revealed, “were stored in the armory for security,” 3/5 did a wall-to-wall inventory and reconstructed its records to reflect only the supplies and equipment that were then on hand.

Clean as a whistle. “Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.” Henry VI, Pt. 3, act II, sc 5.

The Bard must have been a logistician.

A SINNER SAVED BY GRACE

One of the functions that came under the purview of the S-4 was supply and armory. By Table of Organization, we were supposed to have a Supply Officer (MOS 3002), but we did not. Eventually, Mike Koch took over as Supply Officer until our rotation, but for most of my tour as S-4, the Supply Chief was acting Supply Officer and I signed any returns that required the signature of an officer.

The next senior NCO in the supply section was Sergeant Henderson. He had 19 years in the Corps and had just been promoted to Sergeant when he joined us. Sergeant Henderson was a very good sergeant, having been promoted to that rank six or seven times in his career! He was a sinner saved by Grace. . . or Susie, or Sally, or, in a Staff Sergeant Winston classic phrasing, “Scuzzy Maryann.”

The high point of the day was the arrival of the morning supply convoy from Danang. (When we heard the trucks of the convoy pull up, I always thought of “The Wells Fargo Wagon Is A-comin’” from The Music Man. Maybe they’ll have something for me!)

A word about supply. In addition to being the site of the Division Headquarters, Danang also hosted Headquarters, III Marine Amphibious Force (the senior Marine Corps Command in Vietnam , consisting of 1st Marine Division, 3d Marine Division, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, and Force Logistics Command), Danang Air Force Base (a huge Air Force complex), Marine Corps Air Station Marble Mountain, Naval Support Activity, and a number of Army logistics units.

Force Logistics Command (FLC) was based at Camp Brooks located on the South China Sea at Red Beach just outside of Danang proper. It was a massive base, providing any logistics requirement of the III MAF and, for a time, major Army units operating in I Corps. A list of its subordinate units gives a broad example of its capabilities: 1st and 3d Military Police Battalions, 7th Motor Transport Battalion, 5th Communications Battalion, 1st and 3d Service Battalions, 1st and 3d Shore Party Battalions, 1st Supply Battalion, 1st Medical Battalion, 1st Hospital Company, 1st Force Service Regiment (Maintenance Battalion, Supply Battalion), and H&S Battalion.

Maintenance Battalion, 1st FSR had several maintenance companies, including Motor Transport Maintenance, Ordnance Maintenance, Engineer Maintenance, Communications/Electronic Maintenance, and Supply Maintenance companies. Supply Battalion also had several companies organized by commodity: 7th Separate Bulk Fuel Company, Ration Company, Ammunition Company, and the Force Bakery.

If you needed something or needed something fixed—from a typewriter or a torn canvas tent to a complex piece of electronics—FLC could provide it or fix it.

The first time I visited Red Beach, I was stunned. There were miles and miles of warehouses, repair shops, strong-back barracks, and open supply storage lots. The centerpiece of FLC was the “RUC” line.

A “RUC” is a five digit “reporting unit code” assigned to each company, battalion, and Division in the Corps. For instance (as I recall) 15130 was Charlie Company. “1” (1stMarDiv) “5” (5th Marines) “1” (1/5) “3” (Company C) and “0” as a place holder. Battalion was 15100. Supply Section of H&S Company would use that place holder (15101) while Comm Platoon might be 15102. The RUC was used for personnel reporting and also for supply accounting.

At Red Beach, the RUC line was made up of several long rows of open platforms covered by a roof. Each row might be 300 meters long (3 football fields), for there were lots of supplies going to lots of units. Supplies and equipment which arrived had been marked with the requesting unit’s RUC when they were shipped from the US. Upon arrival, they were moved to the RUC line. At regular intervals, a sign was hung with each unit’s RUC painted on it, and newly received supplies were placed under the appropriate sign. When convoys were formed to move supplies, anything that had come in for a unit at the convoy destination was moved from the RUC line to the truck.

One morning,Sergeant Henderson came into my office. “I’m heading up to Danang, Lieutenant.”

“Danang? What are you doing up there?”

“Doncha remember, Sir? This afternoon is my court-martial.” I did remember. On a recent supply run to Danang he had made what was euphemistically called a “skivvy run” to an off-limits house of ill-repute. He had been picked up by the MPs and charges were filed and referred to a Summary Court-Martial.

A summary court was a one-officer court which tried offenses that were deemed minor, but which might warrant confinement or a greater reduction in rank than could be imposed by a company commander or battalion commander at non-judicial punishment under Article 15, UCMJ. In this case, the Sergeant was facing the possibility of reduction to Corporal, 30 days confinement at hard labor, and forfeiture of two-thirds of one month’s pay.

I wished him good luck.

Late that afternoon, he called. “Hi, Lieutenant, it’s me, Corporal Henderson.” He reported that his only punishment was reduction to Corporal. “It’s too late to get back tonight. Tomorrow,I'm going over to FLC to check out the RUC line and then I’ll come down on the convoy.”

About 1400 the next day, the convoy arrived. Trucks turned out of the line to their unit destinations, and one pulled up right outside the S-4 bunker. In came our newest corporal.

“Hey, Sir. C’mon out. We got some good stuff today.”

As I walked out through the six-foot thick layer of sandbags that surrounded our bunker, I could hear the sounds of boxes, crates and bags being off-loaded. One man in the working party was opening several wooden crates. Corporal Henderson walked over to one and pulled off the lid.

“Happy Birthday, Lieutenant!” It was a brand new 60 mm mortar, complete. We had been begging for several and now here one was. He pointed to three other boxes—three more 60 mm mortars, one for each rifle company. Godallmightydamn!

Then I noticed the crate lid. The RUC stenciled on the wood was 17200, 2/7’s RUC. I checked—nowhere did I find a 1/5 RUC. I called this minor discrepancy to the Corporal’s attention.

“Well, hell, Lieutenant.” He was exasperated. “ I said I was gonna check out the RUC line. I never said I was gonna limit myself to ours!”

The Old Man signed his meritorious promotion to Sergeant that afternoon. Grace is a good ol’ gal she is.

© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.

SCENES ON THE REGIMENTAL STREET: Mud, Mirth, and A Vision Of Grace

By now, the Autumn rains had really set in and An Hoa was a sea of mud. For those of us who used the Vietnamese laundry on base, we noticed that our “clean” clothing came back with the unique odor that came from being dried over a water buffalo dung fire.

Knee-high rubber boots, just like my Dad and Granddad had worn in the feed lot on the farm, were the footwear of choice. The mud was often so deep that it nearly topped the boots.

The shower point continued to operate, opening from 1900 to 2000 each night. To keep our clothing clean and dry, it was not uncommon to see Marines walking to the shower point clad only in rubber boots, flak jacket, and helmet, carrying a towel in one hand and a rifle in the other.

And it was cold. Now, that means that the temperatures had plummeted into the low 70s, but that was a 20 to 30 degree drop. One Marine in the Comm Platoon wrote home to tell his Mom that he was cold. She immediately sent him a ski jacket. He wore it everywhere.

The problem was that it was an electric, almost fluorescent, blue. Now, An Hoa and its environs was done in shades of green, reddish brown and grey. That electric blue jacket was visible for miles! You could always tell where that Marine was because there was a big empty circle around him. If he wanted to be a target, no one wanted to be close.

* * * * *

The Regimental Sergeant Major hated the “bush cover,” an item that tended to replace the standard utility cover. The utility cover had been Marine Corps issue since at least WWII. It was cut very similarly to a railroad engineer’s cap. The bush cover, on the other hand, was a floppy hat that had a 360° degree brim. It could be turned up on the sides like a cowboy hat, pushed up in front like a cavalryman’s hat, worn with the front brim down and the rear brim up, like a fedora, or with the brim pulled down all around. And the Sergeant Major hated it.

There was a regimental policy that forbade wearing the bush cover in An Hoa, and when the Sergeant Major found someone wearing one, he had his revenge. Outside the CP bunker, he had erected a scarlet and gold board labeled “Sergeant Major’s Funny Hat Board.” The miscreant would be marched to the board, handed a hammer and nail, and ordered to nail his bush cover to the board.

The policy was not popular, and troops quickly learned to duck out of the Sergeant Major’s sight.

One evening, I was walking back from chow with another lieutenant. From our left and about 20 meters in front of us, a Marine turned onto the regimental street from the road to the LZ. He was obviously just in from the bush. He was muddy, wore a large ruck sack, carried his helmet in his free hand, and wore his bush cover in the “cavalryman” style. He was clearly tired, walking with his head down, green towel wrapped around his neck.

Suddenly, from our right and about 10 meters behind the Marine, the Sergeant Major entered the street. He made a beeline for the Marines. Getting right up behind the man, the Sergeant Major snatched the bush cover from the Marine’s head.

“Who the hell do you think you are, Marine.”

The Marine turned. On the pocket of his flak jacket, he wore the silver leaf of a lieutenant colonel. (We did not wear collar insignia of rank in the bush—it made for an inviting target. In “garrison areas” the practice was to wear one piece of insignia on the flak jacket pocket.)

“Uh, Sergeant Major. I think I’m Lieutenant Colonel ________. Seventh Marines. May I have my cover back, please?”

The Sergeant Major turned as scarlet as his funny hat board. Muttering apologies, he returned the cover, and directed the Colonel to the Regimental S-3 shop, as requested.

Then, turning and seeing the two of us, grinning, he said, “Not one word, Lieutenants, not one [universal modifier] word.”

We didn’t have to say anything. The troops who had witnessed this little morality play had had the sense to duck for cover. The story was all over the base in minutes.

* * * * *

The life we lived was primitive and much like that lived by our ancestors in a frontier town. One day was much like the next. Anything new or out of the ordinary was interesting.

One afternoon, I was walking across the regimental street to the S-4 shop when a mechanical mule sputtered by. Also on the street was a war dog handler and his dog, a German Shepherd. The dog was on a lead, but when the mule drove by, he almost pulled his handler off his feet. Barking, snarling, dancing around, the dog was lunging for the mule.

“Stop that goddam mule,” the handler shouted. The driver stopped.

The handler reached down and loosed his dog. Fido raced to the idling mule, snarling and slobbering. He latched onto the rail of the vehicle and began to shake it.

The handler waited a minute or two and then ambled over. Folding the canvas lead into a short bunch, he smacked the dog between the ears. The dog quieted and sat.

“All right stupid,” the handler said. “You caught it. Now what are you gonna do with it?”

The dog just looked at him. “OK, man. Thanks, you can go.” The mule driver put it back into gear and chugged off. The dog just sat there.

Over the ensuing 40 years, there have been times when I have been tempted. Then, through God's unfathomable grace, I have felt the "stupid smack" that Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs and we fathers of a certain age know so well and His voice saying "OK, Stupid. If you caught it, what would you do with it?”

I sometimes think that that is just another way of saying “Lead us not into temptation.”

© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.

30 DAYS AND A WAKE UP

And with the stroke of a pen, I became a short-timer. I do not believe that anyone who has not served in a war with set “tours of duty,” such as Vietnam and the current unpleasantness in Iraq and Afghanistan, can understand the fixation that one develops on the calendar. When I first went to the bush in December 1968, I listed the months on my helmet cover.

Thereafter, on the last day of the month, when the midnight time check was called, I would have a personal ceremony of checking off that month.

Troops carried short-timer calendars for their last 100 days, usually in the shapely shape of a well endowed young lady. There were numbered segments within the outline, one to be colored in each day. I will leave to your imagination the placement of the last three spots.

Counting the days was also a routine, although no one really started until the last 30 days. There were rules. You did not count the day you were in and the final day was “a wake up.” Therefore, on 17 November, I could say “I’ve got 30 and a wake up.” When you got into single digits, you were “so short, you could sit on the edge of a dime and dangle your legs.”

At the same time, the final 30 days was one of the two most dangerous times in country. The first 30 days, you were so green that you were a danger to yourself and others. The last 30 days, there was the danger of getting a “short-timer mentality.” In other words, there was a tendency to loosen up, to think Hey, I’ve got this knocked.

For that reason, at least in 1/5, we tried to send Marines back to the rear when they hit 30 days. They would stand lines and work in working parties. There was still the danger of rockets and mortars, but it was not as dangerous as the bush. Most of the time.

We had a Marine who extended his tour of duty for six months. This is not as strange as it sounds. If an enlisted Marine returned to the States with less than 6 months remaining on his enlistment, the Marine Corps had begun to offer early discharges, thus avoiding the cost of moving a Marine to a new duty station and then moving him again on discharge.

A lot of Marines who would have gotten to CONUS with 11 months left on their enlistment would extend so that on return, they could be discharged. To sweeten the pot, the Corps offered a Marine who extended a “free” 30 day leave (not charged against his leave balance) anywhere in the world, a choice of a new Military Occupational Specialty, and promotion.

One of our Corporals who had joined the battalion in Hue City during Tet 1968 extended. He was an 0311 (rifleman)and had completed his 13 month tour without a scratch, a real accomplishment for a veteran of Tet. He took his 30 days in the States and then returned to the battalion as a Sergeant with an 01 MOS (clerical). He was assigned to Headquarters & Service Company.

Shortly after his return, while serving as Sergeant of the Guard in our defense sector, he was wounded by shrapnel from an 82mm mortar. He was in the hospital for three days. About a week later, he was once again wounded by shrapnel, but this time his wounds did not require hospitalization. He was awarded a Purple Heart for each wound.

Another policy in effect was for wounds received in action. If a Marine received two Purple Hearts that required hospitalization in excess of 48 hours, he was immediately shipped out of country. Likewise, three Purple Hearts, whether requiring hospitalization or not, were a ticket out.

Finally, at 1145 on 15 May 1969, nine NVA 122 mm rockets landed in the battalion street. Miraculously, there was no one in the street at the time, but the area was peppered with shrapnel. (When I came in from the bush in June, in the BOQ tent, someone had circled every shrapnel hole and dated it. There were 57 holes labeled “15 May.” There were two tents between the street and the BOQ!)

As soon as the first rocket hit, everyone in the various company offices along the street headed for the sandbagged bunkers built at each end of the tents. All through An Hoa, Marines took cover. . . except for a bunch of crazy young motor transport Marines who fired up their mechanical mules and raced towards the impact area, looking for casualties.

The M274 4x4 "Mechanical Mule" was a half-ton utility vehicle used by the Army and Marine Corps all through the Vietnam War. It had a flat rectangular bed, surrounded by a raised rail. It was powered by 4 cylinder, 4 cycle engine started with a pull cord (like a lawn mower motor) and had a top speed of about 20 mph. It weighed about 900 pounds, and could carry 1000 pounds, hence the name.

On 15 May, as the Marines of H&S Company climbed out of their bunker, they found the Sergeant slumped over his typewriter. There was a shrapnel entry wound in the back of his head that exited through the right temple. Initially, they thought he was dead, but one Marine who rushed to him realized that he was still breathing. Another Marine took off his sweaty T-shirt, and they wrapped the Sergeant’s head.

About that time, a mule pulled up, and a couple of the clerks carried the Sergeant out to the Mule. Off they went, bouncing down the street, headed for the LZ. A couple of Corpsmen were triaging wounded in the Zone, and they immediately put the Sergeant on a Huey and off he went to NSA Hospital in Danang.

Eight weeks later, the Sergeant walked out of Naval Hospital, Philadelphia, a little unsteady on his feet, and exhibiting the signs of a serious head injury. But he knew his family and could speak, and function.

He should have been dead from the impact. When that didn’t kill him, the wound should have become infected from the T-shirt. Some men, God just isn’t ready for them when the world would assume He is!

© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.

OF BIRTHDAY CAKES AND RIFLES

In early November, the Battalion once again returned to the Arizona. The reinforcements we had received really helped, and there was no need this time for the provisional rifle company.

We also received word that as Vietnamization got moving, areas of responsibility for those units left would be changing. In December, 1/5 was to move its forward CP to Hill 65, located north of the Song Vu Gia.

But first, there was the Birthday.

The Marine Corps Birthday is the Day, and it matters not where you are, you mark it. Along with every other S-4 in the Marine Corps, I arranged for the companies to get a hot meal (steak, baked potatoes, vegetables) and a Birthday Cake. After I was sure that they had been sent out, I caught a chopper to Hill 65. Delta Battery was there and Dick Rollins was Battery XO. I got a look at the place and then Dick and I had our Birthday dinner. After dark, he found a couple of bottles of wine and we sat on a bunker on the east side of the hill, looking down into a rice paddy where an ARVN unit was engaged in a firefight that lasted for about an hour.

I was also monitoring the battalion tactical net. At about 2100, Jim Webb called the Old Man on the radio. Delta was the palace guard at the time. “Hey, Sir,” Webb said. “Look up.”

Almost immediately, a ring of 12 60mm flares popped around their position. “Happy Birthday, Sir. We just lit the candles on the cake.”

I returned to An Hoa the next day. A couple of days passed. At about 0200, one morning, I was called across the road to the Regimental S-4 shop.

“OK, Lad,” said a grim-faced Major Castagnetti. “I knew this was going to bite you in the ass. We just got word from Division that they need to send excess rifles to the South Vietnamese. This comes from the White House. We need those rifles back, and we need them within the next 24 hours.”

Damn! (Pronounced "die-yum!")

I went straight to the battalion comm shack and called the Old Man. He was not pleased, but after talking to the Regimental Commander, he cooled off—a little. By then, I had the armorer on the job and the Supply Section was busy confirming just how many of our rifles were “excess.”

In the next 24 hours, we exchanged a number of rifles for .45 pistols, and Regiment was mollified, but it was exciting. Major Castagnetti, bless his heart, never actually said the words “I told you so,” but I got the message loud and clear.

© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.

BLEST BE THE TIES THAT BIND

October was a busy month. One afternoon, Tom Pottenger walked into the S-4 bunker and said, “C’mon. You’re gonna want to see this.”

We walked out into the battalion street to see a large group of Marines milling around outside the H&S Company CP.

“What the…,” I muttered?

Pot grinned. “We’re being reinforced.”

As the 3d Marine Division was being pulled out of Vietnam in the “Vietnamization” process, Headquarters, Marine Corps had decided that only those Marines with more than 9 months in country would go to Okinawa. The rest would be sent south to build up the strength of the 1st Marine Division.

Second Battalion, Third Marines was sent to the 5th Marines, and each battalion received one company. As I recall, 1/5 received G/2/3.

This made sense. Bonding in combat is in my estimation one of the closest relationships ever to be developed, stronger than all but that of mother and child. Consider that a baby is helpless in a huge, dangerous world and must rely on one person above all for survival. In combat, one is again in a dangerous world and must rely on shipmates for survival. Just as removing from his mother a baby who has forged the bond is traumatic, so, too, is breaking the bonds forged in combat.

Read any of Steven Ambrose's books and one theme is that the vets in a unit were leery of bonding with new arrivals. They had already suffered the loss of buddies with whom the bond had been forged and many could not bear the thought of re-bonding and losing again. So the Marine Corps policy was sound; it ensured that these troops would know at least a few people in their new units.

At the same time, the leaders in 1/5 were facing a task of re-orienting the thinking of these new joins. Their identity was with the Third Marines. Fortunately, they were joining the most illustrious battalion in the most illustrious regiment in the pre-eminent Division in the Corps. They were "movin' up," even if it took us a while to convince them of that fact. (Many of them are members of the First Marine Division Association and attend our reunions. It is their right and privilege to do so. What is interesting is that few of them are also members of the Third Marine Division Association. They consider themselves--and they are--Marines of 1/5 and the 5th Marines, a fighting organization that accepts as its peers only Caesar's Legion in Gaul and Jackson's Brigade in the Valley.)

But again, I digress. When we got close, Tom called the group to attention. “I’m Lieutenant Pottenger, the S-1. I want all the officers to come with me. Whoever has the SRBs (service record books) of the troops, bring those, too. This is Lieutenant McCarty, the S-4. He’ll explain the drill for tonight.”

There was a small sandbagged bunker next to the H&S Company CP tent, a shelter in case of rocket or mortar attacks. I jumped up on it, and explained that we would get them to chow right away (it was about 1600) and then would billet them in GP tents for the night. I then asked, “Are there any questions?”

Every hand shot up. Damn!?!

“OK, Sergeant?”

“Yessir. We been humping the mountains up north against the NVA. We heard that down here in VC country, you run into booby traps. The NVA don’t use booby traps. Are there a lot of booby traps down here?”

Now there was an interesting question, in so many ways. The Third Marine Division had convinced itself that their war was the bad one--and it was a bad one, in the mountains with triple canopy against the NVA. But the idea that we were merely toying with a few guerillas rankled. Recall that we destroyed the 90th NVA Regiment in June.

“Well, Sergeant, the short answer is ‘yes.’ I don't know what line they have been feeding you in the Third Mar Div, but there are NVA here, too, and even they plant booby traps. My best advice is this: even if you have been in country five or six months, even if you are an NCO, this is something new. Listen to the Marines who have been here, even if they are junior to you or have been in country for a shorter time. If everyone in the column walks to the left of a tree, you walk to the left. Recently, 2/5 had a lieutenant that decided to walk to the right and now they’re short one lieutenant.”

“Another thing,” I continued. “If you enter a ville and look down a path and see a nice new flak jacket, or a helmet or a cartridge belt just laying there, leave it alone. Call for an engineer. A while back, 3/5 had a lieutenant who decided that he should save the taxpayers money and retrieve a flak jacket that was just sitting next to a well. He’s dead, the flak jacket was destroyed, and the taxpayers paid for his funeral. Use your heads, listen to the people who have been here, and you’ll be fine. OK?”

He nodded.

“OK, who’s next?” No one moved. It dawned on me that they had really been beat over the head with the threat of booby traps. A good thing, too, because the NVA and VC were masters of the trade.

By the next morning, they had been parsed out to the companies and they fit in just fine.

In 2005, we finally got a group of 1/5 Marines from the 1969 time period together at the reunion.

The guys from Tet '68 in Hue City had been the strong core of the members from the Vietnam era 'til then. They made us feel welcome, but that bonding thing was still strong. At the 1999 reunion banquet, I was sitting with them because no one from my time was present. At dinner, they were passing around a copy of the Life magazine photo of an amtrac bringing casualties out of Hue City. One Marine is cradling another in his arms, the wounded man smeared with blood and a battle dressing tied across his chest. Even in the photo, his skin was greying.

I remember that issue and that photo. It came out right after Mom had gotten the response to her letter to the President. I devoured the issue, seeing myself in every photo. Mom refused to look at it again.

At the reunion, they were pointing out Marines they knew. The man sitting next to me was identified as the one holding the casualty.

"Did he make it," I asked?

He paused, teared up, and then shook his head. "Nah. He died at the BAS (battalion aid station)." He paused. "Aw, Fuck!" This time, that one word was uttered as a prayer, and I believe that our loving and compassionate God, the Father of the Great Lion of Judah, received it as just that--nothing more or less.

He stood up and walked away. One of their Corpsmen, a question on his face, looked at me across the table. I nodded, and Doc took off to console his brother. I felt like a base intruder into a family still in mourning, a stranger, a distant cousin who was merely showing up for the wake.

Soon, we reached out to guys from "our year" and we now attend in in strength. It is easier when you are with family.

At dinner during one of "our" first reunions, we were trying to place each other. Suddenly, one guy looked at me.

“Hey, you’re that tall skinny lieutenant who talked to us about booby traps.”

After all those years, it was still all about those damned booby traps!

Semper Fi.

© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.

MPC (Military Payment Certificates)

With my return to An Hoa after our little visit to the Arizona, I figured that my service in the field was probably done for my tour. Not so fast there, bucko!

A couple of days after the battalion headed for the area southeast of Phu Loc (6), I was called to the XO’s office. Along with several officers, I was informed that starting the next morning, the US Forces in Vietnam would be recovering all currently issued Military Payment Certificates (“MPC”), the scrip we used for money, and issuing a new version. We were the exchange officers.

Starting shortly after the United States entered the war in 1965, a huge black market had developed, with the intent of getting access to US currency. Neither North nor South Vietnam had a recognized hard currency for foreign trade and dollars were in real demand. To shortstop the black market and to control access to US currency, as soon as a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine arrived in Vietnam, he would exchange any US currency in his possession for scrip. When I arrived in An Hoa in December 1968, I had about $60 US. By June 1969, I still had about $20 of the scrip I received in December.

Issued in denominations of $.05, $.10, $.25, $1.00, $5.00, and $10.00, the bills were about half the size of regular US bills and were printed in any color except green. The version in use when I arrived had scenes from US history and were printed in blue, brown, red, and purple, depending on the denomination.

There was an apocryphal story that when it was first announced that scrip would replace greenbacks back in 1965, one enterprising soldier stationed in Saigon raided his unit’s rec room, removed all the bills from the Monopoly game, and went on a shopping spree. I hope it is true!

The next morning, all entrances to the base were closed. Authorized contractors, such as the mama-sans who ran the laundry and the papa-sans in the barber shop had been told to leave their cash with the disbursing officer when they left the night before. There were dozens of Vietnamese standing outside the gate trying to get the sentries to convert their illegally obtained MPCs. With officers observing each gate, they were pretty much out of luck.

I reported to the Disbursing bunker to obtain a payroll for Alpha Company, a stack of mimeographed receipts, a package of carbon paper, and a waterproof ammunition box to store the cash. I then headed down to the LZ and caught the first bird to Alpha Company.

Upon my arrival, the company reported to me by squads. For each man, I took his MPC, we counted it together, and I gave him my personal receipt for the agreed upon amount, keeping my carbon for the record. By 1300, I was done, but I had to wait until the next morning to get back to An Hoa. As soon as I got there, I returned to Disbursing where I counted and turned in the old MPC and my receipts, obtaining a receipt from the Disbursing Officer.

The next morning, I reported back to disbursing. There I counted out the new MPC (same size, color and denominations, but all of the pictures were from the manned space program), took custody of the cash and the carbons of my receipts, delivering the DO’s receipt to him, and headed back out. In the bush, I then “bought back” my receipts from the troops. The Disbursing clerks had spent all night paying out cash for each individual receipt, and we were cautioned not to “make change” for anyone.

Everything went well, except that two Marines had been medevac-ed during the night. I spent another night in the bush and had the opportunity to experience a couple of artillery short rounds that landed less than 100 meters outside the lines. As Father O'Brien said, "Friendly fire ain't!"

When I got back to An Hoa the next morning, the battalion appointed one officer to take the cash for wounded Marines from all 5 companies and go to Danang to pay them. I passed on that opportunity.

And yes, I followed the same procedure for myself. Of course, following the practice of pay officers back in those days of cash pay days, I had paid myself last in case there was a shortage. How it happened, I don’t know, but I made a profit.

I was a nickel ahead when all was done.

© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.

EVERY MARINE A RIFLEMAN

All Marines, except some members of the United States Marine Band (“The President’s Own”), go through recruit training or OCS. One of the changes that Jim Webb argued for when he was Secretary of the Navy was for midshipmen from the Naval Academy to attend a six-week session of OCS, just as their NROTC brethren did. Boot Camp and OCS are a common ground that enlisted Marines and their officers share with their peers.

I have long felt that all Marines should complete recruit training, even those who are already destined for OCS. Many of the Mustangs with whom I have served were better troop leaders for once having been enlisted Marines. But I can settle for an OCS requirement.

Central to such training is marksmanship. “Every Marine a rifleman” is gospel within the Corps. The ability to routinely place killing aimed rifle fire on target out to 500 or more yards has been our raison d’ etre since 1775. The Germans at Belleau Wood were so surprised to learn that entire regiments of Marines could consistently kill them out to 800 to 1,000 yards that they named us teuffelhunden (“devil dogs”).

Thus, while the 0311 (rifleman) is the primary practitioner of the art of musketry, the cook in the mess hall, the clerk in battalion headquarters, and the mechanic on the flight line will also be on the rifle range each year honing and reinforcing the skills necessary to “put one between an enemy’s running lights (eyes)” at distance—just in case. And their officers will be right there with them, firing the same course of fire. That’s what makes us all Marines.

When I returned to An Hoa, I called the Company First Sergeants to the S-4 bunker and explained that the CO had directed me to form a provisional rifle company to take to the Arizona in a few days. Based on their advice, I decided that 60 Marines would be able to do the job. We routinely had about 50 to 80 “casuals,” Marines recuperating from slight wounds, Marines awaiting disciplinary action, and some short-timers, who helped us meet the requirement that we man the regimental lines. We figured that if we used 30 of those Marines, and stripped another 30 out of the company and battalion headquarters, we could man up the provisional company while still meeting the battalion’s responsibilities.

The First Sergeant of Headquarters & Service Company suggested that we could reduce the number of cooks and messmen we provided to the mess hall because we would be reducing the number of Marines from 1/5 eating there. Three cooks, a Sergeant and two PFC’s became my mortar “squad.” We formed two 28 man platoons commanded by Sergeants, and a Staff Sergeant from Motor Transport volunteered to be my “gunny.”

In fact, the entire “company” was made up of volunteers.

The folks in the rear—truck drivers, mechanics, clerks, supply men, and cooks—rankled when their peers in the rifle companies referred to them as “REMF’s” (rear echelon m----f-----). Presented with an opportunity to prove their mettle as Marines, they jumped at the chance. The three cooks never did return to the mess hall—it turns out that they were natural born mortar men, and at their request, they moved to the 81mm mortar platoon when we disbanded the “company.”

The Battalion moved to the Arizona a few days later. The first night that we were in the bush, I was talking to the Colonel when we began to receive in-coming mortar fire. I threw myself to the deck, angry that my buttons were so thick that they kept me elevated. I looked over at the Old Man. He was hunkered down just as low as was I, but he was grinning.

“Now you know why I let you con me into this crazy plan of yours, Mac. I wanted you to be eligible for the Combat Action Ribbon.” The CAR had been instituted by the Secretary of the Navy in February 1969 (retroactive to 1961) to recognize Marines and sailors who “have rendered satisfactory performance under enemy fire while actively participating in a ground or surface engagement.”

I muttered that I had been eligible since December 26, thank you very much, but he just winked.

The attack ended, but the cries of “Corpsman, Corpsman” started. A communicator from the battalion CP group had been hit in the groin. When I got there, two corpsmen were already working on him. The Operations Chief, a Master Sergeant, was with him, calming him with the assurance that “I can see that you still got yer pecker and at least one of your balls, son. Don’t worry about it. I lost one at Chosin Reservoir and we’ve have had seven kids since then.”

The Marine was on a medevac chopper within minutes, headed for Da Nang.

Life in the bush had a numbing and reassuring repetition. I sent out patrols during the day, a single ambush at night, and resumed my practice of weapons inspections every day. The 24 days raced past. Every two or three days, I would fly into An Hoa to do “S-4 stuff” as the XO called it, but never missed a night in the field.

Three events stand out in my memory.

One night, I let the mortar squad try a new (for them) method of adjusting fire. The put up a flare and then re-laid the mortar for high explosive rounds on the now visible target. The first HE round was a direct hit. They were whooped and hollered like the teenagers they were, I was impressed, and the 81 mm mortar platoon commander began his negotiations to sign them up.

Then there was the day that we received, unsolicited, an Army psychological operations team. They arrived on the afternoon resupply bird, complete with loudspeakers, a phonograph, a small generator, and assorted microphones and cables.

The Colonel talked to them and then called me over. “Take charge of these psychos. Just keep them out of my hair.”

I took the Staff Sergeant and his Sergeant the location in which they could set up. As they were doing so, I suggested that they needed a fighting hole because we had been taking occasional mortar fire.

“Well,” the Sergeant asked, “where is it?” Huh?

My gunny shook his head and said, “Well, damn, Sergeant, you’re standing right in it. You just ain’t dug the dirt outen it yet.” There then followed a short discussion regarding the different philosophies of the Army and the Marine Corps. Needless to say, the doggies were soon digging away.

After they were dug in, I briefed them on their sectors of fire.

“Sectors of fire,” the Staff Sergeant asked?

“Yeah, you’re in the line and you have specified sectors of fire.”

“Oh, no sir. We’re specialists. The host unit is responsible for our security. We don’t stand lines.”

“Really?” I called the gunny over and explained our apparent responsibilities as good hosts. He chuckled and called to the Marines in the holes on either side of our guests’ quarters. The Marines came over.

“OK, Marines. This here is Staff Sergeant ______ and Sergeant _______. They don’t want to stand lines tonight. If they get out of their holes after stand to, kill them.” The Marines nodded. The gunny turned to the doggies. “Are we clear now? Everybody happy? Good. C’mon, Lieutenant, let’s let these folks get acquainted.”

The Army team returned to from whence they came the very next morning.

And then there was the Army Warrant Officer.

We had noticed that our ambush patrols were having less and less contact. We suspected that locals were observing as the ambushes left our lines and were then warning the NVA of their locations. To counter this, we began to send the ambushes out with afternoon security patrols. The ambush squad would intermingle with the security patrol. At one of the security patrol’s stops, the ambush would go to ground and stay behind when the security patrol moved on. After dark, the ambush would move into position and our results began to improve.

One afternoon, a patrol from Alpha Company was approaching a treeline when it erupted with small arms and automatic weapons fire, pinning the patrol down in a rice paddy. The point man was hit in the chest.

Two CH 46’s were soon on station to conduct a medevac. As dash one (the lead chopper) tried to land, he came under heavy fire and could not land. He tried two more times and were shot out of the zone both times. On the last attempt, the bird was hit, one of the crew was seriously wounded, and the chopper began to leak hydraulic fluid.

He called “no joy,” and headed back to An Hoa, with dash two in trail to provide security.

I was with the battalion CP group, listening to the radio reports on the Battalion Tactical and Alpha’s Company Tactical frequencies. Alpha was sending a reinforcing platoon, but the patrol was nearly 1500 meters from the Company.

Suddenly, a new voice came up on Alpha’s company tac. “Alpha 3, Alpha 3, this is Snafflering Juliet 56. Can we be of assistance.”

“This is Alpha Six. Who the [universal modifier] are you?”

Alpha Six, I am a huey gunship coming out of Antenna Valley and orbiting just west of An Hoa. Can I help?”

Alpha 6 quickly directed the chopper to Alpha 3’s location, and the platoon commander directed the chopper’s fires onto the treeline. We could see him make low pass after low pass, occasionally hovering face to face with an NVA gunner, working out their differences with 2.75 inch rockets and machine gun fire.

The NVA fire had pretty much stopped when Snafflering Juliet finally called out that he was nearly out of ammo and could make only one more pass. “Anything else I can do to help,” he asked?

He was asked to land and evacuate the casualty, which he did. A Corpsman went with the casualty to Da Nang.

The Colonel contacted Alpha 3. “Did you identify that guy?”

“Yessir. Got his side number, his bureau number, and his call sign.”

The Old Man turned to me and said “Let’s write him up for a Silver Star. Division Air can figure out who he is.”

I sat down and wrote up a description of the action and a proposed citation, ending with the traditional words “His actions were in keeping with the finest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.” That is high praise that we do not ordinarily shower on outsiders.

About six weeks later, I was back in An Hoa. The Colonel came into the S-4 bunker and sat down next to my desk.

“I just talked to an Army Major with some aviation unit over at Hoi An. He called to thank me for the medal that he had just presented to one of his 20 year old Warrant Officers. Said he was glad to be able to do it, because this kid came back with over 50 bullet holes in his bird and reported that he had been shot up while flying 30 miles outside his assigned patrol area in response to a call over a radio net he was not authorized to monitor. They were about to court-martial him, but he got our Silver Star instead. He said the kicker was that the citation still had the reference to the standards of the Marine Corps. Thought you’d like to know.”

So, while a very few doggies didn’t quite measure up, most did. Army helicopter pilots tended to be kids who had been running their ‘56 Chevies up and down main street only a year or two earlier. We gave them their very own helicopters, complete with with rockets and machine guns, and they did the rest. God bless ‘em.

The battalion left the Arizona in late September and headed out to an area southeast of Phu Loc (6). I went back to being the S-4, and most of my “company” went back to performing their primary duties, but confident that in everyone’s eyes, they were no longer REMFs.

© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.

5 SEPTEMBER 1969

On the morning of 5 September, a runner came up from the S-1 bunker. “The Adjutant’s compliments, Sir, and he says ‘Haul ass for the LZ and get up to Phu Loc (6) right now. The CO wants to see you.’” The Battalion Headquarters was at the Bridge, and I knew we were about to return to the Arizona, so I assumed the Old Man wanted to talk logistics.

I grabbed my helmet, rifle and flak jacket and ran down to the LZ, located about a quarter of a mile away at the end of the runway. Fortunately, there was a CH-46 just heading to Danang that could stop at the Bridge. Ten minutes later, I was in the LZ at Phu Loc (6). As my bird flew away, another 46 landed and Jim Webb ran down the tail ramp. I waited for him.

“What’s going on,” I asked?

“We’re getting promoted.”

Oh. I realized that Academy guys were a little more conscious of those things. In another 5 minutes we were in the Command Post bunker. Colonel Griffis, read the AlMar (a message from Headquarters, Marine Corps addressed to “all Marine units”) announcing the promotion of the newest batch of First Lieutenants of Marines. He reminded us that, while our original oaths of office remained in effect, it was customary to renew them on promotion. We renewed our oaths.

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God.

If that oath sounds familiar, it is because it is the oath administered to every officer of the United States from the Vice President, Senator, Representative in Congress down to the newest Second Lieutenant.

We signed our acceptances of the President’s new commission and became the newest First Lieutenants in the Corps, at least for a couple of minutes. Webb and I got the special rush treatment because we were the only regular lieutenants in the Battalion. The law in effect at that time said that Reserve officers could be commissioned and their date of rank (and entitlement to pay and allowances in their new grade) could refer back to the date of their commission. Regular officers, however, did not receive their new pay and allowances until that actually signed the acceptance of their commission. The other second lieutenants in the battalion who had been commissioned in June 1968 were promoted quickly, but if it happened on 6 or 7 or 8 September, they lost nothing from the short delay.

The CO then reminded us that we had just lost one benefit. “Ten minutes ago you could have made a minor mistake and we would say ‘Well, he’s just a dumb second lieutenant.’ But now, I can say ‘What the heck is the matter with you? You’re a First Lieutenant for heaven’s sake.’ Congratulations. Now get back to work!”

The other assembled officers and Staff NCOs offered their congratulations.

The CO then called the Company Commanders, the Sergeant Major, and the principal staff officers into his “office.” He informed us that the battalion would soon be returning to the Arizona. The mission was to aggressively patrol and interdict NVA and VC patrols coming down out of the mountains in search of rice.

Looking at the map, he said “At our current strength, I’m not sure how we can get the coverage we need with four companies.” He and the S-3 (Operations Officer) began to discuss deployment of the battalion and the task was indeed daunting.

I was sitting next to the Sergeant Major. I looked at him and said “It’s too bad we can’t strip all of us REMFs out of An Hoa and put them in the field. At least we could be the ‘palace guard’ (security for the command group) and free up another maneuver company.”

To my surprise, the Sergeant Major said “Excuse me, Colonel, but I think the lieutenant may have just earned that new pay.” Turning to me he said “Say that again, Lieutenant.” I repeated my thought.

The XO said “You’re talking about clerks and cooks and bakers and mechanics?”

”Dammit, sir, they’re Marines,” the Sergeant Major growled.

The Old Man paused. “It’s worth a thought. OK, Mac, it’s your idea. Put it together and see what it looks like.”

Thus was born 1/5’s provisional rifle company, commanded by yours truly. I headed back to An Hoa to “put it together and see what it looks like.”

© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOSEPH K. GRIFFIS, Jr., USMC

For the men who read this, I think we will all agree that there are men who we meet in life who stand out, men who are “giants in the earth in [our] days.” My Dad, my grandfather, Rector H. Smith, and my friend, Lieutenant Colonel Pat Oates, are three such men. So, too, is Joe Griffis. While I have mentioned him in passing elsewhere, and shall set down some specific adventures in future posts, allow me the privilege of fully introducing Joe Griffis, Lieutenant Colonel of Marines.

Colonel Griffis assumed command of the battalion while I was on R and R. A new commanding officer can be unsettling to a unit. Who is this new guy? Does he know his stuff? What does he expect of his commanders? His staff?

I met him the day after I returned from R&R. The XO called me down and informed me that the battalion would be returning from the Arizona to An Hoa that night for one night, and then would move to Phu Loc (6) for about a month. The new CO wanted to have a cook out for the troops and they need a place to bed down. I turned to.

My S-4 Chief, a Staff Sergeant, coordinated with the Regimental Mess Chief, a Master Sergeant, to arrange for grills. The menu was steaks grilled on the spot, baked potatoes, mixed vegetables, and two Cokes and two beers per man.

In the meantime, the Police Sergeant organized a working party from the casual personnel we had in the rear. We moved a dozen 40-man General Purpose tents into an open area and began setting them up. There being no law of which I am aware that prohibits an officer from getting dirty (contrary to the belief of some) I was the 6th man on one of the 6-man teams that erected a dozen tents in about three hours.

At about 1600, the battalion arrived on foot, still wet from fording the Song Thu Bon. The grills were up and burning, we had a couple of jeep trailers filled with ice, Cokes and beer, and we began to feed the troops almost immediately. I met the Colonel and gave him a quick rundown on what we had done. He nodded.

He was a man in his early 40’s, somewhat grizzled, graying. In 1943, he left home and tried to join the United States Marine Corps. He was 15 and too young to enlist, so he joined the Merchant Marine and sailed on Atlantic convoy duty. The next year, at 16, he fudged his age a bit and enlisted in the Marine Corps. He went through boot camp and then served in combat in the South Pacific. After the War, he attended Officer Candidate School, was commissioned, and led troops as an infantry officer in the Korean War. Vietnam was his third war and this was his second tour of duty. He never stopped being a Grunt!!

Now, the Old Man had a couple of quirks, as all great commanders seem to have. He wore a blue bandanna tied around his neck; he was never without it. He had obtained a carbine version of the M-16 with a folding stock and carried it everywhere. And he thought every Marine, officer and enlisted, in his battalion ought to carry a rifle unless he was a gunner on an M-60 machine gun.

“I want it done quickly, Four. Get moving.”

The good news was that because we were under-strength, we had excess rifles in the armory. I approached the Regimental Four, Major Castagnetti, to see about getting the rest of the rifles we needed.

“Are you outta your mind,” he counseled? “How do you resupply?”

“Sir, my Six says he wants it done. I’m just asking if I can get the rifles?”

“Yeah, you can, but it is gonna bite you in the ass one of these days, young Lieutenant.”

Unbelievably, we swapped out all the pistols from officers, SNCOs and others by the time the battalion entrucked the next afternoon. The Old Man said nothing, which I soon learned was high praise. He had ordered and his staff had performed to his standard. Simple.

Thirty years later, at my first reunion of the Division, I went to re- introduce myself. “Colonel, you probably don’t remember me, but….”

“I know who you are, Mac. You’re my Four. Nice job on the rifles.” Oh, man!

As reported in his obituary, he was a strong proponent of education for everyone and set the example by earning his Associates, Bachelors, two Masters and a Doctorate. After he retired from the Corps, he taught in many venues, including University of Louisville, Adelphi, Pontifical Universidade, Catolico (Rio de Janeiro on a NIMH grant), and presented workshops and seminars. He had a private group psychology practice in Burlington , Vermont, from which he retired in 1989.

Bored, he soon came out of retirement again to work as a counselor at the Veterans Center in Key Largo , Florida, and then transferred to Lake Worth , Florida. Until his final retirement in 2006, he was the team leader at the Veterans Center in Lake Worth .

In his obituary, it was said that “Hurting veterans build walls; he helped them and their families build bridges. He carried these skills and abilities to battalion and other military reunions where he offered unconditional help to participants.” It was thanks to his urging that I finally turned to the VA for help in 2007.

He was a fixture at reunions of the battalion held in conjunction with the reunion of the 1st Marine Division Association. His last was in Philadelphia in 2007. He had been gallantly fighting cancer for years. To see him with “his Marines,” you would never have known how sick he was…but we did.

As we were leaving the hotel for the Battalion Dinner, most folks planned to walk to the restaurant. I was quietly grabbing people to ensure that the Old Man and the XO, Colonel O’Toole, had rides. The Colonel saw what I was doing and, grinning broadly, wagged a finger at me. “Still the Four, aren’t you, Mac?”

It was at that reunion that I could finally introduce my kids to Joe. He was gracious, as ever. When I introduced Andrew, I mentioned that he was named after Chip.

“Then you are a lucky boy, Son,” he said to Andy. “He was a good man!” (Such was Chip's reputation in the battalion; he was KIA before the Old Man took command, but the Colonel had heard the stories. The next night, as we walked to the hotel from the Company Dinner, Andy reduced me to tears. He suddenly stopped and looked up at me. “That Mr. Chip must have been a good man. Everybody says so.” And the people of God say “Amen” and “amen.”)

As we were leaving the final banquet to head home, I went over to say goodbye, praying that it would not be our last, suspecting that it would. He stood up and when I said “So long, Sir” he hugged me. “I love you, Son,” he said. “Love you, too, Sir.”

In his introduction to his classic memoir of WWII, On Valor’s Side, T. Grady Gallant talks of Marines as men who “are not ashamed.” At the conclusion, he writes that when they returned to the States after the War, as they tied up at the pier, they wept openly. “And we were not ashamed.”

That night, as I took my leave of the Old Man, I wept and was not ashamed.

We had had our last conversation that night, at least for a while. He reported to Marine Barracks, Heaven, the next winter. I traveled to Arlington for the interment. As we got to the grave site, there was a figure leaning against a tree, checking a blackberry. Several other young people hovered around.

“Well, it’s nice to see Charlie Company could make it,” said the former Delta-6 and now- Senator Jim Webb. His staff seemed a little concerned that the then-newly minted Senator was missing several committee meetings, but none of the people who counted were bothered. This was the Old Man’s funeral. Nothing was more important.

I trust that we will serve together again. I expect to hear “Now, Four, this morning I was talking with God and we really need to do something about . . .”

“Aye, aye, Sir.”

© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.

BATTALION S-4

As I write this, it is the 41st anniversary of my arrival in Vietnam. On my Face Book page, Reformed Catholic reminded me that I had started this project last year at this time. After I got through my days in the bush with the Marines of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, I took a break. But now, I think it is time to finish up my time “down south in the Republic.”

After I returned to An Hoa from Embarkation School, I was “transferred” from Charlie Company to Headquarters and Service Company (H&S Company). Major Pat O’Toole was acting CO, Colonel Riley having been transferred while I was in Okinawa. The Battalion staff, consisted of Lt. Tom Pottenger (a TBS classmate) as Adjutant and S-1 (Personnel Officer), Major Bob Kerzic as “the Three” (S-3—Operations Officer), and I was now “the Four” (Logistics Officer). There was no officer available to fill the S-2 (Intelligence Officer) billet, so the “Two Chief,” an NCO performed that function.

I had no idea how to be the Four, but fortunately for me, Captain Castagnetti was soon assigned as Regimental S-4. Three-Five’s four was a Captain who had shepherded our little gaggle of lieutenants down to An Hoa the previous December. Those two Captains took me under their wings and I began to learn how to be a staff officer. In particular, Captain (soon to be Major) Castagnetti began to “invite” me to his bunker for a nightly “four” school. The many things I learned, from references to Marine Corps publications to tricks of the trade, stood me in good stead for the rest of my career.

A few days later, we got a new Battalion Commander. Lieutenant Colonel Joseph K. Griffis is one of those men who make a mark on a young man’s life. He was a veteran of WWII (as a very young enlisted Marine) and Korea. Joe Griffis was a hard man who knew the hard business of war. And as young men often do, we failed to realize just how lucky we were to have him as “the Old Man.” Fortunately, we had the privilege of being his boys for another 39 years.

In 1969, he wore a trademark blue bandana at his neck and insisted that every man in the battalion carry a rifle unless he was actually carrying a crew-served weapon. (That would later cause me some grief, but that is a story for another day.) He himself had acquired a M-16 carbine, another trademark.

As a result of his arrival, Maj. O’Toole came back to An Hoa and resumed his position as Executive Officer. The battalion continued to operate in The Arizona.

I did not really like being a staff officer. It was tedious and not very exciting. Then I heard that 1st Reconnaissance Battalion was looking for platoon commanders. That struck me as a perfect solution.

A reconnaissance platoon commander led recon patrols deep into enemy-controlled territory. A team of six to eight Marines with a Corpsman would be inserted into an area for several days to seek out enemy positions, snatch prisoners, and call in artillery on enemy formations. It was lonely and dangerous work, but it sure beat manning a desk. All I had to do was get the transfer.

I can best tell what happened in this way. In 1999, the 1st Marine Division Association held its annual reunion in Philadelphia. I had been a Life member since 1969 but had never attended a reunion. Robin Montgomery called me and asked me to attend so that we could vote for his platoon sergeant who was running for Vice President.

SWMBO came into town for the banquet on Saturday night. That afternoon we were in the Charlie Company hospitality suite when in walked J.K. Griffis. He was greeted warmly by a number of folks. I caught his eye.

“Sir, you probably don’t remember me, but. . .”

“Of course I do, Mac. You were my Four!” After 30 years!!! I started to introduce SWMBO when I was grabbed from behind in a monstrous bear hug.

“Mac, Mac, you sonuvabitch! I was hoping you would be here!” It was Colonel O’Toole.

SWMBO’s eyes were like dinner plates. I began to introduce her to a grinning Colonel Griffis and the XO. Pat O’Toole turned to SWMBO. “I am so pleased to meet you,” he said. “Let me tell you about the crazy sob you married.”

“He had been the Four for a week or so. One Friday morning, he reported to me with an AA form (Administrative Action form) requesting a transfer to Recon Battalion. I tore it up and told him ‘You’re the Four. Now get back to work.’”

“But he wants to argue. ‘Major,’ he says, you can’t do that. The book says you can forward it recommending disapproval, but you have to forward it.’ I said ‘The hell I can’t. You’re the Four. Now get out of here.’ There was no way we were going to lose him.”

“Well, the next Friday morning, there he is again. I tore up his AA form and we had the same conversation. The next week, I had something going on with Regiment, so I told one of the S-1 clerks to go up and tell Mac that I was busy and that he should just go ahead and tear up the AA form himself.”

“And, Mrs. Mac, the crazy sob did just that!”

Unlike most sea stories, that one was spot on. The room erupted in laughter. A couple of guys said “So. It was you. He has told that story for years!” I was home again.

A few days after the “AA form incident,” I went on R&R to Hawaii and by the time I returned, I knew that I was the Four for the duration of my tour. In retrospect, it was right for me.

© 2010 Michael R. McCarty. All rights reserved.