On October 16, 2013, BRAVO! Marine Steve Wiese, Betty and I were interviewed by Marcia Franklin of Idaho Public TV for her show, Dialogue, which will be aired on Idaho Public Television on November 8, 2013. In the studio we had a small audience that included Steve’s wife, Deborah and BRAVO! supporter extraordinaire, Ben Shedd, who won an Academy Award in 1979 for his documentary film The Flight of the Gossamer Condor. We enjoyed our time with Steve and Deborah who came up to Boise from the Sacramento, California region at the invitation of Marcia Franklin. Some clips of BRAVO! will be shown during the interview which also includes a lively discussion moderated by Marcia. The discourse centered on the Siege of Khe Sanh, Vietnam, Marines, war’s impacts and the making of the film. We couldn’t be more pleased and found it a real privilege to work with Marcia, and can’t wait to share the Dialogue program with you. If you don’t get Idaho Public Television, we will provide a link after the program airs which will allow you to see the entire interview plus some web extras which will not be in the main one-half hour broadcast.

From left to right, Marcia Franklin, Steve Wiese, Betty Rodgers, Ken Rodgers. Photo courtesy of Idaho Public Television.

In separate news, we have the following information on screenings of BRAVO!:

Santa Rosa, California on October 30, 2013, 6:00 PM in the Lodge Room of the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building, 1351 Maple Avenue, Santa Rosa, California. This screening is sponsored by Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 223. Admission is free. Donations accepted. A Q & A period with the film’s producers, Betty and Ken Rodgers, will be held after the screening. Refreshments will be served. Much thanks to BRAVO! Associate Producer Carol Caldwell-Ewart and Vietnam veteran Ken Holybee of VVA Chapter 223.

Betty Rodgers

Also on October 30, 2013, BRAVO! will be screened as a Professional Military Education session at Twenty-Nine Palms Marine Corps Base, Twenty-Nine Palms, California. The screening will be at 2:00 PM at the base theater followed by a Q & A session with retired Lieutenant Colonel Ken Pipes, BRAVO! Marine and company commander of Bravo Company, 1/26, during the Siege of Khe Sanh. This is a Marine Corps event.

The Eagle Public Library, November 6, 2013, at 6:30 PM, 100 N Stierman Way, Eagle, Idaho. Admission is free. The producers will be present at this screening.

Carson City, Nevada, on Veterans Day, November 11, 2013 at Western Nevada College. The screening will take place at 4:00 PM in Marlette Hall. This event is free to the public and is sponsored by the Nevada State Council of Vietnam Veterans of America, VVA Chapter 388 and the Student Veterans of Western Nevada College. Come meet the producers. Thank yous are due to Marine and Vietnam veteran Terry Hubert for his efforts in making this screening happen.

Ken Rodgers, co-producer, co-director of BRAVO!, photo courtesy of Kevin Martini-Fuller

College of Marin, in Kentfield, CA on November 14, 2013. Admission is free. More details to come. Come meet Ken and Betty Rodgers.

Casa Grande, Arizona, at the old Paramount Theatre on February 13, 2014. More details to come. The producers of the film will be on hand to talk about BRAVO!

Fallbrook, California in late March 2014, at the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Details to come. Thank you to BRAVO! Skipper Ken Pipes for his efforts on behalf of the film.

Modesto, California in late April or early May 2014. More details to come. Thanks to Khe Sanh brother Mike Preston for his efforts in making this screening possible.

And finally:

In recognition of the 238th birthday of the United States Marine Corps on November 10, 2013, of Veteran’s Day, and of the 2013 Christmas holiday season, DVDs of BRAVO! COMMON MEN, UNCOMMON VALOR will be available at the price of $19.95, no sales tax and no shipping through December 27, 2013. Take advantage of this special offer and buy copies for yourself, your Marine or veteran, your school or local library, a historian, or anyone else who would be interested in this insightful story.

DVDs of BRAVO! are now for sale at http://bit.ly/18Pgxe5.

BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please like us at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject/.

David Aldrich

Panel 47E, Row 007 of The Wall.

The Wall, Panel 47E, Row 007

I’ve been having an ongoing e-mail conversation over the last several years with a Marine named Dave Evans who was in Marine Corps Training in the States with David A. Aldrich. Both of these Daves arrived together in Danang, South Vietnam in March of 1967 and one Dave went to Hill 55 with the First Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment. That was Dave Aldrich. I arrived on Hill 55 a day later. So Aldrich (that’s what we called him…we didn’t normally call anyone by first names in Vietnam) and I got to know each other fairly well, even though we were technically assigned to different platoons after our initial orientation while in the main battalion position on Hill 55. Aldrich, I believe, had an MOS of 0351 (the virtual wall states that he was an 0311) which meant he shot what we called “rockets” but which might be more simply understood as bazookas. I was an 0311, an infantryman, a grunt. I was assigned to Second Platoon and he went to Weapons Platoon, Bravo Company.

Aldrich was a quiet guy with a big smile, as I recall, and a mellow sense of humor. He stomped through mud and jungle grass with 1st and 3rd Platoons on patrol, too, but it seems like he was with us, 2nd Platoon, most of the time through the spring and summer of 1967 as the 26th Marines moved north from Hill 55 to the Khe Sanh Combat Base. He was with us through the monsoon season and up on Hill 881 South in the fall of the year. He was there, sharing chow with us, and jokes, playing cards, listening to the newest music on Corporal Mitchell’s portable record player…Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Aretha and Otis Redding and The Jefferson Airplane.

Those days through the fall of ’67 were hard, wet and dreary and Aldrich was along all the time, shooting his rockets when necessary. Dealing with the wet rounds that failed to go off. That was tough for him, getting those dud rounds, those wet rounds, out of those tubes without them cooking off and blowing his arms and face off. I recall how cool he was about it. If he was sweating, he remained unflappable, only the barest hint of tension in the grit of his teeth. But even if he was scared (and of course he was) he certainly didn’t want it to show…we were Marines.

When the siege began he came around my bunker a lot and stood watch with us and he and I talked about going home…home…like heaven. I remember one terrible day, February 25, 1968, our Third Platoon got ambushed and First Platoon went out to relieve them and they got ambushed, too. We, Second Platoon, were left to man the company’s lines. The NVA was pounding the trench line with sneaky 82 millimeter mortar, rockets and train-wreck 152 millimeter artillery, keeping us down, keeping us locked in the perimeter so we couldn’t go get our friends, our mates, who were dying out there within ear shot.

It was one of the worst days of my life. My whole body shook. I imagined the red fire and searing teeth of death and conflagration. The end was here and I didn’t want to face it. I wanted my life.

As this was going on, Aldrich came up and engaged me in conversation. He must have seen my shaking. I can only imagine how white my face must have been. How shrunken down into my utilities and flak jacket I must have been, as if that could have made any difference. But he didn’t act like he was seeing anything out of the ordinary. He soothed me with his words. He steadied me.

Aldrich and I survived a lot during the siege. We both made it all the way to the end of our tours. Then came March 30, 1968, what has been called the Payback Patrol. Aldrich had one day to go…he was scheduled to leave the field on March 31. I was scheduled to go on April 1. The evening before the patrol, the word got passed to me that Aldrich was looking for me so I went to his bunker, stuck my head in, saw he was slouched on a cot. I went in and sat down. He abruptly handed me an envelope. I said, “What’s that for?”

Ken Rodgers, co-producer, co-director of BRAVO!, photo courtesy of Kevin Martini-Fuller

“Make sure my parents get this?”

“What is it?”

“My dog tags.”

I began to yell at him. I refused to accept the envelope. He said, “If I go out tomorrow, I won’t come back alive.”

I yelled. I yelled. I yelled. “If you believe that now, that’s what will happen.”

He nodded. I said, “You’ve got to believe they can’t get you. If you believe they can’t get you, they won’t.”

He shook his head. We went back and forth, he resigned, me enraged, angry, and screaming. He wasn’t buying what I was saying. I didn’t accept the envelope.

The next day was four or five hours of speeded-up, slowed-down hell. It was like Dante says in his poem, Inferno, “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.” I survived it and a lot of Marines didn’t. I remember walking down the red dirt road after we were ordered back into the perimeter. Men staggered along the lane. Some wore bandages on their heads, their arms and legs; some wore looks on their dirty faces that reminded me of dead people. Two men dragged a body down the middle of the road. I passed them and looked down. Even though his face was turned into the red clay, I knew it was David A. Aldrich, Corporal, USMC.

I’ve been haunted by these images for over forty-five years. What could I have done to prevent Aldrich’s death? What could he have done? Did my failure to accept the envelope with the dog tags dishonor him? Maybe when I get done writing this, the images will stop coming.

Later that day the word came down the trench line asking if anyone had seen Aldrich. He was missing in action, they said. I went up to the platoon Command Post and told them I had seen his corpse. “You’re sure?” they asked me. “Yeah,” I said. The platoon sergeant went up with me to Battalion headquarters and I signed affidavits of some sort saying I’d seen him dead. I signed the papers. He was dead. Killed in action.

For years I’ve had a sneaking fear that somehow I was wrong, and David Aldrich is locked away in some prison cell in Hanoi. Seeing his name on the wall soothes that fear. Somewhat.

Dave Evans asks that if anyone knew David Aldrich, please contact him at usmcdevans@yahoo.com.

There will be a screening of BRAVO! in Santa Rosa, California on October 30, 2013. See details at https://bravotheproject.com/upcoming-screenings-of-bravo/

DVDs of BRAVO! are now for sale at https://bravotheproject.com/buy-the-dvd/.

BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please like us at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject/.