Today is the 250^th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. 

Formed at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia at the beginning of the American Revolution, the Marines have been a part of most American wars and police actions since then, as well as helping out a few other governments and companies on the sly. I often think of Lieutenant General Smedley Butler, a two-time Medal of Honor recipient, who said, “War is a racket,” and he said, “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service, and during that period, I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers.” 

I think there are a lot of folks who might agree with those sentiments. I’m not sure that I do—wholeheartedly, anyway—and I see my service as something that, in some ways, I am very proud of. No one that I know who fought at Khe Sanh would love war. War is something to hate, as far as I’m concerned. A dirty business that costs money and lives and wrecks families. Nevertheless, I have some pride. 

I joined the Corps quite spontaneously in August 1966 and went to boot camp on October 4 with three other men from Arizona. We boarded a bus in Phoenix, went to San Diego and stepped into a world so different in many ways than what we thought the world should be. Yellow footprints, where we first stood, scared out of our wits because drill instructors stood on either side of us, in front of us, in our faces, in our ears, screaming what maggots we were, what communists we were, and a lot of vulgarity I will not share. It was tough both mentally and physically. Wore us down, wore us out. Some refused to be worn down and didn’t make it; couldn’t say they were United States Marines. The name we wanted so much to wear. 

As soon as my training was done, I went to war in Vietnam and when I came home in 1968, Vietnam Veterans were not particularly welcome. 

I got cussed at by angry protesters while getting ready to leave El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, and I got challenged in a VFW post back home sometime in 1972 by some vets of America’s “big war.” A few years later, some guy who’d painted ships in Long Beach or San Diego while serving in the Navy during World War II laid into me about how Vietnam Vets couldn’t whip their way out of a wet paper bag. At that moment, instead of busting heads like any salty old Marine would do, I decided not to have anything to do with being a veteran. No Veterans Affairs, no VFW, American Legion, nothing, nil. 

And of course, you really can’t unbecome a combat vet. All the debris you accumulate from warfighting rides your back for life, but for decades I never told anyone about my combat experiences, some of which were ferocious and frightening. I never verbalized what I felt, that I’d done my duty and served the United States at a time when some of us thought it needed to be served. 

Fast forward to the early 2000s and we, warriors of the 60s, suddenly became heroes and I ‘ve heard “Thank you for your service” ad nauseum, and not that I don’t appreciate the recognition of the sacrifice—and make no mistake, it was a sacrifice—I can’t help asking myself, as if I was talking back to those of my own generation, “Where’d you serve, “ or “What did you do while my comrades were being blown to hell in the trenches of Khe Sanh?” But I don’t. I nod and say, “Thank you,” because I know that they generally mean well, and the belated recognition is better than nothing. 

These days, the war still hammers a steady thump in my mind, invading the portals of my memory constantly, and I think of all the good men I served with. I think of the bad ones, too, and there were more than a few. But maybe they weren’t “bad,” but just in an environment that was, to say the least, quite often unkind. People died, and people were maimed, and fear roared through the air and assaulted you, and it rained and rained, and it was hot, and snakes and leeches and rats. 

Later in my life, I rekindled some of the old camaraderie I had with my Marines and Navy Corpsmen. Some of these men have turned out to be close friends, but unfortunately, time is taking its toll on us, along with old wounds and Agent Orange. 

While in the Corps, I never celebrated the Corps’ birthday, even though it was a big deal. A lot of my good buddies would rent dress blues and deck their girlfriends or wives in fancy outfits and go off to the Marine Corps Birthday Ball while I hung out in the barracks or on duty or in my San Diego apartment. 

In the 1990s I started to attend some birthday events and had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs, a lot of memories that wormed into my mind. 

This year, Betty and I are traveling so we may decide to hang out at a VFW post somewhere today. I’ve gotten over my anger at what happened at the VFW post in 1972. 

So, here’s a toast to all my old mates, deceased and still kicking, and to all Marines everywhere who stood on those yellow footprints on Day One, I say, “Semper Fidelis and Happy Birthday.” 

~ By Ken Rodgers

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Thank you for reading, and for honoring all Vietnam War veterans by sharing our films and stories with friends and other veterans. 

BRAVO! Common Men, Uncommon Valor can be viewed on Amazon Prime. We also have DVDs available, which can be ordered on our website at https://bravotheproject.com.

You can find information about our companion film featuring eleven amazing spouses of combat veterans from various eras at https://imarriedthewar.com. I Married the War can be viewed on Amazon. DVDs are also available via the website.

There’s a photograph of BRAVO! Marine Tom Quigley receiving a purple heart medal while in a hospital bed somewhere in or near the Republic of South Vietnam.

The photo was taken on April 1, 1968, two days after Tom was wounded outside Khe Sanh Combat Base in what has since become known as the Payback Patrol.

Tom served as the radio operator for Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Marines’ company commander—or Skipper, Ken Pipes.

Tom is on my mind the last few days. He passed away on Tuesday, March 22, after battling for 17 years with serious health issues.

Tom, like so many of the men who survived the Siege of Khe Sanh, was a tough, tough man. He was also funny and loving, a family man, a hard worker, a success at many things, a friend. A good and kind person.

Tom liked to tease. He teased me a lot and I will miss his humor, his wry observations about people and about me.

I remember that day when Tom got wounded, March 30, 1968, fifty-four years to the day from this writing.

I was a radio operator, too, for 2nd Platoon’s platoon sergeant. We were running down the NVA trench on the way to the very front edge of that nasty battle. Staff Sergeant Alvarado and I moved out in order to mark the extreme edge of our perimeter so artillery barrages could be called in to create a barrier between counter-attacking NVA troops and us. This would allow us to save our wounded and retrieve the dead in an orderly withdrawal.

As Staff Sergeant Alvarado and I ran down the trench, I noticed the company command group—Skipper Pipes, radio men including Tom, corpsmen, the company gunny, several forward observers—all standing in a bomb crater.

As Tom liked to say, “The fighting was intense.”

And he wasn’t exaggerating when he said that; the sky chock full of smoke and fog and the cries of fighting men, and wounded, too; the noise…the noise.

I looked again as we ran on, and a barrage of mortar rounds landed in and around the command group; and when the smoke cleared, Marines were scattered everywhere, on the ground, on their knees.

The platoon sergeant and I ran on and years later, when I had the honor of interviewing him for Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor, I learned about Tom’s wounds and how even though he suffered from a concussion that forced blood out of the pores of his skin and serious shrapnel wounds, he helped evacuate the others in that bomb crater back to the rear where the medical teams endeavored to provide medical attention to the injured.

Seeing a wounded Tom receiving his purple heart while in that hospital makes me think about how, instead of getting help for himself, he made sure that others were taken care of. I will always admire the sense of duty, loyalty, and courage that compelled him to ensure other wounded men were served. Tom personified the Marine motto: Semper Fidelis.

Badly wounded, he put other wounded men first.

Tom told me that because all of those men died back there at Khe Sanh, he needed to “live a good life because they never got the chance.” And he did have a good life.

Tom didn’t need to talk about all of this. You just knew it, the kind of man, the kind of Marine he was.

Semper Fidelis, Tom. We are going to miss you. Really miss you.

You can read Tom’s obituary here: https://www.staabfuneralhomes.com/obituary/thomas-tom-n-quigley/.

In Their Own Words

Fifty-four years ago, the Siege of Khe Sanh had switched into high gear. Tet churned the South Vietnamese landscape. On February 4th, the NVA assaulted Hill 861-A, breached the perimeter before a savage fight drove them off. Echo Company, 26th Marines, suffered 33 killed and wounded.

The Special Forces camp at Lang Vei was being overrun the morning of February 7th with seven Green Berets killed or missing and three others taken prisoner by the NVA. The North Vietnamese deployed tanks. We heard them out in the misty night, or imagined we did.

On February 8th, the NVA overran a platoon from Alpha Company, 9th Marines, on Hill 64 before being driven off. Twenty-seven Marines died in that fight.

Meanwhile, the incoming rocked us on a daily basis.

What was it like?

Let some of the Marines and Navy Corpsmen who made it home tell you about the shock and fear. These comments are from the original interviews done for the film BRAVO! COMMON MEN, UNCOMMON VALOR. Some of the comments made it into our final cut, some of them you have never read. Even though the interviews were conducted on an individual basis, the men often recollected the same events without anyone prompting. That was one of the amazing things about interviewing the men of BRAVO!

All of the men talked a lot about the incoming artillery, rockets and mortars.

And not always in a manner one would expect.

Mike McCauley:

Some of the time the rockets would hit a bunker, the bunker would be destroyed and there would be a rat nest in there with small, baby rats, pink fleshy things, and we’d do away with them. The parents…we’re talking rats. Now I’m not talking about American little mice-rats, I’m talking about rats with fur, huge rats. We wanted to train them to carry our packs.

The incoming seemed like it never ceased and the men remembered that.

Ken Pipes, The Skipper:

Incoming in a defensive perimeter can become very disconcerting and very disturbing, particularly if it goes on around the clock. And ours did.

Peter Weiss:

You’d lose men, not just in the field, but we lost them in those trenches, and latrines and other places.

Tom Quigley:

It was just a constant barrage. You just caught sleep when you could. Your nerves was on edge all the time. You could laugh and joke around, but I mean each day was serious because it seemed like someone was getting it every day, either wounded or killed, unfortunately.

And not just the big stuff, the 152s and the 130s and 120s, the mortars, but other incoming, too.

Ron Rees:

Rounds from a sniper, I mean it was like a mosquito. They were buzzing your head constantly. You just realized that that was a bullet.

The nature of the incoming often gave you time to think about what was coming.

Dan Horton:

You never knew when it was coming until you heard it leaving the tube. Then you knew it was coming but you didn’t know where it was landing. Of course, we had the Khe Sanh Shuffle. We learned to do that real good. Everywhere you moved on base you had to be ready to look for shelter because you never knew.

Frank McCauley:

If you heard it screaming you were safe. If it was a short scream you were in serious trouble.

Ron Rees:

From the time you heard that round leave the tube until its impact, you imagined death. You’re thinking all along, is it you?

Michael E. O’Hara:

Day after day after day and January pretty quick became February and I thought to myself, this is crazy. People don’t understand what it’s like for all that artillery to come in like that. It’s meant to do more than just tear up your body. It’s meant to tear up your mind. It will scare you to death. I’ve told people time and time again, there is no way I can explain it but it’s like a freight train coming through the bathroom when you’re taking a shower. And you know its coming and you can’t get out of the bathroom and it will just scare you to death.

Lloyd Scudder:

I was scared to death…that shhhewww and the whistling of the rockets and that poof of the mortars and the kapoof shoooosheeewhirwhirwhir. You know that right there scared the hell out of me and I couldn’t get deep enough in the trench. I don’t care if it was five feet, ten feet, twenty feet, I couldn’t get deep enough.

John “Doc” Cicala:

A lot of fear from everybody. You know, from everybody.

But in spite of all the hell raining down, men still showed courage, showed some attitude.

John “Doc” Cicala:

I saw so many acts of heroism, guys running to help other guys.

Steve Wiese:

Knowing that tonight is going to be another night, you know when the sun goes down, the rockets and mortars are going to start in again and you know it’s just a crap shoot whether you get hit or not.

One night I stood up on the roof of my bunker in the middle of a rocket attack and went, “Hey, here I am, man, take your best shot.” You know, it’s either you get me now or you’re not going to get me. I remember a few rockets came in and I thought, maybe this isn’t a good idea.

DVDs of BRAVO! are available @ https://bravotheproject.com/store/.

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The new documentary film from Betty and Ken Rodgers, I MARRIED THE WAR, is now available to watch. Check it out at https://imarriedthewar.com/.