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 Quigley
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/.
The phone jangled—1992 or 1993—and when I answered it, a voice out of my past said, “Is this Kenny Rodgers?”
I wondered who it was and then kind of remembered and then he said, “You may not remember me but…”
It all hit, the way he liked to stand, cocky, even though he was just a kid.
He told me about a reunion in Washington, DC, for survivors of Khe Sanh, and that he wanted me to come, and he told me about who he’d contacted, who he’d met up with. I think he’d made it his duty to find all the men who’d served in Third Squad, Second Platoon, Bravo Company, 1/26 during the siege of Khe Sanh.
If he hadn’t called me, our lives—Betty and mine—might have been very different. But we went to the reunion and for 28 years, Michael E. O’Hara has been a big part of my life—our lives.
We were lucky in that.
Michael E. O’Hara at Khe Sanh
He was in our film, BRAVO! COMMON MEN, UNCOMMON VALOR, and his powerful, emotional words were, and still are, a testament to the long-lasting effects of combat and to the reverence he, and most of us who served at Khe Sanh, felt for our comrades.
Michael passed on last week after a battle with cancer.
I feel his absence already, a voice over my shoulder encouraging, scolding, scoffing, laughing at me. I find myself thinking, “Okay, O’Hara, what do you think about…,” and then I realize we won’t share any of those moments again. Only in my imagination.
We didn’t always see eye-to-eye. We argued more than we should have, but none of that matters now. And never really did.
An image comes to mind when I think about him. Maybe the first time I really recognized him as one of our Bravo Company Marines. I’d been on R & R in Bangkok, and right after I came back, we moved out of the lines at the combat base and up to 881-S. It was October of 1967.
We had gotten a lot of new guys in the squad while I’d been on R & R. Including him.
We humped it from the base up to the hill. I see Michael now, in my mind’s eye, on that trek. His clean helmet cover, his clean jungle boots, his clean jungle dungarees, his sleeves rolled up, a pack of Marlboros stored in the rolled left sleeve, his young biceps bulging, his M16 held in his right hand, butt against the right thigh, the business end into the sky. He was easy like that, and confident.
For three months we were in the same fire team. Long, wet patrols, humping up and down, once into Laos when we weren’t supposed to be there. Ambushes off the south end of 881-S. Soggy, miserable listening posts. Leaking hooches, everything wet: your socks, your boots, your mummy bag. Leeches, leeches, leeches.
We charged up hills into the enemy’s trench more than once, and we watched men die, watched them get maimed. We carried the dead and wounded off the battlefield.
During the siege, we endured the fury and the fear and while there, O’Hara earned three Purple Hearts.
Michael was an outstanding Marine.
One night in March of 1968, the artillery battery that was right behind our lines in the Gray Sector suffered a direct hit on their ammo dump. All night, ordnance exploded. Some of the rounds threw out smaller bits of explosives that detonated here and there, until after sunup, like they were randomly intent on killing whoever chanced to wander along our trench.
I was on radio watch most of that night in the platoon command post. Off and on, through those dark and dangerous hours, Michael came down that trench line delivering messages to us in the command post.
He was like that. Undaunted. Carrying out orders in the face of extreme danger.
Michael E. O’Hara.
My definition of a hero is someone who does what needs to be done against long odds, even though fear gets on his back like a big cat. Even though he or she doesn’t want to do it.
That was Michael E. O’Hara.
There’s a saying about Marines: No better friend, no worse enemy.
If you crossed Michael, he might chase you down and tackle you in the middle of the street and straighten you out. No worse enemy.
Years later, when the men he served with needed help or when their families needed help, he was there. He’d fund your dreams, he’d bury you. He’d show up to speak your name and remember you.
Steve Wiese was an American Hero. I think he would dispute that statement and would have said something like, “The real heroes are the dead, the ones who didn’t come home.”
But he was a hero.
Unlike so many of us who fought with Bravo Company, 1/26 at Khe Sanh, who did 12-month-and-twenty-day tours, Steve extended his time in country and served 18 Months. He joined up with his Bravo Marines when 1/26 was headquartered at Hill 55 southwest of Danang, and could have rotated home in late autumn of 1967, but chose to come back from his leave just in time to endure the Siege of Khe Sanh.
Marines of Bravo Company, 1/26, in Vietnam. Steve Wiese is the third man on the left in the front row. Photo courtesy of Steve Wiese.
In many regards, I think, he was the Marine’s Marine, a leader and a warrior who loved his Bravo Company mates.
A lot of Khe Sanh vets knew Steve better than I did, but what we shared was special: intense and intimate in the ways combat veterans share. We’d been to war and we’d made it home and after decades of keeping our traps shut about our experiences, we opened up and told our stories, separately and together.
And boy, did Steve’s stories impact the message that, after thirty-plus years, went out to America and the world.
Steve Wiese at a reunion of the Khe Sanh Veterans. Photo courtesy of Ken Rodgers
The things Steve said in BRAVO! COMMON MEN, UNCOMMON VALOR illuminated the service of all Vietnam Veterans. He said it like it needed to be said, blunt and bold and no-holds-barred. He bared his soul and revealed his vulnerabilities while edifying the men with whom he served.
There were a lot of tragedies in Steve’s life. In Vietnam, with Bravo, he was involved in every battle or firefight of any consequence that happened during his tour.
While I managed to not be in a number of the fights that Steve was in, I lived through enough to get an inkling what it was like for him.
On June 7, 1967, in what has lately been termed by historians to be the last clash in the Hill Fights segment of the Battle of Khe Sanh, Bravo went on a two-platoon patrol off the north end of Hill 881-S. Back then, we patrolled in soft covers and no flak jackets, and we generally ran patrols on the same routes every few days.
Photo of Steve Wiese, second from left along with, on the left, Marcia Franklin of Idaho Public Television’s Dialogue, Betty Rodgers, second from the right, and Ken Rodgers. Photo courtesy of Idaho Public Television.
So, when the NVA ambushed Bravo out there that day, the casualties were devastating. I wasn’t out there. Our squad stayed on the lines but I heard it and I saw it, and how it felt to me then, sticks with me now: emptiness, like some part of me hightailed it and can’t come back. So with that in mind I can only imagine how those men who fought that day—like Steve Wiese—felt.
He gained some notoriety that day when, upon coming in the gate after the patrol returned to the combat base, he barked at a colonel, maybe, or a lieutenant colonel, or a major who tried to soothe the returning warriors with platitiudes. (A load of officers came up on the hill at the end of that fight.)
After returning to his squad area, he expected to be standing tall in front of The Man because of what he said, but instead he was approached by a general, whose name I don’t think he ever enlightened me with, who told Steve to not pay attention to anything that officer had said.
On July 21, 1967, First Platoon of Bravo went out on a patrol on Route 9, east of Khe Sanh, which was ambushed. Steve was out there that day, too, and men with whom he served and bonded, died.
And then there was the Siege and all that came with it.
Including the Ghost Patrol. Steve was a squad leader on that debacle and even though he survived, a lot of the men in his squad didn’t. He carried a ton of grief and guilt over that. His narrative about how he managed to escape and evade the NVA to return to the base is one hell of a story.
Steve Wiese during his interview for BRAVO! COMMON MEN, UNCOMMON VALOR. Photo courtesy of Betty Rodgers.
And then there was the savage Payback Patrol where he was a squad leader in First Platoon and again, lost a lot of good Marines.
After he came home, he put up with all the guff and lack of respect that came with being a Vietnam Vet, and he suffered tragedies that would break folks with less steel in their spine.
He loved his Marines and he cherished and honored them whether dead or alive.
IF you were one of his Marine Brothers, he supported you. He showed up when the manure hit the fan.
One of the strongest moments in BRAVO! Is when Steve says this, “I’ve had people say, ‘Well, that was 30, 40 years ago. Why don’t you get over it?’ You know, I wish I could. I wish I could get over it. But on the other hand, it’s like I don’t ever want to forget these guys. I don’t want to forget what I’ve seen, what I was witness to. And I don’t want to forget them and their memories.” And he never did.
Steve wouldn’t have called himself a hero, but I will.
When my father died, one of his friends stood outside the chapel before the funeral service and told me, “I’d rather take a beating than go in there.”
I’ve often thought about that moment and I’ve even used the phrase from time to time, but I particularly felt that emotion twelve days ago as we laid Bravo Company, 1/26’s Skipper, Ken Pipes, in the ground at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego.
Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. Photo courtesy of Ken Rodgers
The Skipper passed on in April, and in May there was a memorial service for him, but it didn’t seem like matters would be settled for family, friends and his Marines until he was finally interred in the place he wished to be laid to rest.
Getting the Skipper buried there turned out to be a four-month chore for his family and friends, and took the efforts of General Neller, the Commandant of the Marines Corps, General Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of Defense, General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, to override the bureaucratic layers that seemingly obstructed the Skipper’s last wishes at every turn. And it took a friend of BRAVO! Marines and the Skipper, Mr. PJ Staab, to help the family negotiate the heartburn of getting the appropriate location within the cemetery so that the Skipper’s wife, Sharon, could be buried next to him when her time arrives.
Left to right, Sharon, Conner, Sandra and Tim Pipes. Photo courtesy of Betty Rodgers.
The graveside service for the Skipper itself was well done and the folks who showed up, including a number of Skipper Pipes’ family, friends, former Sheriff’s Department pals, military contacts, Marines and Corpsmen, witnessed a fine ceremony conducted by the family pastor and the United States Marine Corps, lead by Brigadier General Ryan Heritage, commanding general at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. General Heritage presented the ceremonial flag to Mrs. Pipes.
There was a rifle salute, a rendition of taps and a placing of mementos in and around Skippers burial urn, made by his son Tim.
The weather that day began with a light cloud cover but by the time we arrived at the service, it had turned sunny with a slight breeze from the Pacific Ocean to our west.
I served with Lt Colonel Pipes fifty years ago and for a long time I didn’t think of him often unless a flash of unpleasant combat memory invaded my thoughts. Even after our reintroduction in 1993, he wasn’t yet a big part of my life. But after making BRAVO!, that all changed and we became pretty close and talked often about . . . well, a lot of things.
The Skipper’s Urn. Photo courtesy of Betty Rodgers.
Betty and I went to visit Sharon and the Skipper a number of times at his home in Fallbrook, usually associated with some event related to the film. He and I would sit out on his back patio and drink coffee, and invariably our talk would turn to the events of early 1968 at Khe Sanh.
We’d recall people and actions, death and horror, and quite often our palaver would veer into the realm of the intellectual. Discussions on the nature of war and combat and the behavior of individuals in the stressed world of a full-blown siege.
Earlier I mentioned my father, and it is interesting to me as I write this blog that he and I never had the kind of discussions about war and men that the Skipper and I had. Father and I didn’t discuss those sort of things because he had no combat experience even though he was an Army top sergeant in World War II, serving in India.
The Smith Brothers, Lt Colonel John and Lt Colonel Michael, add insignias to the Skipper’s urn. Photo courtesy of Betty Rodgers.
But the Skipper and I, yeah, we could talk about those things and reminisce and rue the deaths of all those fine men with whom we served.
And in some ways, since my father has been dead for almost thirty years, Lt Colonel Pipes became a kind of father figure to me. Someone who understood what I had become post-combat. Someone who’d felt the rage, the fear, the grinding memories that refuse to relent their hold on how a survivor of long-term combat sees the world he or she lives in.
We would sit and remember the men associated with the names of the dead and the living and our reactions—or mine did, at least—welled up from the soles of my feet, roared up through my legs into my innards and often made themselves manifest by the tears that eked out of my eyes, forcing me to look away and fight to get control of my emotions.
He was brutally honest with me about how he felt about the Siege and the men with whom he served. Sometimes the discussion turned loud and raucous as we recalled one of our comrades who acted out as big as all the hills around Khe Sanh. We talked quietly, we argued, and then agreed, then argued again, then hugged. What we knew, down in the bottom of our guts, no one else knew unless they had undergone the terrible initiation into the club of those who have faced the awful fangs of combat. And we tried to articulate that. He liked to call it, “riding the elephant and looking the tiger in the eye.”
He could rocket from laughter to rage to laughter. He pondered man’s inhumanity to man. He kept close watch for those who would harm his loved ones. Not unlike me.
Ken Pipes understood things about me that my real father never understood, and because the Skipper is now gone, there will be a big void in my life and I’d rather take a beating than think about that.
To know him was a privilege, a gift.
***
BRAVO! is now available in digital form on Amazon Prime.
This link will take you directly to BRAVO!’s Amazon Prime site where you can take a look at the options for streaming: In the US you can stream at https://amzn.to/2Hzf6In.
If you or your organization would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town, please contact us immediately.
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DVDs of BRAVO! are available. Please consider gifting copies to a veteran, a teacher, a history buff, a library, a friend or family member. For more information, go to https://bravotheproject.com/store/.
When we learned about the passing of renowned war photojournalist David Douglas Duncan on June 7, 2018, I was flooded with a great sense of loss as I remembered our unique connection with him.
Back in 2011 when we were gathering materials for BRAVO!, our editor, John Nutt, suggested including some of Duncan’s powerful photos of the Siege of Khe Sanh in our film. We learned they were archived at the University of Texas (UT) in the illustrious Harry Ransom Center. We also learned that we would need to purchase rights from the university for use of the famous photos, would need to receive Mr. Duncan’s personal permission, and would have to pay him additional fees.
Debris at Khe Sanh. Photo courtesy of David Douglas Duncan.
The procedure began by faxing a letter of request to Mr. Duncan via UT. He was living in France and was 94 years old, so we figured it would take a while. We waited. Then one day the phone rang. It was none other than Mr. Duncan himself, calling from France! I was heartbroken that Ken was not home at the time to take the call, but here was a thrilling moment for me in the making of our film.
I remember two things from our conversation. The first question he asked was where Ken and Bravo Company were situated at the Khe Sanh Combat Base. When I told him next to the ammo dump, there was a notable silence, and then he said, “My God.” After another few moments, he said he would be honored to have us use his images, and that he would not require any additional fees.
Then we proceeded to have a wonderful conversation about the art of photography, something we had in common. I expressed my need to learn more about my camera, or that I needed a better camera, and he said that wasn‘t important at all…you can make great photography with any camera! And he said he had a new book coming out comprised entirely of photos from a Nikon COOLPIX point-and-shoot camera.
The airstrip at Khe Sanh. Photo courtesy of David Douglas Duncan
Then he bid me adieu and the conversation was over. And so today we bid David Douglas Duncan adieu, with deep gratitude for his generosity founded on compassion, for his courage to tell the story of war through photography, and for the example of living his long life to the fullest.
To learn more about Mr. Duncan, here is a link to an earlier article in the New York Times.
On Thursday, April 26, 2018, the men of BRAVO! lost their Skipper, Lt. Colonel Kenneth Pipes, USMC Retired.
I had talked to him the day before. We laughed, reminisced, talked about other vets, the kind of conversations we always had.
He didn’t say to me that he thought the end was near, nor did he complain about the many ailments that tormented him. He was stout and incisive and funny.
Kenneth Pipes
If I wasn’t so slow-witted I might have picked up some hints that he sent me, but I didn’t get them right away. They eased their way back into my recall as I sat there the rest of the day and on into Thursday. Our last conversation was a moment where the ties that bound us became much more apparent than I’d ever noticed. How deep and wide and long and thick the bonds were.
As I sat there thinking of him and how intimate our conversation had been, how what we said to each other bore into the inner shields I have managed to keep in tact for over fifty years; it sunk in that he was telling me that he was moving on.
And just as I finally got it, we got news that he had passed on and the rest of us who are left behind to grieve his leaving won’t have that rock-steady, low key, humorous leadership and advice that had become so much a part of our lives.
Ken Pipes at Khe Sanh.
The Skipper was a career Marine. As the saying goes, “A Marine’s Marine,” but he was also a fiercely loyal, compassionate, intuitive man who could dig right into what might be bothering you and help you expose it to the light of reason.
He commanded a company of Marines throughout the Siege of Khe Sanh. Under his command the company gained fame—if somewhat belated—but the casualties that ensued in that horrible and ugly 77-day battle rode him. And the load was heavy.
Besides a career in the Corps, Skipper Pipes was a longtime volunteer with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department and retired recently at the rank of Captain. As a mark of his standing with the SDSO, there were only two volunteer captains—a sign of the Skipper’s abilities as a leader of women and men—when he retired.
Skipper Pipes at the 2010 Khe Sanh Veterans Reunion in San Antonio, Texas. Photo courtesy of Betty Rodgers.
In that final phone conversation between us, he spoke about his wife, Sharon and their family. He spoke about his fifty-plus years of marriage and how much Sharon meant to him and how she had helped him carry his burden. It was all there in that last conversation, his final goodbye.
I could write for pages and pages about my relationship with this man, but this is not the time for that. It’s the time for those of us who knew him and loved him to hole up and let the pain rack us until we can move on while never forgetting how fortunate we were to have known and served with Kenneth W. Pipes.
One of the most pleasing things to come to light on my journey with post-combat Khe Sanh Veterans—and veterans of war in general—has been the discovery, by both them and me, of art as a way to process and understand the horrors or war.
Some of us have written books, some of us have created sculpture, some of us have created paintings, drawings and music. In my case, my wife Betty and I created a film. And a lot of these men, these tough and battered warriors, have created poetry.
In today’s blog, I share a poem written by Bravo Skipper Ken Pipes as a eulogy, a requiem, in honor of Marine Lieutenant Colonel James Wilkinson who commanded the 1st Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment through much of the Siege of Khe Sanh.
Lt. Colonel James Wilkinson.
Lt. Colonel Wilkinson passed away on December 1, 2017. You can read his obituary here.
And below, please find Ken Pipes’ poem honoring James Wilkinson as well as other Marines and Corpsmen who fought at Khe Sanh. _____
_____
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Gentleman Jim, Our Eagle
An Eagle fell from the sky today and the sun stood still. The shrill wind howled in the clear blue sky, as heavy mist fogged the eye. Some wondered why ‘til the message arrived, then many silently cried. The wires rang with sadness and sorrow as the much feared word went forth, “Gentleman Jim,” our Eagle, was now outward bound from this earth.
We who spent our life there 50 year ago or more, stood rock steady as we started to recall. Quigley’s voice resoundingly strong while he and Doc C locked an eye. Mac sounded off with a message so loud that it cleared to the azure sky— “Black Bud 6 sends his respects, Sir, and requests your presence soonest; don’t bother bringing your gear.”
On the eve of our Commander’s passing, just a few short days ago in the stillness of the mid-watch, where some Marines are want go! ‘Twas then our Eagle went swooping down as the word went quickly about, “The Eagle was out!” where nothing escaped his sharp glances or sharper eye. Neither did deserving Marines escape a heartfelt thanks as he moved on down the line.
In the later years when asked by those not privileged to be there— “What did you learn from your Commander, Lad, that was held so close and dear?” The answer to that one was easy, “That when in the company of your Marines and killing times are near, nothing is more important than not outwardly showing fear!“
And so, what we all learned from this impressive man, was to righteously understand, that the fortunes of war may wobble a bit, but to Marines, the mission is first and if you fall while in the attack you will not be left behind. Your mates will have your back. Care deeply for your Marines, remembering if you do, they will fix bayonets, sling their packs and follow you. How well I remember, as I was dismissed— thinking, I have just been shown the way. Things might be looking up for our blessed Nation and her Warriors on this day.
Gentleman Jim’s Marine heritage was born and bred deep in the South. His nickname “Gentleman Jim” deceived, ’cause like the Eagle, he moved swiftly about, going forward of the battle line when the guns were swung around. Thus, his Eagle eyes and attitude kept many of us alive.
So, as he now speeds outbound to assume his last command, where he will link up with David, that Lion of a Man, there they will each hold ‘til our last wave touches down. So hold tight Colonels Dave and Jim; for Charlie and the Gunny are moving fast to meet you and they are almost there. Bravo and the Captain, with the squads of Jake, Mike and Wiese. The Doc, Britt, and Rash, with the rest following in trace.
On the high ground our flag will be planted as we rest at Fiddlers Green where we will be awaiting the landing of the next wave of battle scarred Marines.
Ken Pipes
It is time to shut this down, now. It all seems like an endless dream. As we scan the ranks and read the Clay— it becomes patently clear this day it won’t be long until we will have more men there than we have here! We miss each of our brothers, but know it won’t be long— ‘til we muster to share a few rounds of beer with “Gentleman Jim” our Eagle!
Ken Pipes, Assisted/Advised by:
Major Larry Luther (881), Sergeant Major Morris (USMC), Sergeant Mike O’Hara (Bravo), Corporal Ken Rodgers (Bravo), and Lieutenant Derek Clark, San Diego Sheriff’s Department (Ret)
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If you or your organization would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town, please contact us immediately.
DVDs of BRAVO! are available. Please consider gifting copies to a veteran, a teacher, a history buff, a library, a friend or family member. For more information, go to https://bravotheproject.com/store/.
I bet it seems to our readers that all we ever do is post memorials, requiems, obituaries. I guess it’s inevitable since the Vietnam War is five decades past. The Vietnam Veteran generation is approaching its eighth and ninth decades of life. It only stands to reason that we would be announcing the passing of people important to the story of Khe Sanh and the siege.
Today we wish to remember Donna Elliott, the sister of a soldier who went missing in action on January 21, 1968, while on a mission to relieve the soldiers and Marines who were under attack at Khe Sanh Ville. Donna’s brother, Jerry, was a staff sergeant in the United States Army who was acting as a door gunner on one of the choppers that flew in under fire at Khe Sanh Ville. Donna spent much of her lifetime trying to locate his remains.
Donna was a writer and journalist, and a United States Army veteran, who passed on October 22, 2017 and will be interred tomorrow, October 28, in Mountain Home, Arkansas.
Donna E. Elliott
In April of 2012, we shared a guest blog from Donna about her search for Jerry. In memory of Donna and her brother, we are re-sharing her post:
Guest blogger Donna E. Elliott shares her essay, The Blade and the Cross, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund’s Essay Contest prize winner, excerpted from her book, Keeping the Promise (Hellgate Press, 2010).
On 21 January 1968, my brother, SSGT Jerry W. Elliott was declared Missing-In-Action in Khe Sanh, Vietnam. When the 55th Joint Task Force (JTF) investigated the loss site in 1999, his buddy, Mike Teutschman and I were present. After interviewing two local residents who had scavenged the Old French Fort, the team presented me with a charred section of rotor blade from Black Cat #027. The blade had survived a B-40 rocket attack, laid undiscovered in the red dirt of Khe Sanh until found by a farmer, and then spent years holding up the corner of a cow pen. Jerry had left his position as doorgunner on a different chopper to assist survivors from this crashed and burning helicopter when he disappeared.
I brought it back to America. May 2000, found us in the Pentagon parking lot with Run For The Wall, waiting to ride in the Rolling Thunder parade and carry the rotor blade in a pine box to the Wall. Many notables mingled with the bikers, but I never knew the name of the man I remember the most. He stared at the blade for a long time before he spoke. He was one of two survivors from a chopper crash. The other crewmember had managed to return to the crash and recover a small piece of stainless steel from the helicopter, which he used to make two crosses. The vet reached into his pants pocket and a small piece of silver flashed in his palm. He explained this cross was never out of his sight; he carried it with him at all times as a reminder of the friends he had lost. Tears welled up in his eyes when he choked out, “I don’t know why I didn’t die that day; they were all such good men.” Around noon, the lead bikes began to roll out. As soon as the wheels stopped turning, strong hands reached out to carry the heavy wooden box to its final destination at Panel 35E in an honor guard procession. One by one, the riders touched Jerry’s name with bowed heads as a silent statement of respect. Overwhelmed, I left the Wall. Like a moth to a flame, I later returned. While bending over the pine box, which now overflowed with miscellaneous mementos, I lost my balance and leaned into the Wall to break my fall.
Donna Elliott at the Wall, 2000
That’s when I saw it. Tucked deep into a corner of the pine box was the small silver cross! For reasons unknown, the Vietnam vet from the parking lot had chosen to leave his talisman at the Wall in remembrance of Jerry. His gift an anonymous, selfless act, reminiscent of actions I’d heard combat vets share about their brother soldiers on the battlefield. I placed the cross on one end of the blade, where it gleamed boldly. I hope my nameless friend from the parking lot walked away from the Wall that day with as much peace in his heart as I felt at that moment.
Donna E. Elliott, a retired military photojournalist, values the peaceful surroundings of the family farm in the Arkansas Ozark foothills. In civilian life, she utilized her writing skills as a newspaper and radio news reporter, and freelanced as a human interest photojournalist. While in service, she earned the U. S. Army Command FORSCOM 4th Estate Award and three Minaret awards for excellence in journalism. Donna is a member of the Military Writers Society of America.
Used with permission of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (www.buildthecenter.org/) and Donna E. Elliott.
Earlier this year, Betty and I saw a documentary film by the director/producer Terry Sanders, titled FIGHTING FOR LIFE. The film recognizes how doctors and other medical personnel are trained at “the medical school no one’s ever heard of,” the Uniformed Services University. Besides anatomy and physiology and biology and regular medical training, many of the people who attend this university are trained for going onto the battlefield to heal and patch up the warriors of our country.
I always assumed that medical training is medical training, but as the film shows, the way we are taught to treat the women and men who fight our wars is, in many instances, governed by a different set of needs revolving around combat. It’s a pretty obvious conclusion when I think about it right now, but until seeing the film it hadn’t occurred to me what special skills military doctors, dentists, nurses, medics and corpsmen require in their efforts to save and mend lives.
Miramar National Cemetery, San Diego, California. Photo courtesy of Miramar National Cemetery.
I bring this up because last Tuesday, October 17, 2017. Lt. Commander Dr. Edward Feldman was buried at Miramar National Cemetery in San Diego, CA, and his interment got me thinking about the medical folks I served with in Vietnam.
Dr. Feldman was one of the physicians who served with the 9th and 26th Marines during the Siege of Khe Sanh. And like so many of the doctors and corpsmen I served with, his story is remarkable. He arrived at Khe Sanh on January 3, 1968, eighteen days before the beginning of the Siege. Almost immediately, on the opening day of the big battle, January 21, 1968, Dr. Feldman was called upon to perform an amazing feat of surgery. He removed a live mortar round from the abdominal cavity of a Marine. For his action, he was awarded a Silver Star. Below is a quote from his Silver Star Award. I will let you read for yourselves what an astounding act this surgery was.
When the Khe Sanh Combat Base came under heavy mortar and rocket attack on 21 January 1968, a wounded Marine was taken to the Battalion Aid Station where preliminary examinations revealed a metal object protruding from a wound in his abdominal region. Further examination disclosed the possibility of the object being a live enemy mortar round. Quickly assessing the situation, Lieutenant Feldman directed the erection of a sandbag barricade around the patient over which he would attempt to operate and summoned an ordnance expert to identify the object and assist in removing the suspected explosive device from the injured man. Disregarding his own safety, Lieutenant Feldman removed his helmet and armored vest and exposed himself to the danger of a possible explosion as he began to operate. Displaying exceptional professional ability while performing the delicate surgery under flashlights, he succeeded in removing the live round from the Marine and directed an assistant to carry it outside for disposal. By his courage, exceptional professionalism and selfless devotion to duty at great personal risk, Lieutenant Feldman undoubtedly saved the life of a Marine and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service.
You can read Edward Feldman’s entire Silver Star citation here.
Dr. Edward Feldman. Photo courtesy of Before They Go.
Dr. Feldman was also, during his tour of duty in Vietnam, awarded a Bronze Star with Combat V for his actions with Charlie Med at the Siege. The United States Army awarded him a Bronze Star for Valor when, just before he was to rotate back to the States, he went into the field to medically assist a company of Army warriors and ended up acting as the commanding officer when the unit’s officers and senior NCOs were either killed or wounded in action.
After his service in the United States Navy, Dr. Feldman went on to establish medical practices in New Jersey and then California.
I found a comprehensive interview on the internet that he gave to the Navy and you can access it here.
The medical folks at Khe Sanh were necessary to the Marines and by virtue of their bravery, from both doctors and corpsmen, earned the undying devotion and respect of the Marines who inhabited that hellhole.
Medical personnel in action during the Siege of Khe Sanh. Photo by Dave Powell.
I don’t know if it was Dr. Feldman, or one of the other physicians who went out with us on the patrol of March 30, 1968, where the Marines of Bravo Company, 1/26 assaulted an NVA battalion entrenched on a ridgeline south-east of the combat base. I guess it doesn’t matter who it was, but in my mind I imagine it being him.
I don’t know what physicians do out on the battlefield except try to save lives, but I imagine there is a set protocol for particular procedures: triage for a quick assessment of a casualty’s chances of surviving, then application of tourniquets, bandages, administration of drugs like morphine and other forms of emergency treatment.
But the thing is, out there on that day, bullets were flying and incoming artillery and mortar rounds fell all around us, killing or wounding many of us. And the doctor, whoever he was, and his corpsmen, were subject to death and dismemberment by the same hostile fire that beset the rest of us.
We often think of doctors in an office, rushing down the halls of a hospital, or even attending to the wounded in a field hospital, but not treating wounded Marines in the bottom of a bomb crater. If Edward Feldman didn’t draw that duty on that day, if ordered to do so, he would have been out there with his scalpel and the other tools he’d need to save lives. I don’t doubt that.
Waiting for the wounded at Khe Sanh. Photo by Dave Powell.
My experience with doctors at Khe Sanh was almost nonexistent. If I had a problem, it was handled by a corpsman so I don’t know if I ever crossed paths with Dr. Feldman. Nevertheless, I salute him—and all the medical personnel who put their lives in danger to save others—for his courage and his skill in the face of imminent danger.
There’s an old Navy myth about a magical afterlife called Fiddler’s Green where sailors go when they die, where never-ending laughter and a fiddle that plays forever and echoes of dancing feet ring.
My company commander at the Siege of Khe Sanh, Lt. Colonel Ken Pipes, mentioned Fiddler’s Green when he alerted all of us old Jarheads of the passing of Dr. Ed Feldman.
Like so much of what makes up the naval milieu, there is a ditty about Fiddler’s Green that goes like this:
At Fiddler’s Green, where seamen true When here they’ve done their duty The bowl of grog shall still renew And pledge to love and beauty.
Revel in your time at Fiddler’s Green, Ed Feldman.
Semper Fi!
*******
Upcoming creening information:
In conjunction with the Ken Burns documentary, the Nampa Public Library in Nampa, Idaho, will screen BRAVO! on November 1, 2017. Doors open at 6:30 PM and the free program will begin at 7:00 PM, followed by a Q&A. A panel discussion with Vietnam Veterans is scheduled for November 8. The Nampa library’s website is http://nampalibrary.org.
On April 7, 2018, the Warhawk Air Museum in Nampa, Idaho, will host a one-day symposium in recognition of the 50th Anniversary of the Siege. The event will encompass a forum for educating the public about the Siege of Khe Sanh and the Vietnam War, as well as an opportunity for a Khe Sanh Veterans Reunion. Activities will include a screening of BRAVO! and guest speakers remembering the battle. Khe Sanh Vet Mike Archer, author of two heralded non-fiction books on his Khe Sanh experiences, will be one of the featured speakers. You can see more about Mike at http://www.michaelarcher.net.
Mark your calendars now, as this will be a stellar event in a world-class air museum. We are still in the planning stage, so if you would like to participate and were involved with the siege, or just want to help, please contact me at 208-340-8889. An event like this can only happen with a core group of committed volunteers. We can’t do it without you! For more information on the Warhawk Air Museum, check out their website at https://warhawkairmuseum.org.
**** If you or your organization would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town, please contact us immediately.
DVDs of BRAVO! are available. Please consider gifting copies to a veteran, a teacher, a history buff, a library, a friend or family member. For more information, go to https://bravotheproject.com/store/.
The bonds created by shared fear and the horrors of battle are strong. For years I didn’t understand that. For years I didn’t understand that the bonds forged between warriors who endure the fury of combat even existed. For forty years I felt there really were no such bonds.
Since most Vietnam veterans chose to clamp our mouths shut and corral our memories of combat, the opportunities for us to begin to understand the emotional linkage that exists between warriors were not taken advantage of for decades.
Mike McCauley in Marine Corps dress blues.
I recall the first time I talked to one of my old comrades. It was 25-plus years since I’d escaped the savagery of war, and when we first talked it was like I’d found someone I’d been looking for even though I didn’t know I’d been involved in any such search.
Yet there was something pulling at me and over the intervening years since that initial contact, that attraction, that magnetic force, so to speak, has drawn me into close relationships with the men who shared the nightmares of Khe Sanh with me.
One of those men was Michael H. McCauley. I didn’t know Mike in Vietnam. I might have seen his face as I walked by on my way out on patrol or ambush. We might have nodded at each other and maybe exchanged a comment.
Mike McCauley on a panel of Marines at the screening of BRAVO! in Moscow, Idaho, 2013
He was in First Platoon and I was in Second. He was a relative new guy compared to me. We hadn’t a lot in common . . . me a desert rat from Arizona and he a city boy from Boston. But what we did have in common was the Marine Corps and over seventy days trapped inside the concertina wire perimeter of Khe Sanh Combat Base.
And boy what a bond. We became good friends and I’m not sure that’s even the right word to describe our relationship. We were comrades; we were men who understood what very few could understand. We had knowledge—emotional and intellectual and intuitive—that I really wouldn’t want anybody else to learn because how you learn it, the price of it, is too damned high.
Nevertheless, we were comrades who understood leeches and jungle grass and the roar of 152 millimeter artillery rounds storming at you. We understood the glint in the eye of the enemy, be he living or dead. We understood combat. We could talk about it. And we could laugh about it, among ourselves of course, but not with many of the uninitiated.
Mike liked to hand out these hats to men who served with BRAVO! They were his creations.
And Mike liked to laugh. He was quiet most of the time. A listener with a quick wit. A man who endured much in his life during and after the war.
Mike was a man whom I liked to be around. It was easy being around Mike. No angst, no bullshit, just a straight-up guy. A very kind man beloved by many whether they were war comrades or not.
In the war, Mike saw a lot more hell than I did. He endured the siege and then continued with BRAVO! all spring and summer and fall of 1968 when the 1st Battalion 26th Marines were locked in repetitive battle with the enemy in other locations around South Vietnam.
And like all of us veterans of war fighting, I believe the warrioring took its toll on Mike.
In early July of this year, Mike left us to go wherever it is you go when you pass on. I think he believed that to be some kind of heaven.
Ruth and Mike McCauley in Moscow, Idaho, 2013.
He’d been pretty damned sick for a while. I’d call him up or he’d call me and we’d talk and he’d tell me—he’d man right up—about exactly what was happening to him. It was sad and he was courageous and it hurt me every time we talked and every time I thought about it after switching off the cell phone.
I’m going to miss Mike’s laugh. I’m going to long for his smile and his wry comments in that Boston patois I’d know anywhere.
And yet I’m grateful I can still laugh with him, and recall the Siege of Khe Sanh with him, every time I watch BRAVO!. But not without shedding a tear or two when I think about how much I miss him. All of us Vietnam veterans are on a march, one from which we can’t fall out, to join Mike and all the other men we served with in that long-ago conflict.
Mike will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery, a place of honor and dignity, on August 7, 2017 at 11:00 AM. Arlington, a place he deserves to rest.
Our deepest condolences to Mike’s devoted wife, Ruth McCauley, his big and boisterous family who embraced Betty and me with open arms, and the multitude of his many beloved friends around the country.
