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/.
Fifty-four years ago today, one of the most despairing events of the entire battle known as the Siege of Khe Sanh occurred.
Third Platoon, Bravo Company, 26th Marines went out on a patrol and were ambushed.
Two squads from Bravo Company’s 1st Platoon went out to relieve them. They were also ambushed.
A lot of the survivors stumbled back into the perimeter over the balance of the day.
The memories still gnaw the guts of the men involved, as well as the men who watched.
What was it like?
Let some of the Marines and Navy Corpsmen who made it home tell you. These comments are from the original interviews done for the film BRAVO! COMMON MEN, UNCOMMON VALOR. You may recognize some of these remarks from the film and some of them you have never heard. 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!.
The ambush and ensuing slaughter took on a name:
THE GHOST PATROL
The Ambush:
Cal Bright:
I ended up being point for a while and my team member, Clayton Theyerl, who was from Racine, Wisconsin, was directly behind me and motioned for me to stop. He says, “I’m going to take your place. This is your first patrol.”
Probably within five minutes all hell broke loose.
Theyerl was killed. My team leader, a Lance Corporal Thrasher from Oklahoma City, asked me to go up and retrieve the body. As I was dragging him back, the body was bouncing , was jumping back and forth and I could feel bullets whizzing past my head, and in a sense, his body protected mine.
Marines on The Ghost Patrol. Photo Courtesy of Robert Ellison/Blackstar
John “Doc” Cicala:
We crossed a set of trench lines and then they opened up on us and it was just pure chaos from then on.
I watched a guy drop and I took care of a couple of guys and then as I was crossing back over the road because another guy got hit, then the next thing I know I seen a guy pop out of a fighting hole. He hit me a couple of times in the chest.
And then a grenade landed between my legs, and I looked down and I seen it and I yelled, “Grenade.”
I curled up into a ball and it went off. I couldn’t hear or see anything for a minute with all the dirt and everything, and then when I could see my foot over there and I was thinking to myself, This ain’t good. My foot moved and I said, “Well at least it’s still attached.”
Steve Wiese:
You know, most of the guys went down in the first minute. The only reason I survived was I just happened to be standing in a bomb crater where it was like two, two and one-half feet deep where it blew the ground out and I just happened to be walking through that when the ambush opened up.
Ben Long:
Men were getting shot and you could hear that happening.
John “Doc” Cicala:
Lieutenant Jacques came running by and he looked down at me and he said, “Doc,” he said, “get out of here,” he said, “we’re all getting killed.”
1st Platoon tried to relieve the beleaguered Marines:
Peter Weiss:
Two squads, we actually split up, one squad went straight out towards where they were. The other squad went out to the right. And unfortunately he got trapped in the same kind of ambush and so of that squad, maybe ten men, I think, four were killed in that ambush.
They were ordered to retreat while the fight went on:
Mike McCauley:
You could hear it in the distance. We could hear it on the radio. The screams and stuff that was going on.
Steve Wiese:
As soon as I fired a round there were hundreds of guys shooting back.
Cal Bright:
I come across a radio operator who had been killed. To this day I have no idea what his name was.
All I could hear on the radio was, “Hello, hello, is anybody there? Anybody hear us?”
So I keyed the mike and said, “Hello.”
Somebody came back on and said, “Who’s this?”
“Well this is Cal.”
“Cal who?” And I told him and he said, “Who else is there with you?”
I called back and said, “Nobody.”
I could see little helmets in the background. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was just a few meters from the NVA
trench line.
Marines on The Ghost Patrol. Cal Bright on the left. Photo courtesy of Robert Ellison/Blackstar
Escape:
Ben Long:
I just started seeing people coming back, not in groups but straggling back and some were wounded.
Cal Bright:
I was able to get out of there after some time. How long? I have no clue.
John ”Doc” Cicala:
They say I made it back to the base maybe six, eight hours.
Peter Weiss:
I went out to get him. Walked through the mine field, not you know, around the side, but through the mine field. And I was scared. Walked through the mine field, walked through the concertina, grabbed…and he was in absolute shock. Grabbed him by the arm and we walked back through the mine field into the perimeter.
Steve Wiese:
I worked my way out and moved down around the back and came back to the base. And it was just like, “Where is everybody?” and I just remember the guys saying, “You’re pretty much it.”
For those who watched and listened, who weren’t in the fight:
Dan Horton:
We knew they were getting hit. We…we wanted to go out. They wouldn’t let us go out. It was just…it all happened so fast and you know it was wild. And we wanted to go out and help them out and bring them in but Headquarters said no.
Ken Korkow:
A number of us went up to Battalion and we begged to go out and get those guys and bring them back. We had to watch while those guys were getting chewed up in front of us. The Marine Corps has this saying, “We always recover our dead.” Nobody said it was going to be over a month before we recovered them. Attitudes turned really bad inside the perimeter.
Lloyd Scudder:
When I finally get back to Khe Sanh, my platoon is wiped out. I don’t know anybody. I feel like I abandoned them, I’ve been trying to prove myself ever since that deal with the Ghost Patrol…I just feel guilty.
The enduring emotional pain was palpable:
Ken Rodgers:
That’s kind of the notorious event at Khe Sanh, was the Ghost Patrol, because all those guys got killed and they got left…the bodies got left out there.
Ken Pipes:
I think it broke all of our hearts.
As I wrote this blog, sadness got in my bones and showed me a bit of the agony that we all felt that day. You’d think one could get over this stuff. You hope you get over it.
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!
Trench at Khe Sanh
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.
Khe Sanh TAOR
Photo courtesy of Mack McNeeley
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 agood idea.
Fifty-four years ago today, the Siege of Khe Sanh commenced and for roughly 77 days, the battle roared and the scenes of carnage and death and courage were featured on television screens across America.
While the participants’ families and friends sat in their easy chairs in their living rooms, watching with horror, going to work and church and school with the thoughts of death and fear in their minds, the men who fought the battle dug in.
What was it like?
Let some of the Marines and Navy Corpsmen who made it home tell you. These comments are from the original interviews done for the film. Some of them made it into the final cut, some of them you have never read before. 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!
Khe Sanh TAOR 1968
Photo Courtesy of Mack McNeeley
On the night before the boom lowered and the siege began some of the men had a sense of foreboding.
KenRodgers:
I went out in the trench and I think I had first watch and as I was getting off watch it was misty. You could see through the mist and there was Puff the Magic Dragon flying around and all you saw was the blur of the tracers and hear the thing and it was moaning. I understood then that something was going to happen.
Cal Bright:
Everything was all nice and quiet. As a matter of fact it was, more or less, too quiet.
The initial eruptions of incoming found most of the men of Bravo 1/26 in their racks. The chaos ripped them out of their sleep and into the trenches and fighting holes.
Dan Horton:
There’s an explosion in the doorway of the hooch. Slammed me against the bulkhead. Then I knew the shit was hitting the fan here. Scared the crap out of me, of course, I was all discombubulated.
Cal Bright:
All Hell broke loose.
Michael E. O’Hara:
I was there digging holes in the trench. I wanted to go down as far as I could go. I was scared.
Lloyd Scudder:
I went outside and tried to curl up in a ball as much as I could. I looked like a turtle underneath my helmet.
Then the ammo dump took a direct hit.
Mike McCauley:
When the ammo dump exploded, man, we thought it was atomic.
Cal Bright:
It was obvious that they, the NVA, had been reconning the area for quite some time because you can’t hit an ammo dump with artillery and rockets and score direct hits without practicing. And it took them no time at all.
Ken Rodgers:
Our own artillery rounds that were stored in the ammo dump were cooking off and shooting straight up into the air and coming down on us.
Tom Quigley:
The NVA rounds had hit our ammo dump, and in the ammo dump was a lot of CS canisters and those went off and the gas started coming in through our hooch.
Mike McCauley:
Nobody had their gas masks with them so everybody’s trying to find a gas mask.
Ken Pipes:
The CS gas that was blown out of the dump was burning and settling into the trenches because it goes to the low ground and into the bunkers.
Debris at Khe Sanh. Photo courtesy of David Douglas Duncan.
Guys were getting hurt. Guys were dying.
Ken Korkow:
We got a lot of incoming and I’ll tell you, three separate times, incoming was so close to me I didn’t jump down, the concussion of the shell actually knocked me to the ground.
John “Doc” Cicala:
I heard ‘em yelling for a Corpsman and I started running down the trench line and the next thing I know I was looking up at the sky and I heard a Marine calling for a Corpsman and “where the hell is that son-of-a-bitch?” I was kind of lying there dazed and I got up and I picked up my helmet and I had the tail fin of a mortar in the top of my helmet. It must have hit me and knocked me out.
Peter Weiss:
I didn’t know it at the time: the radioman who had been killed. Must have been killed right at the door of the bunker. Touching a body…first time I touched a dead body. It was like, “Oh, my God.”
After hours and hours of explosions, the ammo dump going up, the CS gas in the trenches, things calmed down.
John “Doc” Cicala :
The rest of the morning was just taking care of every guy that had shrapnel wounds.
Mike McCauley:
It was pretty chaotic.
Steve Wiese:
I thought, my God, you’re not going to survive this. Little did I know that it was going to go on for 77 days.
We will be screening BRAVO! COMMON MEN, UNCOMMON VALOR in West Jefferson, North Carolina at 3:00 PM on Thursday, November 18. Come join us at the Parkway Theater. Filmmakers Betty and Ken Rodgers will be there in person to talk about the film along with Bruce and Francine Jones. Bruce served with the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines at Khe Sanh as did filmmaker Ken Rodgers.
On November 20th at 10:00 AM at the Library in West Jefferson, we will be screening our second film, I MARRIED THE WAR, about the wives of combat veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Afghanistan and Iraq. Francine Jones, one of the strong and courageous women in the film, will be on hand to discuss the project along with the filmmakers, Betty and Ken.
As Veterans Day approaches, our thoughts turn to the wars fought in our lives and our friends and loved ones who served, some living, some now gone. We think of them, see their faces, hear their voices.
Our films speak to some of the issues surrounding war and combat. We wouldn’t have been able to create these stories without the help of all our friends and supporters, who are many. Thank you!
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.
Fifty-two years ago this morning on the battlefield of Khe Sanh, Vietnam, Bravo Company, 1/26 burst out of the confines of siege and siege mentality and went on the attack.
The details of what is now known as Payback are documented in a number of places. But what’s difficult to document is the fury and desperation that occurred when men from separate sides met face-to-face in a morning’s worth of savagery. For two and one-half months they’d blasted and murdered and maimed us and scared the living hell out of us. And we hungered for revenge.
Khe Sanh, 1968. Photo courtesy of Mac McNeely.
We caught them sleeping and we jumped in their trenches and we caught them in their bunkers and we dropped grenades on top of them and shot them when they crawled out and we dropped satchel charges on them and we shot them while looking in their eyes and we burned them alive with flame throwers and lobbed 60 millimeter mortars on top of them and we killed and killed.
The faces of the dead turned sallow and as I ran through the NVA’s trenches, I talked to myself about how the sallow nature of death made them all look the same, whether our side or theirs. They all looked the same and maybe that was appropriate given that the hands of death had choked all life out of them no matter their rank or race.
Blogger Ken Rodgers before the Siege of Khe Sanh began. Photo courtesy of Michael E. O’Hara.
Most of us were young. Our skipper called us kids. We were kids with lethal weapons and a bitter taste in our mouths and a load of hate in our hearts. Not a hate you reserve for the man you know who stabbed you in the back, but the hate you know against an idea, against an enemy—not individuals—that killed people that you love, and even though . . . even at the time you know . . . even though you’ve been taught thou shall not kill, and love your brother, and turn the other cheek, and do unto others as you would have them do unto you, you’re filled with hate and you are going to kill. You need to kill.
Fifty-two years ago this morning.
Enraged, we coveted revenge. Enraged, we needed to salve our pride. Indifference to them as human beings was the hallmark of the morning of 30Mar1968. We felt nothing towards those people over there except the need to see them dead. Payback.
Fifty-two years ago this morning, the Siege of Khe Sanh began with a bang when the NVA hit one of the base’s ammo dumps and the world seemed, for that morning at least, to erupt into a volcano of death and fear.
As I write this, I can close my eyes and the visions of that morning and what followed flood me, a wide river of molten hot lava-thoughts that sizzle the inside of my memory.
The night before the siege began, the tension felt so thick we could have ladled it with a spoon. Puff the Magic Dragon, or Spooky as some folks called the plane, circled the combat base that squatted alone, enveloped in fog. The red tracer arcs from Puff’s guns cut great waving sweeps through the damp mist and the moans and groans of the guns led me to ponder ghosts.
The following morning, the world came apart at the seams and I wondered if I would survive the onslaught. But I did, we did, some of us, anyway.
Images of men lying in the trench with smashed leg-bones still haunt me, and the sergeant in the machine gun bunker with a gouge ripped down the shin of his right leg, and our CS gas, released when the dump blew up, sneaking across the red mud to make our lives more difficult, and in the case of some of our Marines, forcing them to operate in deadly situations.
The men I served with at Khe Sanh were stalwarts. I don’t think there is a better word to describe them. Even though we were just a bunch of kids. Kids.
A lot of us didn’t make it out of that hellhole. I think of men I knew well, in that significantly special way warriors know and love each other, who paid the ultimate price for the right to say they were United States Marines.
Moments dart out of the mist of memory. A big, gap-toothed smile, a Marine helping me negotiate an angry, rain-swollen river, a Marine who just loved to dance.
Blogger Ken Rodgers. While at Khe Sanh. Photo courtesy of the estate of Dan Horton.
One of them I see sitting in a hooch with a bunch of other Marines, his new utilities a stark contrast to the tattered and faded ones I wore. Mine stained with the red mud of Khe Sanh, his looking snappy.
In 2010, Betty and I went to The Wall to take some photos of names and I ran into a fellow looking for the name of that Marine I now envision in my mind. When he found out I knew the man whose name he sought, he broke down in a highly motional moment that keeps creeping into my consciousness, and every time the moment comes, I am reminded of the tentacles of life severed by death.
Right now, their faces, the dead of Khe Sanh, roll through me like a filmstrip. A wink, a frown, a flippant reaction to the guns of the North Vietnamese, a row of freckles on high cheekbones, that particular look you see in the eyes of a Marine who knows he may soon die. Those Marines are here, with me in the moments of my recall even though they’ve been gone fifty-plus years.
They are part of me. Part of the person I have become.
Guest Blogger and BRAVO! Marine Michael E. O’Hara muses on the passage of time, war, the film and comrades in this blog for Veterans Day, 2019.
Fall 2019
Vieil Ami
When I first arrived in a place that would change my life and the lives of many others forever, it was October 1967. I made many friends, each unique in their own way.
We were Marines, charged with guarding a lonely outpost high in the Annamite Mountains in northwest South Vietnam. It is known as the backbone of Vietnam.
One of my new acquaintances, among many, was a young man from Casa Grande, Arizona. It was a while before we became close. Many nights we would test each other’s knowledge, mostly about history. But time and events would bring us all together. Brothers-in-arms is much more than a simple cliché.
Michael E. O’Hara at Khe Sanh, 1968. Photo courtesy of Michael E. O’Hara
Time would pass and eventually we all went our separate ways. Some forgot and most did not. For many years we all would relive, at least in the memories of our minds, the friends and events that had shaped each and every one of us. Everyone processed that experience differently.
It would be 25 years before I would see my good friend from Casa Grande once again. I would also be introduced to his beautiful wife. We would find ourselves gathering with all those friends from long ago in Washington, DC. It was the 4th of July, 1993, and Bravo Company 1st Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment had assembled once again. We would all descend on “The Wall” to touch the names and remember old comrades who never made it home to “The World.”
Although we stayed in touch over the next few years, it wasn’t until 2009 that he attended his next reunion. It was in Denver. I wasn’t planning on going that year until he called. I could tell he had something on his mind. He came to DC when I asked; I would go to Denver.
Denver was great. Lots of friends from Bravo were there. It would be the last time I saw Danny Horton before he passed. When I arrived, my friend from Casa Grande was there waiting for me to arrive. It was very emotional. Ken Rodgers has been a good friend my entire adult life and his beautiful wife Betty was just awe struck at the emotion we both shared that day over ten long years ago. Much has happened in that time. They have since visited our home twice. Betty and Maxine hit it off well and interestingly, Betty still keeps in touch with my daughters via FB. They all got along very well in DC in ‘93 and remain friends to this day.
But I was curious as to what Ken had on his mind when he called me. He never did really say. However, we were all sitting around a table sharing stories and Betty made the statement what a shame it would be if this was all lost, and someone should be writing it all down. I casually asked her what she was waiting on, not fully understanding what the two of them were thinking.
Within weeks after getting home, they had developed a plan. They were going to make a movie about Bravo Co at Khe Sanh in 1968. Most, not all, showed up in San Antonio next summer and Ken and Betty started filming interviews. For those, like Danny Horton, who couldn’t be there due to health concerns, they went on the road. One year later they debuted what would become one of the most profound war documentaries ever produced.
Bravo! Common Men Uncommon Valor
It has earned numerous accolades across the spectrum. It has also brought Ken and Betty great validation for their work. One of the great moments in my life was when Ken and Betty asked me to attend their awards ceremony at the Marine Corps Museum in the spring of 2016. They had received a prestigious award for their work by our peers in the USMC. It was a black tie formal event with more Marine Generals than I had ever seen in one place in my life. Ken and Betty were, as we say colloquially, “standing in tall cotton” and I could not have been happier for them. But he wasn’t going to forget his old friend, either.
Left to Right: Filmmakers Betty Rodgers, Ken Rodgers, and BRAVO! Marine Michael E. Ohara at the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s 2016 Awards Ceremony. Photo courtesy of Daniel Folz
He made sure the Lt. Gen. who was the emcee that evening asked for another Marine to stand for special recognition as a 3 Purple Heart survivor of the Siege of Khe Sanh. I have to tell you, it was the proudest day in my Marine life. Even my old friend and CMH recipient Harvey Barnum came over to congratulate me. It was a moment I will cherish forever.
As I stated previously, we all have processed our feelings about those emotionally charged days differently. It would seem “Bravo!” would become my good friend’s catharsis. He and Betty travelled all over the country screening their film at Legion halls, VFW posts, theaters, prisons, universities and more. Sometimes they found sponsorship, other times they just went. As the awards mounted, other folks began to seek them out.
The Commanding Generals of Marine bases found it a useful tool. One such event drew a very large crowd at Marine Corps base Camp Pendleton. Whenever possible, the men from Bravo themselves would show up and participate in after-action discussions. I made 2 such screenings myself in Springfield and Chicago, IL, and went with them to the Marine Basic School in Quantico, VA, where they trained young Marine Officers using Bravo! as a training tool.
They have been pursuing this for ten long years, and are now producing another documentary.
I will always be in touch with my dear friends who now call Boise their home. However, speaking for myself, I believe we are both getting past our need to process our experiences. As another old friend and fellow Vietnam vet likes to say “I’ve put that book back on the shelf.”
I cannot express how good it makes me feel to know that my good friend seems to finally be at peace with the life-changing events that brought us together so many years ago.
Guest blogger Michael E’ O’Hara. Photo courtesy of Betty Rodgers
Their film has also helped bring closure to our fellow Marines from Bravo and many other vets who have experienced the healing power of this magnificent piece of American history during the Vietnam War.
Although there are a few Marines from Bravo still living, Ken and I are the last of the 2nd platoon 3rd squad who have maintained contact throughout the years.
Toujours Fidele, Vieil Ami, Michael E. O’Hara
Michael E. O’Hara served with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment before and during the Siege of Khe Sanh. Michael, the recipient of three Purple Heart Medals for his wounds while serving at Khe Sanh, is also one of the warriors interviewed for the film BRAVO! COMMON MEN, UNCOMMON VALOR.
Guest blogger Cobb Hammond’s article on the savage battle fought in May, 1969, originally published in the MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL on May 24, 2019.
As Americans this weekend memorialize the casualties of our
war dead, a small band of US soldiers of the 101st Airborne division
will recall in their collective memories, comrades in-arms of a battle during
the Vietnam War. The Battle of Hamburger Hill fought 50-years ago this month,
is seared into the memories of its participants; a struggle in the heavily contested
A Shau Valley. Fought over a specific mountain, known as Hill 937, denoted for
its height in meters (approx. 3 thousand feet), it was also called Dong Ap Bia
by the North Vietnamese, which translates into ‘Mountain of the crouching
beast’.
Part of a chain of mountain ridges and numerous valleys, it sat one mile from the Laotian border and contained multiple ridges and fingers that came off the summit. The slopes of Dong Ap Bia were covered in extreme overgrowth of sharp elephant grass up to 7 feet, thick bamboo groves and triple-canopy jungle, making daylight appear as dusk. The entire area was a support system for the North Vietnamese infiltrating supplies and men into the South, and the general vicinity contained roads for trucks, major supply depots and the like. After increased enemy activity had been noted by army recon teams in the valley, Operation Apache Snow commenced on May 10, utilizing a Marine Corps regiment, multiple airborne battalions and allied S. Vietnamese forces as well. The 3rd battalion, 187th Regiment of the 101st – also known as the “Rakkasans” would be tasked with finding the enemy, on or around 937 and eliminating him. This understrength infantry unit was at 65% strength at the outset of the campaign due to recent engagements contributing to the attrition of the units. The commanding officer of the battalion was Lt. Colonel Weldon Honeycutt, a no-nonsense career soldier and North Carolinian who had joined the army as a teenager at the end of WWII.
Hamburger Hill Photo by Shunsake Akatsuka
On the morning of May 10, a one and one-half hour prep of the battlefield commenced, with multiple batteries of artillery opening, followed by dozens of sorties by attack aircraft and helicopters firing their ordinance. At 7 am transport helicopters inserted the initial element of forces into landing zones in the valley, with one mission: find the enemy and make contact. The first day drew only light contact for Alpha and Charlie companies. Due to the rugged terrain, extreme heat and thick underbrush progress was slow. Bravo and Delta, which were kept in reserve choppered in on the second day and incorporated into the general scheme of the attack. The 1st battalion of the 506th regiment was working working its way north toward the area as well, but due to the hazards of the terrain and constant ambushes by the enemy would not arrive until the latter part of the battle, leaving the ‘tactical’ burden to the four rifle-companies of the 3/187.
As day 2 absorbed into 3, the fighting intensified, clearly indicating to the commander that they were facing more of the enemy to their front than originally thought. In fact, as the battle progressed, the enemy, North Vietnamese, were able to fortify their forces on the hill. Little did US troops know at the time that they were facing the 29th NVA Regiment, which had distinguished itself in other battles previously. On May 14, the fourth day, Col. Honeycutt decided to attack more aggressively and could not wait for reinforcements, so orders were given to B, C and D companies to attack from different vantage points. Unfortunately, the attacks were unable to be well coordinated due to the terrain and because enemy resistance had become extremely heavy. C Company which was counterattacked several times took the highest casualties on the day, losing its First Sgt, two of three platoon leaders, the company exec. officer and six-squad leaders; all either killed or wounded. To compound matters, a helicopter gunship flew in and shot-up friendly troops, killing two and wounding at least twelve, mistaking them for the enemy. This was the first of three cases of fratricide during the battle. As day fell to night after a day of fighting, the American soldiers could see enemy cooking fires above, which was usually unheard of in an engagement like this and could hear enemy troops hollering down at the men of the 3st battalion as well.
The topography of the landscape favored defense, and conversely the enemy did well in fortifying positions. They had built earthen-log bunkers- some 6-8 feet deep, with crisscross firing angles to take advantage of the slopes. The slopes also harbored dozens of spider-holes, allowing for a quick burst of gunfire or grenade throw with the enemy then stealthfully melting back into the earth. The NVA also had dozens of light and heavy machine-gun emplacements strategically placed and manned.
Hamburger Hill Photo from M. Taringa
May 18th and 19th again witnessed the depleted airborne companies making progress, then gradually having to dig in, move forward or back down the steep slopes as the fighting devolved into a slugfest on the squad level; with each company making its own progress on sheer will.
On the morning of May 20, ten US artillery batteries opened fire on the hill and fired for almost an hour, before dozens of air sorties by tactical aircraft came in with napalm and 250 lb. bombs on the now denuded mountaintop. As fire stopped, up went the riflemen, working their way up the slopes and ravines encountering lighter resistance than previously encountered, and making it to the summit within two hours.
After enemy stragglers were cleaned out, the bloody mess of Hamburger Hill ceased. 623 enemy dead were counted, with a much higher casualty rate no doubt noted, as many were crushed in their earthen graves from bombs or taken by their comrades into Laos. Of the airborne troopers of the 3/187, 39 were killed and another 292 wounded, more than 70% of the battalion. Total US losses were 71 dead and 372 wounded. The battle although tragic, did accomplish its strategic task, albeit a costly one.
Guest Blogger Cobb Hammond
On this most reverent of days, remember these men, many
which spent their last breath in that hellish place. And one which was the most seminal event of
their lives.
Cobb Hammond of Memphis, TN is a ‘Financial Advisor’ who writes on military history, military affairs and composes poetry. Cobb can be contacted @ chammond40@yahoo.com.
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