For BRAVO!, in many ways, this was a banner year. We continued to meet new people, screen the film, and in early April we managed to get the film up on Amazon Prime. In the process, we received over 130 great reviews that reinforced our decision to make this documentary and spend the next eight years getting it out to the public.
But in one way it was a profoundly sad year for us and the surviving Marines and Corpsmen of Bravo, 1/26. We lost our Skipper in late April, and it hurt. Ken Pipes was a man who profoundly affected the men whom he led during the Siege of Khe Sanh. He was our leader, adviser, our good friend; and his leaving left holes in our perceptions of our world, the future and where we go from here.
As so often happens with funerals, we were fortunate to meet up with a lot of our Khe Sanh comrades and other friends of BRAVO! at both the memorial service for Ken Pipes as well as his interment ceremony in San Diego at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. If you get the chance to pay your respects, you will find that the Skipper rests in one of the most beautiful locations in California.
Filmmakers Betty and Ken Rodgers. Photo courtesy of Don Johnson.
On the screening front, in early April, BRAVO! was shown to an enthusiastic crowd of close to five hundred folks at Nampa, Idaho’s Warhawk Air Museum, and over the Memorial Day weekend, friend of BRAVO!, Vietnam Veteran Marine Barry Hart, hosted a very successful screening in Paris, Tennessee.
When we began this journey, we didn’t know where the path would lead us and we are continually surprised by the people we meet and the places we go related to this film. Over the last ten years, many times, I’ve foreseen the end of the road, only to have it veer off in a new and surprisingly satisfactory direction.
Even as we make our new film, I MARRIED THE WAR, (See more here) about the wives of combat veterans from World War II to the present conflicts, I suspect that BRAVO!, as Steve Wiese likes to say, “will live on.”
So, to all our friends and followers, we wish you a fabulous 2019. We are eternally grateful for your interest, friendship, and support. Our work wouldn’t be possible without you.
***
On a separate note:
Betty and I are making another film titled I MARRIED THE WAR, about the wives of combat veterans from World War II until the present. We have finished interviewing eleven dynamic wives and have now embarked on turning their stories into a documentary film.
I Married the War
We are soliciting donations to help us get this movie edited, sound mixed and color corrected. If you are in a giving frame of mind, please check out the website for the new film at http://imarriedthewar.com/ and scroll down to the section about donating.
We appreciate our friends and followers and know we cannot succeed at our filmmaking efforts without their generous support.
***
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.
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.
***
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/.
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/.
We have great news to announce! BRAVO! has been accepted in the inaugural GI Film Festival San Diego! Thanks to the Skipper (Ken Pipes) and his son and daughter-in-law, Tim and Sandra, we learned about this film festival and sent in our application. Lo and behold, we are in and scheduled with a prime time slot! What makes us happiest about this is that it couldn’t be more appropriate for BRAVO!’s first film festival, since every man in the film went to Camp Pendleton (San Diego County) for staging to go to Vietnam. San Diego County is where the story begins. And it’s the home of Bravo Company’s illustrious commander. Perfect.
Ken and I will be driving to San Diego for the event. We would love it if each and every one of you could be there, too, but we know some of you cannot. If you ARE able to join us, we’d love to visit with you.
In order to get the attention of folks who could help BRAVO! find a national audience, the most important thing we can do right now is sell out the theater. This gets their attention. There are 200 seats, and anything you can do to help would be deeply appreciated.
BRAVO! will be shown at 12:30 PM on Sunday, October 18. The theater is located very near where last year’s Khe Sanh Veterans Reunion was held. It is located off the 163 freeway in the bottom section of the Hazard Center just off Friars Rd. (7510 Hazard Center Drive, San Diego, CA 92108.)
Here is the link to purchase tickets. There is a discount for veterans and military, as well as members of KPBS public television. Scroll down to BRAVO!, and we encourage you to take a look at the rest of the festival, too.
We will be creating a Facebook “event” which you are welcome to “share.” It’s a great way to help get the word out.
The best part of this wonderful news is that it means more and more people will see and be aware of this story.
A heartfelt thank you to each one of you, in the film or not, for your interest, participation and encouragement in this journey. It has meant everything to us.
November is a thoughtful and busy time for veterans of the United States military. Celebrations, parades, reunions and remembrances occur from big cities to small towns up and down and all across the country.
While a large number of the Men of BRAVO! were in San Diego with the Khe Sanh Veterans group participating in Veterans Day ceremonies, in Liberty Lake Washington, former Navy Corpsman Greg Vercruysse was being honored with a memorial at the Liberty Lake Fallen Heroes Circuit Course.
I have written to some extent about Greg and the other men of Bravo Company who were killed and wounded on June 7, 1967 in an ambush off of Hill 881 South, so return readers to this blog are familiar with Greg’s story as well as what occurred to the other twenty men who were killed in that action.
With that in mind, I am not going to belabor the memory anymore except to state that what happened at Liberty Lake on 11/11/2014 was a fine example of the honors that have belatedly come to a lot of veterans of the Vietnam War.
Also remarkable to me was the fact that Navy Corpsman John Kerr, also with Bravo Company at that time and Greg Vercruysse’s buddy, traveled across the country to Liberty Lake to honor Greg’s memory along with Greg’s mom and brother and respectful citizens of Liberty Lake.
The pictures in this blog post of the Liberty Lake event are courtesy of Greg’s brother, Dean Vercruysse.
Semper Fidelis from the men of BRAVO! to the Vercruysse family.
On the screening front, we are pleased to announce that BRAVO! will be shown at Idaho’s historic Egyptian Theater in Boise on March 30, 2015. We will post updates to this event here as they become available.
If you or your organization would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town this spring or summer, please contact us immediately.
BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please “like” us and “share” the page at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject/. It’s another way to stay up on our news and help raise more public awareness of this film.
This past week the BRAVO! team spent the week at the Khe Sanh Veterans annual reunion at the Town and Country Resort in San Diego, California.
We met again with men who served with Bravo Company, First Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment before, during and after the Siege of Khe Sanh. We also met new friends and old friends from other outfits and shared stories, memories, tears and laughs.
Every year these events get more intimate and emotional for us. The ties that bind the survivors of any crisis are strong and can only be severed by death. This is very true for the men who served during the Siege. For those of us who endured the horror of that prolonged battle, the bonds of comradeship are stout. As one looks across a room full of veterans of that action, he knows that the people sitting out there, even if he does not personally know them, all understand the lifelong tensions and anxiety that simmer down inside.
One of the most exciting things that happened to us at the 2014 reunion was being joined by our family. Son Jim and his wife Norma, along with their daughters Justyce and Jayden drove over from Casa Grande, Arizona. Daughter Sarah and husband Baruch along with their daughter Isadora came in from Seattle, Washington. We were all present at the reunion banquet when Justyce, who received a scholarship from the Khe Sanh Veterans Association, was recognized by the scholarship committee chair, Dan Fisher.
Thanks to Tom Eichler, John Pessoni and the rest of the leaders of the Khe Sanh Veterans for all their hard work in putting the event together. Now, next year, on to Savannah, Georgia.
While we were at the reunion, we slipped away to screen BRAVO! COMMON MEN, UNCOMMON VALOR at American Legion Post 291, Newport Beach, California. While the calming Pacific breezes wafted over the sailboats berthed at the pier outside the post, an earnest audience of seventy-plus people saw the film. Among the attendees were BRAVO! Marines Skipper Ken Pipes, Ben Long, Ken Korkow, Mike McCauley, John Cicala and Tom Quigley. Also there were other men who served with Bravo Company, Jim Beall and Charles McIntire. Area residents Ray and Barbara Doyle and Robin Zimmermann who contributed both music and expertise to the film came and visited with us and watched BRAVO!
A big shout-out to Tony Arrigo, Jim Kaylor and Roger Henry who worked hard to make sure the event came off without a hitch.
Something about the contrast between balmy southern California weather outside and the intense representation of the violence, agony and redemption depicted inside during the screening of the film seemed to make the day more poignant.
Aside from the Khe Sanh Veterans reunion and the Newport Beach screening, BRAVO! was featured in an outstanding news feature by reporter Matt Burke in The Stars and Stripes which serves the United States’ military community worldwide. You can read the article here. http://www.stripes.com/news/special-reports/vietnam-at-50/the-bloody-battle-of-khe-sanh-77-days-under-siege-1.314627
Up next for the BRAVO! team, back to Idaho for a battery recharge and plans for screenings in March 2015 to coincide with the first year of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War and for Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day.
If you or your organization would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town this winter or spring, please contact us immediately.
BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please “like” us and “share” the page at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject/. It’s another way to stay up on our news and help raise more public awareness of this film.
Last Saturday morning, November 1, 2015, BRAVO! was screened to a standing-room-only audience at the Veterans Association of North County in Oceanside, California. An attentive and enthusiastic crowd of folks both young and old joined us for the event, augmented by cookies and coffee supplied by American Legion Post 146 Women’s Auxiliary.
Thanks to Mike Knudson for dreaming this event and then following the dream to fruition. Donations collected at the door will help the Veterans Association of North County finish refurbishing their impressive facility, a place where thirty-seven veterans’ organizations are housed. We also want to thank Chuck Atkinson and the other folks who run the location for all their support in helping with the screening.
Attending with the Rodgers were Bravo’s Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Ken Pipes. When the film was over, Skipper Pipes gave a stirring speech recognizing the sacrifices that veterans of war make. He acknowledged a number of attendees who served with us at Khe Sanh and a number of attendees who worked with Skipper Pipes during his tenure as a reserve officer with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department. Helping to make Ken and Sharon Pipes’ day even more memorable, their son, Tim, daughter-in-law, Sandra, and grandson, Connor, also attended. Connor presented his grandmother with a beautiful bouquet of birthday roses, and was later called upon to assist with the raffle drawings.
We are always moved by the heartfelt responses to our film, and this occasion was no different. For example, one young woman approached us and stated that viewing BRAVO! changed her life.
Prior to the Oceanside event, Ken Pipes, Betty and I were interviewed by San Diego’s ABC TV Channel 10 correspondent Bob Lawrence about the Siege of Khe Sanh and the making of BRAVO! You can watch the news clip that was broadcast on Channel 10 on October 31, 2014 here.
Later that evening, the Pipes and Rodgers contingent went to San Diego and attended the White Knights’ Squadron, VMM-165’s (VMM stands for Marine Medium Tiltrotor—V22 Osprey aircraft) Marine Corps Birthday Ball celebrating the 239th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Pipes were the guests of honor and once again, the Skipper delivered a stirring keynote speech and received a rousing standing ovation from those several hundred Marines uniformed in their colorful dress blues.
BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please “like” us and “share” the page at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject/. It’s another way to stay up on our news and help raise more public awareness.
Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor is a documentary film about the Siege of Khe Sanh, a seventy-seven day period in a war that went on in excess of eight years. Thinking about those eight years, I often ponder what my old unit was doing in Vietnam while I as home in the United States.
Today is May First, 2012. What was Bravo Company doing on various May Firsts while the battalion, my battalion…First Battalion, 26th Marines…was in Vietnam?
On May 1, 1966, neither the battalion nor Bravo had yet been in the Vietnam area of operations. They were on their way and soon would function as a battalion landing team up and down the coast of Vietnam.
I was in my second semester of college at Arizona State University studying Business Administration and as far as I can recollect, had no intention of joining the United States Marine Corps, or the service, or of ever venturing to Vietnam.
After a chain of events that saw me enlist and ship out for Vietnam, by May 1, 1967 I was already in the field with Bravo Company. First and Second Platoons were dug in at an old ville south of Hill 55, which was southwest of Danang in I Corps in the northern part of Vietnam. Third Platoon was dug in on a river crossing further south. Alpha Company of the battalion had already left the Hill 55 area for Phu Bai on the battalion’s journey that eventually led us to Khe Sanh where elements of the Third and Ninth Marine Regiments had been and were then locked in vicious fights for Hills 861, 881 South and 881 North.
On May 1, 1967, on patrol south of Hill 55, elements of Bravo Company found a 60MM mortar employed as an antipersonnel mine which they destroyed with a pound of TNT. They also found a Punji stake which was taken back to the company CP for examination.
On May 1, 1968, I had been home from Khe Sanh, the siege and Vietnam for over two weeks, and had been drinking, partying and pondering a trip with friends to Nogales, Mexico, for margaritas, street tacos and bullfights to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.
Bravo Company, gone from Khe Sanh, was defending Wonder Beach on May 1, 1968. First Platoon ran an ambush the night of April 30 and returned into the perimeter early on the morning of May 1. During the day, 9 rounds of incoming mortar fire were received and one Marine was wounded. The company also took incoming machine gun fire.
On May 1, 1969, I was deployed at Marine Barracks, 36th Street Naval Station in San Diego, California, where I worked in the Navy Brig Base Parolee dorms, harassing prisoners, holding snap inspections and throwing improperly arranged footlockers out the windows three stories down into the yard.
Bravo Company was part of a battalion landing team and took part in a heliborne and seaborne assault rehearsal north of the NamO Bridge near Danang in anticipation of more rambunctious action in the days to come.
On May 1, 1970, I was out of the Marine Corps attending a local junior college in Central Arizona and working as a sheetrock humper on the construction of some high schools in the Phoenix area.
Bravo Company and the 26th Marines no longer existed in terms of a combat unit in Vietnam on May 1, 1970. Their last activities in-country were in March of that year and Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment now exists in the history of the Corps and the hearts and memories of the Marines and Corpsmen who served.
I was born in Boston, MA, but raised in San Diego from the age of 10. I was 17 when I enlisted in the Marines, had just turned 18 in December, and arrived in Vietnam in mid-February.
Frank McCauley as a young Marine
There, I was a machine gunner stationed along the perimeter of the base, just inside of the smoldering garbage pit. I learned early on that if you wanted to avoid stirring the latrine barrels while the burning diesel fuel turned it to crust, look busy; field strip the machine gun down to a blanket of nothing but pieces. It looks daunting and they were uncomfortable asking me to leave that blanket of parts to go stir shit. Yippee!!
I have always been interested in working on and fixing old cars and classics. My current project is a ‘38 Ford Deuce Coupe that is in remarkable condition, but a ways from driving down the road at this point. If you were to ask my wife, she’d say it’s a piece of junk that I’ll never finish.
I have also spent a great deal of time, lately, on a 1990 Jeep Wrangler which I brought back to life. It is nearly bullet-proof, road worthy and fun to drive.
Frank McCauley at his interview in San Antonio, TX for Bravo!
I also enjoy going on trips on my motorcycle, being alone with only my thoughts to keep me company. I’ve never enjoyed being a part of a group. I am very much a loner and enjoy being in charge of my own destinations and time schedule; it avoids conflicts.
Frank McCauley’s interview riveted our attention in the film both when he described arriving at Khe Sanh during the siege and while in the midst of a fire fight, suddenly recalling his time at the rifle range on Camp Pendleton.
