Al White: The Story of a Marine Grunt in the First Battle of Khe Sanh (April 1967)

[Music] [Music] [Music] we went to the the Springfield Armory to see the Marine Corps band played when I was in high school and and I was impressed thoroughly and I played the saxophone and I see nice dress blues they played I just sold me out so I decided I joined the Marine Corps being Marine Corps band another fellow he was the high school buddy he decided to go in with me on the buddy plan and so we've enlisted the Marine Corps while he's in high school 120 day delay plans what they called him and he went ahead when you graduate high school you had a little brief time and you just went right in and it didn't have to get conformed anything because if I probably spent the summer at home I didn't out not when so it is all set the stage was set for us then we went to boot camp in San Diego and it was total terror on earth for me I come out of the cornfields of Illinois and I didn't know a world like that existed a lot of Chicago on a I camera 707 whatever that jet was first time I've been in there scared to death and we flew out there and I remember the pilots in if you look below us there's Denver Colorado and it looked like somebody was holding a match out in the dark and I go that's a whole [ __ ] City down there I really I'll never forget that as long as I live next thing Noah is at San Diego and we build around the airport and in here this bus big green solid grab dart bus pulls up and I remember the the interior lights was on it's like the Polar Express pulling up and still I've didn't no idea what was going to happen and these two DDI or they wasn't even D eyes of receiving barracks but they come out yelling and screaming we got in there the bus falling all the way down the aisle ass hold a belly button and it's a peaceful ride to the receiving depot and then all the [ __ ] happen it's at night I don't know what time it was late and stood on the yellow footprints and the terror started and I realize oh mama thought I made a big mistake and and these this young Mexican guy way was a corporal or Lance Corporal - you might as well have been God to me and he's going around snapping people in the ears with rubber bands and and and just you know there's nothing you could do and he pull the hair out of your nose or or snap me on the nose of the rubber band and then going around in my ears and yelled at me for moving and I was totally petrified and did that we went in and I can't remember the order of it but we went in and closed off packed our bags in a box and made a call to home to say we made it that was into that and then we got herded into the showers and they give us I believe they was red or white tennis shoes and green pair of issue pants and a yellow sweatshirt said United States Marine Corps I can't a green cover of course and they kept us busy all night long no rest doing something yelling and screaming and the process didn't really start the next day but the d eyes come to get us and that's when i thought it can't get any worse it was getting ready to get worse this probably you know the same old procedure you seen another the harassment like liamri did in the movie of The Full Metal Jacket that started and but that time I was stupefied I was mentally numb you know I didn't what was going to happen next I have never took a crap in front anybody in my life and all of a sudden here's these guys telling you in the head we call it and telling you standing right in front of you looking at their dick and they're telling you get off the the [ __ ] so they could [ __ ] night locked up couldn't I couldn't go to the bathroom and it was like a week or so and everybody said eat plenty of lettuce and stuff but I couldn't get him movies like concrete and one night I made a breakaway to the head and at that time I believe it was a there's like an open-air head I came here is how it was we lived in these constants and but anyway I'm I'm going home man finally I can relax and take a [ __ ] and about the time I've done that I look down where he come from it's just like he come out of this nowhere I looked down there see spit shine shoes I looked up there smokey bear hat it's a DI Robson's staff sergeant Rossi and I go oh boy I thought he'd go put a bullet in my head or something and he was what are we doing here Private Ryan I said sir the privates making a head call he said is it an emergency had called I said yes sir probably wouldn't be here and he says I don't hear no siren I thought because I want but there's emergency there's sirens I don't hear this must not be an emergency and I said yes sir then I got tongue-tied I couldn't make sense he said well I want to hear siren and here it was 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning and I'm trying to take a [ __ ] and oh and finally done it and after that time I was right amongst him hurry up let me on there [Music] two weeks into the program when I had this in my mind it's my way of dealing with things the more stripes they had the meaner they were and that's the way I interpreted to my the temperature of the situation I was in or good about to be in so the drill instructor yelling at me to beat on his window or his door and of course say you got a beat and asked for finished dinner before they let you in and they then he says you've got it's sold Oh 100 if you're not back here by old 115 you will be dead meat I'll go get that whatever you got to do they told you to do done gone that's gone and I got to this point that I scared death all I had on my mind was getting back at that time and then the the band leader of the San Diego MCRD he was like a sergeant major he had like three up and four down and all these hash marks and I locked up and I plus the devil himself you know I didn't those more stripes he had them all and I he had a little music stand there and out of saxophone and he said play that my mind was totally [ __ ] blank all I could remember oh one-fifteen you better be here and I peeked and smoked a few notes out he says that it was just private has to be back at all 1:15 to get your ass back there and that was the end of my musical career in the United States Marine Corps out down the [ __ ] tubes so [Music] after graduation they give us our MLS's was your job in the military I think there was probably 80 in this training batoon I can't remember the number exactly below 100 and I was one of the smallest skies there was and in weight and height I probably weighed maybe hundred twenty-five pounds and five foot six and the rest these guys was a couple of was over six foot two and in a hundred eighty the marine range we call it 30 inch waist 28 to 30 inch waist and because during the course of training we lost a lot of weight put on muscle stuff and they started reading these same OSS out and which Greek to me so they said white Allenby o 300 what's that typist or truck driver cash it no it's [ __ ] infantry so from their route to basic infantry training for recruits that I fail I believe that was four weeks it went out I can't remember the campers that hump the mountains has done all that stuff we got to shoot the m60 you know the mortars all we've just familiarize ation was what they called it but then when I graduated there then they gave your your infantry MLS which mine was over 350 ones and that was anti-tank the Oaks route 51 rocket and 106 recoilless rifle as I had a 30-day leave I believe it was 30 days but high school was my greens on my hat you know strutting around like a banty rooster showing everybody that hey you're back I'm badass and and doing that thing eighteen year old kids do and yeah I've strut around I I thought I was hot [ __ ] little I'd know how my life was gonna change we took a ship Merchant Marine had seven Navy people on it and there was a whole it was a like a Liberty Ship it's a troop transport and it was designed to carry I think 1500 and we had 2,400 on there was in there like sardines and you know I thought they had submarines and everything you know always worried about getting torpedoed and you just settled anything but I remember the most thing I remember we left San Diego harbor we're all standing along the edge of the ship hanging over the sides of you know yelling and screaming at everybody and this this is not bad look this piece of cake then we got out past the the end of the waves and all sudden things start going like an elevator and all of a sudden everybody was puking and throwing up and if if they was up towards the bow and you was back towards the middle the pew could be flying back here spraying you and then that's when I learned to be very self controlled it's just a puke fest you go to the heads and the ship was going like this and they had a piss trough and the water would slosh out of the stools the turds and puke was just hey you could handle it you could handle it so during the day it was a sweat hole down below card games very racist at that time it was 1960s didn't cember of 1966 and the racism brewed because we was all huddled together everything was brewing it was a teapot ready to blow its top and I got settled into the puke and the [ __ ] and everything else and I remember when you went to chips constantly going to chow you get done with your breakfast should go back clear to the end and sit and wait for chow there's a continuous line and then you set when you it's over that you go back lean against the bulkhead and and doubt not your ass weight towards a kitchen again eat your your child for the evening you know it's that's all it was and the [ __ ] smoking cigarettes and all that stuff and you but you found friends you can buddy up with and I was kind of a mingler I got along with everybody and and I remember we got to Okinawa we've been on the ship for too long 20 days and I thought how far can a country be away you know I never been out of Wayne DeWitt County in my life and I how far can a country be away 20 days that I've never seen no land at all never realized how big the ocean was well little amongst me I guess we would go around circles for a while sometimes the Navy I don't want they do it avoid stuff but when we got they decided to let us off the ship at white Beach Okinawa and all there was was there was a navy it's like an NCO club it's a big club and we disembarked the ship and we went there just he's gonna let's blow some steam and then leave the next day well got it here and people got drunk and the top blew off the kettle it was a race riot it was and people we like as I believe I remember a line going back to ship people carrying people and luckily we didn't have guns or it been a shootout well he got back to ship the Lee the white racists were pulling the fire axis off the wall and planting in people's heads we had 12 people killed in that right I mean it's just all out you know too many men together too quick and they was not we weren't a fighting unit we was you know it's just a mix and we hadn't couldn't what he call it congealed together as a you we weren't a unit was just when we got there they'd send you off to your unit and everybody started asking what was going to happen I remember 12 people was killed and numerous injured I always thought how they explain that to their parents your son was killed in action but you hadn't got to the action yet if they've said that you know all our member got back on the ship and in the South Pacific they got a certain part they call it it's it's like the North Sea in England rough and I remember going up topside dhalsim sky and the next day gonna look down took a step looked up and all I seen was water the ship doing this number and they batten the doors down to make us you know so we could float and if scary it was really scary cuz that's like man I never seen nothing like I didn't know such things existed and so it went away dead I almost got seasick but everybody was sick everybody I ate a bunch of saltine crackers that's all I lived on the next time I one day went up topside it was just like London Fog I said the boat wasn't moving ship maybe God kill me if I called that boat but it just bawled all around and that's we're already you are in the Republic of Vietnam I couldn't see nothing and off the distance all of a sudden dish it's like the Smoky Mountains this dark shadow a mountain appears in basic training everything they this world war two stuffs they teach you because it's 1966 but a lot of 50s assaults and I we did practice of state website up I'm sorry about that but the expectancy of a any automat crew-served weapon was three to five seconds after you hit the beach usually gonna be wounded you're gonna be dead and a chance of one and 100 that you might live well I thought this is not gonna have you to us here that's right again and then I got thinking we can't do it at finished landing because we don't have no boats to do it with we thought a troop transport so it pulled into the night we finally got into dang and all seamless people out there you know a little rice burner hats and and selling Lucky Strikes and lying and her brothers and sisters and everything else I was expected instant machine fired every but I scared to death and then I don't remember how long we lingered there nobody just let you roam around and I don't know how many days it was but we found a place to keep the water off our ass and find some food stuff and they did find different mess halls and stuff then I don't remember how it happened but we we got sent I got on a helicopter and I went to echo company second Battalion third Breen's up in the DMZ we got off of that then we lingered around and then this this cost I can't read they call them to stand a half's or something the trucks they help hold you round on about four of them pulled up and loaded the Sun then we took off this down these roads that I'm just no grenades gonna be flying out of the woodwork because we didn't have a weapon and and just knew was a total total confusion total [ __ ] confusion and we got to the place called me lock that's where echo company second Battalion services that and the battalion was scattered in and around that long tree district and I remember there was just a it was a mud hole it had French parapets it's old French fort and it was monsoons it was raining and the truck hit a bump and the whole backside of it fell out we all fell out in the mud and just I thought how [ __ ] up could it get we got there nobody had a poncho on in a I drown in mud wet and nobody said not Stu just walked by and I was too scared asked for help raining I didn't know I just sit there for almost a day when like a my poncho and finally a guy comes out this hole on the ground he says you've been sitting there long enough you want to come in here and where it's warm yes sir don't you call me no sir I earned my rank and all this [ __ ] yeah so I went in there and and there's about four or five guys in there and then you know I bet in anywhere to get out of the rain and they had candles and they said it just looked at me I remember just in phases the candlelight glitter by no Staller boots and her racks was tied off the top of this concrete bunker is it what couldn't you do that he said because rats will get you huh oh [ __ ] and I know they said they'll chew your strings and - off your off your shoes and if you got a hairy chest they'll chew that off while you're asleep well I didn't I didn't have no hairy chest good a fairly shave so that night I didn't sleep because I had all I could see I never seen him but I could hear him his the rats and then the next day we went to the company headquarters and that was I got assigned to that that that squad and it was machine guns over 331 and I said but sir I said oh that's not my mo a CSUN your own it's your mo s now son not private now that your son there so first shirt and he was gonna Reese argent he's y'all V T you will be what I make you you understand that yes sir I think a mass out for calm sir again sir they said that's that's your gun team I said I said I won't shop you'll learn you learn you learn that was my aim Austin they didn't change it my in loss of stills oh 351 but I was in machine guns which later saved my life and so I got to know the guys to come on dream and it took a while but I remember his first patrol our gun team winners squad size patrol and our gun teams assigned to that patrol and there was me Benjamin Roberts yves's he was I was a humble as you start out the bottom work your way up and John Flannery was the the gunner Benjamin Roberts assistant Gunners black fella tall lanky guy from Savannah Georgia and Flannery's stocky white guy mind me Dick Butkus from Philadelphia and our our squad leader was campers named Finnell was his last name corporal Finnell and we went on this patrol with the eight or nine runs 12 grunts and they went off and left me I mean I was young trained Marine Corps hard I couldn't keep up with them they just run off and left me not scared to death how could a person walk this fast aren't they looking for mines aren't they worried abou p-trap stomach and I see petrified divers are running dragging my wife won't had a backpack on the end I said these guys are gonna leave me out in this jungle and finally they didn't slow down say come on catch up or anything finally I got there and they could have walked out of woodwork not to give him a gun I said god damn fatigue and of course like they put me on the first the shittiest watch and but see yeah I didn't had no Vietnam movies it's only the John Wayne and Green Berets the only one we ever seen we laughed all the way through it but you know I was totally totally [ __ ] scared to death and I had a two hour watch and it just raining and rainin and I couldn't see nothing and the water was bouncing off my helmet it's just like your head and send a snare drum since they could have walked up and tapped you on the shoulder I was waiting for a human wave to come at us and everything else and I remember pissing my pants to keep warm and Moke one of the guys up said I'm done with my watch unless you want me staffed or more cuz I want to be their buddies big-time and I think it was uh it's the Benjamin Phillips no Benjamin Roberts I'm sorry it was his watch he said get and I said what I do now he said get in there with him guys the names in there all cuddled up under her poncho ass hold a belly button and I said well it would get me in her me and ass or something because I scared to death it guys well you want to sit out in rain or you want to you're losing the heat or get your ass in here with us I got it there hugged up that's we Swiss that little Dino this is Supreme Court Brotherhood's congealing and after that pretty well break like machette experience I finally breaking breaking into being around people and and it was a bonding process therefore all and everything was pretty Copa psycho-pass a was running patrols I was getting used to running up a journal not walking throwing running it in sixties is about always in the middle of the squad you'd have your point man they'd be two three grunts that called fireteam there's four grunts to fireteam three rifleman an automatic rifleman was just a flick of a switch we had also added in four teams we didn't know what the m16 was and we were across the stream and a vice dropping trou I thought what's this all about you know he said check for leeches I'd heard about leeches I thought I was in that stream two minutes getting across think how could something get hooked up on me and I don't feel it so I dropped trou there's another thing you learn like the minute you got there you do not wear underwear because they crawl up your [ __ ] and shack and shave Union then you are miserable so the underwear was thrown away skivvies we called and never sees black leeches on my nuts down the inner thighs and I went beserk because they big fat [ __ ] they've been working on me for a while blood and [ __ ] and the guy said burn him off with a cigarette oh you put no cigarette on my nuts but that is mosquito repellant when you put in on him and they drop off too but also I don't in high school when I was in high school they determined turpentine freshman's nuts and it burnt like hell as part of the procedure and back in the corn country and that's felt it felt like it but is either that the things sucking your nuts dry so they get on your ankles they just any place that they always went for the softest skin which would be your eyelids your lips soft parts you inside of your fingers toes and of course [ __ ] and balls so then after that we went on about our Patrol of course that's when I got learn how to stay warm at night and rainy weather and the first time I seen a dead person we was on a petunia hole that's when the lieutenant goes with Impa toon commander in all three swarms with weapons weapons detach three sets of machine guns three rocket teams and three mortar teams that goes for the to not believe that's the way it was anyways whole crew and there's four platoons of rifle company so we was on the spittoon size patrol and it was somewhere around Camp peril and we we went out we went out of my lock and it just a little more of a long-range patrol so you go a little more enforce and we've taken a break all set heard this gunshot and then everybody's turned loose fire and you know I thought there we go and then cease fire cease fire cease fire and I don't know what was the disguise said we got a [ __ ] got a good and it passed on up the line they said the shot lunar strike better we had a sniper with us Weiss with us I have no idea maybe was gonna implant him or something I don't know but he was with us and he was back with the tail-end charlie and it's really uh it wasn't wooded area yep no Vietnam to explain it it was like going through a bunch of bushes except today's all green and stuff and and he just come out of the bushes that he was a paymaster for the NBA or Vietcong and it shot him dead minutes seen him there was no stop or anything just shot him dead and they done stripped his clothes off him and everything he's laying here and I remember the big big gaping chest wounds they must have shot him in the back and it come out in his blood all over me first time I seemed dead verson I stared at of course he was gonna cry nothing cuz she's all [ __ ] you know so we everybody broke out their cameras if we took turns standing on him holding his head up like it was a deer and everybody my turn hurry up get the [ __ ] outta way you know everybody so they could send their shots home their girlfriends ain't that sick look what I killed today just and I looked at that picture I saw its it got lost in the history somewhere but always thought well you you [ __ ] are animals and yet - no I hadn't begin on the first stage of being an animal yet then the word come down through the Lakota scuttlebutt that we we was gonna we was going back to Okinawa to retrain and I said well I just got here I've been here about it's uh she was there January February and it's about March and they said well we're going on float phase I didn't what that was and we go back I guess there's been operations before I ever got there they I remember those old salts talking about Allegheny and these other operations I guess we we was under Strength's was too many new guys not enough old guys and there's all [ __ ] up so he's going back and rebuild and it will spend a month in Okinawa training and getting new guys and getting everything back up stuff and so uh that was the word and finally it was the real deal we knew he's getting back and I thought that'll be at least a month or a month and a half I won't have to spend in Vietnam and it goes towards your your overseas and so as the battalion was going back i we was all signed every company was signed a different ship there's four ships and I can't remember the names of that's irrelevant there was a helicopter carriers old World War II with g m-- i believe or tripoli and it wasn't big enough for jets so they made it they put Chinooks on there and and made a helicopter carrier then i started to understand what a float face was it was the vertical assault squadron but i didn't know what it was about so went back to Okinawa and his party time you know we trained hard I can't remember by believe it was but it's up in the northern area and that was the mountains and stuff and I remember a convoy was practicing night training and they drove off the side of a mountain and killed a bunch of guys I remember that but it wasn't our country to give a [ __ ] you know it wasn't us but you got to know you got get drunk train and take these taxicabs down to I think it was called it was Kadena there was an airbase there and everything and you'd see these I didn't know what a kilometer was and no ideas 1967 and we get these little Toyotas and the guys always said they were sex kamikaze pilots from World War two and you look down that going like 120 miles an hour and if you if you miss the curve just about 5,000 feet down to the ocean and the rocks and you see these crosses all along the roads and I'm asked to disguise what's that for so that's for somebody [ __ ] got killed for these kamikaze pilots tae Kuk you're gonna be [ __ ] me so it made sure he's good and [ __ ] drunk before he come home so it wouldn't feel a pain but that's where I got my first piece I ass yes sir yeah I went nuts because I I come to conclusion I said I'm you know I could get killed this trips not even begun to start so my squad leader said we need to get you laid I said well not that kind of guy said you will be and I thought it was getting into there I thought you had fall in love and I want [ __ ] just an exchange of a couple bucks witness bar and first time I ever got totally [ __ ] and wasted I mean I'd never drank maybe a six-pack smoked a few cigarettes I never smoked cigarettes tell him at the Marine Corps but all this stopped and but I never really been what she called balling down brain-dead drunk and we went into the bar and you could drink it's like a candy shop and I was getting everything I get pulling it of course they ended up carrying me out of there and then we went to a I puked my guts out I was gonna die never drink again in my life till week later but we went a steam house and that helped sweat all the [ __ ] out he and everything but uh I don't remember too much that night I remember we dragging me down through the street side covered with puke and they called it the gun I thanked the gutter it just felt bars and [ __ ] man so we got back to ship we went training that day and I puke not shipped back to camp swap puking my guts finally got stabilized and corporal Finnell says well this tonight you're gonna get laid no no drink until you get laid I don't remember how exactly how it happened that I remember a STONER underwear if I don't got back to this camp you know like it's a big deal hold my trophy look at [ __ ] you know sir I supposed to save myself my sweetheart at home but that worked out okay but well I got a taste of that I'm coming back more so I went rabid for the next month and a half fell in love with the bar [ __ ] can he remember name now but at that time I didn't care boy and give her every [ __ ] dime I had I remember was getting back on the ship to go to Vietnam or on her cruise and she's standing there i whup you Wow I wrote a wrote her letter but it she ever wrote nothing back she's waiting for the next fleet to come in but is experience you know the idea the conception this is all new because the helicopter the vertical assault squadron was a battalion it's called BL battalion landing team to three and second time third means that it's us five or six months deal and everybody goes man we're going to be on a ship hot Chow real real racks and no mosquitoes chewing on her ass we thought we'd died and gone to heaven but let little to know we found out that we was at hell in short order we had put trip to it and the idea was any in the iCore any marine unit they got in the I think they call it Arrowhead now or something like that but when they need instant [ __ ] help that's where we got the picture we get on the helicopters we'd be there in 10 minutes just drop her ass right in the middle of it go I remember looking out this Chinook and this guy out the gunner opened up that 50 Cal about [ __ ] my pants and to look down and I seen it look like popcorn was exploding on the ground his mortars and he started circling to go right down in there and man I run out the back of that sumbitch that's knee-deep in a rice paddy and I couldn't move rounds flying over the place I couldn't [ __ ] move a stop and two or three other ones Waller down and they finally pulled me out of there and my combat boots off me and and I thought this is not what more supposed to be like you know if I supposed to be hiding a hind something that he couldn't see him you know you couldn't see him there they've just camouflage experts but the rounds is fine but you couldn't see him so everybody was just shooting everything I'll be alright I know a lot of friendly troops got killed but my accidental but you didn't know what you know somebody shooting bullets had you got to shoot something back does to keep the volumen lead going then it might stopped them but anyway just everybody but they had the old reliable in 14 and you could not jam them up you could throw in a mud puddle and a rice paddy ship piss on him salt and gravel and they'd still shoot but it that that was the beginning of a lot of very nasty experi [Music] [Applause] this is my recollection my recollection only Tom rice when my good friends drew me a map and stuff what he thought happened but he's dead down but anyways there case on it's really strange store we had no idea what was going on we was somewhere you got to understand the layout of Vietnam it's sand beach and like I call it a white desert with bushes and stuff but it's it's then it goes into the rice paddies then it goes into the mountains because it's only maybe 50-100 miles wide and then you're in layoffs in the other countries but we was out in the white sand marks around we said a pine tree some chicken [ __ ] operation I don't know what it was but I remember his Hawk I had a heat stroke I forgot about that I had a heat stroke on another one way before this before I went to Okinawa and let my water get my body run out water I didn't want a heat stroke was and all said it kept getting weaker and weaker and weaker and it was in the sand and I passed out I remember I couldn't I just kept getting weaker I just passed out I've seen full-blown heat stroke and there was no water no water at all and they weren't about to empty their canteens on my ass so they pissed on me to keep me wet and I remember they leaned me up against the tree and uh they got dad to get some water but I had to drink it slowly and it's probably four hours for it there you getting any better we gotta get the [ __ ] out of here no mercy yeah I think I'd care my pack and I stumble [ __ ] and finally we got to some stream they threw my acid man yeah I don't how many brain cells I burned out that day but it was a that's the way it was there they were gonna give her position way if the helicopter coming in hauled my ass away so they got my body temperature down and I regained my strengths but that's the only time I really felt totally helpless but there's nothing you could do you just passed out but I remember the warm water being off which I thought I've been warm stuff on me I just they finding it later on they told pissed all over us they had to drink their water so they could piss more on me but I didn't give a [ __ ] but I remember they got me to some little stream or something and they dumped me in there and I started getting my strength back and quite an experience we got back like helicopters these old time they call them grasshoppers one of the CH I came from the name him and Chinook started coming out over the horizon we don't want God and they landed this way up month after heat stroke and I remember leaning on my pack talking to another marine some reddit guy from Arkansas and here comes them helicopters to go good we're good back to the ship I thought her so we got on him and we took off you know then we weren't going towards no ships because ocean was over there and we was going straight north where we landed that dong-ha that was at the time the closest helicopter place that could keep squadrons helicopters it before you go into North Vietnam and we unloaded there then we got on c-130 transport wasn't you know no idea what's going on there was three companies in our battalion there's echo company Foxtrot Golf and hotel that makes a battalion I remember it landed it went down the strip we couldn't see was just did a cap so you don't been taught inside of it we couldn't see nothing and remember the back door dropping down and everybody running off the back and just gathering behind c-130 we had no instruction we don't know what probe his even I had we knew we knew he's somewhere but then I remember the c-130 turning around and it wound it's pops up but all this red dust and gravel just like sand blasted us to death we forgot boxes like this that often gone and so we went to a rallying point it's in the afternoon and it was April 26 1967 my 19th birthday and I and these I could see just one big hill and it didn't have nothing on it and he there was Corsairs I can't read the names of planes that popular then but they was coming in with thousand-pound 2000 bombs they bomb in that zone [ __ ] and I think they called him bunker busters or what they were but they and they come down on that Hill will be no us those Marines up there trying to get up there and the Battle of Khe Sanh was on and we didn't know what we was getting into but they called us in and our goal was take sixty one the three three hills 861 881 north and 81 south and they was the high points where they could put their mortars and stuff and mortar the base transports couldn't land get ammo and versus to starve death and he's gonna stormtrooper ass and this wasn't the big ceej this is before it the first battles of case on the hill fights they called still had no idea of what was going on there I remember that night it's in the morning we just kind of bivouac where he's at and the Sun hadn't come up but I remembered this it kind of like at the base this hill where we was getting ready to start out the big ejector just 861 and they could not be possibly anybody up there live because we watched him all day and they just constant bombing of it and we still had no idea what I was into you know because nobody give us a straight scoop we're just grunts and the gossip but everything was going around but we had no idea what was about to get into and I can't Mervis one seven one nine three three but a the battalion and was watching doing the watching case on the perimeter just a little bitty place coffee plantation and was decimated they was getting things and they but they'd stumbled into something and they knew it was big and so we was called in then later on a whole bunch of they almost had a certain marine division there that that was the objective for our battalion is to secure them hills and 861 it's the first one if then we'd move over Hotel where they take 881 south and echo company would take 81 north and Foxtrot is said in reserve but golf Golf Company was supposed to take 861 somehow I swear every didn't go up it but they all the people told me we did but I remember these guys there's maybe eight guys coming down this trail this Hills in it looked like best way for me describe because it's early morning it looked like they was cut but they look like [ __ ] zombies but it looked like they was covered with the white ash the way they always struck me like there's a zombie so that's the first time I seen the thousand-mile stare I mean these guys just you could tell they've been through hell and back and I go oh [ __ ] you know oh and he said where's rested for two and he said they're up there ain't coming back and I didn't start crying I didn't do not I've just go oh [ __ ] you know that's still young so I'll go up there and kick her ass and I don't mind me going up there but they somebody did and they got the hit I think pretty well they scrambled somewhere else with little to me no that's going went over they dated one north and south and they was dug in and we had no idea how much they was dug in I remember when the Sun got up it was searing searing hot if the humidity was about a hundred percent and just odd awful hot they made us take our flak jackets off its home in a pile that's the only protection we had but too many people was having heat strokes and because of this they thought it's a flat chest so bad the only protection we had was those [ __ ] fact and we had I remember the piles of him throwing them so our body could breathe easier and I thought right now that beast that court-martial for that taking all their protection away and and I remember you they had we had helmets but your head felt like it was in a stew pot but then the track started going towards 8081 Norris and his long ways to felt like it took for [ __ ] ever and they was a the elevation was 881 meters above sea level which if is a lot long way up there but they from a distance they look like golf courses there's a little green clumped on a bamboo forest and stuff but it was elephant grass I know if you said Marine Corps you know all about that but it's about 12 foot high and it's razor sharp and it's it's the grass they call it elephant grass and it just cuts you to pieces you know so we had walrus leaves down to just slice to death and it's the we couldn't get no air it was just unbelievable out and people started passing out and but we kept going and we got to her one night we stopped in what's which hill I mean it's a dated one North but I don't where was that with some valley and if members on an incline like this we got bordered and it just started raining down we didn't dug no foxholes or nothing you know date but they they seen it's coming and and that's the first fatality I seen Marines and a couple of them was just blown to pieces and Benjamin Roberts the they got it I got to go back aways here you got forget when we went to Okinawa we regrouped as a battalion and the so many privates so many sergeant so many lance corporals it had to get back they call it t ad or something get back to the way and Marine Corps watched you structured well I was in West was so 351 but I was oh three thirty when they took out a machine guns and put me back in rockets and I fought a boy I've used I've taken your family and your family I custom and done everything they knew so I joined rockets which another bunch of guys I got to know while we had Okinawa Tom rice and he was my best buddy but I still had my buddies and when we Benjamin Roberts was assistant gunner machine guns and he said ow I go make it was sitting there one night I come over from Rockets to sit there cuz he but friend just eatin c-rations smoke cigarette shoot [ __ ] I said I'll don't you what the [ __ ] you know just he's had his funny listen I'm not making it and I said well you know whatever you just blew him off and we went back the next day we started that humping again and it could get his singing water and and I mean there was no water to be had and little know us the [ __ ] back a case on that the artillery base was bathing and drinking shaving in our [ __ ] drinking water and they didn't get [ __ ] about us that's just way you know you know I think long as they've is okay so somehow they got some water to us but most of the time it kind of stream something you just filled it up went on about your business and and that's the only thing kept us from dying and I remember going to this ravine I'm talking Triple Canopy forests and just raised the sunlight coming through it and it was just totally creepy dark in there and we was going to it company size you know and I was attached to second Platoon nowise I take it back I was hitting rockets my gun team this was second Platoon ice with the CP man posts those I didn't have to go on patrol sir nothing cuz there's no [ __ ] bazooka patrol horizon so we pretty hell had it made and but I remember going through this valley and I mean you know we're light and the whole bottom of the valley was walking to it's like great power just a fine dust is really I could eerie no noises no nothing and it's creepy and he got cold and clammy echo they could find a little bit of a fire that's warm then I was looked at I scan in the Train I said my look around and there was a thousand the whole sides of the mountain was thousands of foxholes so they had to be a division there so then the dust was from their fires that settled back down like pollen and it dawned on me oh-ho I'm back that was fun talking about and I could all [ __ ] ain't no two or three of them up here of these rain be a and found out later on there's a 300 325 V or something division like thirty thousand of them in the mountains and still it no idea the concept of what he's about to get into and that's was the first time I really feared big time and I thought and it was a little quietness everything about it it was just bad news and you use here birds chirping or somebody was just cold and I was that's I be one of the times I really was scared to death died that's it and I can't I can't I don't know how we got out of there and we started up this hill and the heat was just bucking overbearing then it started raining just pouring down rain and it got cold and we was just gonna fuss take the objective 81 north but no fire yet no fire at all and we made it to the snow then Sun poked its head out and the lieutenant got up stood up with his radio man and also the Kapow and he dropped and and I remember us sitting there I was laying on the ground kissing her and the person the radio man Kapow he went down and and he moaning and groaning and every time the lieutenant he was trying to get the radio Cantor was his name first lieutenant Cantor he's a big tall lanky guy about six foot six and every time he rolled over he see his elbow or something to come up there Tom POW and hit again and he was screaming and yelling then I seen his kneecaps come up out of them it's like a strong that rat I don't want less but it's low cut grass and another bullet hit him right through the kneecap and he was just bloody mercy screams so everybody just opened up everybody including me now remember another hill and across the ravine and all I could see they looked like that tall and it's a column of going up and I thought it's the enemy and I opened up with my m16 for all its worse they just give us the m16 too and they jammed on you about four rounds automatic and jam dad take the rifle part take a cleaning rod and break the round loose and shoot another three or four rounds but I remember mine sees then panic well I found out later I shoot the Marines and I hope they was out of range because I was unloading them on am I'm sure other Marines were too because we didn't want what's going on so finally the sniper went away or just maybe killed him I don't know I've never seen nobody so they got a medic meta backed out of there and I later learned on her life he never he never took Toa morphine it refused it I saw he's dead but I found out later on he survived it but he died I think it was 2000 he flew his with him uh then kites she get on it's a little motor right inside of mountain killed himself so he's always that you know I thought you straightest arrow guide in my life I remember because an officer and I respected it but I thought he's dead you know but he survived that's what they told me he didn't take no morphine or nothing that's a sign of tough going out the day eve just he had to be bleeding in every outlet there was but the sniper was purposely doing that hoping the corpsman run up there he could shoot them that it takes ten men to get everybody out of there that's ten Marines they don't have to [ __ ] deal with including they might be able to shoot a helicopter down the assault again on the hill and then it's just come down again and we've made it a little plateau and I remember it's a bamboo a bamboo forest right at the edge but no or like that then the mountain the rest top was up there we had we started to take the siege and there's about two hours of sunlight left and the captain called it off do it next day they were killed us all if we've got to stop like hell I know that would they were set up and so we dropped back to the snow and there's me and Philip Skinner from Chicago also black guy well it highly educated he's a photographer photographer nut we had a 35mm camera and I ended up that and he was my tom rice was the rocket man and he was assistant rocket man and I was a mohawk or wasn't and we was tight knit group and we took on this other kid he stainless Flannery but not John Flannery the guns is that he was a new guy that joined us in Okinawa in and corporal Renfro he was the squad leader and this Jim Renfro and he had a heat stroke and so he didn't they took him away and it just pouring down rain and we the big deal me and Skinner was trying to make something that was off the ground with bamboo so wouldn't have to lay it in water and seen who could built best hooch but he was cutting up bam-boom playing around and it stopped just for a little bit and I went over to Cena Roberts Flannery g-dub you which I never did his last name and purple for now I'm shot to [ __ ] with them you know and then I went back to my hole I don't know nothing just but sleep I don't remember we and it's four o'clock good morning and all I remember is no and bugles blowing and I looked up and that's all I could see was green tracers and orange ones coming in and I we didn't have green tracers and [ __ ] totally [ __ ] total panic set in just instant eruption a Braj of ant fire well I guess what a private Anderson went out take a [ __ ] or something in the invade was coming down from the hill they went down in a valley and it was creeping up on us and somebody bayonetted him to death and but he let up just enough that then the whole perimeter just [ __ ] lit up for second Mattoon that's where my gun teams at and they come that's for the major there's salt - they're like a wedge and then spread out through the elephant grass and everything there I remember the sergeant coming over you guys come with me because we didn't all we had was in m16 and I didn't have a pistol or anything so we followed him and I remember these guys laying there was sucking wounds and stuff and I think it was like a put it took wounded people but this seemed like it'd only been going on five minutes but had been going on man I remember between the the grenade blast and everything you can see figures you know like this or like this or I remember standing you didn't who was [ __ ] who so they got burst but first Platoon was ordered to make a sweep through our perimeter and they was on I can't run which side of the mountain they was on but that their objectives was the things coming in from this direction Negus over here names all through second 14 and you hear guys screaming yelling [ __ ] grenades and [ __ ] going off at least they said they got our helmets they got our [ __ ] how much they're dressed like Marines so I remember we still sitting there waiting once somebody tell us what the [ __ ] Dubai scared shitless and first Platoon goes right to us then I just members man automatic fire and it they didn't it [ __ ] lights going on did you just see they they fighting the [ __ ] they said right in the ass and nobody knew who was but I knew if you stepped out he was [ __ ] dead you stepped up kneecap just on your knees you'd be dead from either our fire there's this it's totally and [ __ ] the same so we get to this position and Weiss says I'm taking captain or lieutenant can and once the Rockets over here he said I'm taking me into being Skinner's gotta go there check it out so they took Mizzou can run over there and Skinner was a mop or assistant gunner and they took over there and there was me and Flannery said they're young Flannery he had a mohawk I'll never forget and was drawn fire you know do you know what my bike feels like this and I remember three bullets going it was an automatic fire they went through the sling and I go oh [ __ ] that's gonna be my head next and flaner he goes I'll get him they're up there and he started crawling past me I said get the [ __ ] back here then [ __ ] back in about time he got his feet got to my head bullet went through his and he I listened to such a [ __ ] gargle and dying to [ __ ] death that I knew I was next and I I didn't what perhaps I took a grenade I pulled the pin if I'm lying I'm dying I took that thing and just went like that because I I thought he he crawled up to spider hole while we was gone trying to take the hell they came in behind us and Doug's miter traps and the [ __ ] trees and everything so they was there we came back to camp out and it's all planned deal so I thought he's right there so I'm throwing [ __ ] grade the kills me kills me you know the [ __ ] went off I don't remember nothing after that and I wasn't dead I know that then I remember rice coming back he goes Skinner's dead they killed Skinner they killed Skinner and the automatic weapon fire stops of what I didn't know they'd overrun that machine get my gun team and killed most of them and killed Roberts and Fidel was shot through the liver GW sold him one didn't get hurt but he was [ __ ] mess and I don't I just I don't just like [ __ ] the next thing I know it was daylight but I remember going from scared to [ __ ] death but you couldn't run nowhere he's there and I accept the dying I mean it's most I don't know how he described it I went to Nana all state [ __ ] animal a [ __ ] yelling screaming totally unaware of anything yeah yeah I was totally just thought well I didn't think nothin I just but [ __ ] tubes irk I mean not to this day I don't remember nothing at I remember uh next day I was sitting there in a stupor and I was covered with blood and and I had a light-duty shrapnel back but didn't hurt I was numb you [ __ ] drove a knife to me and I'm gonna fell and I remember going the helicopters was coming in and they still had a bunch of was trapped on this tree line but I remember getting my rifle and I started wandering through this maze of bamboo trees he's all blown the [ __ ] and everything and all of a sudden here's a dead marine there's three pi like he's running towards something and just machine gun down I remember looking at him and he's bled out and this one guy never forget it he had these black glasses they read an issue you know I'm talking about he's like this and there's there's whole film right through him there's no blood you know they bled out and it's kind of a purpley I don't know what you how to call it but you know they were just dead then I run it in another clump of him five or six laying there they had all sudden bodies just started popping up on then I seen a machine gun hole and as and I knew what it was it was a if Robert sees in the fetal position down there and he's dinner in the door now and I didn't cry I said I just looked looked at him I remember looking at him then I he's like it use wandering around a [ __ ] haze but I'm aware a most up busting caps you know I was alert and I'm ever going a little further and there's there's a scanner laying against the side of a creek bank and just stitched for the ak-47 and I don't know I still didn't it still didn't set in what was happening and I remember uh there's a lot of dead second platoon just massacred and I got I went down to a I want or two and I got where the helicopter was landed they Foxtrot was pulled in snook come down to reinforce us they was in reserve and all these guys started running off this helicopter up to this Knoll the tree line and there's a bunch of range laying there like turtles and they run up there and I member this one guy he's from Okinawa I'm remembering he I think he went to a military school Mississippi or Alabama and he was a J squared away everything about him is like he's born to be a soldier and I remember him going he's always uniform just perfect everything I remember him running him there and I've been for guys coming out carry him at the bull right between his eyes and the dander I just I remember just staring that I go all that school and [ __ ] dish really I just froze that frame in my mind and it's a long story but I found out later all he wasn't dead that's it's a long story about that but I'll get to that later but I flipped out [ __ ] nuts and hopeful for now they drug him out of there leaning against a tree and he I remember we going this versus an alligator ever thought of being now and his bullet right in his liver and I thought he's gonna die but they shot some more feet him and we support you bill you know give him a pep talk being Flannery of guns and he was wounded in his shin later on he was on the cover of Life magazine that they evacuated him and I flipped out [ __ ] observe and took off my m16 up for that [ __ ] Ridgeline I was gonna go kamikaze on him man I run up there and the [ __ ] bullets started flying around my [ __ ] ears and I just dialed with the rest of the guys right on the floor there okay he said you do that one more time you could be dead [ __ ] so they had a prime take his name now god damn it but he got the silver Navy Cross names a good friend of mine my brains ADA but he got him he got the Navy Cross for it and the other guy that I met in Los Reno Nevada at a reunion he was in Foxtrot company he's the one that told me I said I was telling him about I remember and you got there running off the helicopter I said I never forgot about this guy and he said he's alive I said you got to be [ __ ] he said he a bullet hole right nurse he said that bullet it went in and right out the back of his ear he survived I said all the nears I thought he did - sigh loss of good friends there but and that night we did was we do they be back and finish us off they didn't come then the next day we took the [ __ ] Hill but they they took off and there's blood trails just you could see it through the elephant grass and smashed it down just hundreds of fish for they drug him away they never would leave him for so you can count on us he had to guesstimate and they do a mass burial somewhere else they do hooks in him just drug him off but I remember this one there was Davis laying around some dead that couldn't get there was this officer out for my whole and I creeped out there and he had he had a pistol and I emptied my magazine enemy dead I'm gonna make sure and about got shot when I done that cuz everybody's hair-trigger then I opened up surprised they didn't my own brains didn't open up on me but anyways I got the pistol and I took a little notebook off and had a picture of a Vietnamese on it and I still got that to stay the pistol I like a good boy I turned it in they can I'd get it back and never see it again somebody rear the gear got it in their mantle now but the next day we had we tried find them and there was me rice I can't remove the other guys for we went on a little patrol to get some dead Marines and we was going on this Knoll is one way it was off one way it was off it's just like a little Ridgeline and there's three dead Marines been laying in the Sun for two weeks and they was just dead you know dead and a black and her skin with saran wrap I remember just looking him the [ __ ] Beatles and maggots crawling on her skin and coarse brains don't leave Marines so we had to take them back and I pulled him up to lay him on it the helicopters gonna come and get him and we tried to pick him up laying on the poncho and her arms came out of sockets and [ __ ] dead [ __ ] alright people I [ __ ] got south I mean it was just and then they'd done that on purpose because they knew we'd come and get and then they opened fire on us and helicopter just coming down and here we go again and we fell down in that Valley there and it's wet and the bodies rolled with us and people's innards and [ __ ] was all I remember trying to drag them bodies back up for that helicopter and it there was intestines everything and we just roll around they got the helicopter [ __ ] we don't want that dead son of a [ __ ] said here and rice took his [ __ ] m416 he goes you're gonna float the knife if you don't load him up they got him in there took off was sheets [ __ ] down over that [ __ ] and I don't remember too much after that remember them dead people and the stink and of course bodies rot fast and we piled pot once we had this leg and our perimeter up set him on fire but I remember the helicopter come in and they they they was taking the bodies out the Marines out and rigor mortis has set in and everything and I think there's 31 or so killed and I'm about 30 20 or 30% 14 was killed or that company and 80% was wounded and there's about only about 40 of us left they could walk because I was wounded but I was about to leave I was that bad I had someone arms just from the blast projectiles flying at you you know not necessarily tree bamboo shoots and whatever is laying on the [ __ ] ground probably some bone shards I don't know but everybody scraped up a little bit they give me a perform but I remember that helicopter that it come down and they sue the bodies on there I just sitting there except the fight was over and I've never looked at that helicopter and I remember loading Benjamin on there he was just you know they posted in position and and I remember Skinner being loaded up but there's a helicopter flew wait you just see the arms and legs sticking out his full loaded all the way and I'd always stuck in my mind nobody ever cried or nots of that night the couple last couple nights we just sit there and waiting for something to happen but they pulled us out we had walk all the way back at like I remember that the Catholic guy preacher whatever was come in we been able to cross up there on made out of bamboo and we had they had Catholic services and I remember going up there and get a wafer cramming him a mouse and great record fruit juice that's all I wanted to I remember being rice a couple guys was sitting there and it's a CBS film crew and the guy he was a big-time CBS guy newscaster and I can't remember his name I knew it then he come up and he had a Korean or Japanese film man whispered that thing on his shoulder and they wanted us to go back down to that Knoll and assault the hill again so they could take movie senator said [ __ ] died over and shoot was going on and we've got killing get [ __ ] out here you sumbitch I'll blow you all the way down the hill and he took off so the this cameraman then all of a sudden here comes this little woman out of nowhere but this [ __ ] tall and it's Katherine Lee Roy she's French and she's a combat photographer none of our cameramen they'd make sure the dust had cleared no possible way to get killed in a copter come in and unload act like these out there no more so but she was right she was with the North Vietnamese on one side of the valley when they attacked hotel company and they got decimated and we got to sit there and watch that we couldn't do a thing about it we got that night and I remember she'd coming to her book you know and this the this Colonel of course he comes in the battalion commander was all over ascertained situation and she come through there and and he was talking to her and his Marines over pissing on a tree and it it is that sound about but you know got a lady said she swapped pissed on the ground he can do it so could i he just lived I always loved her for that but she's dead down but I found out years and years later our captain was gunned down by a gunship our own gunship blew our host Cpl a corpsman and everything at him but he lived and I remember that so whole everything was happening at once but this is what the battle was over in their buddies in here comes this Huey and then I looked over white phosphorus blew the whole CP away like what else can happen you know but he survived he just died last year but the first reunion I went to in Parris Island he was there and he said I'll tell you guys now but we was used for bait [ __ ] battalion we they knew that they want to see how he's up there and we could draw him out by going up there he's bait for the [ __ ] what I hate started going in is the things they go to sacrifice us to see how many troops is up there I said boy that's something they saw I'll tell you guys now you're older you can handle it and you just think about all them guys got killed just so we see him and he was up there and of course just like the Korean War World War tent we took him then we went away and they come back up on him and set the stage the big 60 day siege I flew by without a Danang and flew into Okinawa and they took all your ammo and [ __ ] away from you and make sure you clean up dope and everything and that was it there's no transition like they got now but he caught deprogram and you just got on a plane went home flew into LA that fluid to Chicago and then I think Butchie no man come on pick me up that's you know I just thought everything would be the same when I got back I thought everything would be the same same friends and I got back about 10 minutes and that I knew something happened I said yeah first of all it's telling the war stories today was laughing and you know I knew they didn't even [ __ ] begin to understand what I'd been through and they laughed better yeah sure yeah there's and I've got pests and violent like this I started my drinking and everything and I tried to change to be one of the guys again and I said this was such a dumb [ __ ] ass kid I was company 21 yet I went through the whole [ __ ] Marine Corps and all the battles and I wouldn't couldn't buy a beer at home but it pissed me off and so I just stopped talking about it and started doing drugs you getting drunk and [ __ ] you know but if still always in me eating me away and when I got super drunk I'd always call off in the corner and fight it all again when I left Vietnam I wonder how that [ __ ] country so goddamn bad I mean is unreal they give you your service records when you leave the company and they're entrusted to you to take back up your records of Vietnam and everything tells it and I left them on the bench in Danang Airport it's like back to Camp Lejeune you got to check in and 3rd battalion 8th Marines side I went down here there I also I laid in lingo for two or three days for anybody knew anything and I went to the to check in in the first church sitting there and it goes wheres records I said well so long stay where's the records so long stories you got any records I saw I left him a name you uh I don't know if you're in the [ __ ] brain core started this [ __ ] know what I was a corporal he's I have no records of you beating him who you know I don't worry got that [ __ ] uniform I'm gone man like this [ __ ] can't be happening saying they just doesn't crucifying a kid before they arrested him but he he went px bought a bunch of [ __ ] medals he just got out of boot camp that's a cardinal sin man you act like you're a hero and you ain't been no [ __ ] war and they they nailed his ass I said now it's my turn and I've been there and there's no [ __ ] mercy so then I had to go see the CEO and he said well I'm gonna tell you what now on your a private until I find otherwise so for the first this has been back from [ __ ] Vietnam giving all my [ __ ] heart when I was worth and now I'm a [ __ ] low class private like Naik I'm not even in fact been to Vietnam and I said how could you do I had two more years ago to Marine Corps and I'm gonna do it no [ __ ] private so I got yelled and screamed at treat them just like a boot [ __ ] details and everything else and I just bit the bullet and and one day where they just doing a junk on the bunk inspection and the co comes down to there and there's a your platoon commander then the Gunny and the first shirt they all follow him and they you put your junk on the bunk in a certain manner and it says inspection so I'm sit there you got to be a little starched up [ __ ] they started [ __ ] with me Irish pin it here I bout to the blowin point and this haversacks not a stand right flippin [ __ ] over you know I'm glad that day and the company commander goes or you are a non marine but we got I said yes sir sir and he's what company was you uptown who was you with over there I said echo company two three second time serve greens salt and previous assault forest vertical smarter not told the ships is on in this gun he's looking at me you know I know this [ __ ] it just hit me I said I know him but I couldn't explain I just could well he was in that helicopter when Foxtrot landed on 881 North he was a sergeant and he was a gunnery sergeant now but he was that that swabs squad leader he goes use of echo two three I said yes sir I told the gun yes again he says the junk on the bunk inspection got assayed out all that good [ __ ] and he went on and was over with he come back around he's coming my son my quarters and he said I'm just I was a staff sergeant when we come over rescuing you guys his ass and I said that's you that I said I knew instant friendship my worries were over nobody [ __ ] with a snare on out and the minute they got the they got my ax I was back to corporal and I made sergeant he never was [ __ ] whistle again and Gunny Smith never forget him as long as I live I promise being alive now but he was a good guy save my ass but he took that's that submarine commader II me and him swept and bled together and then nobody [ __ ] with unit war because he knew what we've been through I was born in 1948 and then I was reborn in 1967 April 26 I was a different person that point on out and I didn't know a human being was capable of doing them things I know how much Busey body can take for it dies I always remembered that [Music] you [Music] you [Music]

Channel: American Prairie Filmworks

Views: 2,163,057

Rating: 4.8299499 out of 5

Keywords: Echo Company 2/3, 2nd Battalion/3rd Marines, Third Marine Division, Vietnam, Combat, The Hill Fights, First Battle of Khe Sanh, Khe Sanh, Boot Camp, San Diego, Camp Lejuene, 1966, 1967, Vietnam War, Marines, Marine Corps, United States Marine Corps, Echo Company, Second Battalion/Third Marines, Second Battalion, Third Marines, Echo 2/3

Id: rWJ5yxuvTMw

Length: 79min 38sec (4778 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 30 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Aprilias]

Saw this, posting it to share it, this guy is pretty fucking funny

[u/NoDD-214]

Goddamn, that was a good interview.