Neil Kenny describes the fight for Hill 881 North, Khe Sanh, Vietnam, April14, 1968

as I was sitting at I kind of looked over to my left and when I looked over to my left I seen this guy running up the other side of the slope and he had a pair of binoculars on he had a 45 in his hand and he was run up the hill and it was a guy feel Sheridan and I was like what is he doing there Phil was Phil was quite a character he was from Long Island City he was in and in his City kid like me I grew up in the Lower East Side and stuff he came from some money if you will I was like he was a really good-looking guy at a year college like well this guy should be somewhere else he shouldn't be here doing what we're doing know if that makes sense to you but in my mind as some of the things that played out and he was charging up that hill hell-bent to get up there and it was kind of like the other thing I could think is that he was trying to get to that position to call in more support he was not so he was a forward observer for artillery we usually travel with the sea people it wasn't one of the grunts he wasn't wanted didn't have to be the tip of the spear and he just was there and Phil was the first guy that I think I really had a personal relationship with that while it was short in the time that I knew him it was deep and it was meaningful and I watched him run up that hill and then he he kind of like jerked all the way back almost almost as if he was trying to touch his toes he just kind of went like that like his heels dug in he went like that and I knew at that instant that he taken around somewhere in his body some here in the chest of stomach I don't know and as he just started to collapse he must have taken another hit to the head because his hand came back up like this and he laid back and he just was when his arms stretched out his feet pointing towards the top of the hill in his arms pointing to a bomb and I just know right then yeah I knew he was dead I know he was gone he was the first guy that you know I actually seen get killed that I knew that I had some relationship with and my reaction was not humorous it was not oh wow to see that it was like well it was pretty like you know devastating in a way any interesting thing was there was nothing I could do I couldn't get over there to see him I couldn't go over there to do anything I just had to stay where I was and to keep firing out to the front so they could keep moving up and as they took that position kind of quieted down on the slope where we were and then we could look over to the right flank and I believe it was I believe it was India Company they were online just like you see in the movies it was like really incredible they would just saw mine and they just went right up and over the top of that hill and they were firing and the NVA were firing back and the NBA actually I really don't think to expect it to see a a battalion of Marines coming up the hill at like zero dark thirty you know so they were like beating feet down the other way and it was only residual effects there I mean they found rice cooking their teeth it was like oh breakfast the syrup you know but for the rest of that action I really you know there wasn't much more for us to do because they had swept over the hill where we were we held in position and an interesting thing happened was they said uh I just climb out in front and get down and I climbed down and find a pile of wood and I fell asleep and I I mean I slept if somebody didn't wake me up I'd still be sleeping on that hill I mean I just slept a total deep deep cathodic sleep and I come to understand that it's really just like after all the months of really not sleeping during that siege and then this this total adrenaline rush of what was going on that your body just shuts down and I was just a totally blank we we saddled up at some point during the day I can't tell you what time it all seems to have happened in like a couple hours but you realize we left at probably 4:30 in the morning and we were heading back probably at 4:30 in the afternoon and there's throughout this period of time they were shooting and whatever else they do when they sweep up there for an operation collect your dad or whatever and as we were going back he came back through the gates there were a lot of things that struck me it's like why did we go up that hill if we're not staying on it I wonder what the hell happened to Phil I knew he was dead but you still wonder what happened to him and as he came to the gate another interesting thing occurred the chaplain and and I can't tell you if it was the same chaplain that was there Saturday night or if it was a different chaplain but he was a chaplain and he was kind of standing as we were coming up and it made it all the more it was like this great dramatic moment I could film it it'd be great and it were if he was standing on this desk but he was standing on Stan's sandbags and we were coming up through the floor as you would come up the slope and he kind of had like this godly presence of being you know a pretty big and everything he's standing there and I looked up at him and he was like saying oh wow you guys they got everything they filmed that it was incredible and you know you went up over and my question to him was why you know my question is thou shalt not kill and I grew up as a Roman Catholic and the rites and passages of the Catholic religion the Baltimore Catechism which was an old no longer in use theology book that they used and you know for some reason I always place it as the fifth amendment because thou shalt not kill and here we went we killed people I can't sit here and tell you I actually shot that guy you know but I was putting let out there and there were dead bodies out there they didn't do autopsies or CS I didn't come in to see which bullet hit wasn't like that and I was kind of like devastated and I honestly believe that I left my religion on that hill that ease the Sunday you

Channel: Philip F. Napoli

Views: 144,804

Keywords: Premiere_Elements_11

Id: sPmA0Xoe1Sk

Length: 7min 33sec (453 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 13 2013