Part 3- Vietnam War memories from Lawrence Shull. His perspective of the Battle at Lo Giang TET- 68

we got oars to move out in positions out in front there was a graveyard out there and uh so we moved down in our positions and and i took the right flank and we set up right out there and we were right out at the rice paddies there right up right beside the road there my squad was on that side and i look up and see the road i laid back on one of them docks there and went to sleep for a while until a guy woke me up and and said they'd call me to the cp group and that's when captain brandon gave us orders to uh you know we were gonna move out had two platoons online in front and the cp group and two platoons on line in the back i reckon the way it was and and of course my squad was still on the right flank but we were in closer together than we were before we were spread out quite a bit and we moved in together another company or something was taking casualties and and taking pretty heavy fire somewhere uh east or west of where we were at and we were going to go and move in support of them i unbeknownst to me at the time when i was asleep in the rice paddy there when the guy woke me i can't remember who it was woke me up but he told me to be careful because we had been getting sniper rounds all around over there and i said okay so when i went back went back to the cp group captain brandon said we got change of plans we're gonna go into the village we're going to line up two platoons cp group two times and uh so i was kind of reluctant to want to do that but uh since we've been getting sniper rounds but anyway so we were going to proceed to do that i went back and then we got the word to move out we got up and all i can remember is the first thing i saw uh when we got to move out machine gun opened up and i seen the cp group fall some of them in in that but everybody hit the ground and in the meantime then i got shot in the leg and at that time everything had progressed pretty strong you know we couldn't tell that much going on being down we couldn't really tell that much going on up there but i seen a lot of them coming out of that village and stuff and and they weren't we were far on the right flank and they really wasn't coming to death so much right then so then after i got hit i think it was uh alan allen and baines i can't remember a couple of guys was helping me we got orders to fall back and they were helping me back and uh we could go so far and then then we just had to get down and then get up and start again because we were pretty far out and we got back and moved back into that graveyard and took up positions behind the the grave mounds and the headstones and all that and i was told to take my positions up on the left flank and so i took up positions on the left flank i seen people getting on bicycles and coming around i think alan somebody heard at me and and i was looking at him and i said you know i just told him you know shoot i was on the radio and i was listening to a lot of this communication going on the jets from the base up at denying they were taken off and they would reach altitude and you could see them jets looking back you could see them jets getting outside you're going up but they weren't coming our direction there was nothing coming our direction there were no gunships no nothing and i couldn't understand that so finally they got a couple of gunships came in and there was a gunship that was headed right toward where my squad was and he opened fire with a burst and i got on the radio and i told him to cease fire cease fire and i told him i'd throw some i threw some smoke out so he identified the smoke and i said turn around and go the other way so he made a turn and went back toward the village you know and started opening fire over there and i couldn't see a whole lot going on from my direction but i knew there was a lot of them coming uh you know the guys up in front were really catching it bad you know of course a lot of guys got killed up there so i was mostly in communication uh with uh wendover and and uh and i could hear brennan and wind over them talking and stuff you know and and what was going on and uh then a lot of fire and you know i mean it was just i know i just knew to myself we were all gonna die i mean it was just it was just at that point i just knew i said man i said you know we're all gonna die because it was just intense and we you know we weren't uh they wouldn't you know what at the time like i said there wasn't any support coming in until you know later and so i do remember i remember i just i just told god i said god i said if you get me out of this i said i'll do anything you want me to do and i made that promise so we did make it a lot of us didn't make it a lot of us did and i remember there was a marine i think a marine helicopter we were running out of ammunition and and we had set our backpacks off over in one area back there and i had all the magazines over there and i got somebody to go get those magazines you know so we could have some more ammunition and i do remember a marine helicopter coming in and this guy come in i mean and when the heat was going and landed and brought us some more ammunition in and i remember somebody of course i don't remember who uh had an ak-47 if i remember went up and gave it to that pilot on that chopper i remember seeing that and i said well that's kind of weird but i guess a guy you know he just gave him an ak-47 you know because hey but uh and uh i got some ammunition and went back and uh then after that while uh some of the guys you know they had they'd quit firing some you know and and some of the guys were trying to get back and a lot of guys were crawling back and it was getting close to dusk you know at the time and and uh they were the helicopters when finally the medevacs finally could get to come in a little bit they were taking the guys that were hurt really bad you know out and uh i wasn't gonna go and the doc told me to get on the child they i think they brought in a chinook at the last right there uh the one that i got on he told me to go on and get on the chopper so and i went and got on the chopper and i don't remember everybody that was on there but i do remember the guy that had got shot through the eye and uh i was holding him some and and he was bleeding pretty good and and uh he was telling me that he could see the the vc and i recognized vc in the nva too and he said he could see him coming and he was firing i think he told me his gun jammed i'm not sure but and he felt that bullet hit him and he was unconscious some and then but he remembered when he was semi-conscious that they were rolling him over and was taking his web gear off of him and they said he just didn't move you know he just let him move or whatever and then he just started crawling he said he don't know how he said it must have been the lord was guiding me in the right direction he said because he had no way of knowing which way he was crawling but he actually crawled crawled back and made it back to the line we got to the marine aid station and man it was plum chaos there and and uh they throwed me on this table thing you know and i had blood up here and they was pulling my shirt off and i said man i said my leg and so so i heard one of the guys say uh tag him to the ship and it's kind of weird though they put a tag on my togi and on and a little while later they came around and and put me on one of them gurney things and the helicopter landed and put us on the helicopter and flew us out to the ship and i believe it was a uss sanctuary was the name of the hospital ship and i don't remember much about getting off the chopper did i do remember laying on the uh the deck outside and uh i could hear the choppers coming in and leaving i i laid out there for it seemed like quite a while but anyway then they uh carried me into a bay there in a little examine room and the doctor said you know that uh the uh operating rooms were full and that he was gonna have to work on me there you know and do the best he could and all that so i was doped up and i didn't remember a whole lot of happening going on but i do remember going back into that room and the doctor would take and take my bandage and he would take him i guess he was pouring peroxide in there where they had it cut open so man it it would burn uh and uh it was pretty painful and i done it when i got off the plane they uh had these tarps and stuff on on the fence right there where we were getting off the plane and going into the hospital there at the entrance i could hear people hollering stuff and everything you know and i asked one of the guys says put you you know pulling my gurney thing and said what the crap's going on back there he said well they got a bunch of protesters outside the fence and that's them out there you know i guess is anti-war protesters or whatever but you couldn't see them because they had them tarps on the fence so they couldn't see him but they knew people was coming in but and you know i when i when they was wheeling me in there and i was feeling sorry i mean i was pretty down i feel sorry for myself and i was feeling guilty because i got out they wheeled me into the end of that corridor and right in front of me was a guy in a bed he was wrapped all the way from his head to here and his legs from his knees down were gone and they had his stumps here in baskets so he couldn't move them and they wheeled me past that guy and i quit feeling sorry for myself so they let us they let us call home so they had them old telephone booths you know like you used to have you know them little booths in train stays and stuff and and so they had it set up to where you could just go in and dial your number at home you know and of course i called my mother because at the time my wife was living with her mother and them at the time and i couldn't remember their number so i called my mother i knew i knew my number and i called my mother and i told her you know where i was at and uh so i knew right off from talking to her she didn't know that i'd been wounded and he backed out because she hadn't been notified or nothing neither had my wife really and so i told her i said now mom i said i said i'm up here in the hospital but i said i'm okay of course she started crying i said hey look i said i'm okay and uh so after the phone call then i stayed there maybe two or three days and then they sent me back to the hospital at fort campbell uh transfer headquarters barracks they had uh warrant officers and and and different ncos and people that were coming through uh going to other assignments and stuff and they stayed in that that building that barracks you know until they transferred out and then it's kind of a transition place for them to stay and so i was in charge of that barracks and all that and and i was in charge of the officers and ncos duty roster on post so i had a pretty good cushy job my last five months in the service and uh so i held on to that job you know until i was discharged of course they tried to get me to re-up and everything you know and i i wouldn't do that major putnam tried to get me to go to ocs and all this you know we got pretty tight because uh when i took that job you know uh when you come back from from nam according to that there they give you 30 days leave and uh he told me he said look he said uh if you'll take and and uh get all this stuff done uh well i told him i wanted to take all my leave at one time he said well i'd rather you not do that until a certain date i don't remember what that was but he said if you'll wait and get all this done that's got to be done until then he said i'll let you take your whole 30 days at a time and uh so i said well okay that's a deal so i didn't take no uh i didn't go home on no weekends there for a while and everything you know and had to do stuff and and uh so when i told that old sergeant i was taking his place before he retired i was taking 30 days leave oh no so you ain't taking no third day ain't nobody gets 30 days leave one time around this place i'll tell i'll say to that and uh it didn't take him about two or three minutes in there at the major you know when he came back and he said well i guess you get 30 days [Laughter] so uh so i had it made pretty good after after i got out from vietnam yeah uh the company that i work for they uh was good about keeping jobs for vets at the time you know so whenever you whenever you left uh you come back you could go back back to the job and so i was lucky at that point being able to go back and and have a job a lot of guys didn't have that opportunity you know because when they were gone they were gone and and so i was pretty pretty fortunate to have that happen and i didn't join the vva for a while because i stayed back you know and i didn't i didn't get involved with anybody till one of the guys that there was a friend of mine talked me into joining the uh vva and i served vice president of the chapter for one year and then i was on the board directors for about three years three different times and so that's pretty much my involvement with the vietnam veterans and then of course we've done we've done all kinds of stuff you know we did [Music] they got what they call you know i don't know if you've ever seen the hat ceremony that they do where they have the table set up and they have the five branches of service but it's a real real moving thing and i've never seen anybody do the hat ceremony thing like our our guys in our chapter did uh we performed it at uh uh air show for people at one time i didn't do it because i wasn't in it but uh but presently i uh serve on uh the honor guard we have an honor guard and we do the military funerals at the national cemetery at chattanooga and i mean it's it's amazing that amount of vets that they bury every day i've done as many as six funerals in one day and a lot of times three four six uh and i don't do them every day but i know in 2007 that the honor guard done over 200 funerals at national cemetery and not just national cemetery but in outline in areas and different cemeteries and we don't we don't charge nothing and we do a full military funeral we do the guys even uh a lot of them they they do the pallbearers uh and they uh they fold the flag and do the 21 gun salute in taps we do a full military funeral then regardless of name rank or whatever we give them all the same we don't do pallbearers on all of them but only when they're requested like and uh there's some of the guys that that do them every day that we have one and i don't do them every day because i have a lot of the stuff that i'm involved in that i do but i do quite a bit i think i've done already about 50 or 60 this year that's all i've done but that's mostly my involvement as far as veterans groups goes today the guys basically the guys in my squad in the platoon uh yeah i mean uh you just get attached to guys and that that's one thing and it's any any war you go in i mean you you spend time with these guys and and uh anybody gets hurt or anything you know it it gets you hard i mean it tears your heart out a lot well van horn and captain brennan and lieutenant wendover now wendy uh i'll tell you what now that he he seemed to me to be a smart young man and very knowledgeable and uh i think all the guys really respected wendover and brennan and and wendover you know uh a whole lot i know i did and so yeah the leadership to me was superb van horn was was tough i mean he he's he's a big hearted guy but see he i think that van horn he took his he took his position really serious and uh he really wanted he wanted the guys to listen to him because ben already done a tour in vietnam and i think he'd gotten wounded along with captain brennan when they served in vietnam before and he knew what it was like and i guess until you really know what being in combat is like you you just can't imagine it i mean it's it's something different i might you know and you don't know how you're going to react until it happens and i think van horn wanted everybody to learn from his experience that what you had to do to survive in vietnam and he took it serious and he wanted he wanted everybody to take it serious now and now alan allen's a whole different story that guy i'll tell you what i mean he being from texas and on and when i first met alan al and i said now how's a guy named alan allen and i was thinking at times from allentown texas and i said how any world can that be well so alan allen from allentown texas alan and i had a little good relationship of course i had a pretty good relationship with most the guys in my squad and i got tickled at allen because he was skinny at the point tall and skinny but that guy would eat anything and everything and when we was in mommy carried him around a canvas bag and and what the guys didn't want out of the sea rice and stuff out now and scarf them up he carried that he eat all the time but the guy never did gain any weight i don't reckon but uh and tough too you know he walked point a lot of times and and i hated to put allen on point a lot buck but alan was sharp and he was very observant on points you know and you got to have a guy up front that you can trust uh you know that doesn't lead you into something of course you know him been inexperienced too but he just seemed like he he took the job serious and he he was very observant and i always trusted alan to be up front that was one thing you could count on him because you know whatever you want him to do or anything allen allen was right there and no questions a little bit sometimes but always go and and do do what he's supposed to do and over the years uh uh benefited unions and and talking to alan on the phone we've kept in touch and everything you know and and of course when after uh lo jiang i think you know as alan got hurt pretty bad and that kind of broke my heart and mostly you know i mean it was other guys too but when you're close to and gary stayed and got killed and and that when i found out that you know after all that at lojang and after lojang allen would write me and tell me about keep me informed pretty much on stuff that you know went on after that and uh so yeah it it took a towel on me [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] you

Channel: True Stories from the Vietnam War

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Id: ngWyzC6Saws

Length: 25min 32sec (1532 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 10 2022