Found A Marine. Please Read interesting story

[ihorn]

Ok a little back story about this. When my Uncle was younger he had a friend who joined the Marines, and went to Vietnam. Unfortunately my Uncles friend was KIA, which led my Uncle to join the Army, and be sent to Vietnam. The story I was told was that he was doing a Village rebuild, and was killed while doing this.

Well today since I am currently looking for work I decided to do some research about my Uncles friend. I went through the normal Archive pages to find out what information I could about his Unit, his death, and the likes. From this information I was able to start looking for information about his Unit. In finding this information I was able to locate others in his Unit that were serving at the same time with him.

So I emailed some of the members of the Unit and got a reply from one of them. I was always told the same story growing up concerning his passing, but today I heard a different story. I wont go into detail about it, but suffice to say it is very different from what I heard growing up. The gentlemen I am in contact with is a very nice man who is willing to talk to me about all he can remember of my Uncles friend. He also has photos that he is willing to share with me from that time.

Apparently this gentlemen and my Uncles friend became friends towards the end of their time at Camp Pendleton, and then both went to the Language School in Da Nang together before being sent to the same CAP unit. He seems to be the last person to have spoken to my Uncles friend before he died, and still has my Uncles friends jungle hat that he was killed in.

I am very happy that I get to speak to someone who knew my Uncles friend, and is willing to share memories of him with me.

[Mr.Caketown]

wheres the story?

[ihorn]

The story is still coming to me from the Marine in his Unit that I found. Its funny after 42 years he says that that night, and what happened are forever burned into his memory. Here are some excerpts that he has sent to me so far. More to come. Its kind of funny as long as there are people around to remember him he is never really gone.

Nick and myself got together the last days of training at Camp Pendleton Calif. We went to language school in Da Nang Vietnam for about 30 days before being assigned to 3 CAG out of Phu Bai Vietnam. We were assigned to cap 3-5-3.
Our time was short together when we arrived at our unit because they gave us both radios to carry and we were upset about that. It kept us apart on ambush. We did do a few together but not any contacts with the VC.
The night he died I tried to radio him after seeing the blast and no answer. I called 6 times or more and nothing. Finally someone picked up the radio and said hang on and we will get back to you. When they called for a medivac chopper I listened to the conversation. They reported 2 WIA and 1 KIA. I knew Nicks # and when they reported R807 KIA I was stunned. I sat there with the headphone pressed to my ear and was just numb. When day broke we all met at an old Catholic church the French built. Our guys were concerned how I was and that wasn't my least thought. I was thinking of Nicks family and what a blow this would be to them. He had just sent them a real nice Catholic Bible and I remember how proud he was when he sent it.

[GMG]

That is a neat but sad story.............Thanks for sharing.

[ihorn]

I am actually still finding out more. Just some of it I cant share due to the graphic nature of it. I will continue to share what I can. Like this next part.

Our time was short in Nam and like I said we were busy learning the ropes around us and trying to stay alive kept us busy all of the time. We always had a medical corpsman with us in the bush. This is probably what Nick was referring to about a Dr. We would go with Doc and help bandage, give pills, clean sores, and what ever the Doc thought the person needed to better himself or herself.
Imagine if you could your 19 and one year out of high school. Now your in this environment and a whole different life to live through not knowing if your next or will you see home again. Daytime in the villages was a walk in the park.