John Podlaski's Blog, page 14

Repressed Memories

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Suppose you have an ongoing dream about a certain incident that plagued your nights for years. Not sure if it evolved from your imagination or is it something that really happened to you? If it was real, why can’t you remember? Where can you find the truth? Read about one soldier’s struggle to find answers and reasons for this ongoing dream.

By Ruben Yzaguirre 

I returned from Vietnam on July 4, 1970. The small hometown airport is at the edge of town. It was early evening and the Fourth of July celebrations had started. I departed from Vietnam on July 3rd and arrived at Ft. Lewis for our processing on the same day. It took me a while to realize that I had crossed the international date line for only the second time in my life. The first time was on my way to Vietnam a year earlier.

A few days before this, I was in the jungle and after I was notified that my orders to return home had arrived, I left on the next resupply chopper. After getting to Bien Hoa, I spent the next 36 hours waiting in line for my flight home. I dared not to go to sleep because if you missed your flight, you had to return to the end of the line. In the waiting area on the Bien Hoa runway, they called out names 24 hours a day. 

When I finally arrived at Ft. Lewis, WA. I was still wearing the same clothes that I wore out in the jungle for the last couple of weeks. While there, I received a “complete” physical exam, a new uniform, back pay, and the customary “steak dinner”. I was “out processed” from the US Army by the end of the day. My time in active military service” aka ETS was here and I was a civilian again. At out-processing, they told me they were out of all my combat medals and advised me they were going to be mailed to me. On that day, the last thing on my mind was combat medals.

After arriving home, I was walking outside of the airport terminal when some kids lit firecrackers. I “hit the ground” instinctively, and then realizing where I was, got up and made the excuse that I had tripped. My readjustment to civilian life started that day. Sadly, I sometimes felt that my readjustment would end on the day I am buried. I am not complaining. I would do it over again, no questions asked, no demands made.

About a week after my return, I enrolled in the second summer session at the local university to continue where I had left off.  I was in my third year of college when drafted. At the time, the university did not report that I had attended the fall semester, and I was drafted while in Detroit working for the summer.  I was asked by the local draft board to bring in a copy of my transcript and letter stating that I still had one year left on my student deferment, but I decided to go ahead and fulfill my military duty then continue my education upon my return with the financial help of the GI Bill.

The first few days back were the hardest. I was always looking for my rifle. Long periods of sleep meant someone had fallen asleep on guard.  Loud noises caused reactions.  I was always checking my surroundings, looking down at the ground when walking, and watching side to side, simply evaluating everything around me. As time progressed it got easier. However, some things, even after 50 years, have not returned to normal.  I guess my expectations of completely returning to normal was unrealistic. I understand and accept that.

I had the “normal” PTSD symptoms. Recurring dreams, cold sweats, hyperalertness, flashbacks, etc.  With time, those became more manageable and less frequent.  I understood why I had those symptoms and, after some time, accepted that it was “normal”. Talking to other Vietnam vets helped me realize that I was not alone. It would be many, many years later that help from the VA became available for veterans.

Sometime after my return from Vietnam, I honestly do not recall how long afterward, I started experiencing what I called “mini-flashbacks”. Very short, perhaps milliseconds, flashes of memory. Almost like a quick “snapshot”. Strange as it may sound to you, I sometimes even experienced the smell of long-repressed experiences. As time went on the “mini-flashbacks” got longer and more detailed. Slowly they turned into seconds, like mini previews of a movie. Previews of a very gross movie made me feel sick.

 In these “flashbacks” I would see an upper torso, just the head and chest of a fellow soldier.  The head had dirt, sticks, and leaves lodged in the eye, nose, and mouth cavities. I could not even tell the race of the soldier.  The chest, too, was covered with torn pieces of uniform. twigs and impaled jungle debris. Not only was this visually disturbing, but I could also smell him. It was a mixture of blood, bodily fluids along, and the damp, rotting jungle. Hard to describe, but for those who have experienced this, it is something you never forget. 

These flashbacks would come in frequent spurts and then be absent for long periods of time. I had no actual memory of such an experience, so I figured that my imagination was making all this up for some unknown reason. I had many traumatic experiences before the military as well as several more during my service. I saw death and dismemberment. Soon after my arrival in Vietnam, I loaded pieces of a fellow soldier into a body bag to be shipped home. I remember that experience and was OK with that. War is war and you expect people to be killed. These “flashbacks” were different. 

Again, I do not remember how long this went on. All I remember is that it was for many, many years. Over the years, the details of “the incident” became clearer.  In short, the incident was mainly about putting several body parts of a serviceman in a body bag. The soldier was killed when he accidentaly triggered a “mechanical ambush” while setting it up. This was a “bobby trap” where several claymore mines were daisy chained and set to explode when a single tripwire was disengaged. The mines were set up along a “high-speed trail” used by the North Vietnamese Army to bring troops and supplies into South Vietnam. I finally concluded that this was not a real experience and that for some reason, I was not able to explain why I had these “recurring dreams”. If it was real, I would have remembered, just like I could so many other things. 

Eventually, the ” incident” was much more detailed. Long story short, the dream was about one of our recon team members being blown up by a series of claymore mines. He and our Kit Carson Scout were killed, both blown up at close range by several Claymore mines. The bodies were unrecognizable.  As best we could, we put the body parts into two body bags. The only part that we were certain belonged to the American soldier was the right foot because his dog tag was attached in the laces. 

I was to report to the “rear” as a bodyguard with the body of the fallen Recon team member.  A chopper picked us up and flew to a small “firebase” where we were to catch another chopper to the rear. It was dark by the time we arrived at the firebase so we had to wait until morning to hitch a ride back to the rear.

The landing pad at that firebase was full of ammo crates and other supplies that went out to troops in the field. I had to stay on the chopper pad with the body bag until the next morning. I remember getting hungry and eating a C ration meal from the many sitting next to my team member’s body. 

I remember thinking about how his family would not know for days that he had died. I remember thinking about how they would never learn how he died, whether or not he suffered, was he a brave soldier, and so many other questions that would never be answered.  I remember promising him that after the war I would visit his family and assure them he was brave and did not suffer.

I did not keep my promise to contact his family. Sadly, I did not even know that this event was real until 38 years later.  For those 38 years, there was so much doubt in my mind.  While I could not prove it happened, I could also not disprove that it didn’t. With the help of the internet, I was able to research KIAs during that time. While I did not have an exact date, I was able to determine that it happened in late 1969 or early 1970.  

Adding to the confusion about units was the fact that Recon has many members who transferred from other units in the battalion. I served with Charlie Company before volunteering for recon. So I began a search for fellow recon team members to verify the incident. I left posts on many veteran sites to make contact with others who had served with Recon. 

I did manage to make contact with some fellow Recon platoon members, but none were able to verify the story. Some said that they had heard of a similar incident, but none could authenticate that it did happen as I remembered it.

I had pretty much given up on finding out if this was real or just a figment of my imagination. Yet, deep down inside, something told me that it was real. If it was a real incident then why would it be erased from my memory? I remembered many similar incidents, so why not this one?  The memory of eating a C ration on a lonely chopper pad in a small outpost sitting next to the pieces of a soldier in a body bag and promising to contact his family haunted me. How could I be so “mentally weak” to have forgotten such a promise? 

One day at work I was talking to someone who had come to our office for advice on an issue and mentioned that he was a DJ. I mentioned to him that in Vietnam a fellow Recon platoon member said he used to play with a very popular local band back in the 1960s.  I mentioned his name and he said that he knew him.  Having a common name I thought that he must be thinking about someone else.  Then he said that my friend was from Mesquite, Tx (Dallas area).  I could not believe that by chance I had stumbled onto a lead that might put me in touch with someone who served in the same unit. He gave me the name of my friend’s brother and where he worked in Corpus Christi. He gave me the contact info for his brother and I called him that evening

I made contact and sure enough, it was the person I had long ago been searching for. I was going to be in the Dallas area in the next few days so we made arrangements to meet. It had been 38 years since we had seen one another. When I left Nam he still had a few months to serve.

When we finally came together, one of the first things I asked him was about the Claymore incident.  He remembered the incident very well.  He filled me in on some things that had happened shortly before the incident and remembered that I had gone with the body as a bodyguard and that it had taken me a few days to rejoin the Recon platoon. He said he remembered me telling him that I had to “sleep” with the bodybag at a firebase chopper pad.

It was a huge load taken off my mind, but at the same time.

My Vietnam friend died a few months later. We made plans to never lose track of each other. I was devastated when I heard he died but was so grateful for having reunited with him for one last time. We were best buddies in Nam. Most of the photos I have from Nam include him. Rest in Peace Johnny Guajardo. 

Johnny did not remember the deceased soldier’s name as he just came into the unit. He did mention, though, that the man was a friend of one of the medics. I have looked for Doc for many years. Maybe someday.

I often wonder what I will do if I ever do find out his name. I question if after all these years contacting the family will be more painful than helpful. I guess I will cross that bridge when, and if, I get there.

Memorial Day is about remembering soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice. For some, Memorial Day occurs many times each year. And for some, Memorial Day is etched into our memory.

Rest in Peace my fallen brother in arms. Please forgive me for not keeping the promise I made to you. 

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Mentally, I never left the Nam

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These visions and thoughts continue to bounce around inside a former grunt’s head fifty-some years after serving in the Vietnam War. Read his short story to see if his struggles are any different from your own.

By Retired U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Daniel Dobbs

What those who never humped the jungles or rice paddies in Vietnam can’t see is the filthy exhausting sweaty dirt and grime from crushed bugs and cuts and scratches from thorns that get infected within hours. The shock of hearing a twig break, the snap of a weapon safety being changed to fire, or the click of a booby trap before it goes off.

The anger from “wait-a-minute” vines tugging on you and holding you up while the rest of your team is walking away.

Sleeping on the rain-soaked ground with all kinds of insects, leeches, and snakes crawling on you, biting and sucking your blood, not to mention the rats, the size of medium dogs, and worst of all… tigers.

Hoping the guy who relieved you is awake. You turn your head and look at him in the darkness and he looks down at you and gives you a smile letting you know he is awake and has your back. Hearing a mortar fire in the distance and hoping the round isn’t coming your way.

Lying there when B-52s are bombing a few clicks away and vibrating the very ground you are on. Hearing the welcome reassuring sound of that Huey and the outgoing artillery fire knowing they are out there when and if you need them.

Always expecting another tremendous explosion behind you like the one that took the life of the soldier that I didn’t even know, as he was trying to help me. I never had the chance to thank you or say, “I’m sorry!” I carry the scars both physically and emotionally from when you died. I still see your blood on my hands and hear your last gasp of air as God took you to be with Him, while I held your head in my hands.

Seeing a ghostly figure in the early morning fog moving in front of you. Is that a rifle in his hands? Am I seeing things? “Lord, please don’t let him hear my heart pounding in my ears.” Gotta wake the guys but I don’t dare move, can’t move. Should I shoot? He sees me. He is looking into my eyes. He is bringing his AK-47 up. I see the flash as his rifle goes off.

DAMN, another bad dream. It’s been over fifty years. When will the nightmares stop coming? Every night when the lights go off, I’m back there with my buddies before they etched their names on that wall.

Reflections by Lee Teter

I have seen the elephant

I love you brothers

Mississippi 31 OUT! 

This article was originally featured on the website: Operation Triumphus. Humping the Nam – Operation Triumphus

What about the rest of you Vets, how many of you are still finding yourselves on a former battlefield – reliving those events? Are you getting help?

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The Battle of A Shau

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Here, Lt. Col. Bernard Fisher makes a pass in his A-1E Skyraider over the besieged Special Forces camp’s airstrip before landing to pickup a downed pilot. Fisher was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions that day.

In 1971, for me and others in the 101st Airborne, just the mention of the A Shau Valley was enough to increase our anxiety. The Valley had a reputation throughout the war, and to enter meant that bloody battles would ensue. This article takes us to the Valley at the beginning of the war.

The Battle of A Shau was waged in early 1966 during the Vietnam War between the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the forces of the United States and South Vietnam. The battle began on March 9 and lasted until March 10, with the fall of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces camp of the same name. The battle was a strategic victory for the PAVN in that they were able to take control of the A Shau Valley and use it as a base area for the rest of the war.

Background

The A Shau Special Forces Camp was located in the A Sầu Valley, about 30 miles (50 km) southwest of Huế and 2 km east of the Laos border in Thừa Thiên Province. The valley was strategically important for the PAVN as a major infiltration route because it served as a bridge from the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos into populated coastal areas of Thừa Thiên Province. They established the camp in 1963. Defending the camp were 10 Green Berets from the 5th Special Forces Group and 210 South Vietnamese Civilian Irregular Defense Group, supported by Air Commando units equipped with vintage A-1 Skyraider and AC-47 Spooky gunships.

Two South Vietnamese camps at A Lưới and Ta Bat in the A Shau valley had been abandoned on 8 December 1965. The special forces camp was routinely harassed by small Vietcong formations leading up to the battle. Throughout February and March, 1966, platoon-sized troops from the camp went out to conduct reconnaissance patrols in the surrounding area. On March 5, two PAVN defectors turned up at the camp. Under interrogation, they indicated that four battalions of the PAVN 325th Division were planning to attack the camp.

Based on that information, night patrols went out to confirm the enemy positions but they made no sightings. However, Air Commandos conducting reconnaissance flights observed large build-ups of PAVN troops along with anti-aircraft emplacements. Airstrikes were ordered against those enemy positions.

On March 7, the A Shau camp was reinforced with seven U.S. Special Forces personnel, nine interpreters, and a MIKE Force Company in anticipation of the North Vietnamese attack.

Battle

On March 8, the camp was on general alert and the defenders took up their positions. A PAVN assault was launched during the night, but it was beaten back. Because of poor weather conditions that would hinder tactical air and resupply efforts, the PAVN decided to continue despite their heavy casualties. The second attack began during the early morning hours of March 9 with mortar bombardment, damaging communications and reducing many defensive positions to rubble. At 1300 hours an AC-47D “Spooky 70” from the 4th Air Commando Squadron, circling the camp, fired on the attacking PAVN formations. However, the slow-moving aircraft was shot down and crashed about five kilometers north of the camp. All six crewmen survived, but they were promptly attacked by the PAVN. Three crewmen were killed, though the others were eventually rescued by a USAF HH-43.

Between 1630 and 1700 hours, supplies of ammunition were flown in by C-123 and CV-2 aircraft, but the resupply drops often landed outside of the camp perimeter and could not be retrieved. At the same time, helicopters were called to evacuate the wounded. However, reinforcements from Huế and Phu Bai could not be deployed because of the bad weather, leaving the camp’s defenders to repair their defensive wall and dig in for the night.

M1/Fisher, Bernard F./pho 4.Fisher and Myers.Credit Photo to the National Museum of the USAF

During the day an A-1 piloted by Major D.W. Myers was hit and forced to crash-land on the A Shau airstrip 200m from PAVN positions, Major Bernard F. Fisher landed his A-1 on the airstrip rescuing Myers, for this action Fisher was awarded the Medal of Honor. 

As fighting continued, the situation deteriorated as ammunition ran short and a decision was made to evacuate all personnel. At 1700 hours, all communication equipment was destroyed. The survivors carried out their evacuation orders and destroyed all abandoned weapons and withdrew further to the north wall.

Leading the evacuation effort were fifteen H-34 helicopters from HMM-163 supported by four UH-1B gunships of VMO-2. Panic-stricken South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians mobbed the evacuation helicopters and overwhelmed U.S. Special Forces troops as they abandoned the camp. This reached a point where the helicopters were so overloaded some Special Forces soldiers were forced to fire upon their allies to allow the helicopters to take off.  Only 172 of 368 Nung and Vietnamese irregulars were flown out. The others were listed as MIA, although many turned up later, having escaped on their own. The evacuation was further complicated by heavy enemy anti-aircraft fire, and two H-34s were lost.

Aftermath

American control ceased at the camp at 17:45 hours when overrun by PAVN troops. During the battle, the U.S. special forces team suffered five killed and twelve wounded (100% casualties). The numbers of South Vietnamese soldiers present at the camp or how many casualties they suffered varies. They evacuated only 186 of the garrison of 434, with the others listed as missing, although some of them surfaced later. Another report stated 231 out of 417 irregulars were lost. According to Sgt. Major Bennie G. Adkins only 122 out of about 410 irregulars survived, with many of them wounded. Adkins was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in defense of the camp by President Barack Obama in September 2014.

In May a Special Forces team entered the abandoned camp to recover the bodies of those killed in the battle, finding the bodies undisturbed and large quantities of ammunition remaining in the camp. The Special Forces team retrieved the bodies and reported back on the camp’s status. On 1 June III Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF) commander LG Lew Walt ordered the 3rd Marine Division commander MG Wood B. Kyle to develop a plan to return to the camp and destroy the ammunition. On the morning of 23 June the Marines launched Operation Turner with Company I, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines being landed at the camp by CH-46s of HMM-164 with air support by VMO-2 UH-1E gunships. The Marines completed the destruction of the ammunition and were airborne again after 2 hours on the ground.

The PAVN transformed the A Shau Valley into a heavily fortified base area with bunkers, antiaircraft guns, and artillery. US and South Vietnamese forces were never able to re-establish a permanent presence in the valley for the remainder of the war. During the Tet Offensive the A Shau Valley provided Communist troops an important sanctuary from which to launch attacks at South Vietnamese cities and military bases, especially Huế and Phu Bai. Raids were launched into the valley in April 1968 (Operation Delaware), August 1968 (Operation Somerset Plain), March 1969 (Operation Dewey Canyon), and May 1969 (Operation Apache Snow).

TO READ MORE ABOUT THESE BATTLES IN THE ASHAU VALLEY, CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINKS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Delaware

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Somerset_Plain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dewey_Canyon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dewey_Canyon

This article originally appeared on the VIETNAM VETERANS GROUP on MeWe. Here is the link: https://mewe.com/group/600e1cad1948b10da573d1fc

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Thank you for taking the time to read this. Should you have a question or comment about this article, then scroll down to the comment section below to leave your response.

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Southern Californian Remembers Life as a Pan Am Stewardess in Vietnam

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By Marc Phillip Yablonka

Renée Chenette, who lives in Laguna Beach, California, was a young Pan Am stewardess the first time she landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in 1972. She shares her past memories with the author during a scheduled interview.

The flight attendant, who grew up just outside of Paris, flew for the airline for 17 years between 1970 and 1987—but it’s the flights into and out of Vietnam while the war raged that are uppermost in her mind today.

However, she’s the first to admit that at the time, she didn’t give it much thought.

“I had just arrived from France, and at 24, I was too young to really know what was going on,” she said.

As such, Chenette treated those on board the flights no different than she would any passenger.

Yet the reality was that the “Pax,” as passengers have always been referred to by personnel in the aviation business, were far from the usual.

“They were all exhausted and many had injuries,” Chenette remembered.

“I just wish I would have been more aware,” she said. “Today, I would have a million questions.”

North Vietnamese troops run on the tarmac of the U.S. military airport in Tan Son Nhut, South Vietnam, on May 12, 1975. (AFP via Getty Images)

According to the U.S. Air Force Police Alumni Association: “Tan Son Nhut Air Base served as the focal point for the initial United States Air Force deployment and buildup in South Vietnam in the early 1960s. … Between 1968 and 1974, Tan Son Nhut Airport was one of the busiest military airbases in the world.”

In March 1973, the last U.S. Airman left South Vietnam from the base.

Now it’s been 50 years, and Chenette is hard-pressed to remember individual conversations she had with the soldiers aboard what were called the “freedom birds.” However, she does remember one thing.

“They were all so very happy to be going home.”

Chenette wishes today that she’d been able to see more of Saigon, since she was relegated to staying within the perimeter of Tan Son Nhut.

Renée Chenette (left) with two fellow Pan Am flight attendants. (Courtesy of Renée Chenette)

Nonetheless, she still carries with her vivid images of the war from within the airbase’s boundaries as the tide began to turn against the South Vietnamese forces.

“I mainly remember at the end, Vietnamese leaving their country only with pots and pans and money worth nothing,” she said.

She also has a memory of a Vietnamese stewardess who dressed her family in Pan Am uniforms so that they could escape the country.

As with many who were touched in one way or another by Vietnam, the war didn’t stay in Vietnam for Chenette.

Boatswain’s Mate 2nd Class Truman Elsbree of Bremerton, New York, cares for two small Vietnamese children who have been separated from their mother during the evacuation to the amphibious cargo ship USS Durham in the South China Sea, Vietnam, April 1975. The Durham evacuated more than 3,000 refugees from the Phan Rang area of Vietnam during operations on April 3 and 4, 1975. (Pictorial Parade/Getty Images)

“I remember flying into Guam with Vietnamese orphans aboard. I helped on the layover because there was often only one person bringing 10 children to be adopted,” she said.

For Chenette, the best part of those missions was seeing the orphans being met by their new parents.

“I’m just glad I was part of bringing them home, and also so glad I experienced the children meeting their adoptive families in Hawaii,” she said.

When told that Pan Am President and CEO Harold Gray had contracted with the U.S. government to fly the soldiers home for cost plus one dollar, Chenette responded, “I didn’t know that, but it was the right thing to do.”

When asked if she ever looks back on landing and taking off from Tan Son Nhut Airbase during the Vietnam War 50 years ago, she said, “Only years later, talking about it with people like you, I realize, ‘Oh my god! I was part of history!’”

Marc Phillip Yablonka is a Burbank-based author and military journalist. His work has been published in the U.S. Military’s Stars and Stripes, Army Times, and other publications. He is the author of four books on Vietnam. His latest book, “Hot Mics and TV Lights: The Story of the American Forces Vietnam Network” will be published in 2023 by Double Dagger Books.

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This article originally appeared in the Epoch Times on 12/5/22. Here is the direct link:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/laguna-beach-resident-remembers-life-as-a-pan-am-stewardess-in-vietnam_4896500.html?utm_source=ref_share&utm_campaign=copy&rs=SHRKDNPQ

If interested, I have a second article on my website with Tiger Airlines stews remembering their flights during the war. Here’s the link:

Vietnam-era airline crews carry memories of the men they flew to, from war

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Should you have a question or comment about this article, then scroll down to the comment section below to leave your response.

If you want to learn more about the Vietnam War and its Warriors, then subscribe to this blog and get notified by email or your feed reader every time a new story, picture, video and changes occur on this website – the button is located at the top right of this page.

I’ve also created a poll to help identify my website audience – before leaving, can you please click HERE and choose the one item that best describes you. Thank you in advance!

Who was Randy (Rooster) McConnell

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U.S. Army Sergeant Randy McConnell is one of the Army’s most decorated veterans of all time, having earned seven Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars, a Bronze Star for Valor and an Army Commendation Medal for Valor in Vietnam.

In 1968, McConnell signed up to serve in the Vietnam War, after a football injury halted his collegiate dreams. He was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, serving as a Screaming Eagle and Pathfinder. McConnell only served in Vietnam for six months and three days, arriving just before the start of the Tet Offensive, but he felt the full force of the enemy – being shot, injured by shrapnel and targeted by the NVA.

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By Don Moore

Randy McConnell of Nokomis, Fla. received seven Purple Hearts, more than any other living American soldier, for six months of intensive fighting with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam during the “Tet Offensive” in 1968. He was also awarded two Silver Stars and a Bronze Star for valor together with an Army Commendation Medal with a V-device for valor.

His world came crashing down in his freshman year at the University of Michigan when injuries sidelined him from the football team. He lost his college scholarship and ended up joining the Army in 1967.

His uncle served in the 101st Airborne Division and convinced him to go airborne and become a “Screaming Eagle,” too. After jump school, he also became a “Pathfinder.” These soldiers established landing zones on battlefields and lead troops into war zones.

In December 1967 McConnell went to Vietnam attached to B-Troop, 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry, 101st Airborne Division. He arrived in country a month before North Vietnam launched the “Tet Offensive.” This was the largest series of battles during the Vietnam War involving upwards of 80,000 North Vietnam Army and Vietcong guerillas and the fighting lasted through May.

It was a military disaster for the North, but “Tet” caused many Americans to side with the Vietnam Protesters in this country against the war. It was the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

“I was 21 on Jan 30, 1968, the day before ‘Tet’ started. We were at a rubber plantation near Bien Hoa where we set up a defensive perimeter. We were there about a month,” the 68-year-old local resident recalled.

“That’s where I got my first Purple Heart on Jan. 31, 1968. The Vietcong (VC) and the North Vietnam Army (NVA) had probed us at night. They attacked that night and we killed maybe a dozen of them. I was one of the people sent out to retrieve some of the enemy bodies.

“I found a body, rolled it over, and started dragging it back to our lines. The enemy had already booby-trapped it with a white phosphorous grenade. As I began dragging the body, the grenade went off. I got burned on my chest in the blast.

“I received my first Silver Star a short time later when we were moving up Highway 1 with armored personnel carriers. I had a gun Jeep with an M-60 machine gun mounted on it.

“Along the way we dismounted and went out on a search and destroy mission. We were searching rice paddies for the enemy when we came upon a tree line and ran into two enemy machine-gun bunkers,” McConnell said. “Before my platoon could flank the machine guns and knock ’em out, they wounded or killed 47 of our men. Seven of our men were wounded and one was killed.

“We had to maneuver closer in under enemy fire to take the bunkers out. I had an M-16 rifle and my Grenadier had an M-79 grenade launcher. When we got close enough to do the job, I laid down supporting fire so he could lob a grenade into the enemy bunker.

“Just before we could knock out the second bunker, I got shot in the chin and chest. It was kinda a bad day for me,” he recalled over four decades later. Eventually, we knocked out both bunkers and took some NVA prisoners.

“I got evacuated out that day.”

It was the battle in which he received his second Silver Star McConnell recalls best during the six months and three days he served in Vietnam.

“We were in LaChu when our squadron commander Lt. Col. Julius Becton, who later became a lieutenant general before he retired, decided we were going to attack the enemy at night in formation. He had no idea what we were getting into.

“At 2 a.m 100 of us started our night attack against, what we learned later was the D-212 NVA Battalion entrenched and waiting for us. It was by far the worst battle I was involved in,” he said with a grimace. “A seasoned NVA battalion who knew the territory drastically outnumbered us.

“It was pitch black night when the enemy opened fire on us. Immediately, I ran into an enemy machine-gun bunker. I returned fire and right away two more NVA soldiers popped up from spider holes on ether side of the machine-gun. I shot and killed one of the soldiers holding an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade),” McConnell said.

“I got the second soldier in the other spider hole just as he fired his RPG at me. It hit the side of an armored personnel carrier beside me, then hit the ground in front of me and spun like a top. I knew it had a time fuse that would go off any second.

“When it exploded, it threw me into a nearby tree. I was hanging upside down from a branch with a piece of shrapnel in my neck. I thought I was a goner.

“When the medic got to me I was bleeding profusely from my neck wound. I stuck my finger in the hole in my neck to stop the bleeding,” he said. The medic got me out of the tree and set me upright on the ground to work on me. It was May 6 and this was my fifth Purple Heart wound. I remember asking the medic, ‘Am I gonna make it doc?’

“He patched me up with a bandaid and said to me, ‘Get your ass back in the battle!’

“That’s exactly what I did.”

This was Sgt. McConnell’s squad in Vietnam in ’68. They were part of B-Troop, 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry, 101st Airborne Division. He is the soldier sitting on the ground in the left front. Photo provided

“When daylight finally came, I got the bejesus scared out of me. During the night fighting, I had crawled up close to a big round Chinese Claymore-type mine. I could see the wire to detonate it running back into the enemy machine-gun bunker. Fortunately, I had killed all the soldiers in the bunker.”

For helping knock out two NVA bunkers I received the Army Commendation Medal with a “V” device.

“My squad’s machine-gunner, Robert Patterson, wanted to continue the fight. I told him since we had penetrated the enemy’s perimeter defenses we needed to go find their command post.

“I sent Patterson and two others from our fire team one way and I took the rest of our squad and went the other way. By somewhere around 2 p.m. the shooting was over. Patterson and his group had knocked out seven enemy machine-gun bunkers and my group had taken down another seven.

“We never found the enemy command post.

“It was only by the grace of God we survived all that happened that morning. It was a matter of laying down screening fire and getting close enough to take out the enemy bunkers with grenades. We took one after another after another bunker.

“For his efforts, Robert Patterson received the Medal of Honor and I was awarded my second Silver Star,” McConnell said.

This is a “Kill Card” left by his unit on the bodies of dead North Vietnamese Army soldiers and Vietcong to let the enemy know what unit killed their men. Sun photo by Don Moore

“By this time, our unit had quite a reputation for killing the enemy. We would leave ‘Kill Cards’ on dead enemy soldiers to let the NVA and VC know who killed their men,” McConnell said.

The cards are the size of regular playing cards. They have the Ace of Spades with a 101st Airborne patch and a “Screaming Eagle’ on them.

“My seventh and last Purple Heart came when my Achilles tendon was cut by shrapnel from a mortar shell fired by the NVA or VC on May 20, 1968. When the enemy first attacked, I had 22 magazines of M-16 (rifle) ammunition in my vest,” he recalled.

“I was on my last magazine when I decided it was time for me to move back up to our mortar station. That was when I discovered I had been hit in the ankle by shrapnel and couldn’t walk. I crawled back to where our mortar men were.”

Randy was evacuated to a hospital in Yokohama, Japan and later sent to Beaumont Army Hospital in El Paso, Texas to recover from his ankle wound. Weeks later, when McConnell could walk without the aid of crutches, he was allowed to return on leave to his Michigan home.

“I flew into Detroit on a civilian aircraft on my way home. I was dressed in my khaki uniform, three rows deep in ribbons on my chest, my shoes were spit-shined and I had the Airborne glider patch on my hat. I thought I was probably going to be greeted as a war hero.

McConnell holds up his Vietnam jacket that expresses his sentiments. It also lists the names of the 15 soldiers in his squad lost in the fighting there who served with him. Sun photo by Don Moore

“I had no idea about all the Vietnam War protests that had been going on back home. When I reached the airport in Detroit, I was greeted at the gate by a group of long-haired hippies who spit on me.” he said with emphasis after decades.

“You have to keep in mind, I was coming right off the killing fields with no counseling, and was forced into this situation without preparation. I was in a bad mental state at the time having seen so much battlefield action. I wasn’t concerned about what the hippies might do to me…I was more concerned about what I might do to them if they got close enough.

“I took my Army uniform off at the Airport and changed into civilian clothes for the remainder of the trip. After spending time with my family, I served the last six months in the Army at Fort Rucker, Ala. reassigned to a ‘Pathfinder’ unit.”

After attending college and graduating as an engineer, McConnell spent the next 30 years of his life working as a water and sewer superintendent in three Michigan communities. He and his wife, Becky, retired to southwest Florida in 2003. The have three grown daughters: Kelly, Staci and Erin, nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

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McConnell was selected to be the National At-Large honoree during the 2021 Purple Heart Patriot Project Mission.

Regrettably, he passed away prior to the event. His wife, Rebecca, attended on his behalf and was presented with the American flag that was flown over Trophy Point on the day the Purple Heart recipients visited the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Admin: “I am proud to say that I knew Randy and Becky personally. He and his wife loved to ride his Harley and take part in the many rides and events sponsored by our local Michigan Harley Davidson dealer. He chose the nickname Rooster, after the title song by Alice in Chains, citing that the NVA tried desperately to kill him, but couldn’t. Unfortunately, Agent Orange-related cancer succeeded. We all miss him.”

The following video was recorded by Fox 13 news during a short interview with his wife in an effort to continue his legacy. Please click on the link to watch the short video:

https://www.fox13news.com/video/906677?fbclid=IwAR3EmgeCvdaL5q6qChC6IoscKJC_y15huMbylzlYJiaQidLjZIjO1YDVVDI

Most of this article appeared on the author’s website titled “War Tales.” Here’s is the direct link: https://donmooreswartales.com/2015/05/13/randy-mcconnell/

The other portion of this article appeared on the “National Purple Heart Honor Mission” website: https://www.purpleheartmission.org/stories-of-valor/category/Vietnam

This Story of Valor is part of an ongoing oral history program of the Honor Project to ensure the experiences of our combat wounded and those who gave their all in the service of America are remembered for generations to come.

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Vietnam War – Operation Union II

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Operation Union II was a military operation that took place in the Vietnam War. It was a search and destroy mission in the Que Son Valley carried out by the 5th Marine Regiment. Launched on May 26, 1967, the operation ended June 5. It was a bloody 10-day battle that resulted in 594 NVA killed and 23 captured, while U.S. casualties were 110 killed and 241 wounded.

Operation Union II was to Destroy the Withdrawing Remnants of the PAVN

The Que Son Valley is located along the border of Quang Nam and Quang Tin Provinces in South Vietnam’s I Corps. Populous and rice-rich, the valley was viewed as one of the keys to controlling South Vietnam’s five Northern provinces by the communists and by early 1967 at least two regiments of the 2nd Division of the People’s Army of Vietnam had been infiltrated into the area. The 1st Battalion, 5th Marines (1/5) and 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines (3/5), experienced units that had fought in Vietnam since their arrival in the summer of 1966, were assigned to the valley in 1967 to support the outnumbered the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) forces in the area.

From April 21 to May 16, the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines had fought the PAVN 21st Regiment near the Marine outpost on Loc Son Mountain for control of the southern part of the Que Son Valley. Operation Union II was launched on May 26 to destroy the withdrawing remnants of the PAVN with a helicopter assault by the U.S. 5th Marine Regiment, commanded by Col. Kenneth Houghton. The assault was coordinated with ground attacks by the 6th ARVN Regiment and the 1st ARVN Ranger Group.

The operational plan called for 1/5, commanded by Lt. Col. Hilgartner, to establish blocking positions in the western portion of the valley while the 3/5, commanded by Lt. Col. Esslinger, was to make a helicopter assault into the southern part of the valley and sweep northeast. At the same time, the three battalions of the  would attack southwest from Thang Binh, while two units of the 6th ARVN Regiment attacked northwest from a position near Tam Ky. The ARVN named their part of the operation Lien Kit 106.

The operation began the morning of the 26th with the 1/5 and ARVN troop movements proceeding as planned. 3/5, composed of three infantry companies, one weapons company, and a command group, was carried by helicopters to Landing Zone Eagle, an area five kilometers east of the Loc Son outpost. The first two waves to arrive at the landing zone (LZ) experienced only light small arms fire, but as the bulk of the battalion landed, the LZ was subjected to heavy weapon and mortar fire. An attack by Lima and Mike Companies launched to relieve the pressure on the LZ found a well-entrenched PAVN (NVA) force, identified as being elements of the PAVN 3rd Regiment, northeast of the landing zone.

Supported by artillery and air strikes, India Company enveloped the PAVN’s flank, and the Marines soon gained the upper hand. By the late afternoon, the Marines had overrun the last PAVN positions, counting PAVN 118 dead for a Marine loss of 38 killed and 82 wounded. The Marine and ARVN forces swept the area for the next three days but contacts declined as the PAVN withdrew from the area. Concluding that the enemy had been routed, the ARVN ended their part of the operation.

Col. Houghton, however, was not convinced and responding to intelligence reports he directed the 5th Marines to continue sweeping the region. On the morning of June 2, the Regiment was sweeping toward the Vinh Huy Village complex. 3rd Battalion 1st Marines encountered 200 PAVN troops entrenched 1,000 meters east of the scene of the May 26th battle, engaging and overrunning the PAVN by 1:30 that afternoon.At the same time the 1st Battalion, pushing forward to relieve pressure on the 3rd, was ambushed by PAVN troops while crossing a 1,000-meter-wide rice paddy. Caught in a crossfire the Marines were pinned down and consolidated their positions while calling artillery and air strikes on enemy positions. During heavy fighting Foxtrot Company, commanded by Capt. James A. Graham, was decimated. Capt. Graham was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor for defending to the last his company’s dead and wounded.

At 2 p.m. Col. Houghton, commander of 1/5 called for the commitment of the First Marine Divisions Reserve “Bald Eagle Reactionary Force,” a battalion sized reactionary force unit made up of three different companies from different battalions, commanded by Lt. Col. Mallett C. Jackson Jr., the Battalion Commander of 2/5, to include Jackson’s own Echo Co. 2/5; Delta Co. 1/7; and Echo Co. 2/7. At 7 p.m., in total darkness, the Bald Eagle Reactionary Force units of E-2/5 and D-1/7 were inserted by helicopter northeast of the fortified enemy positions and quickly moved south to engage the (NVA) PAVN’s left flank positions in order to relieve battle pressure on the 5th Marine units of 1/5, 2/5, and 3/5, that were now pinned down by a large entrenched NVA force.  

The Bald Eagle Reactionary Force companies of Echo 2/5 and Delta 1/7 quickly moved forward and were soon hit with heavy automatic weapons fire and heavy barrages of large 82 mm high explosive mortar rounds by the well-entrenched NVA enemy force. It was only whenE-2/5 and D-1/7 came under attack that Lt. Col. Mallett C. Jackson Jr. and his S-3 Operations Officer, Maj. Richard Esau who were together in a fighting hole in the middle of this attack when word came over the command radio, that the pressure had been taken off the pinned down companies of the 5th Marines. Delta Company 1/7 had taken many casualties and their 2nd Platoon Commander, Lt. David Harris radioed requests for medevac choppers, but all requests were denied because of the extreme darkness. 

In desperation, Lt. Harris repeatedly called out several SOS’s and MAYDAY’s for an emergency medevac on the radio. Quickly the voice of Capt. N.J. Chilewski, the pilot of a large CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter that had just dropped off the Bald Eagle Reactionary Force Marines of Echo 2/7 at the original landing zone, had taken off and now was flying at an altitude of 2,000 feet.  His reply back was “Of course we would” and with the help of a D-1/7 strobe light, the chopper was guided into the landing zone directly in the middle of the battlefield. The Marines with life-threatening wounds were loaded aboard the chopper and were flown back to the hospital for medical treatment. When the chopper returned to its Da Nang Airbase, it was noted that the chopper had received a total of 57 holes in its sides from the exploding mortar rounds and automatic weapons fire during the battlefield landing. 

Later Col. Hilgartner described the insertion of the Bald Eagle Division Reactionary Force, led by Lt. Col. Mallet C. Jackson as crucial and helped change the dynamic in favor of the Marine.

Of June 2 – 3 Marked the Last Significant Battle of Operation Union II

The sudden presence of the strong Division Reactionary Force on its northern flank caused the NVA (AVN) units to disengage and make a hasty withdrawal to the southwest, but the move proved costly to them. Once the NVA (PAVN) soldiers left the protection of their fortifications, they were easy targets for the Marines supporting arms fire. The action of June 2 – 3 marked the last significant battle of Operation Union II. 

Total enemy casualties were 701 killed and 23 captured, a favorable ratio to 110 Marines killed and 241 wounded. For actions in both Union I and Union II the 5th Marines and all units under its operational control, including the division reactionary force companies of Delta Company 1/7 Marines and Echo 2/7 Marines received the Presidential Unit Citation for its actions during Operation Union II.

The unwelcome discovery of a strong enemy force on its northern flank prompted the PAVN forces to attempt a hasty withdrawal during the night, exposing themselves to Marine supporting arms fire. Meanwhile, the 5th Marines regrouped and evacuated casualties. The Marines themselves suffered 71 killed and 139 wounded in the battle. The following morning, when the battalions swept the battle area, 476 PAVN dead were counted in and around the contested rice paddy and its formidable hedgerow complex. 31 weapons were captured.

Leaving a rear guard to slow pursuit, the main body of the PAVN withdrew rapidly, escaping to rearm and refit, a process that would eventually allow them to launch new attacks in September. However, for three months, the PAVN 2nd Division was no longer an effective fighting force. The entire 5th Regiment received the Presidential Unit Citation (US) awarded by President Lyndon Johnson.

This article originally appeared in a blog on the website togetherweserved.com. Here is the direct link: https://blog.togetherweserved.com/2022/01/07/operation-union-ii/

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Vietnam War – The Battle of Hue

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This is a recollection of events by a Stars & Stripes reporter who accompanied a platoon of Marines during the first days of the battle of Hue. Read what he had to say about that experience.

Another Leatherneck, a black-bearded machine gunner, led a charge up a mountain of rubble that had once been a stately tower, shouting: “We’re Marines, let’s go!”. These episodes illustrate the battle of the Hue Citadel – a grim, struggle through the courtyards and battlements of the old imperial fort. The fight pits U.S. and Vietnamese Marines, determined to take the Citadel, against North Vietnamese soldiers equally determined to hold it.

John Olson, a photographer with the Pacific edition of “Stars and Stripes” spent three days with the 3rd Platoon of Delta Company, 1st Bn, 5th Marines.

Attack of The Hue Tower Over the East Gate

Thursday morning, Olson said, the platoon moved forward through the narrow alleys and tree-lined streets of a housing area to attack the tower over the east gate. They dashed at a half-crouch into a courtyard but didn’t make it across.

Three Communist rockets crashed into the yard. The radio operator was blown nearly in half. Several other Marines were wounded. Eight men in the squad retreated to a vacant villa and fired back. A medic ran out to help the wounded and was hit in the legs and fell. A Marine scrambled into the courtyard, but an enemy sniper hit him in the neck as he cried for help.

An hour later, as the Battle of Hue still raged, there were nine men in the villa, and three were wounded. They did not know where the other units were. They were down to several hundred rounds of ammunition, and the radio was lying in the courtyard on the pack of the dead radioman.

The machine gunner, a Lance Corporal, borrowed a knife, crawled forward, cut the radio free, and crawled back. But the radio wouldn’t work.

The small band of Leathernecks could hear the other platoons report to the company, but they couldn’t transmit.

“They’re coming around us, on both sides,” riflemen at the windows shouted as they saw North Vietnamese soldiers circling the house.

One badly wounded man began to recite the Lord’s Prayer. Another Marine, the one who had been hit in the neck, tried to comfort him. “Save your ammunition until they charge,” the Corpsman, a Navy man, advised the Marines.

Then he smashed the radio headset against the cement floor, turned the dial so that enemy soldiers couldn’t trace the frequency, and fired a round into the transmitter. When the enemy didn’t attack, the Corpsman told the others he was going for help. He disappeared through the rear door and was back in 15 minutes to say help was on the way.

A half-hour later, Marines of Bravo Company arrived and laid down a curtain of fire as the Marines in the villa ripped off doors to serve as stretchers and carried their wounded out. The platoon hadn’t made it to the east gate tower, but other Marines had.

They blasted their way along the wall and seized the massive stone structure. But the North Vietnamese counterattacked and drove them back. The Marines attacked again and held until 4 a.m. Friday. Then the North Vietnamese unleashed a thunderous barrage of rockets and recoilless fire and charged.

The Enemy Took the Hue Tower Again

The enemy took the tower again, but now it was reduced to only a torn finger of stone protruding from a mountain of rubble that the Marines labeled “The Hill.” At daybreak, the Marines regrouped for another assault on “The Hill.”

At 9:30, they began scrambling up the shattered wall. The first five men to reach the top fell back wounded. The others stopped, crouching behind chunks of masonry. The black-bearded machine- gunner, cradling his weapon in his arms, stood up and shouted: “We’re Marines, let’s go!”

They reached the top  –  the tower – climbing over the bodies of Marines and North Vietnamese soldiers. They fought two hours to hold it. At noon, a Marine sniper cried out, “they’re running, put out some fire.”

Other Marines jumped up and began shooting at the North Vietnamese soldiers darting back through the ruins to another tower farther south.

UPI correspondent Alvin Webb Jr., who has been covering the Battle of Hue from the start, sent out the following dispatch: It is nine blocks from where I am sitting on the south gate of the wall around the Citadel. It may become the bloodiest nine blocks for the men of the United States Marine Corps since that other war in Korea when they fought and died in the streets of Seoul.

“Seoul was tough,” an old top sergeant who was there told me a few minutes ago. “But this  –  well, it’s something else.”

“Five snipers,” Capt. Scott Nelson of Florida said. “That’s all it takes to tie us down completely.”

You can hear the whine of the snipers’ bullets and the eerie whoosh of B40 rockets and feel the thunder of mortar rounds chewing up houses. I can catch glimpses from time to time of the walls of the imperial city, which protect the Palace of Perfect Peace. The North Vietnamese are using it as a fortress.

We move forward. We sweep into a building facing Nguyen Dieu Street behind a blistering blast of M16 fire and thunderous belches from tanks. We took the building and found a body inside. The man was wearing a khaki North Vietnamese Army uniform and carried two hand grenades made in Communist China.

He lay face down in a pool of darkening red. I looked at him. A Marine interrupted my thoughts. “You remember where you were sitting five minutes ago?’ he asked me. “Absolutely.” “Well, they just put four mortar rounds in on us – right where you were sitting.”

IF YOU WANT TO READ MORE ABOUT THE BATTLE OF HUE ON THIS WEBSITE, CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINKS: https://cherrieswriter.com/2016/03/01/a-remembrance-of-hue-vietnam-1968/

The search for a soldiers’ identity in 1968 TET photos

This article originally appeared on the blog of the website togetherweserved.com. Here’s the direct link: https://blog.togetherweserved.com/2022/10/05/the-battle-for-hue/

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Maintaining Swift Boat Operations in Vietnam

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Keeping Swift Boats up and running was vital to the new ‘Small Boat Brown-Water Navy’. One sailor from the maintenance ship, USS Krishna, recalls some events and challenges while stationed on the repair vessel. Read what he had to say.

by Tome Edwards

I enlisted in the Navy on February 5, 1968; that was 3 days after my 19th birthday. Shortly before completing basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, I received my first set of orders. I was about to become a crew member of the USS Krishna.

It was in dry-dock at the base in Yokosuka, Japan. With renovations complete, we got underway at a less than blistering 9 knots. On September 24, we dropped our anchors in An Thoi, Vietnam. That was the first day of what was about to become one of the most interesting and memorable chapters of my life; maintaining and repairing Patrol Craft Fast, (P.C.F.’s), also known as Swift Boats.

Approximately three and a half years before my deployment to Vietnam, General William Westmoreland, commander of the Military Assistance Command in Saigon, requested shallow watercraft to support the newly formed Coastal Surveillance Force.

Their assignment – curtail the flow of North Vietnamese troops and supplies to the south via waterways. Prior to the arrival of Swift Boats, the Viet Cong had unbounded access to rivers, canals, and the coastline for smuggling and infiltration operations.

The Navy had tested a variety of boats to address the specific needs of combating that type of guerrilla warfare before opting to use a craft built by Sewart Seacraft, a Louisiana-based manufacturer.

They transported the Swift Boats to the Philippines; An Thoi and Da Nang were selected as the two areas most critical to the needs the new craft could address. The 50-foot-long 25-knot quarter-inch-thick aluminum hull Swift Boats had twin 50-caliber machine guns above the pilothouse and a single 50 over an 81 mm mortar aft. Swift Boats quickly proved to be the perfect fit for the type of warfare underway on the rivers and along the coast.

During Operation Market Time, Swift Boats maintained a 24/7 schedule and interacted with hundreds of ‘junks’ (fishing vessels) daily. Keeping Swift Boats up and running was vital to the new ‘Small Boat Brown-Water Navy’.

Legitimate fishermen operated most junks. That gave the sailors the opportunity to engage in goodwill gestures such as giving cigarettes and candy to those on the junks that were being inspected for contraband.

We manned swift Boats with crews of 6, one officer, and 5 enlisted that had to adapt to being a part of this new facet on military service. I have always found it interesting that 80% of the crews were volunteers. Utilizing 5 Coastal Surveillance Centers to coordinate their patrols, Operation Market Time proved to be successful in its assigned task.

The next phase of Swift Boat operations was to conduct surveillance along the 1,500 miles of South Vietnam’s coastline. Once again, Swift Boats delivered.

For the sailors aboard the USS Krishna, our job was to keep Swift Boats up and running. To a man, we took pride in what we did. Over the years I have occasionally looked back on my time in An Thoi and know morale was never a problem. As a crew, we were tighter than a hat band.

Some memories of war are absolutely indelible, and not all of them occur during combat. As an Electricians Mate Apprentice, I am confident the $83 that was all mine twice a month was well earned. One component of a Swift Boat electrical system was two 24-volt battery banks.

They served as the primary source of power for engine starting, navigation lights, radar, and general-purpose lighting. The portside batteries were for standby power and the starboard bank provided general boat power. The wiring configuration ensured both banks could function in parallel to maintain the operation of essential systems.

The batteries were located in the aft section of the ‘engine room’; trust me, that’s a relative term. In order to access, service and replace them you had to navigate over and around two 480 HP Detroit Marine Diesels.

As a now-retired aerospace engineer, I am confident that when Swift Boats were being designed the engineers never considered the electricians that worked on them weren’t former football players. Fortunately, in my case I played baseball and I worked on Swift Boats 48 years and 62 pounds ago.

Supplies were, at times, problematic. I still remember a Swift Boat coming back from a patrol and some of the battery posts were in, shall we say, less than new condition.

I noticed a few now-empty 50-caliber machine gun shells were on the deck and saw them as the answer to the battery post problem. I hack-sawed the firing pin off and put what was left on a grinding wheel to thin out one side. I then tapped them over what was left of a battery post and poured in solder. When it cooled, I peeled the shell off and had a good battery post.

I still remember the Captain of the Krishna seeing that, laughing and saying “Well, that’s one way to do it”.

On December 5, 1968 (my memory isn’t this good; I kept a log book). Former Vaudeville performer Georgie Jessel was in An Thoi for a USO show. I have believed for years you can never have too much chocolate or laughter, and Georgie provided plenty of the second.

The following day, P.C.F. 36 returned with heavy damage to the radar and electrical systems. For the Krishna electricians, it was all hands on deck. During the day typhoon warnings were issued. Life in Vietnam was never boring.

The Krishna had a ‘port and starboard’ duty rotation; every other day you would stand a 4 or 5-hour watch. On December 20, I had mid-watch, midnight to 4 AM on the bow, and had an M 16 and a box of concussion grenades. They were thrown into the water occasionally to keep Viet Cong from planting explosives on the ship. I threw what turned out to be a short fuse grenade and it was the loudest sound I had heard other than a Led Zeppelin concert. Days later, I almost didn’t hear Santa coming.

In 1971, the U.S. Navy donated two Swift Boats to the newly established government in the nation of Malta. They had used those Swift Boats for training at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, California.

While operating in Malta they were a part of that country’s Maritime Squadron. For nearly 40 years, they functioned as coast guard vessels involved in rescue work of those fleeing North Africa and enforcing fishing rights. In 2010, they placed the Swift Boats into retirement and Vanessa Frazier, Malta’s Minister of Defense, donated one of them to the Maritime Museum of San Diego for $1.00 and no, that isn’t a typo.

They transferred the San Diego-bound Swift Boat to a container ship and arrived in Norfork, Virginia. They then placed it on a unique truck/trailer rig. At 14 feet wide, 16 feet high and 43,000 pounds, it required a highly skilled driver to bring her 2,600 miles back to San Diego for a warm ‘welcome home’ reception.

This article originally appeared on THE GIANT KILLER Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/smallestsoldier/

The GIANT KILLER book details the incredible life of the smallest soldier, Green Beret Captain Richard Flaherty along with the harrowing stories from the men of the 101st Airborne in Vietnam. The Giant Killer FB page honors these incredible war heroes, making sure their stories of valor and sacrifice are not forgotten. God Bless our Vets!

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Operation-Cedar-Falls-search-and-destroy-in-the-Iron-Triangle

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By Rod Paschal

Criticized for advocating a big-unit war, General Westmoreland launched Cedar Falls in January 1967 to assault a VC bastion. This is the first of many battles in the war where the US and enemy soldiers will fight in the Iron Triangle.

At dusk on October 8, 1965, barely 90 days after the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division began arriving in Vietnam, three of its infantry companies trudged out of a heavily forested area. The soldiers mounted trucks to return to their base, eagerly expecting showers, hot food and rest after three weeks of chasing the elusive Viet Cong. However, in the gathering darkness, shots suddenly rang out and a desperate and chaotic firefight erupted as the startled Americans poured fire at muzzle blasts coming from the dense foliage. Then, as the Viet Cong (VC) shooting gradually diminished, their mortar rounds began falling among the trucks. When it was all over, six men of the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry lay dead, and 40 more wounded. At dawn the next day, no VC bodies were found, but there was evidence they had carried away some.

The vicious fight was just 30 miles north of Saigon in a 115-square-mile patch of jungle ominously known as the Iron Triangle.

The Iron Triangle was so heavily defended, forested, and fortified that it would be another 15 months before there were enough U.S. troops in-country to field a force adequate to successfully assault this VC bastion. Operation Cedar Falls, the largest U.S. operation in the war to date, would have a number of significant results. It would validate the effectiveness of a new intelligence methodology; ignite disputes among U.S. military leaders; expose serious weaknesses in South Vietnam’s ability to care for refugees and the need for a better organization for U.S. pacification assistance agencies; and produce fodder for the nascent antiwar movement at home. Most critically, Cedar Falls would show that General William Westmoreland was not wholly devoted to the “big-unit” war, as his detractors claimed. Also—and often overlooked—Cedar Falls directly contributed to the tepid South Vietnamese response to North Vietnam’s call for a “General Uprising” during the Tet Offensive.

At the same time American military leaders grappled with how to deal with the Iron Triangle, and a serious argument over North Vietnamese strategy roiled Hanoi. General Vo Nguyen Giap, commander of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), had been convinced in late 1965 that his troops could not sustain the large losses they were suffering in the South against superior U.S. firepower and mobility. Through 1966, Giap pressed for a reversion to guerrilla warfare methods instead of continuing the main force struggle between his regulars and allied forces. Giap lost the argument to Hanoi’s commander in the South, General Nguyen Chi Than, who not only favored the big-unit war but also believed Southerners would join in a revolt against the Americans and their puppets in Saigon. In April 1967, Hanoi secretly directed preparations for an all-out offensive and general uprising in the South.

During the last days of 1966, when the Giap-Than controversy was still going on in Hanoi, General Westmoreland settled a similar argument among his generals. I witnessed this when I accompanied my commander, Maj. Gen. Fred Weyand, leading the 25th Infantry Division, to Lt. Gen. Jonathan Seaman’s II Field Force headquarters at Long Binh, 22 miles northeast of Saigon. We were first briefed on pattern activity analysis, the intelligence technique that was being used to pinpoint the several segments of a Viet Cong headquarters and logistical complex in the Iron Triangle, Military Region IV (MR4).

Then Seaman, a tall, dour 55-year-old veteran of both the European and Pacific theaters in World War II and recent commander of the 1st Infantry Division, recommended that Westmoreland revise the timing of a long-planned operation against enemy main forces in War Zone C, 60 miles northwest, in order to throw a two-division force against the Iron Triangle. The mission would be to destroy this base and the local and guerrilla forces there—units that had recently conducted guerrilla actions in and around Saigon.

Major General William DePuy, leading the 1st Infantry Division, objected to Seaman’s proposal and strongly advocated striking a VC main force unit instead. A rising star in the U.S. Army, the 48-year-old DePuy, described by one observer as a “small, tough, battle-wise, brainy and innovative leader,” had a formidable reputation and had recently served as Westmoreland’s operations officer. Seaman expected Westmoreland would side with DePuy, but surprisingly, Westmoreland told Seaman, “You are the commander, the decision is yours.”

Operation Cedar Falls, named for the hometown of 1st Division Medal of Honor recipient Robert John Hibbs, who was killed in March 1966, would involve a massive sweep of the Triangle by two brigades of DePuy’s division, plus an airborne brigade, elements of a cavalry regiment and an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) Ranger battalion.

“The purpose here is to deprive the Viet Cong of this area for good”

Meanwhile, Weyand, employing two brigades, would sweep through wooded areas west of the Saigon River and block any enemy escape attempt to avoid DePuy’s assault. Units on the sweeps were given a “VC Installations List” detailing the location, unit or office designations of all facilities, depots, communications centers and expected positions of three local force VC battalions and two separate companies. No enemy main force units were expected to be in the Iron Triangle. All the estimated 6,000 inhabitants of the Triangle’s one village and several outlying hamlets would be assembled, screened, and relocated. The plan called for the destruction of all enemy installations within a two-week period, after which the Triangle would be publicly designated a free-fire zone—where any inhabitant would be considered hostile.

Ben Suc, the Triangle’s main village of about 3,500 people, already had a martial history and an unfortunate experience with political coercion. A sprawling collection of houses, rice paddies, orchards and shops, Ben Suc had been fortified as far back as the late 18th century, when it was the base for operations against rebellious northern tribes. The village had been the site of an ARVN outpost until the Viet Cong overran it in 1964, executed the village chief, blocked the roads and organized the population into youth, women, and farmers associations, and indoctrinated them on National Liberation Front (NLF) goals and laws.

The villagers were told the Americans were evil, that they killed pregnant women and ate their victims. They were required to pay taxes in rice and other foodstuffs or money, supply recruits for VC units, transport supplies and clear battlefields of the dead. The civilians also supplied the labor to dig fighting trenches and bunkers for combat units and tunnels to shelter political, medical, communication and other such stationary facilities. The ARVN had attempted to recover Ben Suc before, but it and the Iron Triangle had been in VC hands for about two years.

At the direction of General Seaman, who believed VC agents had penetrated several ARVN headquarters, Cedar Falls was held in strict secrecy—even from some of the participating ARVN allies—until the day before its January 8 launch. On January 7, six newsmen were given a briefing on Cedar Falls, including 24-year-old Jonathan Schell of the New Yorker, who recorded the briefing by Major Allen C. Dixon. Pointing to a map, the major began: “We have two targets, actually. There’s the Iron Triangle, and then there’s the village of Ben Suc.” Dixon called the village a “solid VC” political center. “We know there’s important VC infrastructure there,” he said. “What we’re really after is the infrastructure. We’ve run several operations in this area before with ARVN but it’s always been hit and run. You go in there, leave the same day and the VC are back that night. This time we’re really going to do a thorough job of it; we’re going to clean out the place completely. The people are all going to be resettled in a temporary camp near Phu Cuong, the provincial capital down the river, and then we’re going to move everything out—livestock, furniture and all of their possessions. The purpose here is to deprive the VC of this area for good.”

Dixon told the reporters that 500 1st Division troops would land in 60 helicopters around Ben Suc at 0800, to avoid mines and booby traps that were on the village’s approaches. A helicopter with loudspeakers would instruct villagers to assemble at the village center and inform them that anyone attempting escape would be considered Viet Cong. Safe-conduct pass leaflets will be dropped for any VC desiring to defect. Dixon said incoming ARVN units—which would be briefed on their role shortly before they were brought to the Triangle would evacuate and care for the villagers.

The next morning, January 8, reporter Schell joined troops of the 1st Division’s 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, under the command of Lt. Col. Alexander Haig at Dau Tieng, 11 miles north of Ben Suc. They flew due south at 2,500 feet, within sight of the village but on a path that appeared well to the west of Ben Suc. Gradually losing altitude, the 60 helicopters disappeared from the village’s view, and then turned toward it at treetop level, roaring forward at 100 mph. Flaring out at precisely 0800, the helicopters drifted down on three landing zones around Ben Suc. The surprise was complete and the village was quickly surrounded. Sporadic firing soon faded away.

After the helicopters left to pick up more troops, a lone Huey circled above, giving instructions to the inhabitants through a loudspeaker. Well to the north, U.S. artillery fire began hitting designated landing zones in preparation for helicopter-borne assaults into the nearby wood. Within an hour, as they had been ordered to do, about 1,000 villagers had gathered at Ben Suc’s school. South Vietnamese police and ARVN troops then arrived to screen the villagers and cull males between 15 and 45. A 1st Division field kitchen was set up and a medical tent erected so U.S. medics could offer treatment to the waiting inhabitants. A detailed search of the villagers’ homes by ARVN soldiers began. By mid-afternoon, some 3,500 dejected and unfriendly villagers had been assembled. It was looking like Cedar Falls might be a textbook piece of allied military precision.

That’s when things soured. While New Yorker reporter Schell was observing the operation around Ben Suc, he came on an ugly scene of ARVN officers interrogating some young males. The suspects, who failed to answer questions to the officers’ satisfaction, were repeatedly beaten—all this, Schell wrote, under the eyes of “a very fat American with a red face and an expression of perfect boredom.” When a U.S. Army captain arrived on the scene, he took Schell aside and said, “You see, they do have some, well, methods and practices that we are not accustomed to, that we wouldn’t use…but the thing you’ve got to understand is that this is an Asian country, and their first impulse is force.”

Soon, the evacuation plan for the families quickly unraveled. While Seaman’s secretive planning yielded a thoroughly surprised enemy, it also produced distrust between the allies, an agonizing delay in the operation, and perhaps worse. All of the military-age males were flown to Phu Cuong for interrogation in the afternoon, but the unexpected and hasty effort to round up enough ARVN landing craft to transport the families, their animals and possessions on the Saigon River from Ben Suc to Phu Cuong broke down. South Vietnamese authorities, angry with their pushy, inconsiderate American allies, simply had not had the time to identify, plan, assemble and supervise a flotilla, resulting in a two-day delay. On January 10, General DePuy, disgusted and impatient with the handling of the refugees, took charge. He organized truck convoys to transport some families to the provincial capital and ordered the landing craft be used to bring the rest of the villagers and the farmers’ water buffalos.

Meanwhile, searching and fighting was progressing in the woods surrounding Ben Suc. Since landing, 1st Division troops had discovered several tunnel complexes and stores of foodstuffs, ammunition and other supplies. Some of the surprised Viet Cong fought back, and early fighting left 40 dead, while the Americans were initially free of battle deaths. The biggest fight of the entire operation took place across the river in the 25th Division area when a 2nd Brigade unit made an unexpected, sharp contact with a battalion-size enemy force during an air assault. This bloody action continued for most of the day with men of the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry breaking up the enemy battalion and chasing down groups of its survivors. In this hot, deadly fight, six Americans died, while the VC left 100 bodies of their outgunned battalion on the field.

As the sweep of the Triangle continued for two weeks, many smaller actions took place, but the main role of U.S. forces became locating, searching and destroying hundreds of tunnels. The GIs soon learned how to spot a tunnel entrance, entice any enemy out of it, and then send a pistol-armed volunteer, or “tunnel rat,” inside with flashlight, compass and field phone, to explore and retrieve documents, weapons and ammunition. The tunnel would then be destroyed by explosives or by pumping acetylene gas into the passageways and igniting it.

A notable exception to the largely passive response to the U.S. sweep of the Triangle came when the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry, entered the woods just northeast of Ben Suc, looking for a previously identified VC installation. The facility was a camouflaged medical supply depot with a tunnel being used as a hospital, where Dr. Vo Hoang Le, his wife and several assistants were tending to 60 patients. Alerted by the Ben Suc attack, Dr. Le decided to ignore instructions to flee or hide from the Americans and opted to arm his staff, prepare concealed firing positions and defend his hospital with four rifles, a Thompson submachine gun and his own .45-cal. revolver.

The next day, at 1230, Dr. Le saw three American soldiers approaching. When they were within 20 feet, he began firing, killing all three. Le’s wife scurried through a blizzard of American bullets to the American bodies and returned with their M-16s and some ammunition. Spotting a GI crawling forward to retrieve one of the bodies, Le killed him. The Americans called in artillery and an airstrike with napalm. In the afternoon, the Americans launched three attacks, each pushed back by Le and the defenders. The doctor later recalled: “That night, I raised the question of withdrawing. Some of my comrades were against the idea….I told them if we stayed, we would not be able to withstand the next day’s assault….We left six of the wounded behind in secret tunnels; they had lost legs or had head wounds and could not walk. Two nurses stayed to look after them….We went through the shell fire….Two men were wounded during the journey, but none were killed.”

On January 11, an argument about the treatment of the refugees arose among U.S. and South Vietnamese leaders. It involved General DePuy and the head of the regional U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) office, John Paul Vann. An ex-U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, Vann was a courageous, intelligent 43-year-old former Ranger who had been an adviser in Vietnam in 1962-63, and had keen insights into Vietnamese culture. The dispute began with DePuy’s quick inspection of the Phu Cuong reception camp and his outrage at the lack of adequate organization, sanitation, shelter, food and medical services for the refugees. DePuy complained about the abysmal conditions to General Seaman and suggested that he take charge of the camp, as he’d taken charge of the evacuation. Seaman reaffirmed his desire to have the Vietnamese take care of their own people with Vann’s assistance in supplying resources. Vann phoned DePuy to see if he could relieve the general’s concerns and got an angry response: “Vann, your lousy organization has fallen flat on its face and I am going to move in and do the job—as usual!” Vann countered that the Vietnamese authorities were responsible for the camp’s shortcomings and the reason behind that stemmed from their belief that the refugees had no loyalty to the Saigon government.

Within a few days, the refugees’ plight was somewhat eased with the arrival of tents, clothing, food and water and sanitary facilities—much of it coming from the 1st Division. Five months later, under Vann’s hand, the refugees were living in concrete block buildings with metal roofs, fairly well supplied and maintaining the same standard of living as the dependents of ARVN soldiers. However, no one involved in the evacuation dispute was truly satisfied—least of all, the refugees themselves.

Up in the Triangle and the 25th Division’s search area, the destruction of Military Region IV facilities continued until January 26, when Operation Cedar Falls ended. Vietnamese paratroopers assumed the search of Ben Suc and made the most stunning find yet. The VC had taken advantage of the allied proclivity to avoid hitting villages with artillery and airstrikes, and had dug a vast, three-story-deep complex of tunnels and chambers covering several acres underneath the village. There were offices, medical facilities, storage bins and spaces for the manufacture of clothing, munitions and footwear, even special defense capabilities—tunnels leading to surface observation and firing positions.

At the edge of Iron Triangle area, soldiers (including Americans from the 1st Infantry Division) uncover bags of rice hidden in Ben Suc during Operation Cedar Falls, Vietnam, 1967. (Photo by Dick Swanson/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)

Elsewhere, other facilities were found, including several underground VC provincial and district government headquarters. MR4s signal and cryptographic center was located, along with files and code books. Its intelligence section contained a trove of documents, including more than 200 personal history sheets on cadre and a notebook of names of ARVN officers who were supplying the VC with information and U.S. ammunition. The postal, communications and transportation section was found with extensive records, and an operations office was also identified, yielding campaign plans and maps. A number of camouflaged, aboveground rice storage facilities were also found, shielding hundreds of tons of bagged rice.

The results of Operation Cedar Falls were impressive, as more than four square miles of jungle had been cleared. The allies had captured 578 weapons and 3,700 tons of rice—enough to feed five regiments for a year. Eleven hundred bunkers, 424 tunnels and 509 structures were destroyed. The effectiveness of pattern activity analysis had been confirmed. Viet Cong losses included 723 killed and 213 taken prisoner, among them 12 high-ranking officials and MR4s talkative operations officer, who was caught trying to spirit away two pounds of documents and maps. More than 500 enemy personnel defected and some 500,000 pages of documents were seized. Within a few days, police and ARVN counterintelligence authorities began picking up enemy agents and traitors, and breaking up underground networks throughout the region and in Saigon. Almost immediately, incidences of assassination, sabotage and guerrilla actions in the region dramatically dropped. The cost included 72 American and ARVN battle deaths.

However otherwise impressive, the results also lent fuel to a growing chorus of American rejection of U.S. war policy and a belief among some critics that the operation had failed, since it had not completely and permanently removed the enemy from the Triangle. But the spark for widespread public unease did not come until reporter Schell’s New Yorker article appeared in July, telling the sad fate of Ben Suc’s hapless refugees. Within a year, Schell’s entire report had been published as a book, The Village of Ben Suc, that was widely referenced by opponents of the war.

Some Viet Cong did return to the Iron Triangle after the operation, but keeping them out would have required a defending force of considerable size, which the allies believed to be an unwise use of scarce soldiers. The Viet Cong who did return found life in a free-fire zone perilous and challenging without villagers to supply labor, recruits and food.

Cedar Falls yielded two positive results that leaders could not have envisioned when they planned the operation. The evacuation and settlement of the Triangle’s refugees was so flawed that the Civilian Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) organization was created three months later. An ambassadorial-level civilian, reporting to the commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, led the organization. This integrated military-civilian structure proved superior and gave Westmoreland the authority to direct U.S. pacification support along with military advisory and combat operations.

The other unanticipated achievement was the massive collection of documents that led to the arrests of key Viet Cong agents and officials in Saigon and its environs. Although unknown to the American planners of Cedar Falls, the subsequent weakening of the National Liberation Front infrastructure in the Saigon region would diminish the chances for success of the General Uprising then being secretly planned by COSVN.

Later, in confidential documents that circulated among Communist leaders, the Viet Cong admitted that Operation Cedar Falls had, for them, been a great disaster.

Rod Paschall, editor-at-large for MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, was a Special Forces detachment commander in Vietnam in 1962-63, served in Laos in 1964 and returned to Vietnam in 1966 as a company commander and staff officer until 1968. He finished his Southeast Asian service in Cambodia in 1974-75.

This article originally appeared in the Vietnam Magazine on 7-6-2012. Here’s the direct link:

https://www.historynet.com/operation-cedar-falls-search-and-destroy-in-the-iron-triangle/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fb_vtm&fbclid=IwAR2FDCFzdwBtFZ0-MuBLiuX8K0jh0uKzpmg94JUeFbJmdoXOwmzrebSi3fk

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NEW STATUE WILL PAY TRIBUTE TO VIETNAM-ERA MILITARY WIVES WHO TOOK ON THE US GOVERNMENT

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Nancy C. Schrum, front left, and Pat Mearns, center, celebrate with others after the Coronado city council approved the construction of the League of Wives Memorial in 2022. Photo courtesy of the League of Wives Memorial Project.

 My long-time friend, Ms. Marty Eddy, Michigan Coordinator, National League of Families of American Prisoners, Missing & Unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War, sent me the link to an article about a new memorial honoring Vietnam War POW/MIA wives. They described Sybil Stockdale and her fellow advocates as “the SEAL Team Six in heels and pearls.” Read about it here.

By Natalie Gross

The main gate at Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado, California, is named after US Navy Vice Adm. James Stockdale, the most senior Naval officer imprisoned at the infamous Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War.

A missile destroyer, Navy leadership award, and a center at the United States Naval Academy also bear his name.

Now, Stockdale’s wife — who rallied press and public support and earned the ear of presidents and other world leaders to fight for the fair treatment of American prisoners of war and their eventual release in 1973 — will get her due.

The city of Coronado recently approved the construction of a life-size memorial to Sybil Stockdale and the women who advocated alongside her — a group of military wives whose husbands were also prisoners of war or missing in action in Vietnam. The League of Wives Memorial will be the first public memorial in the country to recognize military spouses, its planners say. 

Sybil Stockdale poses with a vase of roses. When Sybil Stockdale began working with Naval intelligence to send coded letters to her husband imprisoned at the Hanoi Hilton, Jim Stockdale knew there was a code if Sybil included a picture of herself with roses. Photo courtesy of Stockdale family via Heath Lee.

“The reaction has been, unanimously, ‘Well, it’s about time,’” said Nancy C. Schrum, a Navy spouse of 20 years who is helping to plan the memorial. “It’s been very encouraging.”

Historian Heath Lee, author of The League of Wives: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home, describes Sybil and her fellow advocates as “the SEAL Team Six in heels and pearls.”

A Club No One Wanted To Join

Before their advocacy efforts on behalf of their husbands made international headlines, the League of Wives started as an unofficial support group for grieving women. They shared stories and tears over coffee or wine while their kids played together in the yard. 

“I was living in Japan at the time of my husband’s shoot down, and when I came home, I came home to a very divided United States of America, and I needed, as a young woman — a very young woman, very naive — I needed help from other women. I needed to know how they were doing with what was happening,” Pat Mearns, 90, said. Her husband, Air Force fighter pilot Col. Arthur Stewart Mearns, was declared missing in action in November 1966.

Navy Lt. Commander Mike Estocin went missing in action in Vietnam in 1967. He was posthumously promoted to captain and awarded the Medal of Honor. Photo courtesy of Marie Estocin.

Outside of the league, “nobody even cared about us,” Mearns said. “We were collateral damage.”

“We were young women and our men were gone. It was a tough, tough time,” said Marie Estocin, 85, whose husband, Navy Capt. Michael Estocin, went missing in action in April 1967. “If we hadn’t all had each other, we probably all would’ve become totally, totally depressed. But we had each other.”

“This was not a club that any of these ladies wanted to join,” Schrum said. “And yet, this was much needed to have somebody else in their boots — in their shoes. … Nobody else had an idea what they were going through. Nobody.”

Advocacy Gets Underway

In October 1966, Sybil Stockdale and some of the other women started working with Naval intelligence to send coded letters to their husbands at Hanoi Hilton, though that didn’t come to light until after the war, according to Lee. In her first letter from Jim, Sybil Stockdale learned he was being tortured and held in leg irons.

It wasn’t long before the women wanted answers. Support gatherings at the Stockdales’ home turned into letter-writing sessions to military and government leaders.

Retired Navy Vice Adm. James Stockdale and Sybil Stockdale in Wisconsin in 1985. Department of Defense photo.

“They just told us to be quiet. That’s what they were telling us: ‘Be quiet. Don’t talk about this,’” Estocin said. “And that’s how we started writing letters to the government and telling them, ‘We want information. We want it to be public. We want the world to know — or at least the United States to know — what was happening with our loved ones.’”

Sybil Stockdale, whom Estocin described as a beloved mother figure, was their spokesperson. She would later write in a 1984 book co-authored with her husband, In Love and War, that she initially “felt sure the government had good reason to insist on this ‘keep quiet’ policy.” But as time went on, “I felt more and more inclined to tell the truth publicly. All my reading about Communist treatment of prisoners throughout the world led me to believe that telling the truth about Hanoi’s treatment of American prisoners might be our only hope.”

In October 1968, two years after the wives had begun meeting in Sybil Stockdale’s home, she made her Naval intelligence contact aware that she was going to the press.  

“She goes to the San Diego Union newspaper, and that is the first time she goes public with her personal story about Jim Stockdale,” Lee said, noting that Sybil intentionally kept the details of his treatment vague. “That kind of opens the floodgates for everybody else to start talking.”

In this 2011 photo, Sybil Stockdale cuts a cake during a ceremony to commemorate POW/MIA Day at Naval Base San Diego in front of the guided-missile destroyer USS Stockdale, named after her husband, Adm. James Stockdale. US Navy photo by Senior Chief Mass Communication Specialist Joe Kane.

A group of Virginia Beach-based wives whose husbands were also prisoners of war or missing in action had also started organizing — writing letters, meeting with government officials, and speaking to civic groups about their husbands’ plight. Together, these and other groups of military spouses from around the country, led by Sybil Stockdale, formed the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia.

As a coalition, the wives managed to influence US policy and garner the support of then-presidential candidate Richard Nixon. They traveled to Washington and beyond, sharing their stories with any world leader who would listen.

“They literally go to the [North Vietnamese consulate in Paris] and confront the diplomats,” Lee said. “It becomes a big story. It’s all over the news really in all countries — the ones that aren’t censoring it.”

On a particular trip over Christmas in 1969, some of the wives involved in the movement took their children with them to Paris to try to meet with the North Vietnamese diplomats and protest the treatment of the prisoners. Though not a calculated move, the optics of these distraught wives and children generated international sympathy for their cause and embarrassed the North Vietnamese in the court of world opinion, Lee said.

These repeated trips to elevate the cause “worked big time to help bring the North Vietnamese into some kind of compliance to the Geneva Conventions of War,” Lee said. “Their efforts added to the death of Ho Chi Minh in September of 1969, helped stop the torture of the POWs, and saved lives.”

From left, POW/MIA wives Carole Hanson, Louise Mulligan, Sybil Stockdale, Andrea Rander, and Pat Mearns meet with President Richard Nixon in 1969. Photo courtesy of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum via Heath Lee.

Unlikely activists

While their focus remained on advocating for their husbands, Mearns said it wasn’t lost on them that they were making inroads for women in the face of sexism.

It wasn’t just the military telling them to be quiet, she said. “That was that way with women — period. The attitude of our whole culture at that time was, ‘Ladies, you belong in the kitchen.’” 

When she came back to the US from Japan with her two young daughters after her husband went missing, Mearns recalls that she wasn’t allowed to get a credit card in her name.

It was the time when “each branch of the service put officers’ wives through their own kind of basic training, advising the young women who married into the military on everything from their wedding-night lingerie to ‘Conversational Taboos at Social Gatherings,’” Lee writes in her book, which is also the basis for a traveling “League of Wives” exhibition currently at the Naval Academy. The book also caught the attention of actress Reese Witherspoon’s production company, who considered turning it into a film, though it was never made.

The League’s advocacy paralleled the feminist movement in a big way, Lee said. The women also engaged in protests and sit-ins, tactics reminiscent of the Civil Rights movement.

“The twist is these are conservative military wives who are not feminists and don’t want to be feminists because feminists are associated with communism and the left wing,” Lee said. “Their cause is not their own empowerment but their own husbands’ emancipation, essentially. But in the process they become very empowered.”

A memorial that transcends time

For her advocacy, Sybil Stockdale was awarded the Navy’s Distinguished Public Service Award. The Navy also created the Mrs. Sybil Stockdale Ombudsman of the Year Award in her honor, noting she “set an unflagging example for her support to families of other POWs.”

Sybil Stockdale died from Parkinson’s Disease in 2015 at age 90. And until then, many of the original members of the League of Wives continued to meet monthly at her home, including Estocin, who stayed connected to her friends even though her husband never came home. (Capt. Estocin’s remains have still not been recovered.)

The statue, still in the fundraising stage, will eventually go up in Star Park, where Coronado holds its annual Memorial Day services and other military-related tributes. A bronze Sybil Stockdale and three other female figures — intentionally left unnamed to represent all of the wives — will look out over the Pacific Ocean, as if waiting for their husbands to return.

Nancy C. Schrum, right, and Pat Mearns, center, celebrate with others after the Coronado city council approved the construction of the League of Wives Memorial in 2022. Photo courtesy of the League of Wives Memorial Project.

According to Schrum, the League of Wives Memorial is more than just a tribute to Sybil Stockdale and the women who worked alongside her. It’s a representation of all the deployments, transitions, and hard times when military spouses turn to each other for support. 

“There’s space in the circle [of the memorial] that as you step up you become the fifth person in this ring of figures,” Schrum said. “Boy, I get goosebumps when I think about that. That’s really where the design brings this all the way from the ’60s all the way up to the present day and beyond because you become part of that fellowship. It’s kind of like, ‘Boom, you’re in this, too. This is about you.’” 

Mearns also sees it as a tribute to women more broadly.

“This statue is a memory to people that there was another time when the women had to stand up and say something,” she said. 

“And we did.”

To find out more, follow this link to the League of Wives Memorial Project:  https://www.leagueofwives.com/

This article was originally published in the ‘COFFEE or DIE’ online magazine of the Black Rifle Coffee Company (3-2-23). Here’s the direct link: https://coffeeordie.com/statue-military-wives/?fbclid=IwAR3lM4TOs9J6fn7hf5b8TDwU8d_nwrFotQOXPzQG0nAkKCzue4ZOEQlWP5E

Under the CATEGORY tab at the top of this page, there is a sub-menu listing for POW/MIA featuring dozens of articles. If you are interested in reading more about the League of Families, please consider these (use the back arrow at the top left to return to this page:

The Origin of the POW / MIA Bracelet

The Origin of the National League of POW/MIA Families

The Story of the POW/MIA Flag

What’s the Significance of the “Missing Man Table?”

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