I wanted to share this story as I concluded my first year in
Vietnam — it is as fresh today as it was then now 57 years ago. That is long
time in history, but the event of that day is still still fresh in my mind as it happened at that time. Some memories of
war fade and we tend to lose a few minute details, but overall, the big picture - the key events always linger - they never totally go away - this event never has.
Such is the case on that date when the last group of Marines I served with killed in action (KIA) on that date, which was shortly before I was scheduled to leave after my full year there and happened to be the date I got wounded a second time.
Those three fine men *named below and who are forever listed on Panel 9E, Rows 74 and 107, and Panel 10E, Rows 23, 29, and 32 on the VN Memorial Wall in Washington, DC died on that day. One was SSgt. Ken Glaze, from Hutchinson, KS.
He had just joined unit: Golf Company, 2nd BN, 1st Marines. He had been assigned to take my place as Platoon Commander, since we didn't have any officers for a very long time and that task fell to senior NCO's like Ken and myself and I was ready to rotate back to CONUS after a very long 13 months in VN. He had only been in the unit for a few days before he was killed. That second wound got me out a few days early, too.
As I said, Ken had been reassigned to Golf Company only a few days before, and since I was scheduled to rotate home. I didn’t know for sure how long he had been in VN on his tour, or whether he even had come from another unit, because quite frankly I didn't have a chance to know him very well before he was killed, but I did know it was his second tour in VN.
He and the two others in our company killed that day were
killed by a series of landmines: two mines for sure, maybe there had been three,
or perhaps even four - we weren't sure at the time how many.
The two other Marines killed beside Ken that fateful day were:
PFC Phil
Grego, from Council Bluffs, IA
PFC Cliff
Walter, from Erie, PA
We were very lucky more weren't killed that horrible day. This is
how the events unfolded:
Ken had been out leading one of our early morning patrols around the company area, and he had just returned with a few others and a small group was behind them also on their way in.
That small group was only a few
hundred yards in front of the CP (Command Post) as they were sweeping through
an old cemetery area out front. They were so close that some of guys shouted at them to
hurry up and come in and get some hot chow. Then kapow, boom, boom...!!!
Two very loud explosions.
Ken was the first to grab a couple of Marines nearby and dash out to the site. I followed him along with two of our Navy Corpsmen. Mine explosions, or in fact, any kind of explosion, tend to be really nasty. As Marines, we were trained and taught that if there was one mine, or a booby trap, be careful, you can be 100% sure there would be more nearby. That day was no exception to that savvy old Engineer Golden Rule.
I had no sooner arrived on the scene than I saw Ken bending
over the wounded helping patch their wounds. It appeared that no one was dead,
but I could see we had at least three were seriously wounded. I don't
know exactly what happened next, but one of the wounded stood up and started to
move away from the others. I yelled at him: “Don't move, don't move,
get down!” I had no sooner gotten those words out when another huge blast
hit us.
We were consumed by the heat, metal, flames, and shrapnel. He had triggered a second mine. The air was filled with black smoke and powder and screams. The smell was awful. Pieces of metal tore into me as well. It had been what we called a “Bouncing Betty” – that is the kind of mine that when stepped on would actually bounce up in the air some 3-4 feet and explode cutting down anyone standing nearby – they were very deadly.
Apparently the VC or NVA had seen our guys burying them some
time ago and dug them up for their own use. Plus, they were good and figuring
out our patrol routes knew where to plant our mines for the most
damage against us.
Another thing the enemy would do was to modify the mines and
make them “command denoted” (that is one or two of the enemy would lie in the
brush and then explode them remotely as we entered their kill zone) then they would trigger them in an elaborate ambush.
Our dead and wounded now covered a wider radius, and sadly
one or two forgot that Engineer golden rule that day: One mine means
another or more would be nearby. We paid a heavy price.
A mere few minutes after I arrived and while our Docs were
patching up the wounded, and a few minutes before the second mine went off, our
Company Gunnery Sergeant (GySgt. Wilson) was arriving with a few other
Marines to assist.
I saw them and yelled at Wilson and told him and
the others to get back and stay back and not come any closer and that we had
the situation under control since they were getting too close.
Wilson overruled me and acted like an ass since he
was senior to me and I was a newly-promoted Staff Sergeant. It didn't matter at
the time, or maybe he just wanted to throw around his rank I never knew or
cared at the time. His group kept coming closer. Then boom; another mine went
off, and then just as suddenly, someone got up to move, and another went off (at
that point I had lost count of how many three or four probably in all)!
Ken Glaze and the other Marine, one of the three killed,
apparently had triggered the mine and both were killed instantly. One of the
previously wounded (I think it may have been Phil Grego) was killed as
he lay there getting patched up from his first wound. I was hit and so
were several others including one of the Docs nearby. I had been hit in the
forehead, right shoulder, and left thigh, and I was lucky.
None of my wounds as it turned out were life-threatening,
although the forehead bled a lot and hurt the most and looked the worst, but
luckily it was not serious. I had been lucky because I had been crouching
down helping a wounded Marine when the mine blew so I made a much smaller
target than those who were standing like Ken and the others and they were killed instantly, and didn't suffer.
One minute they were standing there and the next they were
gone. We probed around for more mines and not finding any, we started to clean
up the area and move the dead and wounded back to the perimeter as 'choppers
started to arrive to pick up the dead and wounded.
I came face-to-face with Gunny Wilson back at the CP talking to Captain Charles C. Krulak (Golf Company commander at the time) about what exactly happened. Wilson kept trying to clean up the story to fit his own agenda; whatever that was I wasn't sure.
Once or twice, I came close to grabbing him by the throat
and beating the shit out of him over what had happened because I was angry that
he would pull rank on me, even when I was right when I told all of them all to
stay back and not to come closer. He was wrong and it cost us dearly. He
kept trying to show that he was in control and that the others had somehow were
wrong. Wilson was wrong, It was he who f**ked up but he wouldn't admit it.
He was not obligated to explain to Krulak and others what
had happened, yet he kept leaving out the part where I told him and the others
to stay back. Although I was only a Staff Sergeant and he out ranked me, he
persisted in his story version. I was in fact a platoon commander (an
officer's position since we were short officers) and actually had more pull
than he did – but, he didn't care.
Well, that was my second wound, and I had only a week left on my normal one-year rotation, so Captain Krulak ordered me to the rear and our BAS (Battalion Aid Station). He told me to get patched up, stay there, and get ready to go home: “You stay there and get ready to go home next week, your tour is over.”
I think he did it for Wilson's sake more than for mine.
I could have gotten patched up and stayed in the field another week or so, and
thus I guess it didn't matter. It was clear Krulak didn't want me anywhere near Wilson.
I flew out of VN and returned home on September 6,
1966. My first tour of duty was over after nearly 13 months of nearly
daily combat operations.
However, I would be back in VN in November 1968 for a second tour with the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, operating in nearly in the same area.
However, then I would be a brand new 2nd Lt. (my former Golf commander was now Major Krulak, and he had recommended me for a
direct commission, and he helped me get it). So, the NVA and VC would be getting a another chance at me.
Those three Marines killed will never be forgotten. God bless them and may they R.I.P. They earned a spot in heaven the hard way.
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