On the long flight back, I had lots of hours to reflect. Things that came to my mind were; “Why did I get out, with just a few bumps, lumps, scratches from enemy fire and others didn’t?”

When I got word that my Company CO a 1st LT, whom I befriended and who had only ten days left of his tour, was sent out with a team, I couldn’t believe it! So I even asked him and he said, ”I was ordered out, I don’t have a choice.” Then word came he had been killed. It really made me angry. His wife sent me a letter and his picture telling me how much he thought of me, and all about him. I sat down in my team’s tent and cried.

I was a young Lieutenant going through TBS in the early seventies.  The instructors where all Viet Nam Veterans and most of them where highly decorated.  Navy Crosses and Silver Stars adorned the chests of many of the instructors and especially those in the tactics instructor pool.  These instructors where serious, dedicated and highly motivated.  Their instructional techniques included attention gainers and methods of instruction that have become legendary in the Corps.  They often used examples from there own experience in Viet Nam or from the stories of extraordinary exploits that remain with units forever. This is about one of those exploits and its impact almost three decades later.  The story starts in the year 1966 on Hill 488 northwest of Chulai overlooking the infamous Hiep Duc Valley where 1^st Platoon, C Company, 1^st Recon Bn’s 16 Marines and 2 Navy Corpsmen are inserted and ends in Jacksonville, Florida in 1997.

So, what happened in Vietnam? Why all the acrimony after all this time? Why won't the wounds heal? Can't we all just get along?

The war in Vietnam was part of the Cold War. The communists, China and the USSR, wanted control of Southeast Asia. The easiest way to take that control was through Ho Chi Minh, a North Vietnamese Communist. The West, the United States and its allies, did not want the Communists to seize control of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and other countries of the area. The place to stop the Communists was Vietnam.