yellowwing
05-09-05, 12:39 PM
Marines to get Arlington burial
By JANE LERNER
The Journal News, Rockland (http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050509/NEWS03/505090301/1019/NEWS03)
It was after 4 p.m. when the helicopter set down seven Marines on a rugged jungle hilltop 8 1/2 miles from Khe Sanh, an area in the Quang Tri province of Vietnam that was thick with enemy gunfire.
"We knew before we went out there were a large number of NVAs — North Vietnamese army — in the area," Carl "Britt" Friery, then a 21-year-old private first class, recalled in an interview last week from his home in Colorado. "There was a good chance that we were going to see combat."
But there was no way the seven Marines under the command of 1st Lt. Heinz Ahlmeyer Jr., a 23-year-old from Pearl River who had arrived in Vietnam the day before, could know the horror that awaited them on that hilltop May 10, 1967.
Of the seven Marines in the 1st Platoon, Company A, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, known as Team Breaker, only three made it back alive.
Remains of the four Marines killed in fierce combat that evening — Ahlmeyer, Samuel A. Sharp Jr., Malcolm T. Miller and James N. Tycz — will be buried tomorrow with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery, 38 years to the day after their deaths.
What happened during that hilltop firefight at the height of the Vietnam War has haunted the survivors and the fallen Marines' families ever since.
"I think about it a lot," said Friery, now a 59-year-old former National Park Service employee who was disabled by post-traumatic stress syndrome. "The fact that we didn't bring them home weighed heavily on my mind — there's a lot of guilt."
Ahlmeyer, the ranking officer, was the least experienced in the group. He was sent on the reconnaissance patrol in place of another officer who was about to return home.
Tycz had nearly finished his tour and was counting the days until he went home, Friery said.
The group came under heavy fire from all sides almost immediately, Friery said.
"We were pinned down by snipers," he recalled. "Helicopters tried to pick us up, but they couldn't get to us."
Friery saw the four Marines die. Sharp was killed instantly by a gunshot to his head, Friery said. The others faced small-arms fire and grenades. Ahlmeyer had a severe wound to his abdomen and likely died soon after Sharp. Tycz was wounded but still tried to throw a grenade, which blew up on him, Friery said. Tycz and Miller probably died sometime that night, Friery said.
A helicopter — under constant attack — made its way to the three severely wounded survivors, Friery, Steven Lopez and Clarence Carlson, and plucked them to safety the next day.
There was never any doubt in Friery's mind that the four were dead. He and the other survivors told commanders they had seen their four comrades killed.
But the four men's families held onto the hope — no matter how improbable — that somehow their brother, their son, their uncle had made it off that hilltop alive.
"How do they know he was truly dead?" asked Dana Fisher, a Madison, Ga., resident who was born after Miller, her uncle, was presumed killed in combat. "Maybe he was just unconscious. We always believed that there was a chance."
Tycz's brother, Philip "Dale" Tycz of Plano, Texas, recalled his parents and siblings crowding around the television set in the early 1970s when prisoners of war were brought home.
"We kept on looking at the faces and hoping, hoping that we would see Neil," he said. "But, of course, we didn't and after a while, hope dimmed."
The families knew there had been efforts over the years to retrieve the bodies.
Spokane, Wash., resident Janet Caldera, Samuel Sharp's sister, was at a POW-MIA family association meeting in June when a military official told her unofficially that remains had been recovered in the area where the four were last seen.
"I was walking on air," she said. "To think that he could be brought home and laid to rest in his country, not on foreign soil, meant so much to us."
For their families and the men they served with in Vietnam, their burial 38 years later will bring a sense of peace.
"These men were not forgotten," Tycz said. "When all the tears are shed Tuesday, I'll know that I can look at my brother's picture on the wall and know that he really is dead and he has been laid to rest with his comrades."
Veterans groups prodded the U.S. government to keep up the efforts.
"These men and other men recovered since the end of the war would never have come home without a lot of good investigation," said George Neville, a Montana resident who heads the Alpha Recon Association, a group of former members of the battalion. He said the remains were found in May 2003.
The survivors also helped find the missing Marines.
Friery said he asked military officials for a topographical map of the area, then showed investigators exactly where to look.
When Friery told a counselor during his treatment for post-traumatic stress that he dreamed of locating his fallen comrades, they told him it was fantasy.
"They said it was a delusion," he recalled. "Well, now I know it wasn't."
The soil in that region is very acidic, so only the strongest parts of the bodies were identifiable after more than three decades, families were told. Most of the men were identified by their teeth.
Irene Healea, Heinz Ahlmeyer's sister, was told her brother was identified by a single molar.
The remains will be placed in a metal box atop a full dress uniform in a casket for burial.
Separate ceremonies will be held for Ahlmeyer, Tycz and Miller. Sharp's remains were buried last month in a cemetery near where his father is buried in San Jose, Calif.
A fourth casket containing bone fragments that could not be positively matched individually also will be buried in Arlington.
"Maybe God had a hand in that," Caldera said. "They have been together for 38 years. He is not going to separate them now."
By JANE LERNER
The Journal News, Rockland (http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050509/NEWS03/505090301/1019/NEWS03)
It was after 4 p.m. when the helicopter set down seven Marines on a rugged jungle hilltop 8 1/2 miles from Khe Sanh, an area in the Quang Tri province of Vietnam that was thick with enemy gunfire.
"We knew before we went out there were a large number of NVAs — North Vietnamese army — in the area," Carl "Britt" Friery, then a 21-year-old private first class, recalled in an interview last week from his home in Colorado. "There was a good chance that we were going to see combat."
But there was no way the seven Marines under the command of 1st Lt. Heinz Ahlmeyer Jr., a 23-year-old from Pearl River who had arrived in Vietnam the day before, could know the horror that awaited them on that hilltop May 10, 1967.
Of the seven Marines in the 1st Platoon, Company A, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, known as Team Breaker, only three made it back alive.
Remains of the four Marines killed in fierce combat that evening — Ahlmeyer, Samuel A. Sharp Jr., Malcolm T. Miller and James N. Tycz — will be buried tomorrow with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery, 38 years to the day after their deaths.
What happened during that hilltop firefight at the height of the Vietnam War has haunted the survivors and the fallen Marines' families ever since.
"I think about it a lot," said Friery, now a 59-year-old former National Park Service employee who was disabled by post-traumatic stress syndrome. "The fact that we didn't bring them home weighed heavily on my mind — there's a lot of guilt."
Ahlmeyer, the ranking officer, was the least experienced in the group. He was sent on the reconnaissance patrol in place of another officer who was about to return home.
Tycz had nearly finished his tour and was counting the days until he went home, Friery said.
The group came under heavy fire from all sides almost immediately, Friery said.
"We were pinned down by snipers," he recalled. "Helicopters tried to pick us up, but they couldn't get to us."
Friery saw the four Marines die. Sharp was killed instantly by a gunshot to his head, Friery said. The others faced small-arms fire and grenades. Ahlmeyer had a severe wound to his abdomen and likely died soon after Sharp. Tycz was wounded but still tried to throw a grenade, which blew up on him, Friery said. Tycz and Miller probably died sometime that night, Friery said.
A helicopter — under constant attack — made its way to the three severely wounded survivors, Friery, Steven Lopez and Clarence Carlson, and plucked them to safety the next day.
There was never any doubt in Friery's mind that the four were dead. He and the other survivors told commanders they had seen their four comrades killed.
But the four men's families held onto the hope — no matter how improbable — that somehow their brother, their son, their uncle had made it off that hilltop alive.
"How do they know he was truly dead?" asked Dana Fisher, a Madison, Ga., resident who was born after Miller, her uncle, was presumed killed in combat. "Maybe he was just unconscious. We always believed that there was a chance."
Tycz's brother, Philip "Dale" Tycz of Plano, Texas, recalled his parents and siblings crowding around the television set in the early 1970s when prisoners of war were brought home.
"We kept on looking at the faces and hoping, hoping that we would see Neil," he said. "But, of course, we didn't and after a while, hope dimmed."
The families knew there had been efforts over the years to retrieve the bodies.
Spokane, Wash., resident Janet Caldera, Samuel Sharp's sister, was at a POW-MIA family association meeting in June when a military official told her unofficially that remains had been recovered in the area where the four were last seen.
"I was walking on air," she said. "To think that he could be brought home and laid to rest in his country, not on foreign soil, meant so much to us."
For their families and the men they served with in Vietnam, their burial 38 years later will bring a sense of peace.
"These men were not forgotten," Tycz said. "When all the tears are shed Tuesday, I'll know that I can look at my brother's picture on the wall and know that he really is dead and he has been laid to rest with his comrades."
Veterans groups prodded the U.S. government to keep up the efforts.
"These men and other men recovered since the end of the war would never have come home without a lot of good investigation," said George Neville, a Montana resident who heads the Alpha Recon Association, a group of former members of the battalion. He said the remains were found in May 2003.
The survivors also helped find the missing Marines.
Friery said he asked military officials for a topographical map of the area, then showed investigators exactly where to look.
When Friery told a counselor during his treatment for post-traumatic stress that he dreamed of locating his fallen comrades, they told him it was fantasy.
"They said it was a delusion," he recalled. "Well, now I know it wasn't."
The soil in that region is very acidic, so only the strongest parts of the bodies were identifiable after more than three decades, families were told. Most of the men were identified by their teeth.
Irene Healea, Heinz Ahlmeyer's sister, was told her brother was identified by a single molar.
The remains will be placed in a metal box atop a full dress uniform in a casket for burial.
Separate ceremonies will be held for Ahlmeyer, Tycz and Miller. Sharp's remains were buried last month in a cemetery near where his father is buried in San Jose, Calif.
A fourth casket containing bone fragments that could not be positively matched individually also will be buried in Arlington.
"Maybe God had a hand in that," Caldera said. "They have been together for 38 years. He is not going to separate them now."