thedrifter
01-14-07, 09:39 AM
Marine platoon's heroics on display in museum
West Brighton resident Bob Palisay and his men captured powerful weapon from the North Vietnamese
Sunday, January 14, 2007
By STEPHANIE SLEPIAN
ADVANCE STAFF WRITER
As a Marine lieutenant serving in Vietnam, Bob Palisay lost a lot of his men in the jungle -- men he considered friends.
His hand and leg are partially paralyzed as a result of injuries suffered only four months after he landed there. But when he thinks back on his days in the Marine Corps, he doesn't dwell on those memories.
"I remember all the good parts, I remember the friendships," he said.
Recently, some of those memories were relived and friendships renewed when a Soviet-made, 122-mm field gun his platoon captured in 1969 from the North Vietnamese Army went on permanent display in the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia.
"It is a very prominent display," said Palisay, 59, a West Brighton resident who works in the Advance's mailroom. He has an appointment with the museum's curator at the end of the month to provide some more of that history.
Palisay, a Port Richmond High School graduate, was a 21-year-old enlisted lieutenant in Vietnam with the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, known as The Walking Dead, a moniker allegedly ascribed to them by North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh.
The gun was one of 12 captured during Operation Dewey Canyon, a 56-day offensive in the North Vietnamese-dominated A Shau Valley, located six miles from the country's border with Laos. The operation was intended to cut North Vietnamese supply runs along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and resulted in the destruction of one of the largest enemy weapons caches of the war.
On Feb. 20, 1969, a month before the end of the operation, Palisay and his fellow Marines were dug deep in a hole. They could hear vehicle tracks approaching and dug in deeper. The Marines took the hill, but found themselves face-to-face with two of the guns, the largest pieces of artillery captured during the Vietnam War.
The guns, developed during the 1940s in the former Soviet Union, had a range of 14 miles and were capable of firing high explosive, chemical, illuminating and smoke rounds.
"When we turned the hill, we didn't expect to see that," the leatherneck said. "To see something that long pointed at you is kind of scary."
Palisay was injured on the last day of the operation while waiting for a helicopter to evacuate his platoon. Enemy mortar missed the chopper and landed within 10 feet of Palisay and his men. It took an hour for another helicopter to evacuate the Marines.
When he returned home -- after being taken to Yokosuka Naval Hospital in Japan -- Palisay told the Advance, the capture of the modified Russian guns was "considered big publicity at the time because it was the first time we had seen them in the war."
It wasn't until about two years later that Palisay even knew two of the guns he helped secure made their way back to the states. The guns were inspected here before one was set out in the weeds at Quantico, Va.
It is that same gun now on display in the Marine museum.
"I was honored to go down there to see it," said Palisay who was awarded the Purple Heart and retired as a first lieutenant. "Knowing you were part of its history is an honor."
For more information on the National Museum of the Marine Corps -- which opened to the public in November -- visit www.usmcmuseum.org.
Stephanie Slepian is a news reporter for the Advance. She may be reached at slepian@siadvance.com.
Ellie
West Brighton resident Bob Palisay and his men captured powerful weapon from the North Vietnamese
Sunday, January 14, 2007
By STEPHANIE SLEPIAN
ADVANCE STAFF WRITER
As a Marine lieutenant serving in Vietnam, Bob Palisay lost a lot of his men in the jungle -- men he considered friends.
His hand and leg are partially paralyzed as a result of injuries suffered only four months after he landed there. But when he thinks back on his days in the Marine Corps, he doesn't dwell on those memories.
"I remember all the good parts, I remember the friendships," he said.
Recently, some of those memories were relived and friendships renewed when a Soviet-made, 122-mm field gun his platoon captured in 1969 from the North Vietnamese Army went on permanent display in the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia.
"It is a very prominent display," said Palisay, 59, a West Brighton resident who works in the Advance's mailroom. He has an appointment with the museum's curator at the end of the month to provide some more of that history.
Palisay, a Port Richmond High School graduate, was a 21-year-old enlisted lieutenant in Vietnam with the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, known as The Walking Dead, a moniker allegedly ascribed to them by North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh.
The gun was one of 12 captured during Operation Dewey Canyon, a 56-day offensive in the North Vietnamese-dominated A Shau Valley, located six miles from the country's border with Laos. The operation was intended to cut North Vietnamese supply runs along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and resulted in the destruction of one of the largest enemy weapons caches of the war.
On Feb. 20, 1969, a month before the end of the operation, Palisay and his fellow Marines were dug deep in a hole. They could hear vehicle tracks approaching and dug in deeper. The Marines took the hill, but found themselves face-to-face with two of the guns, the largest pieces of artillery captured during the Vietnam War.
The guns, developed during the 1940s in the former Soviet Union, had a range of 14 miles and were capable of firing high explosive, chemical, illuminating and smoke rounds.
"When we turned the hill, we didn't expect to see that," the leatherneck said. "To see something that long pointed at you is kind of scary."
Palisay was injured on the last day of the operation while waiting for a helicopter to evacuate his platoon. Enemy mortar missed the chopper and landed within 10 feet of Palisay and his men. It took an hour for another helicopter to evacuate the Marines.
When he returned home -- after being taken to Yokosuka Naval Hospital in Japan -- Palisay told the Advance, the capture of the modified Russian guns was "considered big publicity at the time because it was the first time we had seen them in the war."
It wasn't until about two years later that Palisay even knew two of the guns he helped secure made their way back to the states. The guns were inspected here before one was set out in the weeds at Quantico, Va.
It is that same gun now on display in the Marine museum.
"I was honored to go down there to see it," said Palisay who was awarded the Purple Heart and retired as a first lieutenant. "Knowing you were part of its history is an honor."
For more information on the National Museum of the Marine Corps -- which opened to the public in November -- visit www.usmcmuseum.org.
Stephanie Slepian is a news reporter for the Advance. She may be reached at slepian@siadvance.com.
Ellie