Tanks, bombs and bicycles: how America was humbled

[thedrifter]

The 'Last Patrol' comes home



By RICHARD SISK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - The "Last Patrol" of Marine "Recon Team Breaker" that began in the mountain jungles of Vietnam will end 38 years to the day this week with taps at Arlington National Cemetery.
On Tuesday, 2nd Lt. Heinz Ahlmeyer of Pearl River, N.Y.; Sgt. James Tycz of Milwaukee; and Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Malcolm Miller of Tampa, will be laid to rest.

Lance Cpl. Samuel Sharp Jr., the fourth member of the team whose remains were found northwest of the Marine stronghold at Khe Sanh, was buried last month in his hometown of San Jose, Calif., but he also will be honored at the burial of his three buddies.

The ceremony will take place two weeks after the Vietnamese held parades in what the Communist regime calls Ho Chi Minh City, and its residents still call Saigon, to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the South Vietnamese government that the four recon team members and more than 58,000 other Americans died trying to save.

"All these years, I never had much doubt my brother was gone," said Irene Healea, Ahlmeyer's sister, who now lives in Watertown, Tenn. "But until something like this happens, you always hold out a little bit, you always think one nice day he'll come walking in the door and it would all have been a big mistake."

Ahlmeyer was 23 years old, Tycz 22, Miller 20 and Sharp 20 when a helicopter set down their seven-man team from the 3rd Marine Reconnaissance Battalion at the crest of Hill 665 on the evening of May 9, 1967.

Their mission was to scout infiltration routes from nearby Laos along the Ho Chi Minh Trail supply route for the North Vietnamese Army, according to military after-action reports.

But the scouting quickly stopped as the patrol ran across enemy bunkers on the hillside. The team rushed back to the crest with the enemy swarming after them, hurling grenades and satchel charges.

The battle went through the night and into the morning. Ahlmeyer and Sharp were killed by rifle fire, Miller by a grenade.

Tycz picked up an enemy grenade but it exploded as he tried to throw it back. He was posthumously given the Navy Cross, the military's second highest award for valor.

Pfc. Steven Lopez worked the radio through the night, calling in artillery fire to hold off the enemy. Twice, helicopters tried to rescue the three survivors but were driven off by ground fire. Helicopter pilot Capt. Paul Looney died of wounds received in the first rescue attempt.

At about 10 a.m. on May 10, the third helicopter rescue effort succeeded, pulling out Pfcs. Lopez, Clarence Carlson and Carl Friery but leaving behind the four dead of the recon team.

In 1991, several Vietnamese told U.S. officials they had found remains on Hill 665. Between 1993 and last year, eight joint U.S./Vietnamese teams searched the area and the remains were identified through DNA testing.

The Pentagon said the remains of 748 Americans have now been recovered from Vietnam, and 1,835 are still missing.

Heinz Ahlmeyer's friends, classmates and his soccer coach from the State University at New Paltz plan to attend the Arlington funeral, which several of them likened to opening and then quickly closing again a time capsule from the turbulent 1960s.

'It seems like a thousand years ago and miles away," said state Assemblyman Bill Parment (D-N.Y.), a teammate of Ahlmeyer's.

"Heinz had such a great personality, he could fill up a room with his smile," Parment said, but he wondered how his friend would have coped with the nation he would have returned to in the late 1960s.

"He probably would've been shocked. Everything had changed so dramatically, we were having anti-war protests and the beginnings of the drug culture," Parment said.

Soccer coach Al Miller, a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame who was instrumental in establishing the annual Heinz Ahlmeyer Award at New Paltz, described his former player as "your basic fresh-faced, all-American kid, you just instantly liked him."

"He was so gung-ho about the Marines," said Miller, who still treasures a letter Ahlmeyer sent to the school after completing initial Marine training.

"He said boot camp was a piece of cake after my training camp," Miller said with a laugh. "I still can't make myself believe he's gone."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Missing Vietnam Servicemen to Be Buried

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER
Associated Press Writer
Published May 8, 2005 at 7:51 AM CDT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- On May 9, 1967, Sigmund and Agnes Tycz of Milwaukee received a letter from their 22-year-old son, Marine Sgt. James Neil Tycz, who marveled at his new "Sarge's growwwl."

"Would you believe (with) my squeak??!," he wrote, a reference to his high-pitched voice.

The next day, Tycz and three other U.S. servicemen were killed on Hill 665 near Khe Sanh, Vietnam, close to the Laos border, in a battle with North Vietnamese troops. It was too dangerous to recover their bodies, so for decades, they were listed as "killed in action-body not recovered."

But this year, the military informed the families that it had finally identified the remains. On Tuesday, the 38th anniversary of their deaths, three of the men will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. A fourth man was buried last month, but will be honored at the ceremony.

Tycz, who was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism, led a seven-man reconnaissance team into enemy territory, where members came under fire from a North Vietnamese Army unit of between 30 men and 50 men.

Tycz was just 5 feet 9 inches tall and 125 pounds when he joined the military, recalled his older brother, Phillip Dale Tycz.

"He had a high voice," said Tycz, who now lives in Plano, Texas. "It was hard for us at home to picture him as a sergeant. In movies, these are big guys. He wasn't a take-charge-type kid. He was very humble."

The Navy Cross citation says that when a hand grenade landed near one of the seriously wounded Marines, Tycz "courageously and with complete disregard for his own personal safety moved forward, picked up the grenade and attempted to throw it back at the enemy." But the grenade exploded after going just a short distance, critically wounding Tycz.

For several years after his family got word of his death, relatives held out hope he might still be alive because no body had been recovered.

"When the troops were coming back, and it was on TV all the time, there was a lump in your heart that maybe you'd see him," Tycz's brother said.

The family of another serviceman from that group, 20-year-old Navy corpsman Malcolm Miller of Tampa, Fla., went through a similar emotional journey.

"We held out hope for a long time," said Miller's older sister, Sandy Keheley of Madison, Ga. "My father kept writing letters trying to get confirmation. In the '80s, we finally decided it had really happened. We had to accept it."

In Miller's last letter to the family, he complained, "Don't y'all love me anymore? I haven't received any mail from any of you." The family had been writing, Keheley said, but Miller was in the backcountry, where mail had not gotten through.

The sister of another missing serviceman, Marine 2nd Lt. Heinz Ahlmeyer Jr., was stunned when the military informed her that it had identified his remains.

"I did not expect them ever at this point to find it," said Irene Healea, who lives in Watertown, Tenn. "If he had been killed, and the body hadn't been recovered, we're looking at a place where there are scavenger animals. Would you really expect them to find what was left?"

Ahlmeyer, who was 23 when he died, grew up in Pearl River, N.Y., about 30 miles north of New York City, and played soccer at the State University at New Paltz. An award in his name is given annually at the school.

The fourth serviceman, Marine Lance Cpl. Samuel Sharp Jr., of San Jose, Calif., was buried in his hometown last month.

"It's been hard, like there's still something missing," said a sister, Janet Caldera, of Spokane, Wash. "Until you have him come back, you still wonder if he was really killed. You have that question in the back of your head. We never thought we'd have the remains come back. It's kind of a miracle to us."

Caldera recalls getting a note during English class in 1967 telling her to report to the principal's office, and then being sent home. As she turned the corner, she saw a Marine vehicle in front of the house.

"My dad collapsed when he heard the remains weren't coming home," Caldera said. "I think that was the hardest part, that he wouldn't be coming home."


Ellie