The two most recent articles I wrote for the Abbeville Herald were titled Mount Out! It was my intention to revert to other stories when the series ended.
But during the time the series was being published my wife and I attended a reunion of my old Marine rifle company at the Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville,
Florida. And when I returned I was in such a state of emotional turmoil I decided to write about what I had seen, heard and experienced during the reunion. My
feelings came pouring out of me. If you are a regular reader of this column, I want you to know the stories you are about to read over the next several weeks came
from my heart.
After I wrote, edited and reedited what I had written about the reunion I decided to extend Charley Company's time line, and this series, from the November 1963 date
of the Mount Out articles until near the end of their second tour of duty, to March 1966. The time line is as follows. Please bear with me; I'm going to skim through it.
If you remember, the Mount Out took place in November 1963. Our first thirteen-month tour of duty overseas ended in June 1964 and we returned stateside, took thirty
days leave and reported to Camp Las Pulgas, California, home of the 7th Marine Regiment at Camp Pendleton. Many of the marines I served with overseas had
enlistments that were ending. They were discharged, and we took in replacements -- mostly new boots out of the two marine recruit depots. We trained them in infantry
tactics all the next year.
By the next spring, in May 1965, our infantry company shipped its expiring three-year enlistees, which included me, to other units on base. Most of the enlistees
who were transferred out had only a few months to serve before they were to be discharged. The rifle company then took in new replacements again.
Charley Company then shipped out for the Far East in May 1965. I did not know it at the time but the majority of all marine recruits are four-year enlistees, and most
are ordered into the infantry. The Marine Corps, in their wisdom, does this, I think, so they might obtain two overseas tours out of all their four-year recruits.
And now let's take up the true saga of Charley Company, and their next thirteen months overseas.
IN THE COMPANY OF HEROES
"This is courage in a man:
To bear unflinchingly what heaven sends."
Euripides, Greek playwright, 480- 406 BC
All my life, from as far back as I can remember, there is one virtue I've admired in other people that ranks over and beyond any other good quality they may possess.
That virtue is courage. I cannot tell you why I feel this way, but I do. I don't attempt to analyze, and cannot explain, my strong attraction to and feeling for this character
trait. It just is.
My wife and I spent the last weekend in April at a reunion of my old marine rifle company, Company “C,” or Charley Company, from the 1960s. The reunion was the
first one I've attended, and was held at the Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville, Florida. Meeting with them was a humbling experience for me -- and while seeing
and listening to them left me with mixed, deep and uncertain feelings I'm still attempting to sort out - just being with them only increased the aura of respect I already
held them in. My wife and I spent the entire weekend with former combatants -- both naval and marine, along with their wives and companions -- of our nation's war in
South Vietnam. We spent the weekend in the company of heroes.
In the 1960s I was a three year enlistee who had the opportunity to -- but did not -- lengthen my enlistment for one more year, and accompany my four-year enlistee
friends back overseas to the Far East. Their second tour overseas, as it turned out, was to lead them into Vietnam. Soon they found themselves involved in many
small sized combat actions and eventually one large, culminating battle at two of the villages of Vin Loc in Quang Ngai Province in South Vietnam.
The battle took place on March 28, 1966. I had been told a few details of the battle about five years ago, and although I thought I understood how the contest played
out before I attended the meeting, I did not. I thought the fight had been in one large rice paddy, and against North Vietnamese Army soldiers who had been dug in
and defending one tree line. It was not. I thought the battle had been on a small area, and had been compact and precise. It was not.
What I discovered was that the fight had occurred over an at least five hundred yard long front, and was divided into at least three intense, violent, life focusing and
man killing clashes. (There is still much about the battle and the battlefield I do not fully understand, but hope to after more interviews with the men). The men in each
area said they could hear the sounds of the fighting from the other portions, but did not see the other actions because of the intervening brush rows or greenery. The
conflict also took part either inside or in front of farm fields of sugar cane and yams, as well as in at least one rice paddy. All these fields were located at the base of
the hills of two of the villages of Vin Loc.
In addition, I discovered the conflict swept my friends -- who were intended to be a blocking force for an oncoming sweep by other companies in the battalion -- up
against an entrenched, and fortified with heavy weapons, enemy force instead. The NVA were also very well camouflaged. The enemy battalion, as it turned out,
also outnumbered my old company in size about seven to one. Looking back, two things happened that probably prevented my friends from being counterattacked
and overrun during the battle or that night. The first was “The Charley's” hit the enemy with such zeal, shock, enthusiasm and heroic violence that the NVA thought
they were fighting at least a battalion sized group of marines. And secondly, it was only about two hours to nightfall, and the enemy, it appears, thought because of
the sheer violence and shock of the attack that they were outnumbered, and that even more marines would be brought in to aid them during the night. A renewed and
in force dawn attack by the Americans, I think they thought would then await them. The enemy soldiers withdrew under the cover of darkness.
The actual battle was not extremely long in duration. It was, however, horrific and terrible.
This series will be continued next week. Copyright, May 5, 2005, by M. K. Bedsole.
The writer of these articles may be contacted at :
524 Kirkland Street, Abbeville, Alabama, 36310
or at telephone number (334) 585 5768,
or via email at: MK9792@aol.com
