384 Entries

Luis A. Parker

12/19/11 at 03:58 AM

Branch of Service or Civilian: United States Marine Corps

Unit Served in Viet Nam, If Any: Hotel Co, 2d Bn, 1st Marines, Kilo Co. 3d Bn 9th Marines, 3d Combined Action Group

Comments:
Aloha, I found an older book written by a Khe Sanh Marine Officer. He was a company commander, Capt Ernest Spence. The book, "Welcome To Vietnam - Macho Man!" is a great read for anyone who served in the Corps in Vietnam or anyone who had boots on the ground during the war. Anyone know the whereabouts of the author or how I can reach him by email I'd like to thank him for his great work and honesty. It was a crazy time and I once dreamed that I did go crazy and in that dream they sent me to Vietnam - where a crazy war awaited all of us crazies.
Semper Fi to everyone who served in Vietnam and especially to the grunts. OooooRahhh! Semper Fidelis, Aloha Pumehana, Lu

Dave Hall

10/17/11 at 05:08 PM

Branch of Service or Civilian: USMC

Unit Served in Viet Nam, If Any: BLT 2/3 Shore Party (1967)

Comments:
I'm a new member, thanks for having me. I was at Khe Sanh for the Hill Fights. Membership is long over due. Hope to attend the 2012 reunion.

Ed Gruener

09/26/11 at 01:24 PM

Branch of Service or Civilian: USMC

Unit Served in Viet Nam, If Any: FLC & flsgb, Dong Ha

Comments:
Don't know if any of you from the 26th Marines remember a short corporal named Floyd MacCauley.Can't remember if he was with 1/26 or 3/26. He was from Cincinnati. He and I became very good friends at the VFW functions here. He and I were both in Philly for the Marine Corps Birthday activities back in 2006. Met up with a couple of his Nam unit buddies from New Jersey.
Anyway, Floyd has been very bad off for the last couple of years. I haven't seen him for about 2 years (my bad). I found out yesterday that Floyd (Short Round) had joined the guards at Heaven's gates back in January of this year. Just wanted to pass this on in case any of you Marines remembered him. I have a pic of him from 2006 in Philly. Rest in Peace, Short Round. Semper Fi Marines

DENNIS STIFFLER

09/13/11 at 09:46 PM

Branch of Service or Civilian: USN SUBMARINES

Unit Served in Viet Nam, If Any: OAK KNOLL NAVAL HOSPITAL 1967

Comments:
I FELT LIKE I WAS IN VIETNAM. WHY? BECAUSE IN 1967 I LOST A LEG TO CANCER WHILE ON ACTIVE DUTY IN SUBMARINES ON THE EAST COAST AND HAD NO IDEA THERE WAS A WAR GOING ON IN ASIA. AFTER MY LEG WAS AMPUTATED I WAS FLOWN TO TRAVIS AND THEN ONTO OAK KNOLL NAVAL HOSPITAL AND LANDED ON 3 WARDS OF VIETNAM MARINE AMPUTEES. I SHARED THEIR STORIES, SAW THEIR PICTURES, FELT THEIR VIETCONG EARS, CLOSED UP JACK LONDON SQUARE WITH THEM NIGHT AFTER NIGHT AND PASSED THE HAT TO GET ENOUGH MONEY TO GET THE DOUBLE AMPUTEES LAID. THAT'S WHY I SAY I FELT THAT I HAD BEEN IN VIETNAM, BUT NO, I WAS NOT, BUT I SPENT SIX MONTHS OF REHAB WITH THESE MARINE HEROES AND AFTER HOURS WE WENT TO TOWN TOGETHER. NONE OF THESE HEROES EVER COMPLAINED OF THEIR INJURIES AND THEY ALL LOOKED FORWARD TO MOVING FORWARD. IT WAS MY HONOR TO SERVE WITH THESE WARRIORS. MAYBE ONE OF YOU WILL REMEMBER THIS INCIDENT...THE HEAD CORPSMAN TOLD ME TO GET DRESSED IN CIVIES AS THEY HAD SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR 5 OF US GUYS AND WE THEN LOADED ON A BUS AND DISCOVERED THAT WE WERE HEADED TO TRADER VIC'S IN SAN FRANCISCO. WE WERE SAT AT A LARGE CIRCLE TABLE IN A PRIVATE ROOM AND WERE TOLD TO TAKE UP EVERY OTHER SEAT AND THEN DRINKS WERE BROUGHT IN....THE FOG HORN WAS A FAVORITE. SHORTLY IN CAME 5 STEWARDESSES WHO SAT IN EACH OF THE SEATS BETWEEN US. THEY WERE THERE TO ENJOY DINNER WITH ALL OF US. MADE US FEEL REAL FOR AWHILE. MAYBE SOME OF YOU WERE FORTUNATE TO EXPERIENCE THIS EVENT? ANYWAYS, RIGHT HAND SALUTE TO ALL YOU MARINES, BRAVO ZULU. I RECENTLY LOST MY GRANDSON'S UNCLE, DANNY HORTON, FROM MICHIGAN WHO WAS THERE IN 1968. BLESSINGS, DENNIS STIFFLER, USN(RET.)

William Hinton

09/06/11 at 10:27 PM

Branch of Service or Civilian: none

Unit Served in Viet Nam, If Any: none

Comments:
August 21, 2011
Dedication: To those who fought in and around Khe Sanh during the Vietnam War, to the friends and families of the wounded, to the memory of the fallen, and to those who survived. Thanks to Ray W. Stubbe (one of many) who provided spiritual guidance at Khe Sanh and for his founding of the Khe Sanh Veterans Group and homepage.

Herman Augusta Lohman, Jr.
G Company, 2nd Batallion, 26th Marines, 3rd Marines Division, III MAF,
United States Marine Corps.
January 24, 1948 – April 6, 1968
The Wall: Panel 48E Line 029

It was written that Herman Lohman was a good soldier and tried to help other soldiers get used to the reality of being in a warzone in Vietnam.
http://thewall-usa.com/guest.asp?recid=31008

Hills for Soldiers
April 6, 1968, Hill 700 – Khe Sanh, Vietnam
Charts have numbers, hills counted and labeled
Mentors amid combat, among bodies young and able
In blood shedding, posterity left to study,
Blown to pieces, others in fright, pastes on Hell’s canvas, all muddy

Hilltops, the taking an accomplishment, from here and beyond Hamburger Hill
To flesh out a story, sea of memory awash ever still,
Paper, each blank sheet an opportunity to tally cost
Seeking checks and balances of souls, concerning pensiveness on loss

Solemnest Chambers
Be they in
our quiet minds, chapels, human hearts deep
Prayer is not reason, but closure sought in answers which seep
Into that cross-section, between prayers said and heard
At the inclines of Lohman’s Hill, elsewhere for cheeks’ weepings, stirred.

Wherever grown men cry
Having found that knowledge of leaving comrades in time behind
Growing old, soldiers tell
Of youthful days of rigor, when men thought death could not come to them
To be ever stronger, to take high-grounded hills.

Lament the dead, lament the dying
For what human heart has not been touched, by the meter of poetic clutch
Better still, by unwritten messages in falling chests left sighing
How could mere words ever know how to value or convey so much?

Heaven screams out in eagles
Only birds view vastness further, far.
Upon cordite fields, put down star-spangled banners
Take up their last breaths alone
Swear to them, as you yourself love humanity
Words are for the living to ask in transcendence
That angels guard, and among you may roam.

All I could ever ask a God or Gods for?
If anything other than to love my family for eternity
Abrupt, sight changing back for fighting men departed
From gray fading into color
Ages and ages hence, life will be asked for them… if it can be, be it this:

Give colors to Fall semesters of life, tears splattering wet leaves stuck to ground
Human life may yet return to youth, divine
Through color once more seen by baby eyes for the first time,
The wheel of eternal rebirth in life, spinning round.

Dissolve the drums of war, reach into the nether beyond, for dead soldiers’ await interred
We, the living, are apt enough pupils to grip spiritual forms
To hold them as echoes in daydreams – to understand, to learn.

Give ourselves, the living and dearly departed,
Hope from this battlefield to that, to finish in honored memory what love has started,
From Flander’s Fields to Lohman’s hill,
May wiser men love Mankind still.

Fiery sprays of ordinance spent, turning existence upon hills into dark time expired
Death becomes us all, but love without half-life lingers out of this hardest marrow
Into the blink of eternity – what never will be again – to retire?:
Where goes all of fighting men’s sorrow?
In solicitude, this want of whispers to reclaim them, sought by human design, in rawest desire.

Copyright 2011. William Bradley Hinton. All Rights Reserved.

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