Khe Sanh Veterans Association Inc.

Red Clay
Newsletter of the Veterans who served at Khe Sanh Combat Base,
Hill 950, Hill 881, Hill 861, Hill 861-A, Hill 558
Lang-Vei and Surrounding Area

Issue 48     Winter  2001

Incoming

Home
In This Issue
Notes from Editor and Board   Short Rounds   Memoirs   In Memoriam   
Email   A Sprinkling of your Poetry   Reunion 2001 Chicago

This web site (http://www. geocities.corrdpentagon/4867 ) has about 20 megs of additional storage that isn't being used at present. I was thinking that we could post the Red Clay newsletter here online. There are many people out there that would be interested the newsletter, but have no way to access it in the 'hard copy' form. We would be able to distribute it online to anyone who wanted it, at no cost to the organization for printing or mailing. I use Microsoft Front Page, so publishing for the web wouldn't be much of a problem either. It's just a thought...

Dave Doehrman

Publisher Comment:
Ernie and I are in agreement and we will be contacting you soon to set up the newsletter on your Website

Editor:

Anyone who may recall Daryl B. Terhune, Jr., a member of Golf Company, 2/26, KIA on March 6, 1968 in the plane crash, please contact his brother: 

Mr. Mark Lee Terhune, 
12667 Timbermeadow Dr. 
Houston, TX 77070.

Thanks,
Ray Stubbe

Editor,

What a great joy and honor it was for my wife Carol and I to hang out with the "Heroes of Khe Sanh" during your recent San Diego Reunion. Due to prior commitments, we were only able to take in the Friday events, but what a day it was!

While visiting the MCRD, we got goose bumps and tears came to our eyes when hearing the Corp band play, the flags passing by in review and seeing those kids of the graduating class strut their stuff. It was very moving for us.

Later at the Hanalei Hotel, we had the great privilege to sit in on a group get-together and the showing of Khe Sanh videos taken by some of the guys who had recently visited Khe Sanh and the surrounding area. We have enclosed some photos that you are welcome to use in your reunion coverage issue.

Thanks guys for a great day, our fond memories and making us feel so welcome
.Photo by ,Jerry Jackson, 
1965-6 Vietnam correspondent 
and the Playboy Magazine Man          

Jerry Jackson

ED. NOTE: Look at the street sign closely and notice "Khe Sanh" is misspelled. (Khe Sahn) Believe it or not this street sign is located at MCRD San Diego!

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In 1996 a man with a vision, Dave Doherman, one of our own Khe Sanh brothers, had an idea. Working endless hours with HTML codes, a foreign language to most of us, Dave started the Khe Sanh Veterans Home Page at www.khesanh.com, on the World Wide Web. He gave us a link in cyberspace. Back then, only a few of us had computers and most did not appreciate what he had accomplished. In the Spring of 1997, Dave completed his masterpiece for the benefit of all of us. He paid for the Khe Sanh site from his own pocket and geocities gave him more and more free space because of all the hits his page had generated. We are coming of age--as of November of this year, more than 160,000 people from around the world have visited this site. Almost 1,600 have signed the guest book and left messages. The site has become an icon for us to unite with our brothers once again. Many of those messages left on the site are from family members seeking information in regards to loved ones who perished in that God-forsaken place called Khe Sanh, never knowing of the heroism of fallen family members. With the help of us who were there, many found the answers they sought after 30 years, details that they would have never known.

Dave has done a brilliant job of organizing the site with the chronology from 1962-1972. Medal of Honor Citations, history of the "Hill-Fights," and a place for Khe Sanh Veterans and Associate Members' Email addresses. He is currently working with the Khe Sanh Veterans Publishing Committee, making space to publish the Newsletter on the site. There are 1997-1999 reunion photos, 2000 Reunion details and old photos, a page for poems and books relating to Khe Sanh, and a KIA Memorial page. Dave has done articles for Yahoo magazine and PBS. He also did a special program (http://www. pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/timeline/index2 .html)

The messages left on our site tell stories of Khe Sanh Veterans, stories that are written, told from their hearts and souls. Many of these veterans who leave messages, had never before spoken of their Vietnam experiences. Here among their brothers, they finally let it all hang out. Yes, "Home is where we dig it," and although we are many miles from home these days, the Khe Sanh site is our "Home" on the Internet. Dave has kept the language clean so the whole world could read about us and the sacrifices we made to our nation. We salute our brother Dave and to him, we say "thanks," keep up the good work. History will remember us because of you Dave. Again we say, "Thank You."

Jim (Jimbo) Wodecki
FLSU#2-FLC, 66-67

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Editor:

My friend said he'd never had anyone ask him about his experiences in Vietnam before. I knew that wasn't true because when he came home so many years ago, (I was only 19 years old then), I asked him "What did you do over there, what was your job?" He said, "I was a typist." That is all he would say. I did not ask anymore. These past six months we have become re-acquainted and I've asked him again. "Where were you, and what did you do?" This time he told me. "I was in Khe Sanh during the siege. I directed missiles and bombs to their targets. I had to be accurate. I helped kill people. I stepped on dead bodies, I thought they were asleep. I did not know they were dead. I apologized to dead men when I stepped on them in the middle of the night. I am able to talk about my experience in Vietnam for the first time now, over thirty years later." I have read two issues of Red Clay, thanks to him, along with many books written in the late 70's and 80's by a diverse group of authors.

My friend suggested that I write about how I felt during the war and how I feel now. That seems extremely difficult. I don't feel I have anything significant to say to those who were there. Mine is just a simple mind that remembers seeing high school buddies off to basic training at the bus stop the minute they graduated from high school. I did not question the fact that they were going. It was accepted that you did your duty. I was very ignorant of the world and politics. I did not understand why people were nasty to returning veterans. I vaguely accepted the fact that war was nasty, war was hell, and thankful I was a female and not subject to draft. I wrote to two of those high school buddies while they were in Vietnam. One of them committed suicide 10 years ago and' the other is married and has a grown son and has never left his hometown again. I wish I had saved the letters they sent me.

I read the books because I wanted to know more about my generation's war. Why we were there, how we got involved. I'm much more familiar now with what happened and the logistics and politics involved but no closer to the why. About 10 years ago, I was sitting around a campfire at the lake with a friend that was in the Army infantry in Vietnam. He told me how wonderful the Mountain (Montagnards) people were and how closely they worked together. He told me how horribly frightening it was to have to go into the tunnels the NVA built to see if they were occupied. He told how he still had nightmares of the night that a sniper would not stop firing towards their camp at night until he got so sick of it, he crawled thru the concertina wire and found the sniper and slit his throat with a knife. He'd never shared that with anyone before. I hope with all my heart that sharing that with me helped put an end to that recurring nightmare. I also hope with all my heart that my friends nightmares will fade away, that he will find a way to bring his time in Khe Sanh to a closure and peace to his mind and heart. Welcome Home!

Cookie Greene
Missoula, Montana

Note: Cookie has been my friend since high school. I am the friend she refers to at the beginning of her letter. -Paul Knight

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Leo. Is there a chance that you can jam this one into the Incoming Section? Please?
Ernie.

Ernie

As I mentioned to you I am writing a chapter for a book about women reporters experiences in Vietnam and want to write about Khe Sanh. Unfortunately, there is a lot I have forgotten detail wise. At the Las Vegas reunion I met a few Marines who said I stayed in their bunker the night before I was wounded. I can't find my notes from that time and I was wondering if you knew who I might contact to refresh my memory. The events of March 8 are fairly vivid. I met with Bill Gay the other day who was wounded with me and of course, I will be talking again to Ed Feldman, but I'd love to get some more info. If you can help me somehow, I would appreciate it.

Thanks.
Jurate

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Before I enlisted I was a folk singer and a college student. Before the draft Lottery, most of us were either 1A (available) or 2S (exempt students). After debating the Chicken s---SDS Students for a Democratic Society for years, I had enough and enlisted for good ol' apple pie and mother. Here is a song I penned and even sang in Nam a few times on a guitar I bought in Phu Bai after leaving India 3/26 near Hill 55 and joined-up with 3rd Med for my last five months in-country:

Today I received a letter,
It was from Uncle Sam.
It said "Greetings my child,
You're off to Viet Nam!"

Well, I picked-up that letter,
And I read the words of woe.
Then quickly called my Draft Board,
To see if it weren't so!

I told them I was classified as a Student,
But they said so sternly By order of the President!

I packed my bags and kissed my sweetie good-lye,
Then before I knew what was happening I lay under bomb-shelled skies!

Now listen to the moral for all you classified 2S,
Don't be so sure that you're exempt, because YOU may go next!

Dave "DOC" Steinberg
3rd Plt India 3/26 Hill 881S
Dabney's crew in Indian Country

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