Everyone that served in Vietnam has a different story to tell. Some saw more combat than others did. I saw some, but not as much as others did. Several served in the rear and in safe zones. I was in the bush alot, doing search and destroy operations and patrols. After reading my letters home to my parents and looking at all of my pictures from Vietnam, the following is my story of being in Vietnam. Alot of the story will be from excerpts from my letters home to my parents in Dallas, Texas. The pictures will be from the slides I took in Vietnam.

I dedicate this page to all the men that fought and died in 3rd Battalion 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division. That is the unit I fought with while in Vietnam in 1967. Also to my loving parents who prayed with out ceasing for me while I was in Vietnam.

Vietnam was a beautiful country from the air, but it was deadly on the ground.

Before leaving Camp Pendleton, I stored some of my clothes at Mainside and just took the necessary clothes I needed with me. On November 16, 1966, I was at El Toro Marine Air Station waiting for a flight to Vietnam. I had to have a 2 hour course on map reading, and after that I left for Vietnam. I was bussed to Los Angeles Airport and I flew out at 2pm on a civilian jet airliner, touching down in Hawaii first at about 6pm, for refueling.

I wrote home: ‘We didn’t do much on the jet to Hawaii, except listen to the stereo and see a couple of movies. From California to Hawaii it was cloudy all the way. We rode above the clouds and it seemed that they formed an island in the sky.’

It takes about 9 hrs 26 minutes to fly from Hawaii to Okinawa. It's about a 4,000 mile trip. On November 17 we landed in Okinawa about 11:30 pm Thursday night, and the temperature was 65 degrees...I wrote home to mom and dad: ‘The stewardess’s from California to Hawaii weren’t too good looking, but the ones from Hawaii to Okinawa they were pretty cute.’

My stay in Okinawa was about three days. I received more shots and my first issue of Jungle Utilities and Jungle Boots. I went on my first liberty in Okinawa, in Kim village just outside of Camp Hansen where we were staying. I flew from Okinawa and arrived in Vietnam on November 21, 1966.

The day that I disembarked from the civilian airliner, it was raining and I had to run across the runway to the staging area. On November 22, I boarded a C-130 and flew to Dong Ha Military base. This is where my new outfit's rear was, but the Company I was assigned to were on the lines at Con Thien. They went up there about a week before I arrived in country. I stayed in the rear at Dong Ha for a few days before being flown to Con Thien.

I was only a few days in country when I wrote the following letters home to mom and dad:

On Nov 21, I wrote home: 'Well, I'm finally in Vietnam at Da Nang Air Base. We flew in from Okinawa. I get assigned to a unit tomorrow. I will probably see combat within a couple of days. We'll go out on search and destroy missions, combat patrols, ambushes, etc. I might get into a M-60 machine gun section, if I'm lucky enough. When I landed here it was raining and it still is. I'm sleeping on a cot. I'm drawing my 782 gear tomorrow, plus 100 rounds of 7.62mm shells for my M-14 rifle, I was just issued.

You want to know the meaning of the newspapers terms, heavy, light, and moderate casualities. Heavy, the Company's about 3/4 wiped out, moderate, the Company's about 1/2 to 3/4 wiped out and light, its about 30% wiped out.'

Nov 22: 'Well, we made it to Dong Ha, and I tell you it's pretty muddy here. I'm stationed at Dong Ha near the DMZ with Lima Co. 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division. I flew here from Da Nang on a C-130 troop carrier. A four engine prop job.

One thing that I liked at Da Nang was watching the jets take off and land. The Phantoms that strike the enemy positions take off from there loaded with bombs and rockets.'

Nov 23, ‘Well, the skies cleared now and it's awfully blue, but still there’s some clouds visable. It doesn’t rain all of the time here, just when you don’t expect it to. Last night it was terrible. I had a hard time sleeping. They were bombing someplace about a mile from here. You could hear the planes go over and then hear the explosions of the bombs. When the bombs exploded, it shook the ground and you could feel it. I go out in the field in a couple of days and will probably see some action. They had a couple of VC suspects here yesterday that they had captured sometime yesterday, out in the field. They had them bound and blindfolded. They also have alot of Hueys (armed Helicopters), that take off all of the time, plus troop carrying Helicopters. Well I better go for now, I have to get this letter in the mail. Love your son, Daniel.'

On Nov 26, I wrote: ‘Well, another day in this cold-wet country is gone. I was supposed to go out to the field today by chopper, but it was raining and we didn’t get a chopper in here. When I got here a couple of days ago, it was nice and sunny, but now it’s raining. When it rains here, it drizzles and the wind blows, which makes it cold. When I do go into the field (probably tomorrow if the rain ceases), I’ll go on patrols and ambushes. They haven’t had any action up here recently, or out in the field, but they're expecting some pretty soon. Lima Company should be coming back to base camp in a couple of weeks. They’ve been gone since last Monday. I haven’t been doing much except going on working details.’ ‘I wish I could be home for Christmas this year, but I guess I can’t be there. I won’t leave Vietnam until about December 21, 1967. Next year I hope to be home. Well, I better go now, I just wrote to let you know how things are. Love your son, Daniel.’

When the skies finally cleared, I was choppered out to Con Thien. I met my gun team when I arrived. They had the gun set up on the north side of the perimeter. My gun team members were: L/Cpl Benny Bowers, the gunner, and L/Cpl Robert Spiegles, the assistant gunner. I was assigned to them as ammo bearer at first. We all lived in a sand bagged bunker, each of us taking turns keeping watch at night. The ARVNS had a bunker just above our hole at top of Con Thien hill. At night they would do alot of firing over our heads. It made us nervous.

On Dec 7th I wrote: ‘We moved our bunker to a new position. It took us about two days to build it and our hooch. It's about four feet deep and has sand bags around the sides. We got a new platoon sergeant and they wanted the bunker deeper and better.’ ‘The first and second platoons went on a patrol a day ago and haven’t come back yet. The reason why is that they found a supply of rice and some VC suspects, so they’ve stayed in the field the last two nights. We stayed back and manned the lines.’ ‘It rained today and it made a big mud puddle in front of our bunker. There’s a soft spot in the dirt there and it broke and the floor of the bunker was flooded. We filled the hole up in front and if you step on it, it’ll make you sink to your waist. I’ll be glad when this monsoon season is over, because somehow you manage to stay dirty and muddy.’ We continued to man the lines at Con Thien.

Dec 12th: ‘Well, well, the gooks finally struck. A couple of days ago, they mortared our positions, about 75 rounds hit outside our perimeter and some inside. About ten hit outside the hole I was in, about 50 feet. We lost some good Marines that day. One killed and about ten wounded, some seriously.’ ‘Yesterday I watched the Phantoms strike in North Vietnam with napalm and rockets. It's amazing how they can strike so fast. Today it's a clear day and we can see the Red flag in North Vietnam at an installation of some kind. We can even see the ocean from here and the Cambodian border. The jets are striking again today.

Two days ago the Battalion went on a sweep and they're still out in the field. We expect them in sometime today. We’re suppose to go on a sweep of a village tomorrow if the Battalion gets back in today. We didn’t go because we stood the lines.’

On December 15 my outfit moved out of Con Thien and let the Vietnamese Marines take over our lines we once stood. We hiked back to Dong Ha, taking all of the tanks with us. While going back one of the tanks broke a track and we had to wait on it while the crew members fixed the broken track. There were no roads at that time from Con Thien to Cam Lo Hill, just a wide path leading to different villages. We passed a couple of Catholic churches in couple of the villages. We spent the night at one of the churches, by setting up a protective perimeter in the church yard. The next day we continued on down the trail to Cam Lo Hill. From Cam Lo Hill we took a truck convoy on down to our rear base at Dong Ha. About two weeks after we moved out of Con Thien, the NVA hit the lines at Con Thien, and almost wiped out the South Vietnamese Marines.

Dec 23: ‘This morning we had a ceremony for the Marines that died last month in 3/4. A few days ago we had a ceremony for the opening of the new church here. The gooks built it. Then the other day we received some Christmas cards from kids back in the states and one from Canada. Some of us took time out to write back to them and give them our thanks. We don’t do much here at Dong Ha, except go on working parties and rest if we have to.’ The new church at Dong Ha.

Dec 28th: ‘The last two days here have been really cold; especially at night. The wind blows and it's been cloudy and it drizzles all the time. Then 31st Dec we go and man the lines around Dong Ha for two weeks. You want to know something, I want to get out of Vietnam, but I hate to. I haven’t been over here long enough to see any action.’

Dec 31st: ‘During the Christmas truce, the VC broke it by mortaring the Marines at Cam Lo Hill. and the South Vietnamese camp at Con Thien. Our Marines suffered 8 KIAs and 88 WIAs. Tomorrow is the 1st of January and we go on the lines at Dong Ha and guard the perimeter for the next two weeks.’

2 Jan 67: ‘Well, we finally got on the lines the 1st of this New Year. I tell you, it sure is a good way to start the new year off. Right now it's cold and raining real real lightly, just enough to get you wet and keep you that way.’ I went to the PX and bought me a 35mm camera. It was one that would take double pictures on the same picture frame. This is the camera that I used the full year in Vietnam. I had to send home for film for it, the PX didn’t carry the film I wanted. I took alot of slides with it.

5 Jan 67: ‘I received your letter with the calendars in it. If you hadn’t sent them, I would of forgotten what day of the week it was. About a week ago I received the letter with the Kool Aid in it. I have so much Kool Aid now, I guess I’ll save it for when it starts getting hot, and when I might have to drink rice paddy water, while on patrols. Lately, it's been real cold and rainy. Last night we had only a two man watch and that isn’t too good in sleep you know. In 10 more days I’ll be in Vietnam for 2 whole months, 11 months left to go. Tomorrow we have to go on a squad or platoon size patrol, and out here you have to wade through rice paddies and stuff. The trouble with the South Vietnamese, they go barefoot in the monsoon season. I know if I did, I’d get cold feet.’

7 Jan 67: ‘I received a package from you today. The 3rd one I think. The trouble is, it was broken open while being shipped here. I hope nothing is missing from it. I know I can use the contents in it: first aid kit, bandages, talc, envelopes, candy, etc.

Yesterday we went on a 1,400 meter patrol around the perimeter of Dong Ha. There’s a river that runs that far from here, and there our Company's tail end got sniped at (I was at the tail end). We used M-79s, M-60m.g. and finally called in artillery. There were about five gooks (VC) and 4 of them dee deed (took off) and we only captured one of them changing his clothes. He threw them in the river, plus his weapon supposedly. The VC sure was small. I would make two of him in size. We went back to Dong Ha and all of us had tired feet. Nobody was injured in that little incident, thank the good Lord. It's been pretty cold here recently and I’ve caught a cold from it. While on that patrol, we crossed a lot of rice paddies and the banks were pretty slippery, plus we had to wade across a small creek that was almost waist deep. The water here in the creeks and rice paddies is pretty cold to the touch. My bunker I’m in, sits right on a railroad track looking across the rice patties to a little village. The railroad tracks are torn up about 3 miles in both directions, so that no train can run across it. On the other side of the little village, there’s a highway running along it. It runs from Saigon to Hanoi. The Vietnamese people over here drive cars (funny looking little things and vans). They drive up and down the highway all the time. The women here do all the work inside and out. You will hardly see any young boys or men here. Boys or girls, about 6 or 8, man the water buffalos here, and carry things to market. They try to sell cokes, peanuts or candles over the fence here, but there’s an order out saying that we can’t buy things from them.’

10 Jan 67: ‘It's been windy and rainy all day today, so I stayed in the hooch mostly. From recent reports here in Vietnam there’s two regiments of VC operating near Con Thien and about a regiment near Cam Lo. Yesterday the out post at Cam Lo was over run by VC. I hope that they don’t come down this way.

Yesterday I went up to outpost 37 to help guard it. It's nothing but a brick bunker with quad fifties on top of it. The doggies (Army) have a ten man squad up there to man the guns. It's pretty silly why we have to guard it night and day, when the Army can with that many men up there. A quad fifty has four .50 caliber machine guns on it.

Down below the hill there’s a place where you can buy American made cokes, peanuts, crackers (animal), bananas and candles. You would be surprised to see all this stuff and wonder how they get it. They have some stuff you can buy that the PX doesn’t even sell.

The OP is on a hill and you can see a big rice delta towards the front of it. You can sit up there and watch the South Vietnamese go across it on foot or on water buffalos. When the sun is shining on it, it makes it look real beautiful. If I had some film in my camera I would have taken some pictures of it.

Last night we had only a two man watch, me and another guy. We had to stay up two two hour watches and one 1 hour watch a piece.’

13 Jan 67: ‘The way we get paid over here is: About the middle of each month we go sign the pay roster, we can have so much in cash and so much in check (has to be $100 and over). Then the first of each month we get paid. The thing about my checks I get is that a person has to have an ID card in order to cash them.

Right now, today, I’m out at outpost 37 to guard it. The weather here is cloudy, cold, but at least it's stopped raining for a while. I think I told you that we go to Com Lo Hill next week sometime. Out there the VC are operating and we will probably run into a few firefights with them. We'll probably be out in the bush for about 2 weeks, or the rest of January. Here, on the lines, we only have a two man watch, because three guys from our platoon went home. You can look across a rice delta here and watch people hurrying to the market or from it with their goods. The people carry twice as much as they weigh across long stretches of land. They carry their goods balanced on a pole at both ends on their shoulders. Here is how a Vietnamese carries goods to market. They also go barefoot all of the time or wear sandals made out of old tires. The little kids about 3 to 7 work in the fields all day, and also herd cattle and sit on water buffalos all day.’

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