Dale's
Story
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Dale was from Freetown, Indiana
and joined the Marines in April 1965. His initial recruit
training was in San Diego. Afterwards, he was assigned to
Moffett Field, CA. as a guard (8151) where he served
from August 65 until he left for Vietnam.
On 6 December 1966, Dale left
San Diego, CA on the troop ship, USNS Gen. Le Roy Eltinge;
the day after his 21st birthday. He joined Company Kilo, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines on 29 December 1966 after landing at Da
Nang, Vietnam and was initially sent to Ca Lu in Quang
Tri Province. Dale participated in Operations
Prairie I-IV at places such as Con Thien, the Rockpile,
Mutter's Ridge. Around early April, Kilo Company moved it’s
base camp to the Rock Pile.
Kilo 3/3 had been scheduled to
relieve Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 9th
Marines (know as the Walking Dead) on 29 April
67 at Khe Sanh but on the 24th, Bravo 1/9
triggered a pitched battle in the surrounding hills.
Unbeknownst to them, two regiments of NVA had been
digging into those hills for some time; building well
concealed bunkers and preparing their battlefield. It is
believed the intention of the NVA was to over run the Khe
Sanh Combat Base and probably would have done so, had
Bravo 1/9 not triggered the battle early. On the 24th,
there were 14 marines killed, 18 wounded, and 2 missing.
Dale’s company was ordered
up to Khe Sanh on the 25th, but fog prevented
the airlift until about noon. The 3 platoons of Kilo 3/3
then walked out to Hill 861 (about 4 or 5 kilometers)
arriving late in the afternoon. First Platoon was to move
up a ridgeline directly south of the summit, 2nd
Platoon was to remain with the Battalion Command Post and
mortar section for security, and Dale’s Platoon (3rd
Platoon) was to move up another ridge called 861-A.
About 5:00 PM, 1st
Platoon, which was only about 300 meters from the summit,
began taking very heavy fire from the enemy bunkers on
top of the hill and mortars concealed on the reverse
slope killing 15 marines and wounding another 15. Only 10
remained in fighting condition, but the number of dead
and wounded made it impossible to disengage. 3rd
Platoon had very slow going up the ridgeline of 861-A and
their presence remained undetected by the enemy. As
darkness fell, they were forced to dig in for the night
and wait for morning. The following are excerpts from
emails I received from Dale's squadmates:
"…We settled in
for the night on the slope of 861. Apparently the NVA
were not aware of our presence as we could hear them
talking all night. At about 6:30 in the morning we
moved out at a crawl inching toward the crest of the
hill. As I said, they were unaware of us. We got
really close and could still hear them. God, we were
scared to death. We all knew what was about to happen.
Our point man Lcpl.
Miller passed back the word that he saw an NVA. Just
as I passed the word to the Lt. [Curt Fisbie] the
world exploded. Of all the firefights I had been in
this was by far the worst. We were out gunned by a
ton. We would throw grenades and the NVA would pick
them up and throw them back at us. Within minutes
several of the guys in the squad were hit. I remember
the screaming, the confusion, the fear and most of
all the feeling of certainty about my impending death.
I vividly recall seeing
Dale getting hit by an exploding grenade. I believe I
told the Lt. that he was hit. Suddenly, I felt
a dull tug on my arm. I knew I was hit and turned to
the Lt. and saw that he was hit much worse than I was.
We received the order to pull back. It took 4 hours
to get evacuated and the little gooks chased us down
the hill. I never saw Dale again. I however,
did see his name on the Wall when I visited
Washington DC in 1995. My research in the years
subsequent to this event has taught me that this was
the single worst battle engaged in by the USMC. I
have no problem believing this. It took a reinforced
battalion to take 861 and we were only a single
platoon of about 25 guys."
Don Bigler, who was the fire team leader of the fire
team on point, wrote:
"Third platoon was
able to make it up the back side of hill 861
undetected. I guess the N V A were
concentrating mostly on the front of the hill as
first platoon had assaulted that side and they were
detected first. My fireteam was on point and I
had my best man, L/Cpl Ken Miller as THE point man.
I was immediately behind him. Ken (or Mil as I
called him-he was and is my best friend) spotted N V
A sitting in a foxhole. This was the morning of the
26th of April at first light. We had made it up
almost to the top during the night, and waited to
begin our assault. Mil passed the word back
that "the enemy is in sight".
We were ordered to go
forward. In a short distance more they spotted
Mil. He fired off a burst and got the N V A that he
had spotted. Then, as you can imagine, all hell
broke loose. When they opened up on us, Mil
took three rounds in the chest. The strap was
shot off my helmet and I was knocked back.
After that I only know for sure what happened to me,
as I was alone in my space. Chaos ruled!
The grenades were literally raining down on us, both
their chicoms and our own grenades that we had thrown
up at them. We were so close to them they had
time to pick our grenades up and "return to
sender". We learned quickly to pull the
pin and let the spoon fly, count 1001 1002 and then
throw! That way the detonation would occur
before they could pick them up. They had me
pinned down, with grenades coming down all around me.
I was in kind of a push up position and would
scramble up or down or left or right to get away from
their grenades. Every time I would do this,
another burst of automatic fire would go across my
back.
Suddenly three grenades
came down at the same time. Two on my left, one above
me and one below me, and one on the right about
waist high. I scrambled up and to the right.
I swear all three detonated at the same time. I
only felt the one on the right at the time.
Both eardrums were busted and my bell was
really rung. I didn't know where I was for
"a time". I do not know how long of a
time that was. They must have thought that they
got me, cause the grenades quit coming as far as I
know. When I "came to" I could hear
Mil calling out to me. I told him to be quiet
and be still until I could get someone up to him.
He was the highest Marine on that hill. I could
not see him, however, because of the uneven terrain
and the fact that I could not raise up even a
little, but he was about five to ten yards away
from me, max. Suddenly another Marine in our
squad named Moran was below me trying to patch me up.
We had no corpsmen with us as one of them had gotten
hurt on the way up the hill and the other had been
sent back down with him. Doesn't make sense to
us either!!!!
Don't know why the N V A
couldn't see Moran, other than the fact he was below
me. I sent him over to Mil, but Mil tells me he
never saw him. Don't know what happened to him.
Suddenly there were others below me and they grabbed
me by the boots and drug me down the hill to cover.
I sent them after Mil, but they could not reach him
because of the intense fire coming from the N V A.
Ater several attempts, they were able to lay down a
suppressing fire on the N V A sufficient
enough for Mil to crawl to cover.
We started down the hill
carrying what gear we could with our dead and
wounded. I myself had a non-functioning m-16
rifle in each hand with my hands on the front sight
blade using them as crutches.My right leg had a hole
in it you could stick your fist in. I'm sorry
to say I left before Mil did. I've had to live
with that for over thirty years. I do not know
why, except we were ordered to pull back. I was
a mess, yes, but I wasn't dead and should have stayed
for Mil!!
We made our way down the
hill and had to cross an open area about the size of
a football field where the N V A took target practice
on us. Marines would get hit and tumble to the
ground, get back up and pick up their gear, cuss a
little and take off again.When we got to the L Z (landing
zone), the fire from the N V A was too intense for
the chopper to land and we had to hump it to another
L Z farther down the hill. This time the
chopper landed and picked us up. I'll never
forget the door gunner's face and how frightened he
was. I thought it strange, because I felt
relatively safe by then. The chopper took
numerous hits as we lifted off.
........I wish I could
tell you exactly what happened to Dale, but cannot.
Most of us were wounded with shrapnel from the
grenades as well as being shot by their
automatic weapons. I do know Dale was a good
Marine and died a brave death. As Tom Vineyard
said, and he was the Lt.'s radio man that day,
although we were pretty well shredded, not one Marine
went any direction but forward until ordered to pull
back!!!"
LCPL Miller wrote:
"THERE WAS NO COVER.
WE HAD MOVED TO AN AREA NEAR THE TOP OF THE HILL THAT
HAD OBVIOUSLY BEEN CLEARED TO IMPROVE THEIR FIELDS OF
FIRE. AS WE APPROACHED I STOPPED AND SENT WORD
BACK THAT WE HAD APPROACHED A CLEARING AND THAT THERE
WERE ALSO GOOKS SITTING IN FOXHOLES (LP) WHICH
HAD NOT DETECTED OUR PRESENCE. THE WORD WAS
GIVEN TO MOVE FORWARD .. FAMOUS LAST WORDS. AS
WE TRIED TO MOVE FORWARD AND ACROSS THE CLEARING I
WAS SPOTTED. I GOT OFF THE FIRST BURST AND
KILLED THE GOOK IN THE LP BUT AS I SWUNG AROUND
SEARCHING FOR OTHERS I SAW A BARREL OF AN AK-47 POKE
THRU THE BRUSH AND ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE. THE
MOMENTS FOLLOWING WERE ALL A BLUR AND HAPPENED VERY
QUICKLY ...... AFTER RELEASING ANOTHER BURST OF
AUTOMATIC FIRE, I LUNGED FORWARD AND
SIMULTANEOUSLY CAUGHT THREE ROUNDS IN THE CHEST AND
WAS IN A PRETTY BAD WAY. ...... I WAS PINNED
DOWN AND FRIGHTENED - FOR THE MOST PART THE GRENADES
WERE BEING TOSSED OVER ME ........ I 'VE ALWAYS
BELIEVED THAT INITIALLY THE GOOKS DIDN'T REALIZE HOW
CLOSE I WAS TO THEIR POSITION........
.....EVENTUALLY THEY
MUST HAVE SPOTTED ME AS THEIR GRENADES BEGAN TO LAND
CLOSER UNTIL EVENTUALLY I WAS HIT IN THE LEG, BACK
AND NECK WITH SCHRAPNEL.I LAID THERE ALONE FOR WHAT
SEEMED TO BE HOURS. I REMEMBER THE GUYS PULLING
BACK BUT TELLING ME THEY'D RETURN AND FOR ME TO KEEP
THE FAITH. AT LEAST TWICE THEY BROUGHT GUNS (MG)
UP TO LAY DOWN SUPPRESSING FIRE BUT TWICE THEY
WERE DRIVEN BACK. I THOUGHT IT WAS OVER AS I
COULD HEAR THE GOOKS TALKING AND DETECTED MOVEMENT IN
THE BRUSH JUST AHEAD OF ME. I REMOVED
EVERYTHING FROM MY POCKETS AND MY GIRL FRIEND'S HIGH
SCHOOL RING FROM MY DOG TAG CHAIN AND BURIED THEM. I
HONESTLY THOUGHT I WAS ABOUT TO BUY THE FARM.
IT WAS AT THAT MOMENT ANOTHER CONCERTED EFFORT TO
RETRIEVE ME WAS MADE AND I WAS ABLE TO CRAWL TO
SAFETY. I BELIEVE IT WAS SOMEONE NAMED ACKERS (?)
THAT LAID DOWN THE FINAL SUPPRESSING FIRE THAT
ALLOWED ME TO BE RECOVERED. I THINK HE WAS
KILLED IN THE ATTEMPT. I MAY OWE HIM MY LIFE...
"
Dale was buried in
the Lucas Cemetery in Freetown, Indiana on 6 May 1967.
The Battle, which became known
as the "First
Battle of Khe Sanh" or the "Hill Battles of '67"
took about two weeks
and a thousand marines to win. US Forces spent 23,472
rounds of artillery, 1,915 tons of air-delivered ordnance
in 1,170 SORTIES and 23 B-52 Arc Light strikes. 168 US
Marines died, 443 were wounded, and 2 were missing in
action.
Semper
Fi
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Revised: 31 Jan 2002 18:12:49 -0800
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