Returning to the States after my tour in Vietnam I had a little over a year left of my enlistment. I completed this year with L Co., 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines at Camp Lejeune, NC and Cuba. During that time I helped train Marines for their Vietnam tour and other such duties. I made new Marine brothers but could not get the guys I served with in Delta 1/4 Vietnam out of my head or my heart. For these were my true brothers, even more so than my blood brothers by birth but I couldn’t remember their names. For years after my enlistment I was doing the things most Vietnam Vet’s felt was natural for us to do even though no one ever agreed with us, still something was missing and I couldn’t pin point it.

I would hear a name and that would bring a faint memory and I would try to recall where I heard that name from with no luck. This also went on for years driving me even deeper into myself, forming an impregnable barrier where I could hide. Like many of us PTSD had set in and I had no way of understanding it. No easy way to confront the ghosts that would come to me each night asking for my help. Or hearing a noise that would wake me up after I had finally fallen asleep, making me go out and check the perimeter of my home only to find nothing, realizing a knat must have farted six blocks away causing the noise. I had no way to explain all of this to my family. How could they understand if I didn’t?

This went on for over thirty years until I got a computer. All I needed to do now was to learn how to turn it on and find the place where you start looking for stuff. My quest was for anything Marine. I soon found sites on Marines and our adopted Marine brothers the Corpsmen. I plugged my name in everywhere. I even found a picture of me in Emmett Queen’s 1/3 site, the very people I went to Vietnam with. I wrote Emmett and we have been friends since but still something was missing. I then found Thurman Moore’s 1/4 site and now I thought I was home. I spent many nights with tears of laughter in my eyes, for Thurm had the stories and understood the brotherhood of Nam. I kept on scanning the logbooks for one of my brothers from D 1/4 but never recognizing a name. I still had no one to talk to that understood from Delta Company. One day I got invited to a private club (CORPSGRUNTS) ran by a FMF Corpsman that goes by the name of A15Doc. I signed in and started reading. After a while, I joined in on the chatter not really expecting much response, was I every wrong. These guys welcomed me home. They could finish a story I started telling word for word without missing a beat. I thank them for coming and getting me out of the hell I was in and letting me see that there were other Vets like me, struggling, and that I was not alone or slowly going insane.

One day I opened a letter from a Ralph Schroder. He had seen I had signed in, in Thurm's 1/4 site as D 1/4 65/66. We were strangers but we could talk the same battles and the same Skipper. Names started coming back, but I couldn’t say for sure. Ralph set out to find every Marine and Corpsman we ever knew. We formed a mailing group and started exchanging names, places and pictures. I was writing about, and too my brothers of so long ago. People I recognized started to call me Red Dog, my nickname in the Corps. I can now sleep all night. Hearing noises, checking the perimeter, and visiting my ghosts only seem natural now because I now know that it was these guys all along reaching out for me, looking and hurting too, needing, always needing. I can now visit with those that made it home, those that stayed behind, and not be afraid anymore.

After a little over a year of searching for Delta Company 1st Battalion, 4th Marines 1965/69, I am now in contact with the Marines and Corpsmen of my time and Unit. It still seems we stand alone. So I have decided to build the company back for these brothers of mine. To give us a home like so many other Companies have on the net. I ask the Marines and Corpsmen from Delta Co. from the years above to join in and build the Company back, there is a home just for you…and me. And I would like to extend the invitation to our other brother Marines and Corpsmen from any unit and time to muster in, in the roll call page provided for you. I will not leave you out because most of you led me to building this site. A special THANK YOU to Emmett Queen for the help in making it a reality.

SEMPER FI
RED DOG
D 1/4 65/66