'Errors and Omissions'�
by Nicholas Warr
��� in Referrence to his book 'Phase Line Green'

����������� My greatest fear in writing my first book, Phase Line Green, was that I would get someone's name wrong.� Although there were several noted instances in which I used made-up names for the Marines of Charlie Company whose courage I witnessed and wrote about (and whose faces haunted me for years, but whose names still eluded my conscious memory), when Phase Line Green was finally published I was convinced that I had gotten all of the rest of the names straight.� My greatest fear was realized when, much to my dismay, I learned that I fractured Benny Benware's name.
����������� LCpl. Eugene H. (Benny) Benware was my platoon radio operator from the moment I arrived in South Viet Nam in November '67, through all of our travels through Hoi An, Phu Loc 6, the Hai Van Pass and Lang Co Village, and into the Battle for the Citadel of Hue on 13 February 1968.� After the battles along phase line green on the first day, when it was determined that Charlie One was to be disbanded and the remaining 22 Marines were to be split up between Charlie Two and Three, Benny went to Charlie Two and stayed with them through the rest of the battle.� I went to the company rear and then eventually took over Charlie Three.� Benny and I went our seperate, still hazardous ways, and we both somehow managed to survive the battle for Hue City.
����������� When Charlie One was reformed after the battle, Benny continued as my platoon radio operator for several months after that.� Benny loyally followed me every step of the way.� You'd think the least I could do would be to remember Benny's name, but in Phase Line Green, to my horror, this unforgettable character was named Benny Benwaring.
������������ Benny, my abject apologies to you and your family.� I have no excuse, other than to say I really remember you as just "Benny," the wizard beanpole from Tennessee who could hump one of the heaviest loads in the Platoon and fight with the best of them, but who also somehow managed to keep us connected with the rest of the world in the worst of conditions.� You followed me faithfully and without complaint (well, almost) through all the mud, muck and terror that was wartime Viet Nam, and I misspelled your name.� You deserve better, Benny.
����������� I have also found out, by the most amazing means, that I had the mathematics of the casualties in Charlie One off, but not by much.� Strangely enough, I found this out from my own hand, although the information had been delayed for nearly thirty years.
����������� On Friday, 3 October 1997, my wife, Pamela and I traveled to Mesa, Arizona, and visited with SSgt. (Ret) John "Mother" Mullan, his wife, Catherine, and the youngest of their family, their 16-year-old daughter, Megan.� It was the first time that John and I had seen each other since just before he was hit and medevacced from the street, phase line green , in the first few hours of the fighting inside the Citadel of Hue.
����������� During this visit, John gave me three incredible documents that he had kept all these years.� As I read them, those distant days came back as quickly and smoothly as though the simple act of reading was a transparent portal to the past;� as I read them, time became insignificant, non-existent.� I was back there, once again, smelling the smells, seeing the chaotic sights and hearing the terrible crashing sounds of the battlefields of Viet Nam in an all-too-familiar-way.
������������������������������������������ (continued on page 2)