Submitted by Vance Hall rvh@geologyrocks.net

Nearly forty years ago, your guys made a tremendous impact on my life.

During early 1968, I was located east of Hoi An (I-Corps, south of DaNang). I was with the USMC 1st ANGLICO Sub-Unit 1, attached to the 2nd ROKMC Brigade (the Blue Dragons) for 12 months and 20 days.

10th Company was mobile, beginning shortly before Hoi An was overrun, until the event that still wakes me up at night. I have tried to forget all this for decades, but now I'm giving that up. I may as well try to deal with it and remember the good folks I met. I am guessing that about February 1968, we were on a search and destroy east of Hoi An, moving north from the road that ran parallel to the Hoi An river on the north side. We began taking fire from a mobile force and were chasing them northward.

After a few clicks, we ran into a large NVA ambush. A (reinforced) platoon was caught in the open between two creeks with tree groves, and mostly killed or wounded. An hour before dusk, I went out east along the creek to where the survivors were and got them to begin bringing everyone that wasn't still lying in the open back to the grove where the CO was, where we had some visual protection. By nighfall, we had all the wounded we could get to back there.

We had not been able to have ammo or food resupplies since before Tet and we were about out of ammo and had been living off of pigs and chickens for a while. You guys were mostly up on the DMZ and available only for emergency situations. I called for emergency medivacs for the triaged wounded, and was lucky enough to get someone to come, even after dark.

I was completely out of WP and nobody in the company had anything that would mark a LZ at night, and certainly no way to safely mark an LZ at night much less than 100 meters from a large NVA force to the north. Fortunately, I grew up a country boy, camping and hunting with friends on many weekends. Through some miracle, after hours of light rain, I was able to start a small fire with wet kindling and a few wet book matches, as your guys approached. You somehow saw the fire and trusted me enough to land and take our casualties. I also begged a little M-60 ammo for the ROKMC.

If any of your members recall this, I am forever indebted. Lots of good (Korean) Marines died and were wounded that day, and you guys risked your asses for us. I'd like to hear from you.

Semper Fi,

Vance Hall