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In-Country Vietnam
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Hi my name is Sgt Doug Cunningham. Combat wise I was crew on a mission known as “Sniffer” with VMO 2. Sniffer was rather, a recon effort run from a huey, dirty slick, prior to, or during an insertion of a recon teams and prior to major grunt ops. Top Secret at the time. I also flew as a gunner with several squadrens.
Between March and June of 1969 Marble Mountain suffered a rocket attack, (122’s), in the hooch area, hitting the Sgt’s club over by the sickbay. We lost several good men, and as me many were wounded.
Do you remember this attack, and the date? That attack still haunts me to this day. I think once I have the information I’ll sleep a little better.
in blood, funny really he was sitting on the stairs to the club looking at the sky & very calm, his white T-shirt showing many holes of blood then all at once turning to one color. I got to him and put him over my shoulder, and carried him across the street to sickbay. Some one took him, and I repeated the task several more times. The final trip was with a stretcher to get the first guy that I had crawled to. We rolled him on to the stretcher. As we were taught on medivacs all personal effects and weapons go with the body, so I bent down to throw his boot on to the strecher only to find that there was more than a boot. About this time I realized two things, 1- I was hit in the leg - fairly minor schapmal wounds, and 2- my friend who on the initial run to the club was in front of me. I went crazy looking for him amongst the other bodies. Turns out when the one hit in front of us he had just made the watch tower which had sufficient sand bags around it. You know, it's funny, I have never told that story before, not even to my ex-wives.....Thank You.
Posted : 2004-10-01 18:54
To the best of my feable memory, the date was more like the 1st of April. I remember, because of spending all day on a hilltop recovering crewmembers on a med evac that went in. We got back so late, we missed the steaks at the mess (possibly a Sunday). Went back to my hootch, right next to the E-5 club and decided to go have a drink and maybe something to eat. They were going to have a movie, so I found a table right by the area in front of the screen. Finished my drink and decided I needed a shower worst. Hit the rack and it seems that was about when it happened. As I recall, there was a morter attack later. Recall that during one of them, diving in the bunker next to the club. A LCpl who worked in the club crawled in. He had recieved schapnel wounds in the groin or stomach. Myself and someone else hauled him over to sickbay. Now that I think about it, that happened during the rocket attack. It was during the second one that I broke a toe on a chair as I was running for the bunker.
Bill Edwards
Posted : 2004-10-04 00:29
Rocket attack on MMAF
The rocket attack that killed 2 sergeants, Sgt Vesey of HMM-165 and Sgt Villalobos of HML-167, took place on 20 April, 1969. There is more posted in the KIA section under Vesey.
John
Posted : 2004-11-02 14:04
I was in VMO-6 and we had sent two or three guys down to MMAF to do an AFC on some OV-10's for KY-28 Juliet gear or something like that. The guy leading the tam was Sgt Norman Tyndall from Illinois. I had known Norm for several years and he was a super guy. Norm had been in 34's and 46's and was on his second tour after having spent a year or so at VMO-5/HML-267 at Campen.Anyway after several days the C-130 comes up from MMAF and off jumps Norm and the other guys we had sent down from Quang Tri.
Norm was a basket case and absolutely beside himself. He had an eardrum blown out during a rocket attacck and he related the following story near as I can remember.
The AVI 210/220 bubbas had been working on the AFC the better part of the day and were wrapping it up for the day and they decided to go to the club for a burger and a beer (something we didn't enjoy at QTCB). Anyway Norm said that the club was jammed and suddenly he heard an explosion that he immediately recognized and he broke for the hatch as did everyone else, Apparently more rounds were coming in and there had been so many people in the club and environs that the bunkers were instantly full. Norm said there was no place to go and he dove into the sand as did many Marines around him. The next thing he knew he was airborne as a rocket impacted very close to him. After he landed and realized he was still alive, he sensed that he could no longer hear. He also realized that the Marine that had been laying next to him had been killed instantly and that there were many WIA.
Norm was very animated and had survived several shootdowns in his previous tour. Norm was shouting that he had been shot, shot at, and shot down, had spent a miserable year at Chu Lai then Quang Tri, and now the bastards were trying to kill him getting a beer in a club and he was just minding his own business. Not to demean the seriousness of the situation but you had to have been there.
Norm decided to get out after ten years and is a heavy equipment operator somewhere in Illinois and I understand he is as deaf as a post.
Norm was/is one of the greatest and funniest guys I knew in the Marine Corps and perhaps in my entire life. God Bless him if he ever gets to read this.
Tom Constantine
MGySgt USMCR Ret.
Posted : 2005-09-20 18:44
