Loon - Jack McLean [56]
The music and the tape player that I brought back became our constant evening companion for the next six weeks. We’d light the candles, fire up a joint, and lose ourselves in the new music of home.
Shortly after returning, I was promoted to the rank of corporal—my final promotion in the Marine Corps—and made a squad leader. I would now be either killed or discharged as a noncommissioned officer infantry squad leader.
Very cool.
I was every ounce a United States Marine.
The highlight of my return to Charlie Company from R & R was a rare letter waiting from Sid MacLeod. I knew that his unit had seen a great deal of action since the Tet Offensive, so I was relieved to hear that he was well and in seemingly good spirits. Like me, he had just been promoted to corporal and named section leader of his mortar squad. Having left an aimless college career to enlist in the Marine Corps, he wrote that he had now decided to attend the Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., the following fall to become a Methodist minister. For the first time since I’d known him, he was excited about getting on with his life. As with me, late spring of 1968 was a time of burgeoning optimism for Sid MacLeod.
I wrote Sid back on May 7 and congratulated him on his good news. I went on to detail some of the more salacious experiences of my R & R, told him the Harvard news, and brought him up to date on our many friends that I had seen or heard of during my two passes through Da Nang.
I closed by writing: “I’ve got eighty days left, and you’re close behind, I know. Stay cool, buddy, and keep the fuck down—we’re over two thirds of the way home now.”
The letter came back to me two weeks later stamped received MAY 14 and UNCLAIMED, RETURN TO SENDER.
I sent it out again on the afternoon chopper. It was again returned a week later.
Then I understood.
Sid was dead.
Had he been wounded, the letter would have found its way to him. The Marine Corps was very good about mail. No, he had to be dead. There was no way to officially know, except to write our mutual friends in the hope that someone might have heard. Weeks later it was confirmed.
Sid MacLeod was killed in action from hostile enemy fire on May 9, 1968.
Sid was dead.
Dammit.
20
IN MAY 1968, 810 MARINES WERE KILLED IN VIETNAM and another 3,812 were wounded in action. It was the bloodiest month of the war for the Marine Corps. Of these casualties, none was from Charlie Company. Since the sixth of December 1967, we had been among the most fortunate marine infantry units in all of Vietnam.
It was under this veil that Captain William P. Negron re-entered Vietnam to begin the second of what would become his three tours of duty. As with all marines entering Vietnam in 1968, he flew into Da Nang and reported to the 4th Marine regimental headquarters in Dong Ha. From there he boarded a jeep with a driver and headed fifteen miles northwest over dusty dirt roads to the 1st Battalion headquarters in Con Thien.
Shortly before arriving at Con Thien, the jeep came to a rise that was covered with red earth only—no vegetation. All the land to the north, for as far as one could see, had been completely defoliated with Agent Orange. Beyond the rise was a bridge that forded a nearly dry stream. Surrounding the bridge was the motliest encampment Negron had ever seen. There was a wooden watchtower and a conglomerate of shacks, bunkers, and trench lines that looked like a squatters’ camp. He was incredulous to see evidence that it was, in fact, a Marine Corps outpost. Few of the resident marines that he saw were wearing helmets, flak jackets, or even shirts.
There was little sign of military discipline.
“What unit is that?” Negron inquired of his driver as they motored across the bridge.
“Charlie Company, Captain.” The driver responded over the gasping engine. “That would be Charlie Company.”
It was Negron’s first look at the Washout.
He and his driver continued through the compound and then traversed