Joe Cooper – LZ Margo

S/F

-Alan

Marines, Attached are the records I got back today on Joe Cooper.912 pages) Never know what they may send back.
Joe apparently done a second tour also.

Semper Fi,
Mike

Thanks Mike

Things have been a little slow here as Bryan has been tweaking the real important inner engine parts that make all the admin features work ….plus I am back at building up my same old web page and I am making some good progress. Of course now that I am collaborating with Al and Bryan I feel that I am getting a lot of extra positive enthusiasm that I didn’t have before when I was going at it all alone.  But later on that Mike Let just say their expertise is rubbing off on me.

Anyway Mike  Remember these two URLs

My own site at

www.Khesanh-lzmargo.net (you might need a slash at the end)

And Al and Bryan Green;s Web site blog with Gallery is at

www.Nomad81s.com

Anyway both sites are available to check out,  but as soon as Bryan gets back from his latest  job concerning the passwords and changing them, etc, you then might be able to Log in and become a user etc. Or at least an Observer of sorts.

BTW We can always use whatever constructive criticism you have for us. I mean please don’t hesitate to tell us what you think and if you want to give us some compliments then that wont hurt us either! Ha ha

Also my Guest Book and Message Board are working again, but then they have always been on line,  except once I stopped posting last April, a lot of people decided to wait and see etc what I would and do, but now it has almost seven months since it was active, but I am back and he message board is back,  and I haven’t even passed the word yet.

I guess I am waiting to see if anyone will send the info thru the Khe Sanh Vets grape vine. Eventually I will send out some email announcing things but we are still waiting to see that we are at least 90 percent functional before we commit yourself to any formal moves

Hey Rod-

First, congrats on your wedding!

Thanks for keeping me in the loop on this. I’ve got my head into a heavy project at work and haven’t had time to look through my old footlocker for my stuff from the Nam, but I should be able to get to its soon. When I do, I’ll contribute any information I can come up with.

Semper Fi my friend.

-Alan

Phil,

Thanks for the info. i will forward your reply to Doc and the others.

Rod

Eloy,

I realize now with Doc’s e-mail it must have been Echo, not Golf, that Oskalanec sp and Moore were with, and therefore Echo the company that hit the shit patrolling out of Margo and why the general ordered them back to the DMZ against Maj. Lynch’s witnesses. I didn’t realize they took a KIA with that contact, as Doc says.

On another point, it wasn’t Jimmmy Shields you were talking about == he was killed down near Da Nang on the last op I went on before rotating, as we went out on a truck convoy. I had actually assigned him to the truck with the batallion rank, thinking I was giving him a huss. But they must have seen all the antennna sticking out of that truck as we headed out on the op — I think we were acting as a blocking force — and recognized it as a truck with rank on it, and there were all kinds of WIAs on the truck. At first he was just a WIA, though wounded badly, I heard (we were several trucks back with Whiskeys), but later, I think Lt. Green, told me after he had let others get the first medevacs his body went into shock with the severity of the wounds and he died. So that would have been in December, well after Margo.

Hope you had a great time at your wedding. You can forward this to Doc et al.

Thanks, and tell Smitty to call me again.

Walt

Doc Lancaster,

Appreciate the reply. It seems that putting all our heads together, we

Are getting out all the correct info. I ran around with echo company off and on as a radio operator with an 81s fo during the early part of my tour. It was in sept., oct, nov. Around the phu bai, hue area. I don’t know if you

Were at Khe Sanh but echo ran into some heavy s – the whole time they were on hill 861 or 861 a.

I spoke to lt. Breeding (echo co) during our convention in San Diego in 2000 or 2001.

Again, thanks for the info.

S/F

ROD

the time lines are about right. I was a doc with echo….3rd plt. We hit margo and moved out to the north…camped out down by the river that first night..no problems. Next day we moved up steep terrain…the trail had steps built into the mountain. We reached a hump on the ridge and dug in…next day a patrol ran into some nva just up the trail…we moved after them and got ambushed. We had one KIA and abou 7 WIA. Pettit was killed. The next day we moved back to margo…was a nasty hump, very steep…when we got back we were told not to dig in cause we would not be staying there long.

I fell asleep on the side of a bomb crater, just up from mortars. The b52s were bombing but were way north of where we had been. I woke up to the mortars coming in and immediately one of the mortar guys was hit. They mortared us for three days…then we moved down closer to the river and ran patrols for a few days…think about 3..then actually moved back to margo to get choppered out to the turnpike.

the first day on the turnpike we moved up the road and got off the lz. Rounds were passing over us headed towards the lz. Me and about a squad went back to treat the wounded on the lz. got a chopper in late in the evening and it seems even after dark. we then left the lz. then we moved around that road and attacked the hills…was a very tough couple of months.

Hi Rod and Walt-

The guy killed on the transport truck was Jimmy Shields. It was on the Cua Viet op along the northern coastline just south of the DMZ, if I remember correctly (and I’m discovering that I’m not always remembering as correctly as I once thought!)

And I didn’t know until today that Parker was killed separately from Oskilanec and Moore – I saw their bodies afterwards, but always thought Oskilanec and Parker had been in the same hole.

To Rod: We had land lines to all the gunpits, but some was cut by the incoming. The “lack of communications” wasn’t your fault – we had great communications until mortar rounds started falling from the sky.

And to set the record straight: Bruce Pilch swiped the Navy’s bullhorn. I would never do such a thing.

It’s great to hear from Walt Philbin! I remember on that Cua Viet op seeing you making notes about all that we had been through, saying that you were going to write about it some day. I’m glad you finally got around to it, because your eye for detail and your writing ability bring those days back into sharp focus.

Smitty, who else from 81s (or as Doc Lancaster put it, those damned piss-tube humpers) are you connected with? I corresponded with Joe Cooper regularly until a couple of years ago and a bit with Billy Ventura and Fritz Torrey before that. You’re the best-connected of all of us. Have you ever been in touch with Manny Ramos or Gary Engman or Sgt Long or SSgt Tasker? You mentioned that you had seen the younger Ballard many years ago. I wonder how many of our guys are in the Khe Sanh Vets or other organizations? I know that Sgt Warren Wadkins died recently and Gunny Fab died quite some time ago. It would sure be nice to know who’s still with us and how they’ve fared.

Thanks to all for sharing your memories.

S/F

-Alan

Walt, boy, it’s really great hearing from you after forty long years. I have fond memories (and pictures) of our time in hell. Really good memories of you, lacey, rezentes, lt. Green, pilch, smitty, ramos, cooper, engman,brown-bey,sgt. Long, ventura, gysgt fablyonski (sp), sgt. Tasker, etc. I hope you don’t mind but I’m forwarding your accounts of events to the rest of the platoon.

Your recollection of events is almost identical to mine. Evidently, we were choppered to LZ Susan after Margo. Talking about where the sun doesn’t shine, LZ Susan was it. It was jungle canopy, steep, and it seemed we could have been hit with a ground assault without knowing it since we were in the middle of the jungle without any clearance. I vaguely remember the misfiring of an 81’S mortar. I remember that we got a new radioman while we were in Margo but I don’t remember his name. There was a new guy who seemed very cocky for being new in-country. I could be wrong, but when the battalion moved south of da dang in middle/late October, this new guy was killed when the transport truck he was in, hit a mine. I could be wrong though. I had also forgotten that smitty became the comm. chief when I left. There was so much chaos at Margo that some details have been forgotten.

I do remember that parker did not want the assignment and I remember either lt. Green or gy SSgt fab (red moustache) telling me that I had to do what was best for the platoon, not what an individual wanted. I’ve always remembered that advice. Parker never made it back from the riven run as he was killed.

I always wandered why we slept on the ammo boxes at LZ Susan, but after reading your account of it being muddy and everything, I now know. Just like Margo, me not knowing why we hadn’t dug it really well like we had done everywhere else we’d been, especially Khe Sanh. It was because the layer under the top soil was rock!!

Regarding the navy phantoms right before the incoming. I read an account, and I believe smitty has info on this, and I think the article was titled “debacle at LZ Margo”. Anyway, when the decision was made by “higher ups” to bring everyone to the LZ so the surrounding area could be bombed (star lighted??) By the jets, that’s when I guess all hell broke loose. If I remember correctly, when most of the bn. Or a lot of the bn. Was on the LZ, the NVA had us all together, where they wanted us – sitting ducks.

I don’t remember too much about the water run, other than I was suppose to go, but parker took my place when we had the disagreement regarding him becoming comm. chief. Parker and I had gone on R and R to Tokyo together. Parker had his b’day right around the time he was killed. He use to get letters from a Diane sears from s.f., calif. But the letters stopped coming in late summer. I could see a change in him at that time. I thought oskilanic and moore had gone with him, but after reading accounts from the others, they had a direct hit on their hole.

Smitty has pictures of us, including you, at Margo. We were all with lt. Green discussing something and most of us did not have our flak jackets on. This could be the time right before the incoming.

The orange bullhorn story has started to make the rounds recently. Either lt. Green or Bruce stole it (or, in their words, possibly borrowed it for a special assignment) from the USS Princeton. It came in handy when incoming came in and our communication wasn’t in place. As Pedro, I believe, said, we were relaxing a bit too much since we hadn’t received any incoming, etc. As comm. chief, I don’t know how much of the lack of communication was my fault. I don’t think we had run wire to all our positions. Thank god for the confiscated bullhorn that lt. Green had. It was quite chaotic during the incoming. I remember lt. Green getting everyone focused on what needed to be done. Everyone was trying to locate the direction of the NVA flashes. Cooper, the machine gunner, must have seen something because he was firing away with his m-60.

I do remember our equipment (back packs, m-16’S were all riddled with shrapnel). I now remember the “spookey” (puff the magic dragon) firing all those tracer rounds like it was an endless fireworks display at a 4TH of July celebration. It was a long, long night.

Philbin, thanks for answering. I knew deep down that eventually I’d hear from you and lt. Green. I’ve been in touch with Bruce and smitty for several years now. It’s been a great two weeks. First, making contact with lt. Green and now with y0u. Let’s stay in touch.

S/F,

ROD

Rod,

This is Walt Philbin. Thanks for the run-down, it’s really great to hear from you, and I can help you with some of your stuff I think, though nothing for certain.

About your question about time-line: I don’t know how long we were at LZ Margo but I think it was about two nights. We flew on the morning of the third day there, I think but am not certain, by chopper to another hill or location closer I think to the DMZ but not in the DMZ.

I remember this fairly well because when 81s was setting in at the new place, which I remember as a thin finger of land almost like a long grass-topped ridge or grass-typed path wide enough for vehicles (though i don’t remember any), someone on 81s accidentally misfired a round that landed close enough to where Golf company has temporarily set up before I guess launching a patrol. I remember this because Lt. Green had gone off to check in with either Major Lynch at the BN command post or somebody else and I had not gone with him but was back at the Whiskey CP monitoring the radio when that Golf Company CO named I think something like Reardon or Riordan that replaced the one before we left Khe Sanh (Hill 558) as Golf Company commander began broadcasting a query over the radio about whether the round that just landed around his company (Golf) was a friendly round. He was directing the query to John Brown Whiskey, which I think was our call sign at that time, and at which I was the radio operator then having been broken in partly by you and a guy named maybe everly or I can’t remember his name, the radio man that was with you on the radio when we were getting mortared on Margo, who was that?

Anyway, I grabbed the handset after yelling out to where the guys were setting up the 81s down a little distance from me (I could hear them but not see them down this grassy ridge or whatever), and asking them if we had fired. At first the word came back negative, and I quickly relayed that to the Golf Captain. But immediately after I did that, someone down the line of Whiskeys yelled up to me that yes, it was our round, apparently fired by mistake when setting up. I shouted at them to check-fire, and called the Golf CO back again and quickly told him, to his relief, that the round was friendly and that “it won’t happen again, Golf 6!” He was too relieved to chew me out, in fact, as I recall.

But I know that was not the DMZ, but was the place we went between Margo and the DMZ. I know it because I remember I got a fever there that night, I think, and, since I had been about nine or 10 months in country and hadn’t an R&R, asked Lt. Green if he wouldn’t mind me taking one now. He said yes, and I flew out and went to Bangkok, and when I got back I ran across one of the Whiskey A-gunners or gunner? named Lanahan, I think, at the airport in Da Nang or maybe one of the LZ’s in Dong Ha or whatever as I made my way back up to the extreme northeast coastline where 2/26 was at the time east of Con Thien. Lanahan told me that while I was gone, Brownbey had gotten killed, a shrapnel round in the neck from I thought he said a 152 mm round, but I see that Smitty (EF) has better info in the e-mail the other day about it being a 130 mm rocket and also being a skull wound. I remember being pretty well devastated and remembering how just before i went on R&R, Brownbey had regaled me about what I had to look forward to in Bangkok, since he had already gone, and reminded us that he had less than 30 days left in the Nam.

Lanahan told me that after I left, 2/26 had been choppered up into the DMZ itself, and later when I got back EF Smith and the others had clued me in on how they had caught the incoming no sooner than they hit the LZ inside the DMZ I think, and that along with Brownbey getting killed, another little guy had gotten blinded by the incoming and that Smitty had been with him at the time too. I think it must have been after this that the BN then was flown to a relatively non-contact area as I say on the beach of the North China Sea just south of the DMZ to do some maneuevers/landings there. Non-contact.

A few other things stand out in my mind:

1) yes, I think you and I and maybe someone else shared a very small and very shallow hole a LZ Margo with a guy named Cooper who i remember as a forward observer, who caught a wound in the ass from the shrapnel either while in our hole or he dove in the hole with us
right after getting hit. I remember trying to console him after the shit stopped, telling him he had a million dollar wound (though not knowing what the f i was talking about) and then I remember with another Marine holding him up and helping him walk to the DMZ past all the body-bags because we were going to get our wounded out first, no matter how long it took, even if it meant sleeping overnight with our dead bodie in the body bags by the LZ, which I think we did. (I remember Cooper being this squared-away forward observer, who always seemed to know what he was doing, and then how bad it was when he caught the wound.)

2) Who knows whether I am remembering accurately, but I recall the night before LZ Margo Smitty and I being at the Rockpile and nosing around and coming across some batallion maps of Khe Sanh that FOs had used around there, and copping them. And of flying in the next day and seeing Navy Phantoms I think fly so low over the valley adjacent to our hill at Margo or over the next hill where incoming might be coming from and being able to almost see the pilot’s face because he was nearly level with us when he dropped his shit into the valley with a loud boom. I also remember trying to dig into the impossible rocky surface not far from the LZ, the same hole I referred to above.

I remember listening on the radio to John Brown 3, and hearing Golf go out on a patrol as soon as they flew in and immediately encountering what they believed to be token contact, but then the general back in the rear at either Quang Tri or Dong Ha or wherever, Alexander Graham 6, I seem to think, worrying that Golf might be chewed up by an NVA division, and ordering them to return to the DMZ while he b-52ed, or maybe it was another 2/26 line company.

Then I remember Major Lynch, John Brown 3, the ex-o from Annapolis, trying to talk the general into keeping Golf out there, that it was only token resistance and that if the general made us return all the grunt cos in to near the DMZ, which chances are the NVA would have registered, we would be like fish “in a goldfish bowl” for them, I think he said. But he couldn’t change Alexander Graham 6 mind, who was dead-set on having B-52s work the area where Golf enountered the contact, so he wanted everyone a click away from that too, and insisted the grunts return. It was than that I rememvber Oskalanek sp? and Moore come walking by my hole, returning back to the DMZ with the line company, I think Golf, where one was the radio operqtor and the other the FO for 81s. I liked them both a lot.

Anyone who has more info on the water run, I’d like to know more about that. I didn’t know that Osk and Moore got it there, I thought they were in holes that took direct hits. I knew that Parker was on the water run; he was a really nice guy who I had shared a bunker once when dropping in to Con Thien one summer day from down the road at Charley 2, a bunker where he was cleaning his gun, I think, while we both looked out and could see the NVA flag on the other side of the Ben Hai sp? River, right from the bunker there at Con Thien. That was the only time I went there; that same day I saw you down in the main Whisky CP and visited there too.

For my part at Margo, I was standing around; I think it was so hot a bunch of us had taken our flak jackets off, and we were waiting or listening while the B-52s dropped on areas, before the general would clear it for the grunts to go there. Suddenly I heard like a couple of thud-thuds, and then the first crash-crunches all around or the incoming rounds. (Were they 61 or 82mm rounds or both? Not that it mattered to me then.)

I dove for the hole, what good it was. I remember this happening twice, I don’t think very long, but it seemed like forever, and there was this smell of I guess gunpowder in the air. During one of the volleys, there was you and Cooper. During the first one, or ne of them, I recall Lieut. Green, leaning out of the hole with a bull-horn, exhorting Marines from 81s to get on the guns and return fire. But I remember your assistant at 81s radio, this guy i referred to, maybe now with Lynch at batallion at another pos on the LZ, asking anybody
to try to get a fix or a muzzle flash or something, because we couldn’t fire back if we didn’t know where they were. I remember thinking, in the middle of all the terror, thoughts like, “where the hell did he get a bullhorn,” and “Jeez, he’s textbook Marine out of a John Wayne movie,” it was so surreal, and I certainly remember being very happy and thankful he was there and doing his thing. (After Katrina, I told one of the
editors who had been a really good leader in those first bad few days, that he reminded me of a Lt. Green and the way he had been at LZ Margo, and how much you needed someone like that at times like that.) I also remember, on either the first group or second group of rounds, sticking my head slightly out of the hole long enough to see a crazy Marine named Kelley from Chicago or St. Louis, who I actually got in touch with about 10 years after the Nam in 78, but never again, coming out of his hole with canteens and pouring water over the unopened boxes of 81 ammo that had taken a partial hit and were smoking. And I thought, God Kelly, thank you, but I’m about to watch you go up in smithereens.

Afterward, I remember finding a dud 61mm round I think, near the lip of my hole, unexploded, and my pack outside the hole with my rifle, the pack riddled with little pieces of shrapnel that caused tiny holes in a letter I had just received from my little 10-year-old cousin, asking me to be safe, and the trigger-guard of my M-16 blown away.

I remember Lt. Green going out afterward and checking on things and returning and telling me about Parker and Osk and Moore, whose names were among the first I looked for and saw on the Vietnam Memorial in D.C. the first time I went there after it was built.

I remember that night, after a chopper had come and gotten Cooper and other wounded, sitting and watching Spooky the fixed wing aircraft with the incredible number of 7.62 mm rounds that amounted to an unbroken streak of red and a belated equally unbroken buzzing sound, fly up there around us all night like a Guardian Angel. And despite that I remember feeling more that any other time of my tour that there was a good chance I wasn’t getting out alive. And yet being too exhausted and numb, really to worry too much about tomorrow or to entertain any terror. (but still I remember cheering spooky on, saying over and over to myself and to him, don’t run out of gas, please.)

The morning we flew out of Margo I remember the Gunny with the red mustache trying to buck everybody up; and I remember thinking when we flew out without incoming or incident on the same LZ that jets had to put smoke down the day before so we could get our wounded out, isn’t this war beyond comprehension, when a place where there was so much death and danger one day can pose no problem the next day getting out.

When we flew in to the next place and got over the misfired round, I remember hearing then, I think, how pissed off Major Lynch was, that he had called the people back in the rear “gut-watchers” and almost got himself court-martialed with what he wanted to tell the general about making the line companies return to near the LZ.

I remember hearing him say to someone over the radio about this time. “Nobody’s gonna watch out for ole John Brown’s ass except ole John Brown himself.” I remember someone saying how isn’t it typical how, as f- up as we were by Margo, losing what was it Smitty, 25 or 35 dead and 150 or what wounded?????, that what do they do but fly us even closer to the DMZ; (then, after that, into the very place itself).

But after all that I heard that a grunt company from 2/26, patrrolling out of the intermediate place between margo and the D, came across 1/9, and they were in even worse shape. Which figured.

Good to hear from you. Anyone else who wants to share their memories, I’m receptive.

Walt

PS Rod: Congratulations and Happy Wedding!!!

I appreciate your replies. It cleared up some of the things I wasn’t sure about but I’m still not clear on my timeline.

Before I began, Rachel is my “sweetie”. As you know we’ll be tying the knot this Saturday (if she doesn’t change her mind!!!). Jeremiah McDonald is my son-in-law (married to Rachel’s
daughter, Margaret. Jeremiah also happens to be an active duty marine (SSgt) who will be on his way to okayed next month.

I must have gone to the DMZ with the rest of you because I distinctly
remember being choppered out of Margo and going to another hill that was heavily jungled. I remember the trip didn’t take long and I remember we were pretty happy to be getting out of Margo in one piece, physically anyway.

I thought we had been at Margo only 3 or 4 days. Did we leave Margo before October 1??? I must have been at the new LZ (after Margo) for a couple of days before I rotated to the USS Princeton.

While on the Princeton I remember hearing about the DMZ and that some of our wounded were in the infirmary. I went down and found Larry Townes (81’s radioman from Missouri). He had shrapnel wounds on his legs and arms. He told me about brown-bey getting practically blown away. I left the Princeton on the 5th. For Okinawa.

Back to Margo. Cooper was hit during the incoming if I’m not mistaken. I remember the night of the incoming. It was pitch dark but those in the hole with me could hear the moaning of the wounded who were right above us. I’m pretty sure cooper was in that bunch or it might have been him by himself. Someone kept calling for a medevac which finally came in sometime during the night.

Lt., and pedro,thanks for all the updated info. Bruce, smitty if you remember anything about the dates please let me know. Thanks!!

S/F, ROD

Hi Rod-

Pedro’s got the timeline right. We choppered to the Z on October 1, if my memory is correct (and were boresighted when we got there). If your rotation
date was October 3, you made that trip with us.

Rod, I remember calling you to help me identify those guys on Margo. We accounted for the rifle company dead and had two bodies left over we hadn’t
identified (we had already identified Larry Bryan and one other guy Moore? from our platoon.) You came down to where we were wrapping the bodies in
ponchos and ID’ed Oskilanec and Parker who, as I recall, had been in the same hole when it took a direct hit. I knew both men pretty well and was not sure it was them. Your description of their condition was accurate. I’m sure that memory will always be with you, as it will be with me.

I have another memory of that afternoon I haven’t shared with anyone. I don’t know if you remember PFC Shows. During that long hump through the bush
we took on the op before Margo, he straggled (he had been on light duty on the ship and was out of shape.) Gunny Fab and I fell back to “encourage” him to
keep going (probably using more bad words than good). Anyway, he caught a chestful of shrapnel during the mortar attack on Margo and had a sucking chest wound. Something had happened to his vision as well, because he could barely breathe and couldn’t see. I waited with him for the Medevac bird and held his hand. He kept asking me if he had done all right on the hill that day and I kept assuring him that he had. He died on the hospital ship.

Thanks to both of you guys for the much-appreciated words, but as Pedro said, “We were all brave.”

Semper Fi,

-Alan

Hi. Eloy, Lt. Green, Eric, Bruce

Eloy, your memories are very close to reality as to the Lz Margo incident. The evening the shelling began, most of the platoon was sitting on
the ground all bunched up. Lt. was talking to us. Maybe a briefing. We were relaxed after two-three days there with no activity. First round came in
and we split to our respectives holes. Shelling stopped and word came about the casualties. First Oskilanik (we were at boot camp together) and Parker.
Was said they took a direct hit. Eloy said Moore was with them. I think NVA FOs had us on sight all the time, considering the results of Margo and DMZ.

Eloy, Oct.1, the platoon (whatever was left) was choppered out of Margo on direct flight to DMZ, no scale. Now, Eloy, one of the pictures I sent you of
Margo, shows a marine with his belongings waiting to board the chopper. We used to take photos of the guys leaving Zoom it; it might be you. Also,
Margo was disaster 1. DMZ was disaster 2. If you did not experience a second disaster, thank God, you were a short timer, then you did not entered the DMZ.

Lt.Green demonstrated great leadership under fire. He fired the correct orders, kept the guys tight and discipline did not crumble. Every able marine
knew exactly what to do and worked under fire with the wounded and dead in high spirit. I heard Lt. call battalion to tell them we could not hold the Lz and
he wanted to get the guys out. He did not ask. His decision was granted. I am sure many lives were saved because of his initiative.

Oh, Eloy, since most of the time you were with the radio guys; Do you remember the radio operator who was struck by lightning at Margo? If you do, let us know.

Semper Fi, Guys.

Marquez

Guys, I’m somewhat confused as to the timeline of events after we left Margo. I remember being choppered out of Margo to another godforsaken hill
for a few days. I remember digging in with someone possibly Bruce or Rezentes and staying in that hole for a couple of days. i remember we slept on the ammo boxes. The night before i rotated home I said my goodbyes to everyone. Next day I waited the whole day but not a single chopper came in. I spent the night at the LZ and the next morning a chopper came in early. I went to Vandergriff and then to Dong Ha and then to the USS Princeton. I know I was
on the Princeton on the 3rd of October because it was my birthday (the second one I spent in the Nam ). Were we choppered to the DMZ from Margo or did we go somewheres else??????? Please enlighten me.

I must say that Margo is still on my mind almost everyday. Thanks to you, Lt. Green and our machinegunner, Cooper, the situation could have been much
worse. You took charge and got everyone focused on what we needed to do. If I remember correctly, our mortars weren’t set in because of possibly
everyone trying to dig in, which was impossible because of the rock layer directly underneath the ground.

I remember when Parker (calif), Oskilinac (Minn , Mich or Wis ) and Moore (w. Vir) went to the river to get water. They were all caught in an ambush or hit with 82 mortars. From what I’ve read, we lost about 20 Marines within minutes by the river. I believe I was suppose to go but Parker took my place. I remember, since I was rotating soon, asking Parker to be the new Comm. Chief but he wasn’t too pleased with the assignment. He really enjoyed going out with the FO’s. The next day, or possibly that same afternoon, I remember Lt. Green being with the bodies at the bottom of the hilll. Lt. Green, I remember you calling me to identify the bodies of Parker, Oskilinac and Moore. It was the longest and lonliest walk,(approx. 50-75 yds.) I’ve ever taken in my life. I felt I could have been snipered or zeroed in by a mortar at any time. The bodieswere pretty well torn up, already turning blue, and decaying, possibly because of the heat. The smell or stench wasn’t very pleasant. I remember when a chopper finally came in to retrieve the bodies. They dropped what seemed to
be a large fish net where the bodies were placed, hooked to the bottom of the chopper and then flown away like a bunch of caught fish. Any help with what I
remember? I also remember that during the heavy incoming at Margo I was in a what seemed like a one foot deep hole by 4 ft. wide. I beleive

Philbin and a couple of others were in the same hole. We were about 25-40 meters below Cooper and his machine gun. Manny Ramos was with GySgt Fab in a two man hole. I remember death being imminent and with me having less than two weeks left in country.

What pieces of the puzzle am I missing????

Hi Pedro-

It’s so good to hear from you. Your earlier message about the attack in the DMZ brought back a lot of details that I had forgotten. Your comment about
“mixed emotions” is true. I remember the round that landed on the trail we were on and seeing that several of the guys had been hit. The randomness of who lived and who died was part of our everyday existence, just as was the very real chance that you could be killed with 16 days left in-country.

It reminds me of the message Father John Cregan gave at a memorial service last spring at Arlington for members of my officer class, “In a time of great
peril, some were taken, and we were spared.” (In an earlier life, Father Cregan was Major Cregan, CO of Echo 2/26 during our time of great peril.)

The name and photo of Frank Skocich aren’t familiar to me. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t in 81s, but could easily have been in another unit in 2/26. I vaguely remember the lightning incident on Margo, but the incoming we took and the outstanding way the 81s platoon responded are very clear memories. Sorry I can’t be of more help in identifying the Marine who was struck. By the way, my son Bryan is in the process of setting up a website for the
platoon where we’ll be able to post photos and memories. Smitty will manage the content for us, since he’s so good at it.

It is a very great pleasure to me to be in contact with you and the others. We went through some difficult days which have bonded us and shaped the rest of
our lives.

Semper Fi,

-Alan

PS Tell your wife that I’m pretty sure you’re reading the DMZ Times in the photo. Good newspaper, but delivery was poor (they had trouble keeping up
with our address changes.)

Hi, Lt. Green

Wish you are well.

Lt., we are trying to identify the radioman who was hit by lightning at Lz Margo. I understand he was one of your personal radio operator. Attached is
a photo of Frank Skocich. Is he the guy? Please let us know. Other pictures attached. I am the one reading what I think was a map I had. My wife asked me if Iwas reading the local morning newspaper. Yes dear, just out of the press, I replied.

Semper Fi

-Marquez

Pedro?

You are like a new and refreshing voice from our 81s and 2/26 past. And not only do you have some great memories with serious attention to details etc, but you don’t mind writing about this stuff either. Plus the way you have been expressing yourself with your words and messages. Dang! It has been awesome just reading and listening to your tone and level of enthusiasm.

I especially like your comments on SSgt Comeau and what kind of a man he was. Especially how he expressed his feelings concerning the young Marines that had just been killed. I never got to know SSgt Comeau that well, but I do remember two things about him and one thing was that his feet were really hurting, and the other thing was, Comeau was one of the guys that wanted to catch that Boa Constrictor that was hanging around our perimeter, and later let it go loose in the Princeton Mess Hall once we got back to the ship. Hey! A Marine like that must be a 110 percent

Solid Marine! Ha ha.

Also it sounds like you might have been with me when we carried Lancaster Brownbey and Monte Henderson to the choppers that day. According to the so called official records we got hit with 18-20 130s. All I know is whatever kind of rounds they were they were on target and it was a scenario of total chaos.

Now this is a small point but I don’t remember Browne-Bey’s neck wound and the bleeding. However, I do remember most vividly his head wound as there was a small piece of his skull missing as it must have been blown out because of the concussion from the incoming artillery round. Also, as we were carrying him to the chopper (Maybe you were with me at the time) I remember thinking that if I could only find the missing piece of his head, then maybe I could have stuck it back into his skull. Kind of like what you would do with one of them pieces of a picture puzzle if you know what I mean. Hmm? In retrospect, this sounds ridiculous but that is really how I was thinking at the time. Hmm? A small mental comfort when you are carrying one of your comrades to the med evac chopper.

Also one more thing I have to ask you or tell you.

I am not the guy that was hit by lightning at LZ Margo but I do remember that incident. And very vividly too. I mean we in the 81s FDC were not that far away at the time. I also recall, that before the guy got hit with lightning (Via the land lines) he had just been knocked out by the concussion of a mortar round that had landed just about three feet from him a few minutes earlier.

Apparently those guys had a little sandbag wall that protected them from the shrapnel. Plus like all of the 81s positions, I think they also had dug some kind of a circular perimeter. This which would have been below the ground, And of course it would have been tough to dig as LZ Margo was such a bad place to dig in, as it was so rocky. Also when the Marine you are talking about that got hit by lighting I think he was splicing the wire with his teeth. But who knows? So much chaos and confusion at the time and so long ago for us to try to remember by ourselves.

Anyway Pedro, according to the “official” records, there were only 5 Marines killed from 81s platoon (Not counting the Corpsmen) so I am wondering if the Marine that you were talking about was Frank Skocich. According to Frank’s second cousin, Ken Curcio, ( Another recipient on this message) Frank was supposed to have been a radioman at LZ Margo. So maybe we are getting close to finding out what is what.

I have attached a photo of Frank Skocich so maybe it might ring a bell to you and if so, then it would be nice for his family. At least to have some idea of how he died and under what crazy conditions. I mean what can be worse when you have the NVA dropping mortars on you while the weather decides to make things even more crazy? Of course I also have a bunch of 81s Marines attached to this message and maybe they will come up with some memories.

Semper Fidelis