Dads time in Vietnam from a friend

I received this email and wow. After reading I was googling what had been said to me. After researching the contents of this email I sat for a long time reflecting. These were babies..these brave men only a couple years older then my daughter. I ask that after reading this post, you close your eyes and try and truly grasp how life was for these men. All they endured, in the name of Freedom. May god bless each one of our Vietnam Vets and may the world show them the respect each truly deserves.


I knew your dad quite well in Vietnam and the association asked if I could possibly contact you. First I want you to know that myself along with many other members of our organization were sorry to hear of your Dad's passing.  Dick was a brother and warrior and his loss saddened many of us who served with him directly in combat.

Your dad and I arrived in Vietnam about the same time in 67.
We were both chosen to go to Golf Company 2nd Battalion 7th Marines operating in what was known as the rocket belt around Danang. We both ended up in weapons platoon 60 m.m.mortars. Before that I did not know your dad. But in a very short time we became very good friends and I learned to count on your dad and him on me. The company's primary job was running daily patrols and night ambushes to keep the enemy out of Danang and from setting up rocket sites to hit Danang. We only had each other out in the middle of indian territory so we became a very close unit knowing that if you were in Golf each and every man walked the walk and talked the talk.

We spent alot of time every night of the week in a foxhole rain or shine sleeping and protecting our combat base from night attacks. Your dad and I spent very much time together on sweeps and many combat operations. I always felt good being in the field with your Dad because he was what being a Marine was all about. I knew I could count on him to fight to the end and cover my butt along with the other members in our group.

 Eventually we went to the Philippines to regroup after an operation called Allen Brook in May of 68. Our company became severly depleted after this op and we had to pick up new Marines to replace those we lost on the op. We returned to Vietnam as part of  helicopter attack squadron operating all over the coast of Vietnam in areas of suspected heavy concentrations of V.C. or N.V.A. We were choppered in from the ship in early morning darkness wondering what was waiting for us. Before we left the cooks on the ship would give us steake and eggs along with o dark thirty religious services. For those of us young Marines although not really religious at that time in our lives needed all the help and support we could get from the man upstairs so we attended the short service. A sailor would lead us to the ammo,grenades under red running lights and then take us up to the flight deck where our chopper was running and ready to lift us off.
We could be on the operation for a month or more before we saw the ship again.

Your dad and I left Vietnam together from the ship in a chopper to Danang where we were processed to go stateside. Your father,myself, and a Marine named Todd were sitting in the enlisted club while laying over in Okinowa. An earthquake started shaking the building and those inside ran for the door. The three of us just sat there enjoying our beers in a relative safety that we haven't experienced for well over a year. Those in Golf knew you had two choices either wounded in action or killed in action. You knew it was coming but not in which form.

So bottom line for me is, I will always love your Dad Tammy and I will feel an emptiness that only a brother can feel.