L.Cpl. Meadows Hotel 2/5 The day he got wounded

[AnDuc49]

I was talking to Meadows the other day and I thought it would be interesting to share his story on the same day he was wounded 48 years ago.

 

Hotel 2/5 was one of the last companies to arrive in Hue. Once arriving in Hue, Hotel 2/5 set up CP on the second floor of Hue University in the library. Capt. Christmas told him that he wanted him to take his squad down to a yacht club.

Being a hillbillie from Kentucky, he asked "What in the hell is a Yacht Club?".

Christmas replied a building where they had the boats and stuff. Just go straight down Le Loi St. Meadows didn't want to take his squad because they were low on men so he asked for volunteers. About 10 guys volunteered and they started stripping off all non essentials, just ammo and grenades. He also tried to motivate his men.

In his own words he said, "All right, you first five son of bitches are gonna die. You next five sons of bitches are going to get wounded. I'm the only one who's gonna make it down that street."

Just as they were about to go, Christmas called Meadows upstairs and told him to delay. I believe it was the next morning and they were about to advance again when Christmas called Meadows upstairs again and said that they were going to postpone the attack and that his squad was to support Foxtrot Co. during their assault on the treasury building.

Again Meadows asked, "What the hell is a treasury?"

Christmas simply replied, "Where they make all of the money Meadows"

Christmas wanted them to get on the roof, but there weren't any staircases so they shimmied up about 20 ft using lead pipes to get up on top of the roof. They used ropes to bring up 3.5 in rocket launchers and for an hour they rained fire on the treasury which was to their bottom left. Meadows estimated that the roof was about 80 feet long and 8 ft wide. Well after awhile, two black guys in the squad, Pal and Smith, were firin pg through a crack in the wall about 3 ft wide. An NVA got an RPG right through the crack and it exploded in the corner, blinding both men and cutting one of their throats. He pulled them off to the side where they lowered them down using ropes. He turned around just in time to see his RTO get shot so he helped him out of his radio and lowered him down. Then a Lt.Myers told him to get the civilian off the roof. Apparently there was a marine Sgt. who was a photographer and later helped write several Vietnam films. As he was moving toward the photographer, a mortar round landed and nearly knocked him off the roof, but it just knocked him out and put some shrapnel into him.

 

When he woke up, he was strapped to a stretcher and was being taken off a helicopter at Phu Bai. In the operating room they cut off his fatigues and by looking at his reflection, he saw that he head a head wound. He said that if he hadn't been knocked out, he would've refused the medevac. So just about as they were going to operate on him, the NVA started hitting the base with everything they had. 120s, 122 rockets, etc. The nurses and doctors ran off leaving him still strapped to the stretcher on the table along with several other men. He saw Pal rip out the IVs from his arm and run butt naked to one of the bunkers. He said he couldn't blame him.

As he was lying there, he wondered how he his mama was going to believe that he died in a hospital, strapped to a stretcher unable to move. Out of nowhere, a corpsman came back (by the way he would love to know his name) and started putting people under beds and on the floor. He went over to Meadows and flipped him over onto the floor with the stretcher still attached to him. He said that the attack lasted for about 20 minutes. That was how he ended February 3, 1968

[SgtMaddoxUSMC]

wow what a story! It must be so frustrating not knowing the Corpsman for all these years! Maybe, somehow, through modern technology, they will find each other!