A buddy of mine was MACV 1967-68

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        A buddy of mine decided to share a few pics and a Westy attaboy with me. Gil was an 18 year old kid from Texas. He trained as a radio operator and in 67 he was shipped to Vietnam. He was with a 6 man MACV team that ran a detachment of South Vietnamies. Gil told me they were between 16 and 50 years old. During TET his foward base was not over run, but they had a few days of hard fighting. All of the covered bunkers were hit including his radio room. One of the photos shows him next to the open air bunker/fighting position he had just finished days before TET. That was were he ran to when things started kicking off. Gil told me after everything was said and done they crossed the line to recover intell from the bodies. They found several of thier PF's had crossed the line before the attack and were fighting against them.

 

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After Gil rotated out he went to collage on the GI Bill and became a journalist writing for the L.A. Times untill he retired. This is one of his stories,

 

 

 

A Fort Bliss soldier's reflection: Vietnam vet relives the ordeal of his boyhood friend

By H.G. Reza \ Special to the Times

Posted:   05/28/2012 12:00:00 AM MDT

 

Its name sounded melodic sliding off an American tongue and embellished the mystery surrounding the place.

But Co Bi Than Tan was no paradise destination for the 2nd Battalion 1st Marines in 1966 and for our Army advisory team a year later.

The Camp Pendleton-based unit landed at Phu Bai, Vietnam, in December 1965. Five months later, it was thrust into Co Bi Than Tan (pronounced Kobi Ton Ton) valley on a search and destroy operation that initially met sporadic contact with the Viet Cong. That changed on the third day, May 29, 1966, the day before Memorial Day.

Two VC snipers succeeded in stopping about half of the battalion for four terrifying hours with deadly, accurate fire accounting for many of the 21 Marines killed and 16 wounded.

Robert A. Corkill, one of the dead from Golf Company, was a boyhood friend, and the first of 12 Vietnam War casualties from our hometown of San Benito, Texas.

"Every time I hear Co Bi Than Tan it sends chills up my back," said Major Ferrell, 65, of Lomita, Calif. "Everything that happened at Co Bi Than Tan was bad."

Ferrell was a rifleman in Echo Company, which was sent to Golf Company's rescue.

Survivors say the enemy snipers were sometimes no more than 30 feet away and behind them, moving from one camouflaged spider hole to another through connecting tunnels. Marines from Robert's platoon -- commanded by Lt. Charles C. Krulak who later became Marine Corps Commandant -- were getting picked off while rushing to help fallen comrades.

John Muir, 65, of Las Cruces, recounted the bloody day in the 1982 Vietnam anthology, "Everything We Had." Muir also wrote "Tigers and Songbirds," a poetry book about the war.

"It was a bad day at the office for Golf. They were calling on the radio for help, but we (Echo) got hung up for three hours," said Muir, a radioman.

There were no tales of gung ho Marines then or now, and no war stories punctuated with bravado for an impressionable reporter or rear area troops; just honest accounts of sacrifice and perseverance to remember on Memorial Day.

I left Fort Bliss and arrived in Vietnam in May 1967, almost one year to the day of Robert's death, but it took 46 years to learn that during my tour, I literally walked in the tracks he laid at Co Bi Than Tan. The surprising revelation -- learned late one night while researching San Benito's KIAs in Vietnam -- added a new character to the ensemble of Vietnam ghosts that occasionally play inside my head.

I served in MACV Advisory Team 3 at Phong Dien, Thua Thien Province with four other U.S. Army and one Australian Army advisers. We lived with, trained and fought with a company of South Vietnamese militia called Popular Forces.

Co Bi Than Tan, a shallow valley owned by a combat hardened enemy, was at the southwest corner of our tactical area and had been a Viet Cong stronghold since the French Indochina War.

In one skirmish, the enemy gained fire superiority and were laughing and shouting at our Vietnamese troops to "shoot the Americans." Artillery and Army gunships from Hue Citadel allowed us to fight another day.

Robert was athletic and leaned slightly to the right when he walked. A lower lip that angled downward and to the right drew attention to a lopsided smile. His body's tendency to favor his right side was balanced by his preference to throw left-handed. He was 17 when he left San Benito High School in 1963 to join the Marine Corps.

"Bobby was so determined to enlist. Dad gave him permission but mom wouldn't. It took her a long time and a lot of praying before she gave in," said his sister, Velma C. Talkington, 70, of Houston. "After he got killed mom was guilt-stricken and never got out of her depression."

Two uniformed Marines accompanied by the police chief and parish priest arrived at Ernesto and Marcelina Corkill's home to deliver the sad news. Robert's father was disbelieving.

"My parents had just gotten a letter from Bobby the day before saying he was fine," said Talkington. "Dad showed the sergeant the letter, telling him it wasn't so, because Bobby said he was fine."

Robert's death was not the only bad news the family received. Across town, the parents of his cousin and also my friend, Ray Guerra, were learning that he had been wounded in a separate incident on the day Robert died. Guerra, who served in the 2nd Battalion 9th Marines, returned to duty but lost his legs two months later in a mine explosion.

Entries in 2/1's S-3 (Operations) Journal for May 29 offer a confusing account of events beginning at 10 a.m. when Golf's 1st platoon reported enemy contact and five U.S. killed and nine wounded. At 10:58 a.m. the figures were corrected to two dead and seven wounded.

Thirteen minutes later the entry reads "now 3 KIA." At 11:45 a.m. "5 more KIA, 9 more WIA. Still under fire." At 1:20 p.m. the platoon advised it could not leave its position because of sniper fire.

At 2:15 p.m., Golf's 2nd platoon, sent to assist the 1st platoon, reported it had suffered five killed and three wounded. At 3:45 p.m. Echo, sent to relieve Golf, reported "we have 8 KIA and 2 WIA by sniper, got sniper."

Enemy casualties were later reported as 10 dead and 2 weapons captured. All 21 U.S. dead came from Golf and Echo.

Like others, Don Hicks is still troubled by the carnage from that day.

"It was an incredible thing that they allowed so many to get hit before they found and killed the snipers," said Hicks, 69, of Cabot, Ark. He was a rifleman in Hotel Company.

As grievous as the Marine losses were, events taking place simultaneously in Hue, less than 10 miles from the battlefield, were also disturbing and somewhat comparable to our experience in Afghanistan. Civilians were demonstrating against the U.S. military and South Vietnamese government.

The Marine convoy carrying troops to Co Bi Than Tan on May 26 had to maneuver around civilian roadblocks. Former Hotel Company commander John Giles, 69, of McLean, Va., recalled "obstacles like furniture they put on the road."

Also on May 26, students torched the U.S. Information Services library as Vietnamese police and soldiers watched, and Americans were evacuated from the city the next day. A Buddhist nun immolated herself in a protest against the U.S. sponsored Saigon government on May 29.

The Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) Command History Chronology also shows that a South Vietnamese Army officer fired on a U.S. helicopter carrying Marine and Vietnamese officers as it left Hue on May 17. Four days later, mortar rounds fired by South Vietnamese "dissidents" wounded four Air Force and 11 USMC personnel in Da Nang, 50 miles south of Hue. U.S. aircraft were temporarily removed from Da Nang Air Base to prevent sabotage.

Giles said the troops were unaffected by the protests.

The battalion will relive Vietnam and honor its fallen at a reunion in November in San Diego. Robert and San Benito's other war dead will be honored today, Memorial Day, with the dedication of a downtown veterans war memorial, and I will be there.

"I don't know anybody who didn't like Robert," said Hicks. "He was one of the better guys. He was a good Marine."

The same can be said of everyone who fell at Co Bi Than Tan. They were all good Marines.

H.G. Reza served in Vietnam from May 1967 to May 1968. He was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle for almost five years and covered law enforcement and wrote investigative pieces on the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party. He also was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times for 25 years and was a member of the paper's team of reporters focusing on