Terry Webber

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Joined the Association:  02/10/03

Note:

Terry was with Hotel 2/4, and served on LZ Neville, with 60 mm mortars, in February of 1969.  He was there on Feb.25^th, and made it through.  He holds TWO Purple Hearts from when he was with Golf 2/27.  He started as a rifleman and soon became a grenadier handling an M-79 Grenade Launcher.  He was hit on May 5, 1968 and again on May 6, 1968.  Apparently, some guys don’t know when to give up!

My Story

 “Do Rats Speak Vietnamese, Sir?”

Going back in my head, after almost 40 years of trying to forget, I know that I see the war different than the way it was then. Some things are mixed up and confused, some things just don’t make sense. I see flashes of my combat experience, mostly horrible images of the effects of the reality of war.  I have talked to other Marines from my unit years later about certain experiences and I get two or three different stories. I may never know the whole truth I may not want to know everything that I did and witnessed. I do know for sure that a lot of young Brave Marines died and were wounded all around me so that I could come home alive, and have a family, and a life of freedom, in the best country on this earth. I will never forget those who gave their lives, limbs, and minds for my country and me.  May God bless America! 

I fought two very different wars in Vietnam during my thirteen months tour of duty. One down South, Quang Nam, flat, rice paddies, VC (Viet cong) villages, snipers, and booby traps.  I fought another war up North by the DMZ, (demilitarize zone) a lush, mountain jungle terrain, NVA (north Vietnam army), suicide sappers.  I fought both wars in the same tour (Marines thirteen months).  Agent Orange (Defoliant) was used in both areas to kill the vegetation so the enemy could not easily camouflage or hide their positions.  Many Veterans, American and Vietnamese, and their children suffer, have died and are still dying from the affects of Agent Orange.  Airplanes on Operation Allen Brook sprayed my Platoon with Agent Orange, down by Da Nang on Goi Noi Island.  The lush, mountain jungle terrain was dead from the effects of agent Orange in a lot of the areas I fought and patrolled on the DMZ. This is my forth writing of this story. I have tried to ad more information of the events as I remember them. There is no way I can fully explain the horrors of war, and comradely I felt for my fellow marines.  With that said, I’ll begin my story.

After a grueling eight-week boot camp at MCRD (Marine corps recruit depot), San Diego California, and two months of advance Infantry training at Camp Pendleton California, on Feb.14, 1968, Valentines Day, I was in Staging Battalion, Camp Pendleton.  Early that morning we were awakened and trucked to El Toro Air Base, CA.  No phone calls home, just saddle up and get on the trucks.  We joined the 27^th Marines at the airport.  I was assigned to 1^st Platoon Golf Company 2^nd Battalion 27^th Marine Regiment.  We boarded jumbo Air force jets in full combat gear and M-14 rifles and deployed as a combat unit to Vietnam.  Because we went through so many time zones we had Feb.14, 1968, Valentines Day twice.  For many Marines in my platoon it was their second tour, and for many their worst nightmare.  I felt that being with so many combat Vets, maybe my chances of coming home alive would be better.  I soon found out that training, instinct, and luck had a lot to do with my chances of coming home alive.  We landed at Da Nang Airport and were trucked about 20 miles South/West to our base camp in Quang Nam Province.

My Platoon was assigned to guard a Gook (enemy) POW (Prisoner of War) Camp.  The four guard towers were about 30 ft tall and The Ocean was the rear perimeter.  We rotated squad duties:  one day patrol, one night on guard tower watch, one night on ambush and night patrol.  We rode on Amtracs from a Marine camp at Marble Mountain just up the dirt road from us. At night we would set up along the river and shoot at Gook sand pans (boats) with the 50 Cal. Machine guns mounted on the a Amtracs.  We even had a day off.  We would walk to a Navy Sea bee camp down the road towards China Beach and eat in the mess hall.  That was one of the few times I got to eat in a mess hall in Nam. The Navy Sea Bees let the Marines cut to the front of the line because we ran the patrols that secured the area. Some nights the gooks would rocket the bases around us and the Da Nang Air base and hospital, rockets never hit us because they didn’t want to cause casualties to the POWs.  I thought I had it made.  But after about 3 weeks we were sent to an area of heavily booby-trapped VC villages surrounded by rice paddies, a place called Duc-Ky in Quang Nam Province We replaced a Marine platoon that had taken a lot of combat casualties.

On my first patrol in Duc-Ky (Dodge City), I was hit (shot) in the bottom of my right boot by a sniper as my boot hit the ground.  I went down in pain and surprise as the platoon returned fire.  The Marine behind me yelled “Corpsman up!”  I was going home, I thought, as I rolled on my back.  Doc took my boot off, the bullet left a welt on the bottom of my foot, didn’t even bleed.  No Purple Heart, no going home, just a new nickname, “Hot Foot.”  After many booby traps, snipers, and VC (Viet Cong) firefights, my platoon had dwindled down to about 36 Marines, including the machine gun teams.  We lost two Platoon Commanders there. One LT (Lieutenant) nick named Carbine Charlie was killed by friendly fire from another Marine Platoon,  LT Neel was killed by a booby trap tied chest high to a tree while crossing a berm.  We lost many Marines to booby traps in Duc-ky

On May 5, 1968, our new platoon commander, a warrant officer, sent a squad of about 10 Marines ahead of the platoon to recon a recently deserted VC village in Duc-Ky, and to fill our empty canteens at a gook water well.  The rest of the platoon waited in reserve.  Shots and explosions ripped threw the Marines, as the NVA (North Vietnam Army) and VC, ambushed them at the well.   We quickly deployed on line and went to the rescue of the ambushed Marines. We swept to the well and to the other side of the village.  We killed several NVA and VC.  This was our first firefight with the NVA, they turned out to be a lead unit of an NVA battalion.  We secured an LZ (landing zone) and called in “Dust Off” choppers, med-evacing the whole squad.

Because of heat stroke casualties, we were ordered to set up in a two-man fighting position perimeter and put on 50% alert.  After about an hour, we found ourselves surrounded and attacked from all sides.  We became bait, luring out the rest of the Company and Tanks from our Battalion base.  The Tanks were ambushed and some Tanks were hit by RPGs (rocket propelled grenade) the Company that came to our rescue was pinned down. Now we had two battles going on at the same time.  The battles lasted about 3 hours.  Many Marines in our Platoon were killed or wounded. Our brave Navy Corpsman ran from wounded to wounded saving young Marine lives with his medical knowledge and his bag of medical supplies.   Mortar rounds hit all around Corporal Peterson, (my Fire Team Leader) and I.  The Corporal took most of the shrapnel in his butt and legs.  I got a couple small fragments to the chest and right arm (Purple Heart #1).  A tear gas grenade in his grenade pouch exploded from the mortar frags. Now I had mucus running out of my nose, my skin and eyes burning.  Trying not to breath the fumes, I helped him rip off his grenade pouch and threw it towards the gooks.  Our bloody wounded platoon commander called in artillery and then air support hitting all around our position.  Shrapnel shredded the banana trees, our cover.  The sight of F-4 fighter jets dropping their bombs above us, and hitting all around us was frightening, yet reassuring.  They saved us from having more casualties.

At dark the fighting stopped.  Fearing a night attack would wipe the rest of the platoon out, our Platoon Commander ordered us to drag the wounded to the Company and Tank position.  We left dead Marines, and their weapons behind until we could join the tanks and come back to retrieve them.  After what seemed like hours dragging wounded in the open rice paddies, under the cover of night, we finally joined up with tanks and the rest of the Company.  I fell asleep next to one of the tanks that night.  At first light, I was told to walk point, in front, of the Company, and Tanks, back to retrieve the bodies and weapons that we had left behind that night.  I walked past dead Marines, towards Cpl. Baughman, my dead Squad Leader, who was lying on his back, suddenly an incoming round hit to my right.  I jumped into a gook-fighting hole just as the second round hit, wounding me in the upper right shoulder (Purple Heart #2). The fragment was hot and burning as I fell down into the hole. After the incoming let up, the corpsman tried to take the metal out of my shoulder, but it would not come out, so he put a battle dressing on it, and tagged me with a WIA (wounded in action) tag to be med-evac’ed.

I then helped put dead Marines, KIA (killed in action), into body bags.  Some KIA Marines had gas masks on. I took the gas mask off a dead Marine who was shot right between the eyes. We tried to put him in a body bag but he was frozen in the sitting position, his rifle still locked in his hands. We placed him on a poncho and carried him to a Tank, and put him on top with other dead Marines.  I took the M-79 grenade launcher and ammo lying next to my KIA Squad  Leader, I became the Squad Grenadier, and was med-evac’ed, by tank, with the wounded and dead, back to the battalion Med.  I watched as the Medics took out shrapnel from Cpl. Peterson, myself, and others.  We joined the rest of the platoon at base camp. Somebody put up a sign,  “ Our business is killing, and business is good ”.   New cherry boot, Marines, joined our battle-hardened platoon.   We got a couple of days off. We ate in the Base Mess tent, a dented 6ft Gook rocket stood at the doorway, a sign read ” this dud rocket landed in the Mess tent have a good meal”.   We got to sleep on cots in a tent, lined with ammo boxes full of sand.  We saw an Australian USO show and the next night a movie “Bonnie and Clyde,” in a makeshift outdoor theater.  We each got three cans of Black Label or Falstaff beer.  That night about four of us were sitting on top a bunker on the base perimeter, drinking the last can of beer.

After a while an enemy machine gun started firing up at a Huey helicopter.  The Huey returned fire, as the chopper circled the enemy gun position. Tracers from the machine guns shot past each other in a hale of fire.  To our amazement the Huey exploded spinning down in a ball of fire as it crashed.  I thought what a horrible way to go. Later I found out that Cpl. John Sawyer lead a six man rescue team to the downed chopper in the night, and rescued one crew- member, the pilot, and alive.  I don’t know if that pilot made it back to the world alive or not, but if he did, its because of Hero’s like Cpl. John Sawyer and his six man rescue squad. 

Next thing I heard was, “ 1^st and 2^nd squad, saddle up, lock and load.”   My squad loaded in one chopper and the second squad in another chopper.  Soon we were coming down to the crashed Huey chopper.  My chopper stated taking incoming enemy fire. The chopper door gunners started returning firing out both sides of our chopper.  Our chopper hit the ground hard and we ran out the back ramp of the chopper making a 360 perimeter.  Our chopper took off spraying the gooks with machine gun fire as it flew away.  The second chopper started coming in, and then aborted its landing, after taking enemy ground fire, and took off flying over our heads, its door gunners firing machine guns out both sides of the chopper.  I fired my Blooper (M-79 Grenade launcher) all around us.  By then the burnt crew was being put in body bags.  Our new Platoon Commander Lt. Lewis called for an extraction from the LZ.   Get us out of here, now!”  Soon choppers flew around us firing machine guns and rockets into the gooks as another chopper landed.  We ran up the ramp with the body bags, the door machine gunners, firing out both sides of the chopper, and up we went, my adrenalin was pumping hard.

Later we were choppered to Ga Noi Island on Operation Allen Brook and suffered many KIAs and WIAs(wounded in action).  My platoon was ambushed at close range about 10 feet from the right flank and front.  The gooks had us in a classic L shaped ambush.  The cross fire was deadly.  I watched helplessly as the Marines in the Killing Zone tried to fight their way out.  The NVA were in a trench to the front and to the right in spider trap holes at the base of a tree line. I watched my platoon commander fight it out with the gooks in the trench, he and the point man killed several gooks at close range as they exchanged, gun fire and grenades.  My squad, on the left flank, was ordered by the platoon commander to assault on line.  Because the enemy was so close to the Marines in the Kill Zone, my M-79 grenade launcher was useless against them. I might wound or kill Marines that were close to the enemy, so I put a shotgun round in the launcher and went on the assault.  I knew I had only one shot and I wanted to make it count.  As my squad passed through the main body and then right flank of the platoon, Marines lay dead and dying, I saw a M-14 rifle lying next to a dead or wounded Marine, his head covered in blood.  I laid my M-79 down and picked up his M-14 rifle and quickly put in a full magazine.  I grabbed another magazine and put it in my pant pocket, I continued on the assault.  By then the NVA in the trench were killed, the NVA on the right flank went down in their spider holes.  We used our rifle barrels to lift spider trap doors and threw in grenades.  Our machine gunner was killed by an NVA who was tied in a tree.  We sprayed the trees, firing straight up with automatic weapon fire.  We set up a perimeter, and called in chopper med-evacs.  The island was heavily booby trapped and fortified with NVA bunkers.

New cherry boot Marines flew out in choppers to join our battle weary Platoon.

After a few weeks of day and night patrols, ambushes, night listening posts (lPs), I walked point unknowingly stepping over a large booby trap, my Platoon Sergeant, Sgt. Moreno, on his first day back from R&R, after spending time with his wife and child, in Hawii, stepped on the booby trap, and he was blown into the air, knocking me to the ground. I turned around to see him hit the ground next to me screaming God! God!  He was in shock and so was I.  How could this be, I was just talking to him a few minutes ago, now he was blown to bits and lay dying, and screaming! It was the most horrible thing I ever saw up till then. The Corpsman came running to his side and worked hard to save and comfort him. The med-evac, chopper called back and said that Sgt. Moreno died in route to the hospital. I was 19 years old, my  world changed that day. I have never been the same since. If only I had found that booby trap. The guilt is still with me. I admired everything about Sgt. Moreno who was on his second tour of duty. That nightmare will never go away! I was choppered out of there and sent to Japan for R&R (rest and recuperation).  I was glad to leave; I needed some time off bad!  I met an army guy on the plane to Japan.  We got a couple of rooms at the #1 Hotel.  I met a Japanese girl and after a couple days I stayed at her house.  My Army friend went back to Nam. I needed more R&R.  I went UA (unauthorized absence) for two more days until my money ran out.  I turned myself in and had to sign a paper so the Marines could take $200 out of my next check to pay my way back to Nam.  I was flown to Hong Kong and stayed the night.  I met a Marine and he traded a nice camera and some money for booze and girls for us.  What a guy!  I then flew to Saigon where I hitched a flight to Da Nang on “Camouflaged Air Lines” (C-130 Transport Plane).  I then took a truck convoy to the Battalion rear Base, where I got office hours for being UA.  I was fined $30.00 and sent out on a night ambush with my squad, welcome back Marine!

My platoon was assigned to guard a Dam site that combat engineers were building. While I was sleeping on a hammock, in a sand bag bunker, a Marine blew my combat boots up that were under my hammock, with my M-79 grenade launcher and a shotgun round. I jumped in surprise and fear only to see this Marine staring in disbelief at what he had done. The corpsman came running in with the Platoon Sgt., Sgt Connor yelled at the shocked marine. The corpsman decided to stay and clean his 45 cal. Pistol. As I walked out the door he accidentally fired his pistol hitting the sand bag next to my head. The Platoon Sgt. Came running back and into the bunker and yelled at the corpsman. With my boots blown up, I walked bare footed, as I watched a Marine sitting on another bunker cleaning his weapon, fire into the air and the look of astonishment come to his face. Three accidental discharges in about 30 minutes, I thought I was going crazy, what was going on? I went bare foot and stood radio watch for about a week until we got resupplied with c-rations (food) water and my new combat boots. We were hit twice by mortar and machine gun fire in the couple weeks we were there. Every couple days we would walk security along side the dirt road and through villages to the main road as the engineers would sweep the road for mines. We would radio for the supply truck at the Dam site to pick us up and go to DaNang on an ice run at the PX (post exchange).

We then went on a Company Operation in the sand by the ocean. It rained hard, and water dikes broke, we walked knee deep in water. Most of us came down with what they called the prickly heat, from being wet. My skin felt like pins were sticking me all over. We found a drowned Navy man washed ashore by the ocean. He was swollen black and blue, he stank real bad.  No telling how long he had been dead. Med-evacs wouldn’t fly in the bad weather so we took turns pulling him with a rope as he floated on the water. Two Marines in my squad stepped on booby traps under the water, the muffled sound exploded, killing them.  We took turns carrying them. We walked for days until we were met by tanks med-evacing our dead and wounded.     

We went to an ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) compound and worked with the Arvn’s.  They stole anything they could from us, including my new combat boots and a radio I bought at the Da Nang PX.  Besides stealing things, they would run away at the first shot fired by the VC.  Then in September 1968, the second tour Vets from the 27^th Marines went back to the States, to Camp Pendleton, CA. They got a parade down Oceanside Blvd.  The rest of us went up North to the DMZ.  I joined Hotel company 2^nd Battalion 4th Marine Regiment weapons platoon, as a 60 mm Mortar man ammo carrier and after months I became A-Gunner (drops 60mm mortar rounds down tube), Gunner (sets up tube coordination’s, traverses and elevates), squad leader (coordinates fire mission), and then Platoon Guide (second in charge of 60mm mortar platoon).

I was choppered to hill 950.  It was cold, wet, windy, and miserable, with lots of rats. We tore the bunkers down and burnt baby rats with diesel fuel that were born in the walls of the bunkers. The burning rats screamed as they burned.  We went on an operation in the jungle.  It was green and beautiful as we walked along a Gook path that crossed a creek with waterfalls.  The leaches fell from the trees as we walked.  We stopped every once in a while to burn the leaches off each other with cigarettes, and salt.  The Platoon Gunnery Sergeant had to be med-evaced after a leach exploded, while attached to his testicles, drenching his pants with blood.  We humped (hiked) to LZ Alpine, and a weird looking chopper that looked like a dragonfly brought in artillery guns.  I made Corporal and turned 20 years old on LZ Alpine.

We were then choppered to hill 881 overlooking the abandoned Marine base at Khe-Sahn.  We were supposed to be there 3 days to help secure the area so that a General could have a flag raising ceremony on the base, just to say he could and get his picture in the Stars and Stripes.  Bad weather set in and we were socked in with fog.  As we waited for the whether to lift, our fighting holes filled with rain, we ran out of drinking water and food.  Most of us came down with dysentery.  They tried an airdrop with supplies, but it missed our hill, the gooks got our supplies.  We ended up walking to highway 9 back to Dong Ha, where hot food waited for us.

Our Battalion was trucked to the Qua Viet River and boarded a transport ship and went down the river for hours to a beach on the coast where we had 3 days in country R&R, we drank a lot of beer, and got to know each other better.  We then went back up the river on the same ships back to the trucks and were taken back to Dong Ha.  We then were choppered to Mutter’s Ridge on the DMZ to go on a search and destroy mission.  Earlier the area had been sprayed with Agent Orange.  All the trees and lush jungle were dead.  It was hot and dry, no cover, we were exposed out in the open.  We found a NVA staging bunker full of cases of ammo and weapons.  We were ordered to pass the cases of ammo and weapons from Marine to Marine, in a human chain, from the bunker to the top of the hill.  While doing this, the NVA mortared us.  The first round hit the entry of the bunker, killing my Mortar Squad Leader, Corbit.  They then walked the rounds up our human chain wounding my Mortar Gunner, Mac.  The NVA continued mortaring to the top of the hill and along the ridge.  I dove for cover in a bomb crater.  I felt helpless and angry the mortar team was used on the work party, and we could not return fire to suppress the enemies deadly mortar attack.  We suffered many casualties.  They were medi-vaced.  We then destroyed the NVA bunkers with C-4, plastic explosives.

By now I was short, I was on my 13^th and last month of my tour.  We were choppered to LZ Neville in the first part of Feb.1969.  I remember seeing the hill from the chopper windows as we came down to the LZ (Landing Zone).  It was hill 1103, the highest LZ I had been on at any time of my tour.  It had a steep, rugged cliff on one side, and a thick, green jungle around it.  The top of the hill was covered with sand bag bunkers.  The artillery guns were off to the side on a flattened hill a little lower from the top.  Shining objects in the wires reflecting the sunrays seemed strange as we landed.  The first night there we had movement in the wire.  Grunts threw grenades; we fired 60 mm mortars.  At first light the grunts checked the wires, no bodies just dead rats.  The hill was infested with rats.  The shining objects in the wires were opened C-rat cans.  The grunts made a few changes.  They cleared more bush for field of fire, more claymore mines, more trip flares, better fighting holes etc.  I worked on building my bunker for days.   My mortar pit was next to a steep cliff on top of the hill.  We fired mortars and marked areas of approach in front of the grunt lines.  I then sat in for what I thought was going to be a short timers dream, no more search and destroy missions for me, I was short just days from going home.

We had a Recon Radio Relay bunker on the hill.  Recon teams were across the DMZ watching a large enemy build up of fresh troops and equipment, staging North of the DMZ.  The Paris Peace Talks were going on.  We were not allowed to bomb North of the DMZ.  The politicians wouldn’t allow it. Do not shoot unless fired upon. I remember the hill took three or four incoming mortar rounds one night about the 20^th of Feb.  They didn’t hit anything though.  Because I was in mortar, I assumed correctly, the NVA were adjusting their mortar tubes for a later mortar attack.  We knew they were going to hit us sooner or later.  My short timers dream soon turned into a nightmare.

On the foggy night of Feb. 25, 1969, I was in my bunker with a few Marines. A Marine chopper was scheduled to fly to LZ Neville in the morning and fly me to the rear Base Camp to be processed back to the states. I was going home, back to the world in the morning.  The Marines were saying their good-byes and we were reminiscing about the States, hamburgers, French-fries, chocolate-strawberry-banana shakes, girls, cars, everything we missed about the States, all the good times we were going to have, no more WAR.  We were listening to the radio “Hey Jude” by the Beatles, “don’t be afraid,” echoed the eerie lyrics, when an explosion blasted on the lines.

I turned off the Beatles and turned on the field radio (PR25).  I heard the CO say, “What’s going on?”  

 “I hear gooks in the wires, sir.”

The CO said, “Are you sure it’s not rats?”

“Do rats speak Vietnamese, sir!?”

We grabbed our M-16 rifles, and ran out of the bunker, to the Mortar Pit!  We fired mortars in front of the lines and in the wires.

I’ve spent years trying to forget the rest of that night!  I took drugs, wine, beer, whiskey; I numbed myself to sleep every night after that night for years.  I did a good job trying to forget.  I have cloudy memories of: Flashes of light coming from my mortar tube in the foggy night, as my A Gunner dropped Mortar rounds down the tube, I remember desperately, pulling safety pins and stripping powder increments from the Mortar rounds stacked by the Mortar pit, and handing armed Mortar rounds to my A Gunner; I remember my Gunner elevating the tube higher and higher as the enemy came closer and closer. Running out of mortars; looking over the sand bags around my mortar pit, my M-16 pointing the way, not knowing from which direction the enemy would come, fog and smoke obstructing my view; hearing yelling, screaming, and crying; a wounded Marine crying for his mother, seeing a Marine on fire running; explosions all around me; thinking I’m too short for this; I can’t die now, help me God!  I remember, a Marine from Arty running toward my Mortar pit yelling, “Don’t shoot- don’t shoot, friendly!”  Telling me that Arty rounds were about to explode from a fire by the ammo stacks.  I remember running down the finger or trail from my Mortar pit, in the fog and smoke, explosions and machine gun fire pounding the hill all around me, helping to carry large artillery rounds away from the fire.

The next morning, I remember seeing dead gooks draped on the wire and laying dead in the perimeter and dead gooks lying on dead Marines in there fighting holes.  Incoming enemy 82mm mortar rounds every 30 minutes like clock work.  A grunt walked up the hill to me, and handed me a mortar round he found in front of his hole by the wire. I yelled,  “ Fire in the hole!”   I threw the dud mortar round over the cliff, and it exploded.  I remember the 81mm mortar pit taking a direct enemy mortar hit, Killing and wounding several Marines, 81 mm mortar rounds stacked by the pit exploded and cooked off into the air from the direct hit, and exploded everywhere.  My hearing was about gone from firing 60 mm mortars in the night.  I had a ringing sound in my head for years.  I now wear two hearing aids that the VA bought for me.

Days later after being overran by NVA suicide sappers I was at the Salt Lake City Airport, my head ringing from combat, my nerves shot, still looking for possible ambush sites, jumping at every noise, as electricity seemed to jolt my body with the sudden noises.  I took a taxi home.  No one home, I am alone with my thoughts.  I am different than when I left home and joined the Marines. Twenty years old, I can’t legally drink, smoke, or vote.  I started drinking and taking drugs to forget a time in my life that to this day is a foggy nightmare. In my dreams, I am running for a chopper carrying a wounded Marine, incoming explosions everywhere, the chopper is waiting, I fear it will leave me and not take me home.  I start yelling, kicking, and sweating as my wife wakes me up. I’m afraid to go back to sleep, I feel the presence of a dead NVA at the foot of my bed. I get up, turn all the lights on, and wait for morning. When will the nightmares end? I think never! I take all the pills the VA sends me each month, for nightmares, depression, and my PTSD.

I look at my 19-year-old son, I was never that young. My youth was stolen from me. At 19 years old I was forced to be a man. Do or Die, Suck it up, nothing matters, my whole world was turned upside down. Just forget it they say. Forget all the killing, get over it. Why can’t you be normal? My wife and five children are afraid of me. I might explode and hurt someone again. Are you taking your meds, they say? Yes, I dare not take my meds, it might get worse. My wife says she knew something was wrong with me years ago, when the cops would call, fighting, road rage, mood swings. I only began to cry a couple years ago at the Utah Viet Nam Memorial, by the Capital building. I thought I wouldn’t stop. The horror, the lost comrades! I will never forget, how can I? The intrusive thoughts enter my mind, it doesn’t need much prodding, a sound, a smell, rain, being outside, the vegetation, being inside, no way out, crowds, the confusion. The vivid flashes of horror and death! I can be kind and happy, but it doesn’t last long. I get sad and worried to fast. When my meds don’t work any more the doctor adds more. If I’m a zombie, I won’t hurt any one or myself. Don’t worry be happy, everything is beautiful, I wish!

After many jobs, and graveyard shifts to avoid people, I went to work with the post office.  I had a bad time with postal management.  Their way of micro-management did not agree with me.  Postal Inspectors continually harassed me; they told me I was considered a serious threat because I was a combat Vet.  I said, “Excuse me for serving my country.”  Everything I did bothered them and every thing they did bothered me.  Lose, lose situation. As my stress level went up, I went deeper into the darkness of depression. The thoughts that went through my head began to scare me at what I might do. People began to be afraid of me at work and at home. My wife and I agreed that I needed to seek mental help. I checked in to lock down at the VA hospital mental ward. I feel that lives were saved that day. If you are having problems mentally, seek help before it is to late. You can be helped!

In 1986, I was diagnosed with PTSD 10% disability.  In 1999, I started having Vietnam nightmares nightly.  I met the love of my life on Feb. 25, 1971 (two year anniversary of LZ Neville being overran), 2 hours and 10 minutes before she was to turn 18.  She has awakened me from many LZ Neville nightmares since.  With out her I would be lost to my nightmares.  On Dec. 8, 2000, I was retired from the Post Office with a 100% disability.  On Feb. 14, 2000 Valentines Day (my 32^nd year anniversary of going to Vietnam), I was awarded a 100% PTSD disability from the VA.  In June 2003 the VA awarded me a service connected Permanent and Total Disability.

I wish there were more LZ Neville Marines on the LZ Russell Web Site, telling their view of what happened that night.  I am glad I found your site.  Please fellow Marines and anyone who reads this, visit the Virtual Wall Site on the web and leave a remembrance to our fallen comrades.  Never forget they who gave their all for us.  Comrades of LZ Russell and LZ Neville, I hope that when we die we will go to heaven because we served our time in HELL!

Thank you again for this opportunity to read and see pictures of LZ Russell and LZ Neville, and to tell my story.  Because of this insight, I can now have some closure; I’m not alone any more! I now have many Marine brothers who were there, that foggy, scary, deadly night, on those two LZ’s. Thank God for Marines!

Simper Fidelis (always faithful)

Sgt. Webber, T C "Hot Foot" 2332016

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