Closing Thought–26Apr18
A Viet vet has finally been awarded the medal that he richly deserves……
With a Marine down and several dozen heavily-armed enemy fighters approaching his location, 1st Lt. Philip H. Sauer grabbed his .45-cal pistol and ordered his other three men off the hill outside Khe Sanh.
Just a few hours earlier, the five-man artillery observer team had organized and set out to recon Hill 861 and potentially set up an observation post. But enemy bunkers and trenches teeming with North Vietnamese troops dotted the key, high terrain northwest of the Khe Sanh combat base.
When his point man was cut down by enemy fire, Sauer, used his own .45 pistol to provide covering fire as the Marines dove for cover and scrambled out of the kill zone.
Only one Marine survived that April 24, 1967, ambush, the first major fight with NVA in the area. It would mark the start of what became known as the “Hill Fights” during the siege of Khe Sanh the following year.
https://news.usni.org/2018/04/24/51-years-later-fallen-vietnam-marine-honored-silver-star
About time!
Decades too late, but so well-deserved. Nice story, chuq.
Best wishes, Pete.
Thanx…it is a feel good story for me as well…..chuq
War is generally fucked up.. but that war was totally fucked up. All I can muster up is “Why?”.
My own son made it to Vietnam.. something I never did and it was THE war in my lifetime. He went as a tourist. Amazing what the passage of time does.
Many Vets return on holiday….I am not one of them…..why did it take 51 years? That is fucked up. chuq
We can safely agree, it’s all fucked up.