My War Was Different

In the Fall of 1967, I was a Sophomore at Yale University (Saybrook College). Due to poor grades, my 2S Student Deferment had become a very draftable 1A. I had graduated from Mckinley High School in south St. Louis, Missouri in 1966. My classmates who had been drafted right after graduation told me that being drafted into the US Army was not something I wanted to do. The Army did not treat draftees well. Besides, in addition to boot, inexperienced 90-day-wonder Second Lieutenants as Platoon Leaders, the Army’s “Instant NCO” program put inexperienced boot Staff Sergeants as Platoon Sergeants, and inexperienced boot Sergeants as Squad Leaders.

Therefore, I decided to enlist in the Marine Corps for a two year hitch. My Recruiter said I would hate Boot Camp (he was wrong – I actually enjoyed it); I would be an Infantryman (right – MOS 0311, Infantry Rifleman); and I would go to Vietnam (right again!). I left for Boot Camp at Paris Island, SC in January 1968. After Infantry training at Camp Geiger, North Carolina, I went to a 12-week Vietnamese language course in Monterey, California.

One explosion lifted me out of my foxhole and threw me about fifteen feet down a steep bank into the Thach Hānh River.

In September 1968, I arrived in South Vietnam. With the rank of Lance Corporal, I was assigned as an Infantry Rifleman to Bravo Squad, 2d Platoon, Fox Company, 2d Battalion, Third Marines in Quang Tri Province, Northern I Corps. At this time, 2d Platoon was operating in the Mai Loc area, about ten clicks (kilometers) southeast of the artillery support base at Camp Carroll. We were paired with a Regional Forces Company (South Vietnamese local militia colloquially known as Ruff Puffs). We ran combined operations with the Ruff Puff Company in the area around Mai Loc: foot patrols, observation posts, listening posts, ambushes, a County Fair operation, etc. It was a fairly quiet area. We had only minor contact with the enemy. Our only casualty through the end of 1968 was the death of LCpl Muriel S. “Max” Groomes of Maryland from a command-detonated booby trap on 02 Nov 1968.

On 19 Jan 1969, Bravo Squad was detached from Fox Company and redesignated as CAP 4-2-6. Tet of 1969 was expected to be a repeat of the 1968 Tet Offensive and the Commanding General of III MAF decided to reinforce the Combined Action Platoons (CAP). The CAPs were a kind of armed Peace Corps. A Marine infantry squad (with an attached Navy Hospital Corpsman) was paired with a platoon of South Vietnamese Popular Forces (PFs). PFs were a local militia, usually recruited from the village to which the CAP was assigned. They were men either too young or too old to be drafted into the South Vietnamese Army. The CAPs were given a village and the surrounding area as an exclusive Area of Operations (AO). Our AO was c. 15 square kilometers surrounding the village of Nhu Le, about ten kilometers southwest of Quang Tri City. No Allied forces were allowed to fire into a CAP AO without our express permission.

The CAP mission was to provide security for the villagers against Communist VC and NVA forces. The Corpsman provided medical care to the villagers and the PFs, while the Marines and PFs ran patrols and ambushes, and set up Observation and Listening Posts to provide security for the village. We also helped with harvests, dug wells, and helped with any other projects needed by the village.

On 19 Jan 1969, my nine-man squad (which was redesignated CAP 4-2-6, paired with a platoon of 33 PFs) was sent to reinforce CAP 4-2-4 in the village of Nhu Le, on the southern bank of the Thach Hānh River, about ten kilometers southwest of Quang Tri City, the capital of Quang Tri Province (the northernmost province of South Vietnam). Two days earlier, on 17 Jan, ten of the PFs in CAP 4-2-4 had been killed and seven wounded in an ambush on the outskirts of the village.

My best buddy, “Big Hands” carried me the entire way to the LZ.

For the week or so after we arrived, things were fairly quiet in the Nhu Le AO. We had only sporadic contact with the Communists around Nhu Le, killing three or four VC and sustaining a few minor wounds among the PFs; one of the Marines, PFC Don Ricketts, received minor shrapnel wounds from a grenade. Occasional mortar rounds (harassing fire) impacted in our AO.

On the night of 26-27 Jan, we set up a defensive perimeter on the outskirts of Nhu Le. I was asleep in my fighting hole when about a dozen mortar rounds (we assumed they were Communist 82mm mortars) impacted within our perimeter. The mortars wounded five PFs and seven of the nine Marines (three of us severely enough to be MedEvaced back to the States). One explosion lifted me out of my foxhole and threw me about fifteen feet down a steep bank into the Thach Hānh River. I had been wounded by several pieces of shrapnel: a rather large piece that actually penetrated the back of my flak jacket (but left only a minor wound); a piece that hit my right shoulder, breaking my arm; a small piece in the right calf; and a large piece that took off a big chunk of my right heel. The skills of our Navy FMF Corpsman, HM3 John Calavieri, saved me from bleeding out. (FMF Devil Docs are the BEST!)

Nothing else occurred; just the mortar rounds. No ground attack.

We had to move almost a mile to reach a Landing Zone for the MedEvac Choppers. I kept passing out when I tried to stand. My best buddy, “Big Hands” (LCpl Vince Richardson), carried me the entire way to the LZ. I spent almost seven months in Memphis Naval Hospital before being discharged to limited duty (the 47-week Vietnamese [Saigon Dialect] Language Course in Monterey, CA). The infections from the river water were a real problem, as was the rebuilding of my right heel. I continued to receive outpatient treatment for the heel wound from the Army Hospital at Fort Ord.

For over forty years, I believed that the Incoming munitions were Communist 82mm mortars. Then, in 2010, while browsing the Internet, I ran across a declassified Command Chronology Report from the 4th Combined Action Group for Jan 1969. The report described what had happened to CAP 4-2-6 on 27 Jan. It read, in part, “Subsequent investigation revealed that the mortar rounds were 81mm rounds fired by a US Army mortar battery operating from LZ SHARON” (just south of Quang Tri City). [“Friendly Fire” is definitely NOT very friendly!] Why the Army fired into our AO I will never understand. No Allied Forces were permitted to fire into the AO around the village of Nhu Le without our express permission. And we had definitely NOT given permission.

I made an almost full recovery and was able to serve almost 25 years on active duty in the Marine Corps. My second tour in Vietnam (as a PoW Interrogator – MOS 0251) was MUCH less exciting! My heel still gives me problems (several tiny specks of shrapnel still appear on X-Rays); I limp occasionally and I can no longer run. AND, you definitely don’t want to be around if I were to try to toss a hand grenade, because I can’t throw very far.

God Bless Doc Calavieri and Big Hands!

In Aug 1970, instead of accepting a Medical Discharge, I re enlisted in the Marine Corps for the 47-week Vietnamese Language Course at Monterey. I figured I could go back to Vietnam and serve in a CAP unit knowing the language. Instead, I was given a “lateral move” to the Intelligence Field, and, after Language school, went to Fort Holabird, Maryland, to the Enlisted PoW Interrogation Course. I served my second tour in Vietnam (1970-1971) as a PoW Interrogator in support of 1st Marines.

I stayed in the Marine Corps for almost 25 years, retiring in July 1992. I joined my wife (Dr. Kim Lacy Rogers, a professor of History at Dickinson College) in Carlisle. During my time in the Marine Corps, I made Staff Sergeant, and was selected as a Warrant Officer in 1973. In 1979, I became a Limited Duty Officer (LDO). At retirement, I was a permanent CWO-4 and a temporary Major (LDO).

Semper Fi!

Maj (LDO) Joseph Brackin Burroughs, Jr. USMC (Ret)

The photo is Christmas Dinner 1968, in Mai Loc, Quang Tri Province. The PF Company provided the food. We 2d Plt, Fox 2/3 Marines provided cigarettes and beer. You can just see the top of my head in the lower right hand corner.