Our generation, Larry's and mine, was doomed to become involved in the Vietnam War. We knew too little of history, and were too confident in the diplomatic abilities of our political leaders whom we understood, mistakenly, to be honorable, perceptive, rational men. Every American president from Truman to Johnson ignored knowledgeable advisors who repeatedly warned against engaging in an unwinnable war in Vietnam. In 1966, our battalion went proudly to war, patriotic and confident that we were defending our country. We were so naive….
Larry was born 19 December 1945 in Streeter, Illinois and grew up in Dwight, Illinois. In August, 1963, when he was just 17 years old, he joined the U.S. Navy and was soon marching the parade ground as a recruit at Great Lakes Naval Training Center north of Chicago.
Ross Field, Great Lakes Naval Training Center, Illinois
Photo by Michael Worner
In high school, Larry had frequently volunteered at the U.S. Veterans Hospital in Dwight; in boot camp, the Navy correctly identified Larry as a good candidate for the Hospital Corps. He completed Hospital Corps School at Great Lakes Naval Hospital, and remained there for his first tour of duty. During that time, he made two decisions which would change the course of his life, and not necessarily for the better:
• Larry married a Navy Wave who was also in the Hospital Corps. She had been born in Silver City, New Mexico, coincidentally my own home town. It was a marriage that both would come to regret.
• A few months later, when life at the naval hospital was getting a bit dull, and Larry volunteered for duty with the FMF — the Fleet Marine Force, the amphibious assault unit of the U.S. Navy. What he was really volunteering for, although he didn’t realize the full implications of his decision, was combat duty in Vietnam.
Today, Larry characterizes his younger self as a dumb kid who knew nothing at all about South Vietnam or its sworn enemy, North Vietnam. But he wasn’t alone — our commander-in-chief, President Johnson, and most of his closest advisors, were equally clueless about Vietnamese politics and history.
Within a few months, Larry had completed Field Medical Service School at Camp Del Mar, a sub-camp of the Marine Corps' Camp Pendleton in California, and joined Lima Company, Third Battalion, First Marines — the “Thundering Third” — usually abbreviated to 3/1. About the same time, I was assigned to 3/1's Mike Company.
Both Larry and I got short leaves, and in August, 1965, 3/1 sailed from Long Beach on the U.S.S Magoffin (APA-199), an amphibious attack transport. We were headed for Okinawa; Larry had left behind not only his wife, but also a baby boy only a few weeks old.
A postcard showing an aerial view of Camp Schwab,
Okinawa soon after its construction in 1959
At Camp Schwab in Okinawa, 3/1 trained — and trained and trained and trained, and then trained some more while our political masters in Washington debated what to do with us. By November, 1965, we apparently were deemed to be "combat ready" — I had deep reservations about that — and we had an inspection by divisional brass.
Finally, in mid-January, 1966 we embarked on the amphibious assault transport U.S.S. Paul Revere (APA-248). Supposedly, we were now ready to face the Viet Cong and their guerilla style of warfare. In reality, we were ill-prepared and largely ignorant of conditions in South Vietnam. Little did we know that we would soon face not only the supposedly ineffectual VC, but well-equipped and well-trained communist troops of the People's Army of Vietnam, or PAVN, more commonly but incorrectly called the NVA or North Vietnamese Army.
