With 3/1 in Vietnam

A U.S. Navy corpsman goes to war

Author's Note: With 3/1 in Vietnam: A Navy corpsman goes to war is an evolving work that depends to a large extent on contact with Marines and corpsmen who were members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division (3/1/1) from August, 1965 through September, 1966. Veterans who wish to share their memories should contact the webmaster, Bob Ingraham. Because of time and space limitations, I cannot normally include information about other Marine battalions.

On 28 January 1966, the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines landed on a broad, white beach in Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam. The battalion was an element of Operation Double Eagle, the largest amphibious landing in a combat theatre since the Marines landed at Inchon in the Korean War. I was a Navy hospital corpsman* with Headquarters & Service Company.

Over the next 37 days, the Marines and corpsmen of 3/1 would almost continuously "hump the boonies": we rarely saw the enemy, the Viet Cong, but soon started taking casualties from snipers, mortars, booby traps, mines, and "friendly fire".

We lived in the dirt, slept in holes in the ground, marched without apparent purpose in chilling northeast monsoon rains, suffered heatstroke with the arrival of the southwest monsoon, pulled leaches from our legs, ate little but C-Rations, fought rust on our weapons and fungus on our bodies. We laughed rarely, and when we did it was mostly sardonic laughter, for Vietnam was not a very funny place. We rarely spoke of death, but often talked about being "zapped." Being zapped didn't seem as bad, somehow, as being maimed or dead. If we thought of the worst possibilities of all—traumatic genital mutilation or amputation, or being captured and tortured — we didn't give voice to our thoughts.

Double Eagle segued into Double Eagle II, not that we noticed. Double Eagle II ended in late February and we got a few days R&R at Chu Lai. We took showers, swam in the ocean, ate hot meals from a field kitchen (and got the trots), read our mail, and wrote letters on cardboard from C-Ration cartons.

Our break wouldn't last long: we had been designated a "Ready Reaction Force," and on the afternoon of 4 March 1966, our 36th day in South Vietnam, helicopters inserted India, Lima, and Mike companies into a killing zone where we would make history in Operation Utah. For the first time, the Marines would engage soldiers of the Peoples' Vietnam Army (PVA**). We would defeat the formidably armed Communists, but at a terrible cost of dead and wounded. I would be among the wounded.

Now, four decades later, I am weaving together my own fading memories and the knowledge of other Vietnam veterans and commentators. The result, I hope, will be a sort of patchwork quilt that illustrates our widely varying experiences before, during, and after the war. I also hope that it will serve as a memorial to those members of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines who landed on the shores of Vietnam in 1966, but were not able, ever, to return home.

Semper Fidelis,

Bob Ingraham
Vancouver, British Columbia

PLEASE NOTE: This web site includes links to PDF (Portable Document Format) files, which may load via your web browser. You may need the free Adobe Reader to access PDF files: Download it at the Adobe website. The files may load through your web browser. If you cannot at first see the entire image, click on the "Attachments" button at the left of your screen. Downloaded files can be re-sized as necessary and viewed on-line or printed.

* The Marine Corps relies on the U.S. Navy for medical services. A hospital corpsman training for the Fleet Marine Force (FMF) goes through field medical training with the Marines before joining a combat unit.

** References in Vietnam War literature and everyday speech to the "NVA," for "North Vietnamese Army," are erroneous. There never was such an entity. The correct term used during the Vietnam War and to this day, as translated from Vietnamese, is People's Vietnam Army, or "PVA". However, because "NVA" has become synonymous with North Vietnam's army in popular usage, both NVA and PVA will be used in this web site.

An annotated list of useful and even important books about the war, and links to other web sites. Especially important to many veterans are links to books and information about the impact of the of the war on physical and psychological health of Veterans, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and mesothelioma (a serious cancer resulting from wartime exposure to asbestos).

Throughout my tour of duty in South Vietnam, I had a camera with me. The night before we landed in Vietnam, in Operation Double Eagle, we were ordered to turn our cameras in to our company commanders. Not bloody likely! I had purchased the camera specifically to take to Vietnam, and I wasn't going to lose the opportunity to record my experiences. Once I was ashore, I used the camera openly and no one ever questioned me about it. This photo album is the result.

Are you an FMF Vietnam-era corpsman or Marine who'd like to locate a buddy? Perhaps this Buddy Finder web page will help.

I was born in Bath, New York State, on 14 January 1943. In 1949, my parents decided to move to New Mexico, where my father would edit the weekly Silver City Enterprise. I had to repeat grade one, but eventually got through my first year of college, if you don't count my failing grade in American History. I started my second inauspicious year, still on a music scholarship despite a demonstrable lack of talent, but soon realized I was going nowhere. Part of the reason had to do with my plane crash....

The March/April issue of Navy Medicine, published by the U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine, includes the article "Corpsman Down", my first-person account about being wounded in Operation Utah, and about my subsequent treatment and healing. I wish to thank Jan Herman, at that time editor-in-chief of Navy Medicine, for encouraging me to write about my experiences.

When I was shot in Operation Utah, on 5 March 1966, the first words out of my mouth were, logically, "Ski! The bastard shot me!" "Ski," who was nearby, was Hospitalman Larry W. Skonetski, my fellow corpsmen in the 3rd Platoon, Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines. My wound was not life threatening, at least not in the immediate future, but he was the first corpsman to reach me on that terrible, bloody morning. I've always wanted to thank him for truly being a brother in arms for me on that day, and now, almost 43 years later, I was been able to do just that. It was a moving — and poignant — reunion, but, sadly, Larry didn't have long to live.

For 35 years following my tour of duty in Vietnam, I had little contact with other veterans, and none at all with members of my unit, 3rd Battalion, First Marines. In the 1990s, the increasing efficiency of the Internet coincided with and fostered my growing need to learn more about my own role and that of the Marines in the war. I began a tentative quest and eventually contacted former 1st Lt. Simon Gregory. He sent me an e-mail with a poignant account of the battle for Hill 50.

Thirty-two years after the Vietnam War battle for Hill 50, in Operation Utah, former 1st. Lt. Dan Walsh of Lima Company, 3/1, received his Bronze Star Medal for Valour.

The keynote speaker at the ceremony, former Lima Company commander Simon Gregory, said that his most enduring memory of Dan is "...his complete dedication to his men. He understood the sacred trust required to be a Marine officer and was willing to sacrifice himself in the execution of that responsibility."

A total of 107 enlisted men and officers of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines lost their lives in Vietnam in 1966, most of them in combat. Their names, ranks, and hometowns are included in the battalion's cruisebook. The following link takes the reader directly to a PDF file containing the casualty list.

A philatelic exhibit based on my experiences in Vietnam won a silver medal at VANPEX 2007 in Vancouver, BC, sponsored by the British Columbia Philatelic Society. The exhibit, titled "37 Days in Vietnam — A Hospital Corpsman's Story," also won the "Creativity in Philatelic Exhibiting Award" from the American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors. It includes covers, letters, and postcards that I posted during my tour of duty in Vietnam. Download the complete exhibit in PDF format, but be forewarned — it's a 4.22 MB file.