" I arrived in Vietnam mid March 1967 and was assigned to Mike Company 3rd Bn 1st Marines based out of a camp site just South of Marble Mountain which was just a little South of the air base in DaNang. Floyd Zende and I were assigned to Mike Company but we had to wait until the next day to go out into the bush to hook up with our designated platoons. Floyd went to 1st platoon and I went to 2nd platoon. Neither of us were told what to expect once we got there and after being loaded up with a flack jacket, helmet, cartridge belt, grenades, ammo, M-14 rifle, and about 70 lbs of stuff, we were instructed to go down to the tank outpost near the main gate area and they would take us out into the “Bush”.
After arriving about 8am and being assigned to a squad, we began to load up and get on line and proceeded to do what was called “Search and Destroy” a village where enemy activity had been reported. I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do and after about an hour or so, I was pushing my way through thick jungle underbrush looking for booby traps and land mines, which is what I had learned in training before arriving in Vietnam. Next thing I know they are yelling ..” hey new guy..where are you?” I found my way into the village where they had already set up and determined there were no Viet Cong there to kill. We stayed there for hours questioning the villagers about possible enemy activity and searching their grass huts for any sign of enemy underground tunnels or weapons caches. We then formed a single file formation and headed out for another village a few miles away to do the same thing. We were assigned the task of patrolling what was known as “The Mortar Belt” which was where the Viet Cong would launch mortars into the DaNang air base to blow up airplanes and ammo and fuel dumps. After about 8 hours of this activity we were told to dig in for the night as we settled in to a little abandoned village . I really thought that we would go back to where Floyd and I had spent our first night in Vietnam where there were tents, showers, mess hall, beer joint, and little cut out holes to take a good healthy dump. This was not to be. In fact this was the routine every day for almost a month. No change of clothes, no hot meals, no shower, no cots to sleep on...just living in the bush as we called it. After a month of booby traps, sniper attacks, fire fights and a good amount of death and injuries, we finally got the call in the middle of the night to saddle up and prepare to return to the rear base camp that I hadn’t seen since the day Floyd and I arrived in country. I was so relieved. At about 7 am we arrived back at base only to be told to drop our packs and run down to the mess hall and grab a bite to eat and get back to the Company staging area. It just so happened that we were the designated standby unit or what was called “Bald Eagle Standby” that day and were headed about 20 miles South to help another Marine unit who were engaged in a ferocious battle in the village of Nui Loc Son where 40 or so Marines had been either killed or wounded and were pinned down in a rice paddy and needed our support. My very first helicopter ride and first large scale enemy encounter later known as Operation Union 4/21/67 where many more Marines were to die and be wounded. That battle earned us a Presidential Unit Citation and we eventually drove the enemy out of that area and returned to our base camp and then began the re grouping and grieving as we prepared to do this all over again. That was my first month in Vietnam. " Joe Wadlow, SSGT, 0311, Mike Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines
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