S.C. veteran’s revelation changed a life
Batesburg-Leesville man surprised ex-senator by correcting an old war story
By CHUCK CRUMBO
Staff Writer
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/7218941.htm All Steve Price remembers about an explosion on a hill in Vietnam is helping a badly wounded soldier.
“There was blood all over. I thought he was dead,” said Price, who was an infantryman in the Marine Corps back in 1968.
Three decades later Price — now a 54-year-old resident of Batesburg-Leesville — learned the soldier not only survived but went on to serve as head of the Veterans Administration and a U.S. senator. The soldier was Max Cleland of Georgia.
“I was aware of Max Cleland. I had seen him on TV,” said Price. “But I never had any idea it was the same person who was on the same hill where I was back in 1968.”
Price concedes “it’s a pretty wild story.” But it’s also illustrative of the coincidences of life in the military, something the Midlands and the nation will reflect on when Veterans Day is celebrated Tuesday.
On April 4, 1968, Price was with the Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines.
Charlie Company was opening up Route 9 going into Khe Sanh, near the demilitarized zone between the then-separate North and South Vietnams, and had secured a mountaintop.
Cleland, a captain in the Army Signal Corps, and his team flew by helicopter to the hill that Price and Charlie Company held to set up a radio relay tower.
When the helicopter landed, Cleland and his soldiers jumped off and the helicopter immediately ascended.
Then there was an explosion.
Price, who was digging a foxhole, thought the blast might have been an enemy mortar round. It was common for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese to shoot at landing helicopters, Price said.
This time, a soldier was severely wounded. It was Cleland and he had lost an arm and a leg. His other leg was badly mangled.
David Lloyd, one of Price’s buddies in Charlie Company, was among those who rushed to help. He applied a tourniquet to one leg.
“I tightened that belt as best as I could,” Lloyd said.
Lloyd, Price and other Marines loaded the wounded captain onto a helicopter that hauled him to a field hospital.
The blast was caused by a grenade that had fallen on the ground. It exploded as Cleland reached to pick it up.
For years, Cleland believed he was the one who dropped the grenade, which led to the loss of his right arm and both legs.
Cleland retold the story in 1999 on a History Channel program. Lloyd, who was watching the show at his home in Annapolis, Md., picked up the phone and called Cleland’s office.
The story, Lloyd said, was wrong.
Lloyd said the blast was caused by another soldier’s grenade — not Cleland’s.
Lloyd said he knew because after Cleland was loaded onto the helicopter, another soldier, who had been hit by shrapnel, was crying. Lloyd tried to console the soldier, who said he had dropped the grenade.
The grenade exploded when its cotter pin had fallen out, activating the explosive, said the 57-year-old Lloyd. The soldier told Lloyd that he had straightened the pins so it would be easier to pull them when he had to throw a grenade.
Lloyd’s revelation, which checked out, changed Cleland’s life, Cleland has written. For 30 years, Cleland had blamed himself for his injuries.
Lloyd later tracked down Price and told him the story about Cleland.
“I remembered the incident. It stood out in my mind,” Price said. “But that was just about it.”
Price met Cleland when he came to South Carolina to attend a Labor Day rally in Charleston for U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who was announcing his candidacy for the presidency. Lloyd had passed on the names of Price and other Marines to Cleland.
Price and Cleland, now an adjunct professor at American University in Washington, D.C., had dinner the night before the rally. The next day, during his speech endorsing Kerry, Cleland spotted Price in the audience.
Cleland paused and then told the crowd and viewers watching the rally on C-SPAN that one of the members of a team of “wonderful Marines” who had saved his life was present.
“Steve Price,” Cleland said, “stand up, brother.”
Price rose to a round of applause.
Today, Price considers himself a lucky man. He survived Vietnam, returned home, went to college, married and has raised three children.
Price shrugs off that there’s anything special about his link to Cleland on that bloody day in 1968.
“It’s just a coincidence,” Price said. “He was just another soldier to me.”
Maybe, but there’s another coincidence in Price’s life linked to that day in 1968.
Price’s oldest son is a captain in a Florida Army National Guard Signal Battalion.
It’s the same rank and job that Cleland had in the Army.
Reach Crumbo at (803) 771-8503 or
ccrumbo@thestate.comNot to nitpick, but that is a carefully written piece, buried in a local paper.
You'll note that there are a lot of specifics about everything--except who is supposed to have actually dropped the grenade. The name is never mentioned.
I don't believe it myself.