Replies

A few more.

I had gone to the rear,as if there is any rear at Con Thien to scrounge a carton of milk from Pfc Kenneth Birdsong, the helicopter landing zone controller. Two choppers had touched down, unloaded and shoved off. Enemy spotters must have seen them and radioed their 152-mm guns hidden 10 miles away. There was no warning when the shells came there never is when they come on top of you. The first salvo of three hit 100 meters away. A Marine dived for a trench. Others piled into a bunker. Five of us wedged there with ammo stacked all around.

Four (4) man "keyhole" 3rd Force Recon Team At the "Rockpile" , left to right- Bob Nixten, Eddie DeLezen (Me), Joe Jennings and Clyde Poole.

Operation Buffalo.We (Teams from 3rd Force and 3rd Bn.) left Con Thien with A-1-9. The operation began a couple days after this photo was taken when B-1-9 walked into a huge ambush. (July 1967 Con Thien)

Thanks for the pictures facedown.

Hard to believe we were ever that young.

Excerpt from 3rd Marine,3rd Batt,Mike Co's web site.

MIKE 3/3 FNG... August 1968
By J. D. Muphy 0331
Everybody that went to Nam was an FNG .. Nice Guys called them BNG's (brand new guys) .. I know because in August of 1968 I was a FNG. Quang Tri was my first stop and then on to Dong Ha. Dong Ha was located in the rear and wasn't bad at all. In fact everything seem pretty normal there. I found out how to burn the shitters (outhouses). Most of the people in the rear were either wounded in combat and just waiting to go back to the bush, or worked in the rear. The normalcy didn't last long though, after a few weeks it was time to go to the bush. They loaded about 8 of us FNG's on a Chopper along with Sgt Major Neal King and informed us we were being sent to a place called Mutters Ridge. It was almost dark thirty when we landed somewhere in the bush on Mutters Ridge. Man, there you are out in the middle of nowhere, not knowing what to expect. The Sgt Major told us that we would dig in here for the night. Mike Co. had already moved and we're in the wrong place. We paired up and dug in, praying it wasn't really anything to be worried about, after all the Sgt Major with us. That night turned out to be something else. We witnessed one hell of a firefight. It got so bad that they called in Puff the Magic Dragon. Man it was something. The only time I had ever seen Puff before was in the movie "Green Berets". When Puff finished firing his cannons, there was dead silence. After the fight was over it started to rain. It was a good thing that we had our ponchos with us. My buddy and I stayed nice and dry in our hole. Everything was fine until the next morning when the Sgt Major starting yelling for everyone to saddle up, we were moving out. When my bud and I crawled out of our hole we noticed that everybody else was all wet, including the Sgt Major. We looked at each other wishing like hell we were soaked and how long would it take for that to happen! For some reason the Sgt Major didn't understand why we weren't wet too. That was my first time to have my ass ate out in the bush. I hoped it would be the last. Man, could that Sgt Major chew on your butt. We finally got hooked up with the rest of the Company. I reported to the section leader and was informed I was transferring and I reported to the Squad Leader in 1st Platoon. He advised me that I would be the A-Gunner to 2nd Squad. The Squad Leader put me with Gunner Paul Lanseros. I wasn't with Paul very long when I found myself in my first Fire Fight. Paul and I were lying in a bomb crater. Paul was firing the gun and I was feeding the rounds to him. All of a sudden he starts yelling, " My Toe! My Toe! They shot my#@%$^@$ middle toe off!" I checked him out and sure enough they did shoot his middle toe off. Here I was in the bush for about 15 or 16 hours, and went from A-Gunner to Gunner. I started to get a little worried about this time. It quickly became very apparent that maybe this wasn't such a good advancement. The Gooks all seemed to aim at the Machine Gun Position for some reason. The next day my Section Leader moved me from 1st Platoon to 3rd Platoon. I was put into Thomas Saint's gun team. I was in the gun team with Thomas Saint and Jack Kzzinski. I had heard from the guys in 1st Platoon that Thomas Saint had his shit together. Saint started schooling me on how to stay alive in the Bush. He was an Old Salt. He had been there since April 1968 and here it was September 1968. Only wounded once. I tried to remember everything he had to say. I knew that if he could make it that long he had to be good. I did make it out of the stage of FNG and was I glad. It only took about two months. Then you know, your boots had lost all of the black polish and were starting to turn white, You had got a sun tan by now or thought you had, the red dust over there makes you look like you really had a good tan until you take a bath. By that time you had gotten rid of the State Side Utilities, and finally gotten some Jungle Utilities. The other Marines had finally started to remember and call you by your name, instead of "Hey Boot" and figured maybe you would be around long enough to go ahead and talk to you. Then it's time to start seeing more FNGs coming to your Company. Man they walk up got they new clothes on, they boots are polished looking good. Then they look at you, and you can tell their thinking this guy must have been here a long time; just look at him I mean this is a real Grunt. One of the FNG's that came in late September, I will never forget. We were in the rear at Con Thien and it was nighttime. Con Thien to us seemed very safe for some reason although I don't know why, because you could see the NVA Flag flying in the daytime and watch the NVA convoys coming down the road at night. Anyway some guy comes up and says "Hey Murph got a FNG from Mesquite, Texas over in 2nd Squad". I said man that is close to home. So I went over and this guy was in full dress, pack and all, with his M16 at Port Arms, walking back and forth. I mean he is on Guard Duty. As I got closer to him, he says HALT WHO GOES THERE Well I knew what was going on. He was getting "welcomed" to Nam, by the rest of his Squad. I told him my name and he says ADVANCE TO BE RECONIZED so I did and asked him "Hey man what in the hell do you think you're doing?" "My Squad Leader told me that it was very important for me to watch this".

Long exposure of [Puff the Magic Dragon....or "Spooky"] in action

You were there when it started? Did you know Dave "Beetle" Bailey? I am not sure which co. he was with... He passed away as the result of a brain tumor Thanksgiving week of '98. I was honored to be at his funeral, well attended by 1/9 personnel. Gunny Lee Burns (SSgt Burns at the time and Plt Sgt for 2/b/1/9) was also there. And last year November (2001) my wife got to meet "Uncle Lee" when we went to Pendleton for the H&S Bn Birthday Ball. He told her to "Picture me 150 pounds lighter with a cigar in my mouth, .45 on my hip and a 12 ga. shotgun cradled in my arms." That was the Lee Burns of Operation Buffalo. A true hero in anyone's book... but there were a LOT of heroes made in those first few days of Buffalo, as the NVA ambushes took their dreadful toll of Marines. The DMZ was not referred to as the Dead Marine Zone without cause. 1/9's blood shed those first dreadful days of July, 1967, was quickly avenged, first by Charlie Co and Delta Co elements, then by the SLF (3/3, IIRC)