Max Cleland, as all men who saw service in Vietnam, especially at and during the seige of Khe Sahn, was brave and served the country. But, Max Cleland was not a hero. His injuries were reported by himself and by witnesses to have been from a hand grenade, which he mistakenly thought he had dropped after exiting a helicoper while on a routine trip to a nearby hill to install a communications antennae and just outside the base at Khe Sahn . 25 y.o. Max bent to retrieve the ordinance when it exploded, shredding both legs and one arm. A tragedy undoubtedly, but not exactly heroic.
There were a lot of brave men (or boys) who were not exactly heroes fighing in Vietnam. One day the company was assembled and briefed on an impending mission. Seems there was a ville (village) nearby suspected of harboring a weapons cache and our men were to go and ferret them out. The company was loaded into troop transport helocopters (slicks) and escourted to the LZ (landing zone) by Heuy Cobra gunship helicopters (sharks). Upon landing and unloading the company, the sharks could be seen in the distance circling the ville, preculding any ememy from escaping. The company headed in file towards the ville. As the foremost part of the company reached it, the front of the file cordoned off (encircled) the village, while the latter most part of the file, containing the Lt., NCO's and interpreters, began to enter the ville to interrogate the inhabitants, intending to search for weapons cached within. To enter the central courtyard of the ville (all the hooches (houses) faced inward in a kinda circle facing the courtyard) the file had to pass in between two of the hooches. The front of the column, the Lt. (leiutenant), sergeants and interpreter, had made the courtyard and were interrogating an old man on the front porch of one of the hooches. The trailing end of the file was still passsing beside while approaching the courtyard from the rear. The sharks were still circling overhead, ready for action "just in case." About this time, gunfire, errupted from within the hooch beside the still approaching file, knocking down the old man on the porch and hitting several of the men, including the Lt. and the sgts in the courtyard. Needless to say "all hell broke loose!" The hooch from which the firing came was adjacent the rear of the column coming into the ville. Instintively, by this time the men in this file had hit the ground, luckily because now all the G.I.s surrounding the ville began firing on the hooch. As the fire continued from within and into the hooch, bullets from at least 50 G.I.s poured into the hooch, whizzing over the heads of the men lying between and adjacent to the offening hooch. By now, the circling helicopter gunships had noticed the melee and joined in. Nose down, the first helicoper dove, pouring 7.62 cal. minigun fire on into the hooch, including the ground around the prone GI's. Looking up the men beside the hooch, still lying on the ground, with bullets whizzing over their heads into and out of the hooches, could see the second gunship start its run on the offenders. Diving "right at them" the second gunship sprayed minigun fire all around those GI's prostrate on the ground. Some, having pulled the pins from handgrenades, were afraid of the gunships fire hitting them and causing them to subsequently lose their grip on the grenades, blowing them to bits. But, their problems were soon to be compounded. Near the end of the second shark attack, it fired a 2.75" incindiary rocket, catching the hooch on fire. Now, laying on the ground, afraid to run because of the V.C. (viet cong, doesn't deserve capitalization) inside the hooch and the open window nearby, fearing being shot from within, and all the fire from the GI's cordoning the ville and the sharks raining minigun fire all around them from above, the live pin-less grenades in their hands, which they couldn't throw because of the heavy small arms fire, they were now also laying beside a raging, blazing, scortching hooch fire.
Due to the heat of the blaze, within seconds, the VC exited the hooch, and were killed in the courtyard.
The whole thing took probably less than 5 minutes, but the memory will last a lifetime. No heroes that day, either. Just soldiers doing their job, serving America. Carrying this kind of memory as well as the memory of the faces of the dead friends and enemy dead, killed by this soldier and other American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Guardsmen, is the real sacrifice given for which we should honor our Veterans.
God Bless America and our Servicemen
- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests