THE WALL OF FACES

Mark, so many memories of you in class at school in 7th & 8th grade. We will meet again one day in our Lord’s presence.

Thank you for your service to our country so long ago sir. As long as you are remembered you will always be with us….

We may have never met, but you were my fathers cousin. He also served in Nam after you. Him and I share a bond oddly over this war. When I was a young girl, he took me to a moving wall. When he was asked who he would like to look up, he couldn’t speak. Tears just flowed as the nice women helped him get your name out along with a few others out. From that point as a little girl, I new my dad had been some through some type of hell many of us will never understand. I will never know what my dad was like before nam. I do know he lived each day the best he could. With teaching me how to love this country and try to understand a little of what you men went through. People say he was a lucky one to come home alive. As many like you did not. But his life post war was nothing short of easy. I’m sure you know. I’m sure you watch over him. Im sorry you missed out on living a full life. I’m sorry people to this day still do not respect what you all did there. But know I was taught and know I have taught my children.
As my daughter, my first born, embarks on her journey of becoming a United States Marine, please watch over her.
God Bless Mark, thank you for your service. One day we will meet, and it will be one hell of an honor to give you a hug.

Dear Sp4 Mark Hering, Thank you for your service as an Airborne Qualified Infantryman. Today is Armed Forces Day. Please watch over the USA, it still needs your courage. Rest in peace with the angels.

On November 19, 1967, during the Battle of Dak, one of the worst friendly fire incidents of the Vietnam War occurred when a Marine Corps fighter-bomber dropped two bombs into the perimeter where officers and noncommissioned officers of 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry had set up a command post with their radio operators. The soldiers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade were dug in on the steep southern slope of Hill 875, fighting beside napalm fires and exposed to the guns of North Vietnamese Army shooting from tunnels nearby. Just past dusk, after making three dry runs over the battlefield, the Marine Corps A-4 attack jet descended to 1,000 feet above the jungle and released two 250-pound Mk-81 bombs fitted with Snakeye fins. Barreling in on a shallow 10-degree angle at hundreds of miles per hour, the two bombs from the A-4 hit the ground. One was a dud. The other exploded in a huge orange fireball. Instead of hitting the North Vietnamese, the bomb struck the branches of a lone tree along the Americans’ perimeter, under which the battalion had set up their command post. It was also a casualty-collection point where the most badly wounded soldiers were being treated by medics while awaiting medevac helicopters to take them off the hill. The bomb killed 21 men and wounded 10 more, including most of the remaining senior leaders and medics. A single radio operator was spared when he was protected by a pile of broken tree trunks that absorbed deadly fragments. The dead included MAJ Charles Watters, a 40-year-old Catholic priest who served as the battalion’s chaplain. Earlier in the battle, Watters had ventured out past the perimeter several times to rescue wounded soldiers, carrying or dragging them to safety, providing first aid and administering last rites to the dying—actions for which he was later awarded the Medal of Honor. After witnessing what happened below, a crewman on a U.S. Air Force AC-47 “Spooky” gunship flying in a slow circle 3,000 feet above the dead and wounded troops tossed parachute flares out the back of the plane to help survivors on the ground see in the darkness. The lost Americans included PFC Mario A. Cisneros, SP4 Gary R. Cooper, SP4 Gerald L. George Jr., SP4 Mark R. Hering, SP4 Thomas P. Huddleston, PVT Roger A. Kros, PFC Robert C. Lavallee Jr., SP4 Andrew J. Orosz, PFC William A. Ross, SP4 Robert J. Sanders, SP4 Jack H. Shoop Jr., SP4 Lewis B. Smith, PFC James R. Speller, SP4 Harry E. Stephens, 1LT Richard W. Thompson, PFC Richard Walker Jr., MAJ Charles J. Watters, and SSG Remer G. Williams. The remains of three Skysoldiers have never been found—SP4 Jack L. Croxdale II, PFC Benjamin D. DeHerrera, and SGT Donald Iandoli. A January 1968 U.S. Air Force investigation into the incident was inconclusive, declaring that “there is insufficient evidence to determine the exact cause of the short round” before blaming “improper release conditions.” The investigator recommended that pilots undergo remedial training and that the investigation be closed, as it had revealed “no gross personnel errors nor evidence of equipment malfunction.” [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org and “The Secret History of a Vietnam War Airstrike Gone Terribly Wrong” by John Ismay, nytimes.com, January 2019]