THE WALL OF FACES

Remember to save for them a place inside of you, and save one backward glance when you are leaving, for the places they can no longer go...

We were both Missouri Ozark squirrel hunters. Marines are very good marksmen. However you are the best shot I have ever met. When I reached you I could do nothing. You died instantly and without pain. I miss you every day.
Doc Noah
H 2/5

We were both Missouri Ozark squirrel hunters. Marines are very good marksmen. However you are the best shot I have ever met. When I reached you I could do nothing. You died instantly and without pain. I miss you every day.
Doc Noah
H 2/5

This is his boot camp photo from Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, Platoon 1081. He earned the title “U.S. Marine” on October 7, 1966.

Thank you for your service to our great country my brother. Semper Fi.

On September 10, 1967, during the last days of Operation Swift, Company H, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, were conducting a patrol north of Hill 43 in the Que Son Valley in Quang Tin Province, RVN. They searched a small village and found it empty except for a few women and children. They noted, however, that the village contained fortified bunkers, interlocking trenches, and barbed wire. The Company moved on and established a defensive position on a hill at about 2:00 PM. The Company Commander sent out 3rd Platoon on a security patrol in a one-mile radius around the hill. As they left, heavy rain began falling. The patrol route brought them back near the village around 2:30 PM where they began crossing the rice paddies surrounding it. Unbeknownst to them, a reinforced North Vietnamese Army company had slipped into the defensive positions there. The waited until the lead squad of the patrol was about to enter the village when they opened fire with sudden, intense, automatic weapons fire, including .50 caliber machine guns, virtually wiping out the lead Marine squad. The platoon was leaderless shortly after when 2LT Allan J. Herman died trying to rescue a wounded Marine in the rice paddy. The gunfire could be heard from the hilltop, and the Company, unable to raise the 3rd Platoon by radio, raced towards the village. Second Platoon was put behind the village to block escaping enemy, and mortar and artillery fire was poured on the NVA position. Another Company arrived to assist H Company, and airstrikes with 250lb. bombs were dropped. After two A-4 aircraft dropped tear gas, the Marines overran the village. Forty dead NVA were found, many others buried in the collapsed bunkers. Nine Marines died, six in the rice paddies just in front of the enemy. They were found with their M16 rifles broken down in an attempt to clear jammed cartridges in the chambers. They all had powder-burned bullet holes in their heads where the enemy had moved in and killed them execution-style. The lost Marines included LCPL Leo C. Aukland, LCPL James P. Braswell Jr., LCPL Charles W. Horvath, CPL Stephen L. Irvin, LCPL Kenneth C. Johnson, PFC Martin A. Rosales, SGT William B. Stutes, and LCPL Michael F. Wolf. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org and “U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese 1967” by Telfer, Rogers, and Fleming]