THE WALL OF FACES

1968 yearbook

War drew us from our homeland
In the sunlit springtime of our youth.
Those who did not come back alive remain
in perpetual springtime -- forever young --
And a part of them is with us always.

National Route 9 (QL-9) ran across Vietnam roughly in line with the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Vietnam within Quang Tri Province. In January 1968, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) was on the offensive all along Route 9 and the DMZ. Early in the morning of January 16th, a 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion "Stingray” team operating in the area between Camp Carroll and the Rockpile above Route 9 to surveil enemy activity were preparing to leave their night harbor site when they heard movement approximately fifty yards away and coming toward their position. The Marines paused and the movement ceased. One member of the patrol rose to his knees to put on gear when a shot was fired by a hostile force, wounding the man in the leg. The patrol returned fire and received intense small arms and automatic weapons fire, sustaining a second man wounded. The hostile force was NVA regulars, visible in green utilities and helmets impressed with a yellow lightning bolt design and armed with AK-47 rifles and two machine guns. A third man was wounded when they received incoming grenades. The patrol threw CS (tear) gas, but the NVA pulled on gas masks and the chemical agent had no effect on them as they approached within ten yards of the Marines’ position. The Navy corpsman embedded with the team was attempting to treat one of the wounded when he received a five-round burst in the chest and back, fatally injuring him. By this time, the patrol had artillery and gunship support, the helicopters receiving a heavy volume of automatic weapons fire during their runs. While the Marines and the enemy continued to exchange small arms fire and grenades, the 3rd Marines sent a reaction platoon from Company H, 2/9 Marines from Camp Carroll. Lifted into a helicopter landing zone about 1000 yards east of the reconnaissance team, the reaction platoon came under machine gun fire. They returned fire and called in air and artillery fire support. After the artillery and air strikes silenced the enemy guns, the infantry platoon joined up with the reconnaissance team. By that time, the North Vietnamese troops had disappeared, leaving six dead behind. At 1:40 PM that afternoon, Marine helicopters extracted both groups of Marines to Camp Carroll. The units sustained one killed on the Stingray Team, Navy corpsman HM3 Darrell C. Lint, and four Marines wounded. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org and “Command Chronology (3d Recon Bn), January 1968” at ttu.edu]

On the remembrance of your 75th birthday, your sacrifice is not forgotten.

Semper Fi, Doc

Dear PO3C Darrell Lint, Thank you for your service as a Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class with the 3rd Marine Recon Battalion. Semper Fi. Thank you for the lives you saved. Saying thank you isn't enough, but it is from the heart. Today is Easter Saturday. The time passes quickly. Please watch over America, it stills needs your strength, courage, guidance and faithfulness. Rest in peace with the angels.