THE WALL OF FACES

Father Brett: It is good to make contact with you after all these years. I somehow, someway, found your nephew Ed Rouse and he and I have communicated. I sent him copies of two letters from a bunch that my mom had saved. In both letters I mention you. One centered on your appearance on Hill 861 fairly early on in the siege and how happy I was to receive my only Communion at Khe Sanh from you (in the CP bunker) and an absolution from all my sins up to that date in my life! I have never forgotten the moment when we met and your link from me to God. I'm sure my mom was pleased to read about that in the letter. (The 2nd letter mentioned the news about your death and how bad many of us on the hill felt.) My mom's out there with you somewhere now. Try to look her up for me and say hi. Her name is Elizabeth Foley, but you probably already know that. I'm returning to Hill 861 this summer, and I plan to make footprints where I did so 32 years ago. I'll be sure to remember you when I stand very close to where we both knelt over three decades ago. Dennis

From a press report:Thursday, May 27, 1999

The last time anyone saw the chaplain and his aide alive
was on an airstrip in Khe Sanh. As they came under
attack from the North Vietnamese army, they waved off a
helicopter set to take them away and prepared instead to
do their jobs.

For three long months during the Vietnam War, Chaplain
Robert Brett, 33, and Private First Class Alexander Chin,
a 23-year-old Marine, had forged a close partnership,
scrambling through neck-high elephant grass and
foxholes, dodging bullets and mortar shells as they
ministered to frightened Marines.

This time, the lightning-fast rocket attack on the landing
strip took their lives. And their story might have ended on
that February day in 1968, in the hilltop trench where
their mangled bodies were pulled from the shrapnel and
debris and shipped home.

But yesterday they were reunited in Arlington National
Cemetery, buried side by side under a bright sky on
Chaplain's Hill.

At the behest of Brett's family and with the permission of
Chin's relatives, Chin's body was removed from his
family plot in the town of Princess Anne on Maryland's
Eastern Shore and reinterred next to the man he vowed
to serve.

About 60 relatives, fellow Vietnam veterans and military
officials gathered for the ceremony. Navy Rear Admiral
Barry C. Black, deputy chief of chaplains, told Chin's
family and friends that their Marine was a "spiritual hero."


Chin, family members say, was deeply religious and, after
several months of combat, told his commanders in
Vietnam that he could no longer kill the nemy. Instead of
a court-martial, relatives said, Chin was given a job
protecting and assisting Brett.

"He said, 'I won't take a life, but I'll put my life on the line
for another,' " Black said, as six Marines held a flag
above Chin's coffin. "Alexander laid down his life. It was
love's crowning act."

Family members embraced and sobbed openly as
Marines fired a salute in Chin's honor.

"It's devastating," said Levi Chin, 52, his younger
brother. "It's like reliving his first funeral all over again.
But it's an honor that he's here."

Alexander Chin was in college, studying art, when he
was drafted. Not long after he arrived in Vietnam, he and
Brett became a fixture in the trenches, administering first
aid, comforting Marines on the line and doing
on-the-spot baptisms.

"They were always on the battlefield giving last rites and
dragging the wounded to safer positions," said Larry
Ballard, who served with the men in the 26th Marine
Regiment at Khe Sanh. "They were heroes. They placed
themselves in mortal danger. Both of them."

Jim Leslie, 58, a former Marine captain who served with
Brett and Chin, attended yesterday's ceremony and
remembered Brett for his courage and compassion.

"Chaplain Brett was always there, no matter if there was
shooting or not," Leslie said. The experience, he said,
changed his life. "Some people call it foxhole religion, but
for many of us, it continued forever. Brett was a
brave one. No doubt."

Brett volunteered to go to Vietnam because "he wanted
to help people in dire situations," said his brother, the
Rev. Frank Brett of Norris, Tennessee, who also served
as a chaplain in Vietnam. "My brother went places no one
thought a chaplain would go. Most people wouldsay,
'What are you doing in this Khe Sanh mess?' "

Robert Brett had been in Vietnam for six months when
he and Chin were killed. Marines who witnessed the
attack said the two were about to board a helicopter
when they came under assault. Brett, they said, told the
chopper to take off without them, allowing another man
to go instead.

Several Marines were killed in the attack. At the time,
family members said, Chin had already received three
Purple Hearts and was scheduled to return home. He
was engaged to be married.

"We had a banner stretched outside the door that said,
'Welcome Home, Alex,' " recalled one of Chin's sisters,
Lottie Chin Benyard. "We had saved all his presents from
Christmas, and we were going to celebrate all over again.

Then we got the knock at the door telling us he'd been
killed."

Benyard said her family first learned of Chin's heroism
when she was contacted earlier this year by Ballard and
later by Brett's nephew, Edward Rouse. Three decades
ago, Brett had been buried at his mother's request in the
cemetery of the Penndel, Pennsylvania, seminary where
he received his
religious training. His mother died in 1980, and last fall,
Rouse and his family fulfilled their longtime wish to have
Brett's body moved to Arlington National Cemetery.

They felt strongly that Chin should be there, too. So
Rouse hired a private detective, who tracked down
Chin's relatives in the Baltimore area.

Chin "knew his duty was to protect the chaplain, and in
honor of that commitment, I felt it was my duty to bring
him to Arlington for honors and recognition," Rouse
said. "A lot of lies have come out about Vietnam
veterans.

"This is a story of honor and sacrifice. It would have
been very easy for them, in the face of all that evil, to give
up their belief in God and their dedication to duty in the
face of stress. But neither of them did. I'm proud of both
of them."