December 23, 2024 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Karl Marlantes, the award-winning author of Matterhorn and What It Is Like To Go To War, tells the story of how he received his medals in Vietnam—and how he grappled with them when so many had done more and gotten less than him.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. And up next
a story from Carl Merlantis. Carl is the author of
the award winning books Matterhorn and what It's Like to
Go to War, books that took him thirty years of
reckoning and soul searching to write after his service in Vietnam.
While in Vietnam, Carl and his Marines were engaged against
(00:31):
the North Vietnamese Army often called the NVA, and in
so doing Carl earned many medals, including the second highest
award for valor our country bestows that would be the
Navy Cross. But Carl often asked himself a question, why
did he receive the awards when others who hadn't been
awarded had done so much more. Here's Carl with the story.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
The NBA had dug in on a couple hills on
Mutter's Ridge, and at that time I had been promoted
to the company executive officer. We were on a on
the assault, and I I couldn't stand to not be
with my platoon cause I'd just just giving him up
to take the new job. And uh, a new brand
new platoon commander had only been in one firefight, so
(01:20):
I just I I joined the platoon fit just to
help out. And there was a kid that, uh was
clearly you know, panicked and if you don't seat the
magazine of your of your M sixteen correctly, it won't work.
(01:41):
And he was his hands were trembling, and he was
on the ground, and there was a machine gun nest
above us, and you know, and I hit the ground
next to.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Him, and he was just shaking with fear.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I knew him a good kid, and I and I
could see right away that he hadn't seated his magazine.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
That was what he was because he thought his weapon
had failed him. And so I, I, I.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Took the rifle from him, and I seated the magazine correctly,
and I handed it back to them, and I said.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Don't go up there, don't go up above.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
We were in a little sort of definitely a little
sort of a very shallow dip in the ground, so
the bullets were flying over our head and so we
were safe where we were. I said, don't go up there.
Because they had cut the jungle away from the ground
up about to knee height.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Everything else was hidden by the all the foliage.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
But if you put your eye on the ground, it
was absolutely clear all the way up to the machine guns,
and that it was it's a classic tactic.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
They'll shoot your legs.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And then when your when your legs go, your body
goes down into that same kill zone and then they'd
kick you out hit your body.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
And he nodded his head and said, yeah, I don okay.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So I I said okay, and I took off because
I had other things that I had to do. I
was trying to keep this assault organized. And he took off,
running straight up the hill toward the machine gun. And
to this day, I don't know why he did that,
and my guess is that he felt I'm guessing that
he felt embarrassed or something, because he had sort of
(03:15):
gotten down on the ground and gotten scared and he
was going to, you know, not be scared anymore. And
I get tearful because he charged that machine gun.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Well he went down.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I heard him say I'm hit and I couldn't see him,
but I could hear him up there and the bullet's
going on, and I came running back and the platoon
sergeant heard him cry out too, and he came out
the other way and I said, you know it's I
won't use his name, and it was like, now.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
What are we going to do it?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Because he's up there, he's alive because I heard him
cry out he's hit. And so I remember thinking, I mean,
this is really weird. I wanted to meddle and I
remember going like, you know, if you y, you're not
I'm not in charge of the platoon. I was sort
(04:07):
of just super numerary because I just left the company headquarters.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I mean headquarters. I mean, it's stupid. It's there were
just you know, a hundred yards perway from me.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
But but I remember thinking I made a joke with.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
A gunny ring.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
He was in a staff sergeant, and I said, if
I go up and get him, I said, y, you
write me up for a medal and it a haak
and he looked at me and he said, yeah, I'll
write you up for a medal.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Be it'll be posthumous. Uh. You know that banner went
right back and forth.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
But I wanted to go get the kid because you know,
he was in my platoon and I knew he was
in trouble. And at the same time, it was like,
you know, grab a little glory here. It's hard to imagine,
but you know, you're twenty two, twenty three years old.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
And that's that's in your that's in your psyche, I think.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
So I went up there with mixed motives, and in
order to reach him, I had to keep the heads
of the machine gunners down so they couldn't they couldn't
be firing at me and actually aiming, And so I
was firing my M sixteen at the machine guns.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
It was a one machine gun.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Bunker up above us, and crawling up this really steep hill,
I mean very steep, and shooting up at the machine gun.
And I found the kid, and I remember trying to
drag him down the hill, but I couldn't move him.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
He was a big kid, and.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
So I wrapped myself around him and turned ourselves sideways
and so I could roll with him. And so with
the rifle between us and me grabbing him and rolling,
I rolled all the way back down, got him down there,
and Doc Yankee was there. He was a Navy corman
and started working on him right away, and then he stopped.
(06:02):
And I never forget this because it's it's so these
Navy cormen are just incredible people. He was sucking vomit
out of this kid's mouth. And blood and spinning it
to try and and keep him alive. And I'm just
certain they're, you know, watching this, I mean, and all
(06:23):
this is happening in maybe a few minutes. And he
stopped and he looked up at me, and he and
he held his head and pointed to his head and
there was a bullet hole in it, and he said,
I can't save him, and he dropped him and took
off because he had other wounded people screaming for help.
And I start thinking if he was alive and talking
(06:46):
and there was a bullet in his head, how could
he be alive and talking? And it suddenly hit me,
It's like, my god, maybe I put the bullet in
his head.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
That's a horrible feeling.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
And it wouldn't have felt so bad if my motives
had been pure.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
But my motives weren't pure.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And so although I was brave, I was brave for
mixed motives. I wanted to go save him, but at
the same time, I.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Did kind of want to get a medal. I wanted it,
you know, Ah, well, be careful what you wish for.
And to this day, I don't know if I killed
him where the NBA killed him, because.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
The bodies got stacked up in stacks on the hill
and unfortunately a mortar around hit all the bodies and
it was just carnage. All these guys that you know,
just hours before had been alive and frenzy yours and
you haven't seen anything. You don't know what carnage means.
Do you see a murder around hit a bunch of bodies? Boy,
(07:55):
how'd I get on?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
So anyway, we went through several days of of being
assaulted by this larger NBA unit that we had just
managed to insert ourselves into a regiment that had been
on the move down Mutters ridged, so they sort of
sealed us off because we were right back in their
path all their resupply and everything, and that's why we
(08:16):
got surrounded. And I can remember we counted out the
bullets because it was monsoon, we couldn't get resupplied, and
we had seven bullets left each. We had redistributed all
of our ammunition so that everybody had seven bullets, and
we knew that the next assault would be all over.
It was really as close as I've come to, you know, mortality.
(08:38):
And we managed to get out of it because the
clouds cleared just enough to bring in ammunition and reinforcements.
After several several days of really hard fighting, we had
been kicked off of one hill and we had a
kernel that it was, you know, and he said, we.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Got take back that hill. You were kicked off with
the guy to get your pride back. And I was like,
I don't want to get my pride back.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
I mean, we're exhausted and we've lost a whole bunch
of our friends, and you know, anyway, orders and order, and.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
So we had to go into the assault the next morning.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
And you've been listening to Calin Marlentis tell the story
of what happened on a hill decades ago. More of
Carl's story here on our American Stories, and we're back
(09:40):
with our American stories in calm Merlentis's story. When we
last left off, Carl had just rushed into enemy fire
to try to save a fallen marine. He received a
medal for that, but he didn't feel good about it.
It felt as if he'd planned to receive the medal
he had in the end, as he said motives. The
(10:01):
fighting wasn't over, though. When Carl and his marines were
about to go into an assault against the Vietnamese bunker complex.
Let's continue with the story.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
We'd been mortared for days, so this larger Enby unit
had mortar positions, and you can't keep mortars supplied with
ammunition unless there's a lot of people packing mortars.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
So it was a pretty big unit.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
We went through the jungle, got on the edge of
the jungle with we're being cleared.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Away by napalm, and.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
We're all lined up ready to go, and the word
comes to kick off, and you don't. You don't charge,
You don't run your full you're laden with ammunition, and
if you try to run up a hill you're exhausted.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
And you won't make it. You walk up.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
When you're in an assault, you walk, which is really
hard when you're being shot at. And the whole line
of bunkers up above us, the NBA were in them,
opened up with machine guns. Well, the whole line of
marines went down to the ground, took cover behind logs,
falling logs and hit the ground.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
And the assault stopped.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Now what, I'm the guy in charge, and if we
stayed where we were, the mortars would start hitting us.
Because I knew that, you know, they'd been shooting us
for days, and so they'd be zeroed in on us.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Marines don't retreat, it's just not something we do. So
there's only one thing to do.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
It is I have to get all these guys up
off the ground and take out those machine guns. And
there was a guy at the Basic school, a redheaded
major named Miller, And remember him telling us. He says,
you know, you lieutenants, think about this. He says, the
corporals and sergeants can do everything you do. Technically, they
(11:56):
can do everything. But someday you're gonna know when you're
gonna earn your pay. There's gonna be a day the
time is gonna come when you are going to earn
your pay, and you'll know.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
It when it happens.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I can remember him saying that I was on that
hill with a whole line of Marines down on the
ground about to get hit by mortars, and oh, this
is what Major Miller was talking about. And here's the
difference is that my motives then were I got to
(12:31):
get these guys out of this pickle.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I was just.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Purely trying to think about how to stop the slaughter
that was gonna come if we didn't move and all
this is going on in seconds. I mean, you know,
it takes me a long time to tell it, but
it really goes by. It was really a short period
of time, and I had an outer body experience.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
And to this day, I.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Can't tell you if that was a spiritual experience or
a psychotic experience, but believe me, this is what I did.
I left my body and I looked at the whole
situation from some vantage point way up in the sky.
I saw everybody laid out on the line. I saw
where all the machine guns were up above us. I
saw the bunker complex.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
I figured it all.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Out by looking at it from up in the sky.
And I came back down into my body and I
started to shout at people to get you know, like
I said, get the seventy nine man. I want you
to take that bunker out. I want you to keep
firing at it because we got to keep that machine
gun quiet, because I got to get this other machine
gun quiet. And if we can get between these two
(13:39):
machine guns, then we can start to open up by
going down the line and they won't be able to
shoot us because they got us in a Crossbrodan, I
was thinking all these things, and there.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Was a brand new kid. I don't even know his name.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
He came in with the replacements the day before, skinny
African American kid. You know, he should have been playing
basketball for his high school.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
And he was a machine gun.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
And I said, you got to take that machine got
under fire.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
You've got to take it under fire now and keep it.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Keep their heads down so that we can get up
in between these two bunkers and then we can take
him out. And he laid down and started firing, very
controlled rip three shots, four shots, throw it, perfect fire control.
I just and I can remember thinking, thank God, somebody
trained this kid, because if you go too fast and
(14:27):
burn your barrels up and you're out of animal. And
as I ran down the line to keep organizing people,
I remember seeing his blood pumping out of his leg.
It was an arterial wound. Cause when it pumps like that,
it's arterial. I don't know if he lived or not,
because we lost a lot of guys and I don't
(14:47):
I didn't even know his name, so I don't know
if he was the one who lived or died. He
might have been wounded and then in fact, or he
might have died. But he kept that bunker down and uh,
there's no metal for him. So anyway, now, now what,
I still got to get the everybody up off the ground,
(15:08):
and so I thought the only thing I could do
was stand up and charge those bunkers.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
That's what I did.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I I said, you know, Major Milber, this is you know,
I remember his voice saying, this is when you earn
earned your pay. So so I stood up and I
started up the hill all by myself and what it
seemed like an eternity, but it probably was about four
or five seconds literally, and I noticed slight movement out
(15:36):
of the corner of my eye and I hit the
ground and whirled to shoot at cause I thought it
was NBA and it was Harding, who was a really
young squad leader but really bright kid. And behind Hearting
came the entire platoon.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
All of them.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
All of them came and up the hill, swarming up
the hill behind me. I mean, I get emotional just
thinking about it to this day. You know, Yeah, that's
why you want to be a marine. By God, that's
right there, That's why you want to be a marine
because of that heart.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
They all came up the hill and took out the bunkers,
a lot of them. You know, we lost a lot
of wounded.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Somebody said that were about one hundred and eighty in
the company, one hundred and twenty purple hearts during that
one week long or eight day long fight.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
So I got the Navy Cross for that, and I
feel good about that one.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Well, like you say, a Navy Cross is like you
can't go to a Navy base or a marine base
in the world and buy a drink. I mean, if
you're a Navy crossholder, you're put into a special category.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
How do you live with that?
Speaker 2 (17:02):
The kid that was holding that machine gun under his
machine gun fire, pumping blood, no metal for that kid,
and yet I got a I got a medal. I
I thought about it a lot because I remember that,
you know, the war, the the there are a lot
of the veterans against the war, who you know, I
mean I was.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
I thought the war was stupid too, and uh wrong.
So I was on their side politically.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
But when they started throwing their medals away, I couldn't
do that.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I couldn't throw that Navy.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Cross away or any of my medals. And I said,
why is that? And I said, because the analogy is
the newspapers report who made the touchdown. It's the half
back or full back that makes the touchdown. They never
report on the fact that the entire line was blocking
(17:55):
and that that touchdown was impossible without everybody on the
team MM doing their part. And so I hold that
Navy Cross the same way that I think that somebody
who was an adult holds how he got his name
in the paper for making a touchdown. He knows full
well the paper gave him the credit for the touchdown,
(18:17):
but it was it would not have happened without the
whole team. So that isn't my metal, that's my unit's medal.
That's the symbol in something you can grab of that
heart those kids, and like I said, they're kids taking
on those bunkers, and I could never throw that away
(18:41):
because it's theirs, it's not mine.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yeah, I'm part of it. I mean I have my share.
I'm part of that team. So I feel very proud
of it.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
And I also think about the kids and the bunkers
that were shooting at us. They were drafted, I mean
none of them wanted to be there either.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Yeah, it was their country, and we'll talk about how.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Oh you know, they were defending their country, and so
they were more motivated. And yeah, I don't know, maybe
they were more motivated, who knows, but I think if
you had asked any of them, would you like to
leave now, they had gone home just like the rest
of us.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
So they were there too, you know. And so that
medal is part of that.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
In other words, it's not just not just the team
the Marines, but it was just everybody on that hill.
And so I've come to terms with that metal because
I've sort of seen it as is it just a concrete,
physical object that represents incredible heart.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
And a special thanks to Monty Montgomery the production on
that piece, and special thanks to call m Rlentes and
my goodness, what Major Miller said to him one day,
you're going to earn your pay. You'll know when it happens,
and my goodness, Paul knew it when it happened, and
of course at the end him saying, that's not my metal,
it's my unit's metal, and that's how he came to
(20:03):
terms with it. Ultimately, the story of carmelentis the story
of so many soldiers who fought for our country. Here
on our American story
And we returned to our American stories. And up next
a story from Carl Merlantis. Carl is the author of
the award winning books Matterhorn and what It's Like to
Go to War, books that took him thirty years of
reckoning and soul searching to write after his service in Vietnam.
While in Vietnam, Carl and his Marines were engaged against
(00:31):
the North Vietnamese Army often called the NVA, and in
so doing Carl earned many medals, including the second highest
award for valor our country bestows that would be the
Navy Cross. But Carl often asked himself a question, why
did he receive the awards when others who hadn't been
awarded had done so much more. Here's Carl with the story.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
The NBA had dug in on a couple hills on
Mutter's Ridge, and at that time I had been promoted
to the company executive officer. We were on a on
the assault, and I I couldn't stand to not be
with my platoon cause I'd just just giving him up
to take the new job. And uh, a new brand
new platoon commander had only been in one firefight, so
(01:20):
I just I I joined the platoon fit just to
help out. And there was a kid that, uh was
clearly you know, panicked and if you don't seat the
magazine of your of your M sixteen correctly, it won't work.
(01:41):
And he was his hands were trembling, and he was
on the ground, and there was a machine gun nest
above us, and you know, and I hit the ground
next to.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Him, and he was just shaking with fear.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I knew him a good kid, and I and I
could see right away that he hadn't seated his magazine.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
That was what he was because he thought his weapon
had failed him. And so I, I, I.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Took the rifle from him, and I seated the magazine correctly,
and I handed it back to them, and I said.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Don't go up there, don't go up above.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
We were in a little sort of definitely a little
sort of a very shallow dip in the ground, so
the bullets were flying over our head and so we
were safe where we were. I said, don't go up there.
Because they had cut the jungle away from the ground
up about to knee height.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Everything else was hidden by the all the foliage.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
But if you put your eye on the ground, it
was absolutely clear all the way up to the machine guns,
and that it was it's a classic tactic.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
They'll shoot your legs.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And then when your when your legs go, your body
goes down into that same kill zone and then they'd
kick you out hit your body.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
And he nodded his head and said, yeah, I don okay.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So I I said okay, and I took off because
I had other things that I had to do. I
was trying to keep this assault organized. And he took off,
running straight up the hill toward the machine gun. And
to this day, I don't know why he did that,
and my guess is that he felt I'm guessing that
he felt embarrassed or something, because he had sort of
(03:15):
gotten down on the ground and gotten scared and he
was going to, you know, not be scared anymore. And
I get tearful because he charged that machine gun.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Well he went down.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I heard him say I'm hit and I couldn't see him,
but I could hear him up there and the bullet's
going on, and I came running back and the platoon
sergeant heard him cry out too, and he came out
the other way and I said, you know it's I
won't use his name, and it was like, now.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
What are we going to do it?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Because he's up there, he's alive because I heard him
cry out he's hit. And so I remember thinking, I mean,
this is really weird. I wanted to meddle and I
remember going like, you know, if you y, you're not
I'm not in charge of the platoon. I was sort
(04:07):
of just super numerary because I just left the company headquarters.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I mean headquarters. I mean, it's stupid. It's there were
just you know, a hundred yards perway from me.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
But but I remember thinking I made a joke with.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
A gunny ring.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
He was in a staff sergeant, and I said, if
I go up and get him, I said, y, you
write me up for a medal and it a haak
and he looked at me and he said, yeah, I'll
write you up for a medal.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Be it'll be posthumous. Uh. You know that banner went
right back and forth.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
But I wanted to go get the kid because you know,
he was in my platoon and I knew he was
in trouble. And at the same time, it was like,
you know, grab a little glory here. It's hard to imagine,
but you know, you're twenty two, twenty three years old.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
And that's that's in your that's in your psyche, I think.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
So I went up there with mixed motives, and in
order to reach him, I had to keep the heads
of the machine gunners down so they couldn't they couldn't
be firing at me and actually aiming, And so I
was firing my M sixteen at the machine guns.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
It was a one machine gun.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Bunker up above us, and crawling up this really steep hill,
I mean very steep, and shooting up at the machine gun.
And I found the kid, and I remember trying to
drag him down the hill, but I couldn't move him.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
He was a big kid, and.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
So I wrapped myself around him and turned ourselves sideways
and so I could roll with him. And so with
the rifle between us and me grabbing him and rolling,
I rolled all the way back down, got him down there,
and Doc Yankee was there. He was a Navy corman
and started working on him right away, and then he stopped.
(06:02):
And I never forget this because it's it's so these
Navy cormen are just incredible people. He was sucking vomit
out of this kid's mouth. And blood and spinning it
to try and and keep him alive. And I'm just
certain they're, you know, watching this, I mean, and all
(06:23):
this is happening in maybe a few minutes. And he
stopped and he looked up at me, and he and
he held his head and pointed to his head and
there was a bullet hole in it, and he said,
I can't save him, and he dropped him and took
off because he had other wounded people screaming for help.
And I start thinking if he was alive and talking
(06:46):
and there was a bullet in his head, how could
he be alive and talking? And it suddenly hit me,
It's like, my god, maybe I put the bullet in
his head.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
That's a horrible feeling.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
And it wouldn't have felt so bad if my motives
had been pure.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
But my motives weren't pure.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And so although I was brave, I was brave for
mixed motives. I wanted to go save him, but at
the same time, I.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Did kind of want to get a medal. I wanted it,
you know, Ah, well, be careful what you wish for.
And to this day, I don't know if I killed
him where the NBA killed him, because.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
The bodies got stacked up in stacks on the hill
and unfortunately a mortar around hit all the bodies and
it was just carnage. All these guys that you know,
just hours before had been alive and frenzy yours and
you haven't seen anything. You don't know what carnage means.
Do you see a murder around hit a bunch of bodies? Boy,
(07:55):
how'd I get on?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
So anyway, we went through several days of of being
assaulted by this larger NBA unit that we had just
managed to insert ourselves into a regiment that had been
on the move down Mutters ridged, so they sort of
sealed us off because we were right back in their
path all their resupply and everything, and that's why we
(08:16):
got surrounded. And I can remember we counted out the
bullets because it was monsoon, we couldn't get resupplied, and
we had seven bullets left each. We had redistributed all
of our ammunition so that everybody had seven bullets, and
we knew that the next assault would be all over.
It was really as close as I've come to, you know, mortality.
(08:38):
And we managed to get out of it because the
clouds cleared just enough to bring in ammunition and reinforcements.
After several several days of really hard fighting, we had
been kicked off of one hill and we had a
kernel that it was, you know, and he said, we.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Got take back that hill. You were kicked off with
the guy to get your pride back. And I was like,
I don't want to get my pride back.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
I mean, we're exhausted and we've lost a whole bunch
of our friends, and you know, anyway, orders and order, and.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
So we had to go into the assault the next morning.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
And you've been listening to Calin Marlentis tell the story
of what happened on a hill decades ago. More of
Carl's story here on our American Stories, and we're back
(09:40):
with our American stories in calm Merlentis's story. When we
last left off, Carl had just rushed into enemy fire
to try to save a fallen marine. He received a
medal for that, but he didn't feel good about it.
It felt as if he'd planned to receive the medal
he had in the end, as he said motives. The
(10:01):
fighting wasn't over, though. When Carl and his marines were
about to go into an assault against the Vietnamese bunker complex.
Let's continue with the story.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
We'd been mortared for days, so this larger Enby unit
had mortar positions, and you can't keep mortars supplied with
ammunition unless there's a lot of people packing mortars.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
So it was a pretty big unit.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
We went through the jungle, got on the edge of
the jungle with we're being cleared.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Away by napalm, and.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
We're all lined up ready to go, and the word
comes to kick off, and you don't. You don't charge,
You don't run your full you're laden with ammunition, and
if you try to run up a hill you're exhausted.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
And you won't make it. You walk up.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
When you're in an assault, you walk, which is really
hard when you're being shot at. And the whole line
of bunkers up above us, the NBA were in them,
opened up with machine guns. Well, the whole line of
marines went down to the ground, took cover behind logs,
falling logs and hit the ground.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
And the assault stopped.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Now what, I'm the guy in charge, and if we
stayed where we were, the mortars would start hitting us.
Because I knew that, you know, they'd been shooting us
for days, and so they'd be zeroed in on us.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Marines don't retreat, it's just not something we do. So
there's only one thing to do.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
It is I have to get all these guys up
off the ground and take out those machine guns. And
there was a guy at the Basic school, a redheaded
major named Miller, And remember him telling us. He says,
you know, you lieutenants, think about this. He says, the
corporals and sergeants can do everything you do. Technically, they
(11:56):
can do everything. But someday you're gonna know when you're
gonna earn your pay. There's gonna be a day the
time is gonna come when you are going to earn
your pay, and you'll know.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
It when it happens.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I can remember him saying that I was on that
hill with a whole line of Marines down on the
ground about to get hit by mortars, and oh, this
is what Major Miller was talking about. And here's the
difference is that my motives then were I got to
(12:31):
get these guys out of this pickle.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I was just.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Purely trying to think about how to stop the slaughter
that was gonna come if we didn't move and all
this is going on in seconds. I mean, you know,
it takes me a long time to tell it, but
it really goes by. It was really a short period
of time, and I had an outer body experience.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
And to this day, I.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Can't tell you if that was a spiritual experience or
a psychotic experience, but believe me, this is what I did.
I left my body and I looked at the whole
situation from some vantage point way up in the sky.
I saw everybody laid out on the line. I saw
where all the machine guns were up above us. I
saw the bunker complex.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
I figured it all.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Out by looking at it from up in the sky.
And I came back down into my body and I
started to shout at people to get you know, like
I said, get the seventy nine man. I want you
to take that bunker out. I want you to keep
firing at it because we got to keep that machine
gun quiet, because I got to get this other machine
gun quiet. And if we can get between these two
(13:39):
machine guns, then we can start to open up by
going down the line and they won't be able to
shoot us because they got us in a Crossbrodan, I
was thinking all these things, and there.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Was a brand new kid. I don't even know his name.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
He came in with the replacements the day before, skinny
African American kid. You know, he should have been playing
basketball for his high school.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
And he was a machine gun.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
And I said, you got to take that machine got
under fire.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
You've got to take it under fire now and keep it.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Keep their heads down so that we can get up
in between these two bunkers and then we can take
him out. And he laid down and started firing, very
controlled rip three shots, four shots, throw it, perfect fire control.
I just and I can remember thinking, thank God, somebody
trained this kid, because if you go too fast and
(14:27):
burn your barrels up and you're out of animal. And
as I ran down the line to keep organizing people,
I remember seeing his blood pumping out of his leg.
It was an arterial wound. Cause when it pumps like that,
it's arterial. I don't know if he lived or not,
because we lost a lot of guys and I don't
(14:47):
I didn't even know his name, so I don't know
if he was the one who lived or died. He
might have been wounded and then in fact, or he
might have died. But he kept that bunker down and uh,
there's no metal for him. So anyway, now, now what,
I still got to get the everybody up off the ground,
(15:08):
and so I thought the only thing I could do
was stand up and charge those bunkers.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
That's what I did.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I I said, you know, Major Milber, this is you know,
I remember his voice saying, this is when you earn
earned your pay. So so I stood up and I
started up the hill all by myself and what it
seemed like an eternity, but it probably was about four
or five seconds literally, and I noticed slight movement out
(15:36):
of the corner of my eye and I hit the
ground and whirled to shoot at cause I thought it
was NBA and it was Harding, who was a really
young squad leader but really bright kid. And behind Hearting
came the entire platoon.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
All of them.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
All of them came and up the hill, swarming up
the hill behind me. I mean, I get emotional just
thinking about it to this day. You know, Yeah, that's
why you want to be a marine. By God, that's
right there, That's why you want to be a marine
because of that heart.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
They all came up the hill and took out the bunkers,
a lot of them. You know, we lost a lot
of wounded.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Somebody said that were about one hundred and eighty in
the company, one hundred and twenty purple hearts during that
one week long or eight day long fight.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
So I got the Navy Cross for that, and I
feel good about that one.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Well, like you say, a Navy Cross is like you
can't go to a Navy base or a marine base
in the world and buy a drink. I mean, if
you're a Navy crossholder, you're put into a special category.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
How do you live with that?
Speaker 2 (17:02):
The kid that was holding that machine gun under his
machine gun fire, pumping blood, no metal for that kid,
and yet I got a I got a medal. I
I thought about it a lot because I remember that,
you know, the war, the the there are a lot
of the veterans against the war, who you know, I
mean I was.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
I thought the war was stupid too, and uh wrong.
So I was on their side politically.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
But when they started throwing their medals away, I couldn't
do that.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I couldn't throw that Navy.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Cross away or any of my medals. And I said,
why is that? And I said, because the analogy is
the newspapers report who made the touchdown. It's the half
back or full back that makes the touchdown. They never
report on the fact that the entire line was blocking
(17:55):
and that that touchdown was impossible without everybody on the
team MM doing their part. And so I hold that
Navy Cross the same way that I think that somebody
who was an adult holds how he got his name
in the paper for making a touchdown. He knows full
well the paper gave him the credit for the touchdown,
(18:17):
but it was it would not have happened without the
whole team. So that isn't my metal, that's my unit's medal.
That's the symbol in something you can grab of that
heart those kids, and like I said, they're kids taking
on those bunkers, and I could never throw that away
(18:41):
because it's theirs, it's not mine.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yeah, I'm part of it. I mean I have my share.
I'm part of that team. So I feel very proud
of it.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
And I also think about the kids and the bunkers
that were shooting at us. They were drafted, I mean
none of them wanted to be there either.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Yeah, it was their country, and we'll talk about how.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Oh you know, they were defending their country, and so
they were more motivated. And yeah, I don't know, maybe
they were more motivated, who knows, but I think if
you had asked any of them, would you like to
leave now, they had gone home just like the rest
of us.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
So they were there too, you know. And so that
medal is part of that.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
In other words, it's not just not just the team
the Marines, but it was just everybody on that hill.
And so I've come to terms with that metal because
I've sort of seen it as is it just a concrete,
physical object that represents incredible heart.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
And a special thanks to Monty Montgomery the production on
that piece, and special thanks to call m Rlentes and
my goodness, what Major Miller said to him one day,
you're going to earn your pay. You'll know when it happens,
and my goodness, Paul knew it when it happened, and
of course at the end him saying, that's not my metal,
it's my unit's metal, and that's how he came to
(20:03):
terms with it. Ultimately, the story of carmelentis the story
of so many soldiers who fought for our country. Here
on our American story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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