Many members of the 1st platoon had not contacted each other since leaving Viet Nam behind. We are contacting each other now as a result of Jerry's book and the efforts of other concerned veterans and family members. Many family members of veterans are interested in the experiences of their loved ones while serving in Viet Nam. I decided that I would post my pictures and add to the story as much as I can.

This is my father Ralph Culverhouse. I entered the US Army on June 13, 1967 two days after graduating from high school. I had volunteered for the draft when I turned 18 years old in April, 1967. I didn't tell my parents what I had done until the day before I left for Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. My brother had joined the Army the year before when he graduated. He was already in Viet Nam.

After infantry training at Fort Ord, California, I was sent to South Korea in November 1967. In March, 1968, after serving on the Korean DMZ with the 2nd Infantry Division, I volunteered to go to Viet Nam. This picture was taken when I was on leave from Korea before going to Viet Nam in April, 1968 at our family home in Carpentersville, Illinois. The Korean chapter will have to wait for some other time. The picture below was taken on my brother's camera in Japan a day or so later.

On my way to Viet Nam I had a one-day layover at Tachikawa AFB in Japan. I got to visit with my brother, Ross. He had been wounded in Viet Nam and the hospital he was at was evacuated to Japan to make room for more casualties. I knew he was at the hospital at Camp North Drake, so I took a bus to find him. While waiting for my plane to take off, we had drinks at the EM club.

My brother looked at me and said very seriously, more serious than I ever remember him being, "Why did you do it, man?"

I was startled and asked, "Do what?"

"Why did you volunteer to go to Nam?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know, you are probably going to get killed."  I didn't feel very well right then.

Since I did not yet know what division I would be assigned to once in Viet Nam, I asked Ross what would be the worse division right now. He said the 1st Cav. The Cav had just taken heavy losses in the battle of A Shau Valley. A week or so later I was standing in formation at Camp Alpha in Saigon when my name was called and I was assigned to the 1st Airmobile Cavalry Division. I expected no less. In a few months I would again be reunited with my brother, but this time it would be in Viet Nam.

From Saigon I flew to the 1st Cav division headquarters in An Khe. At An Khe the first night we were watching the "Sound of Music" in a small barracks theatre. We had to spend the next hour or two in a trench outside due to a mortar attack on the base. From An Khe I flew a Caribou to Camp Evans. I went through 1st Cav orientation there. The opening scene of the Oliver Stone's film "Platoon" shows Charlie Sheen's character arriving at an LZ getting "new guy" stares from the more experienced. This reminded me of the scene I went through in this picture. I also did some "shit burning" details while in An Khe, Just like in "Platoon". Our bodies and uniforms were still clean, but not for long.

This is my first day with 1st squad, 1st platoon Bravo Company. I am one of the FNGs. That is Sgt. Barber in the background. A couple of days before, the company had lost 56 KIAs and WIAs in a battle in the sand known as the Mother's Day Massacre. I was replacing someone who was killed or seriously wounded just a couple of days before. Welcome to Viet Nam. I remember pulling guard for the first night from this bunker on the perimeter of this LZ. That night as I looked at the concertina wire a few feet away, I was wondering how far away was the enemy? Could they come right up to the concertina wire? Was there another fence out there far away that I could not see where other soldiers were guarding me? Was there no one between me and the enemy out there? It was a rough night for me.

I was worried about dying. I started to pray, "Dear God, if there is a God". This wasn't going to work. I didn't have that kind of relationship with God to be asking Him for help. Next I decided to calculate my odds of surviving. In high school, I was a nerd. I took calculus in my senior year. Given: May, 1968 was just a few weeks after the Tet Offensive. There were 500,000 GIs in Viet Nam. 500 were dying each week. At that rate, over 25,000 would die in the next twelve months of my tour. Only 1 out of 10 in Viet Nam were in direct combat and most likely to be killed, that was 50,000 out of the 500,000. So 25,000 out of the 50,000 that I am a part of will be dead within a year. My odds were 50/50 that I would survive. And since I was in the 1st Cav, my odds were worse than most of the other 50,000. Therefore: I was dead already. A corollary is that even if I survived, the probability that I would be wounded was extremely high. The situation that I was in was becoming more serious.

I stopped thinking. Then a strange vision came upon me. In the vision there was a battle going on. It was not a modern war, it was hundreds of years in the past. Thousands of spears and arrows were flying through the air in all directions. Comrades were dying all around me. The ground was covered with blood and bodies. It was a ferocious fight. I survived in the vision, and I took it as a sign that I was "chosen" to survive this war in Viet Nam. I became calm again. That calm would never leave me. This picture was taken three weeks after my 19th birthday.

Medevac landing on North Bridge at Hai Lang.

North Bridge at Hai Lang. Aaron Feder, Unknown (Anyone know? If so please send me an email. Guesses - Mark: Peterson? Gary Spreng: Ron J. "Frenchie" Levesque of Bangor, Maine??), and Carrie Matson. I remember Aaron telling us that he was 18 and moved to New York from Israel and got drafted the next year.

After a month or two in Bravo Company, I submitted a request to be transferred to my brother's unit. He was now a helicopter door gunner with the 1st Aviation Brigade in Phu Bai. I began counting not only the 365 days until my tour would be over, but also the days until I might be transferred to be with Ross. Hey, why not?

These are the ARVNs that accompanied 1st squad on a night ambush described starting on the bottom of page 79 of Jerry Rohr's book. Jerry wrote, "...we suddenly heard the explosion of Claymore anti-personnel mines followed by machine gun fire from our own squad, but they seemed further away than I realized." Del Wilder and I had blown the Claymores and opened fire.

The purpose of the ambush was to cover the trail along the river back to the bridge. Del was the gunner on the M-60 machine gun. I was his assistant gunner. After dark the 1st squad moved out down the river trail. The rifle team and the rest of the gun team moved out first followed by these ARVNs who were then followed by Del and myself. After moving a few hundred meters away from the bridge, the squad turned left down a trail that went off perpendicular from the river. Being last in the formation, Del and I knew that we had to stop at the intersection of the river trail and the trail that the rest of the squad turned left on. After all, it was the trail approach to the bridge that we were ambushing.

So we set up the M-60 behind the brush lining the trail about 10-20 feet from the river on the other side of the river trail. The river bank dropped about 5-6 feet to the water and river bottom. We set up our trip flares and claymores ahead of us. As we laid there quietly in our position we noticed the ARVNs were to our left about 30 feet away. They were talking too loudly. Del and I were pissed. We also wondered how far away everyone else was.

We laid there for an hour or so. Then Del and I started hearing noises in front of us. We were in the prone position. The hedgerow in front of us was several feet high so we could not see through them too well, but it was our only cover. You always hear noises on a night ambush, but they usually go away. But this one did not go away. It kept on getting closer. There was a slight rustling ahead of us. Minutes passed (or was it seconds) as Del and I held our breaths, the Claymore plunger and the trigger of the M-60. The noise was now just several feet in front of us on the other side of the vegetation. Then this hulking shadow appeared above us. Someone was standing up right in front of us, not more than 3 feet away.

That is the instant that Del opened up with the M-60. I fired the Claymores. I then realized that our right flank was exposed because the enemy could jump down into the river bed and crawl up to our right flank or to our rear. So I tossed a couple of hand grenades to our right into the river bed. After we opened up, the ARVNs woke up and started firing ahead as did the rest of the squad. That is when Del and I realized how far away everyone else had gone. We were more vulnerable than we had assumed.

After the firing stopped, some illumination rounds were fired and the squad withdrew to the left away from the river. We eventually turned left again to get back on the highway and returned to the camp at the bridge. The next morning we went back to the ambush site and found gelled blood pools on the other side of the hedge in front of our position and more blood in front of the Claymores.

Daniel Duenas and kids at North Bridge at Hai Lang.

Daniel Duenas and kids at North Bridge at Hai Lang. Del Wilder in center background. And the back of Gilford's head is clearly visible.

Del Wilder and me at the bridge. On January 23, 2007, I spoke by telephone with Del for the first time since 1968. Read Sgt. Jerry Rohr's book to find out how he and his son, Matt Rohr brought the 1st platoon back together. Below is a picture of Del and I  taken in March 2007 when we visited for the first time since 1968.

Me at the bridge. The red "bathing suit" is a pair of women's underwear I bought in the village.

This shot is out the door of the Huey on a combat assault. Sgt. Jerry Rohr is on the left.

Here I am sitting in a bombed out Buddhist temple. Notice the "swastika" on the wall above. Jerry Rohr's book mentions "swastikas" on page 69.

I am smoking a pipe. Does anyone know who the guy in the background is?

I am wearing an NVA belt. It belonged to a Viet Cong soldier who surrendered to me. We were at a little LZ whose name I cannot remember. The LZ was next to two rivers that came together. I was sitting on my bunker when a commotion arose across the small river. A Viet Cong was standing on the other side about 30 meters away. He had an M-16 and satchel charges strapped to his belt. The villagers were afraid he would get killed surrendering, so they wanted someone to come and get him. The villagers sent a canoe-like boat across for me and I went over and brought him back in the boat. They took him to the CP and I never saw him again. A few hours later someone from the CP came back and gave me his belt. After the ambush on October 5, 1968 (described on page 90 in Jerry Rohr's book), I could no longer keep war souvenirs. I later traded the belt to a door gunner on the supply Huey for 100 joints.

Soon after the prisoner surrender, several GIs were goofing around and yelling "boom-boom" to this girl from the village. I was a little more behaved than the others. I guess she noticed because she came over later in the day and gave me these flowers.

Here I am pointing out some communist propaganda. Unfortunately, I agreed with it.

More communist "propaganda". "Repatriation of US Troops and peace in Viet Nam"
"You killed innocent people who never did you any harm. You can get killed for no good reason, get out!"

Scott Gray and I with a poster of Mick that came with an issue of Rolling Stone. On January 23, 2007, I spoke by telephone with Scott for the first in 38 years.

Here I am in "full uniform". I am wearing my "Dove Tags", the red peace symbol. The other peace symbol I made from a grenade pull-ring wrapped with trip wire on a bead necklace. My shades were Army issue. The surfer shirt I bought mail order from Hawaii. I think Jim Kuhn gave me the surfer magazine that I ordered it from. This may have been at LZ Nancy.

On page 72 of Sgt. Jerry Rohr's book "Lives on Hold" he writes,

I still have my Dove Tags (pictured above). After returning from the Viet Nam war my life also was put on hold for many years. My family and those who cared about me would urge me to forget what I had been through and get on with the life that I had before I had gone away. But I could not forget the slaughter that I knew was continuing just over the horizon. During the years that the war raged on, I became a lone army of one, a camp follower of the Anti-War. War has a way of stripping away the trappings of humanity to reveal naked truths. All people are the same. All wars are the same.

In November, 1968, the Cav moved south from the I Corps area where we had been operating. During this move, I asked the company clerk about the status of my request to be transferred to be with my brother. The clerk told me that the request was never processed. I had waited months for nothing. My brother and I were serving together in a combat zone called Viet Nam. I knew there was some kind of regulation about brothers serving in a combat zone at the same time. I sat down in the company clerk's office and read through the index of the Army Regulations. I quickly found the AR that stated that as soon as one of the family members notifies their company commander of the other family member, then one must immediately be removed from the field and transferred out of the combat zone. Since my brother was in a "safer" position than myself, I decided to get my ticket out of Viet Nam punched. Within hours I was separated from my squad and the next day I was on a plane out of Saigon heading back to Korea where I started from. My 12-month tour would have ended in April, 1969. If I had not left early in November, 1968 I would have been at the Battle of Angel's Wing along with the rest of the 1st platoon and Bravo Company. I had survived.

12 died at Angels' Wing, dozens more were wounded. Only four soldiers from the 1st platoon and 2nd platoons survived without injuries. Our platoon sergeant was Alberto Martinez. He was 31 years old. He looked like John Wayne to me. Marty was severely wounded at Angel's Wing. In December, 2006 I spoke with Sgt. Martinez on the telephone for the first time since 1968. His first words to me were, "Welcome home, Mark."

Del Wilder lost his thumb and finger at Angel's Wing. This would earn him his second Purple Heart. Del got his first Purple Heart on his first day in the field. He received his second and last Purple Heart on his last day in the field, at Angel's Wing.

Here is some Vietnamese money. What collection of war memorabilia is complete without some foreign currency ;-)

The only physical items that I still possess from Viet Nam are:

• The Dove Tags and the chains as shown above
• Photos and letters.
• My original CIB that was found in the woods years later by my wife
• The currency above
• An Army ration card from Viet Nam
• A folio and certificate from the 1st Cav

Here is a collection of the badges, insignias, patches, medals, etc. I received.

I recently visited with my brother, Ross, who brought his Viet Nam photos, etc. Here are some more photos and an interesting letter.

Other places to visit:

• Battle of Angel's Wing After Action Reports Documents
• Kevin Tillman's Letter on His Brother Pat's Birthday - Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002 and they served together as Rangers. Pat was killed April 22, 2004.
• Howard Keith Settles
• BlackKnights 4 Tour of Duty 68-69 "Filling in the Blanks" A 2/5
• Bravo Company 2/5 "The Night Horsemen" 
• Silver Wings of the Cav
• 362nd Aviation Co Links Page
• Robert Bacon
• Iraq Veterans Against the War - Winter Soldier Hearings - http://ivaw.org/