Viet Nam B Company 2/5 1st Cav

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. If you would like to email me any information click here.

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?"

"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 thought about my brother's somber words a few days before in Japan when I left him. I started to pray, "Dear God, if there is a God". Then I realized that this wasn't going to work. I didn't have that kind of relationship with God to be asking Him for help. I didn't feel comfortable betting my life on a hope and a prayer. 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. The medevac was called to take an injured Vietnamese villager to a hospital. The previous day we had been patrolling and ended the day walking across some white sand dunes. We were all very hot and tired and hoping to make our FOB soon. But the heat of the marching across the sand soon became unbearable, but the order to stop did not come. The heat seemed to be making everyone crazy as our formation started to disintegrate. Finally we stopped and set up our FOB's circle of foxholes. After setting up trip flares and digging our holes, we heard a squad to our left doing some shooting. It appeared that some guys were shooting at a figure on the top of a sand ridge about 500 meters away. It looked like an old papasan dressed in white. When that medevac arrived on the bridge the next day I wondered if it was that papasan that they were taking to the hospital.

Me at North Bridge early in my tour. Our company would periodically guard this bridge as a "rest" from being out in the field. It usually was pretty good duty. The red "bathing suit" is a pair of women's underwear I bought in the village. I got them in order to go swimming in the river. Once I watched some ARVN's fishing in the river. They would lob a grenade in the water and then collect the dead or stunned fish that would float to the surface. One day I was swimming and I noticed a new guy, Del Wilder, standing under the bridge. I went over to talk to him. He was smoking a joint and asked me if I wanted some. It was the first Vietnamese pot I had ever smoked. It smelled like a funky skunk, and needless to say I got pretty wasted.

Del was from Daly City, California. I think he was 19 years old, too. The first thing you noticed about Del were the tattoos on his shoulders. He had "Johnny Reb" on one shoulder and a swastika on the other. His goal after getting out of the Army was to become a Hell's Angel. Later on Del would become the gunner on the M-60 and I would be his assistant gunner. I remember at the time asking him why he wanted to be gunner because the M-60 weighed a lot more than an M-16. I liked to travel light and carried a minimum of personal items to keep the weight down. Del told me he wanted all the firepower he could get his hands on in order to survive. (In our reunion in 2007 Del also added that being gunner would preclude pulling point.) We were buddies for a large part of my tour.

There was a little village along the road and river surrounding the bridge. Along the highway there were little stands where the Vietnamese would sell beer and coke and other things. One day I got a haircut from a roadside barber. It was the best haircut I ever had in my life. Not only did he cut my hair, he also shaved all the fuzz around my hairline. After the haircut he also cleaned out the wax from my ears. Then he put a piece of metal with ridges, like one of those picks that come with a Christmas nut-cracking set, into my ear and ran another piece of metal over the ridges which caused a very pleasant vibrating in my ear.

Another time we received some sniper fire during the night. My platoon was sent the next morning down the river from where the sniper activity was. I was not sure what was happening, just that we were pulling security for some engineers. The engineers were pulling people out of a larger hooch. A Vietnamese woman was crying and screaming as a couple of engineers were dragging the furniture out of the hooch and stacking it in the middle of the front courtyard. As I stood there I saw some small pineapples growing on bushes in their yard. I think that was the first time I had seen pineapples growing. The woman's kids were standing and watching as an engineer was putting C-4 on the furniture pile and starting it on fire. It was a hot morning and with all the work the engineers were doing they were sweating a lot. One of the kids whose house was being set on fire went and brought a bowl of water and offered it to the engineer to cool himself which he did. This was one of many of paradoxes of this war that I would experience.

The highway over the bridge also held some other memories for me. As a 19-year-old, I had not yet seen any dead bodies in my life. A lot of fighting occurs at night. The sunrise always was welcome as it signaled an end to the stress of expectation of night fighting. The bodies of the enemy killed during the night would be dragged out of the bush and rice fields to the side of highway to be collected the next morning. These were some of the first dead bodies I would see in Viet Nam. I looked upon those first bodies with a curious fascination as I stared into the peaceful face of Death. They were young bodies, half-clothed. In the new morning sun, the creamy smooth skin of their bodies had a beautiful translucence like the skin of the dead body of Jesus in Michelangelo's Pietà. That morning's harvest of bodies took me briefly back home when I used to find newly sprouted mushrooms when hiking in the woods.

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. Del and I were buddies since we manned the M-60 together. We hooched together each night, forming our sleeping tent from poles and our shelter halves. One day in the mountains, we had to work our way through some thick patches of wait-minute vines. A thorn punctured my right elbow. The elbow swelled up and looked terrible, but it did not really hurt. I immediately thought that this might be a ticket out of the field for a few days, so during a break I went to the medic and complained about the "pain" in my elbow and said I needed to go back to the rear. He said we were short on headcount and the CO did not look kindly on sending anyone out of the field. He agreed that it looked bad, gave me some pills, and said he would reconsider sending me in if it was still bad the next day.

That night we made our FOB on a hill amongst some downed trees. Unfortunately, the swelling went down and I knew I would not have anything to show the medic in the morning. So I hatched a scheme. I told Del that I wanted him to whack my elbow so that I might still get a trip to the rear. That night was dark and moonless. At midnight I was on guard in our foxhole, I woke up Del to hand over the watch. I whispered to him (we had to be silent to not give away our position) that it was a good time to do the deed. I told him to take the entrenchment tool and whack my elbow with it. What followed was more like a scene out of the Honeymooners, Ralph and Norton. Del held the entrenchment tool in his right hand and held my arm with his left hand to guide the shovel in the dark. He started to do a "Norton". He started taking slow practice swings, testing out his swing. After a couple of these, I said, "Hey, come on, quit goofing around and hit me!" Del reared back and swung as hard as he could. The closed flat blade of the entrenchment tool hit the tip of my elbow bone. The folded shovel blade slammed against the wooden handle made a loud crashing sound, "Blam!" I thought it would wake up everyone, but no one said anything. Now my elbow hurt like hell, but there no swelling. I abandoned my plan since I had nothing to show the medic and just suffered with a sore elbow for several days. No more schemes for me. I thanked Del for his efforts. What are friends for, eh?

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. On June 26, 2008, while contemplating attending my first reunion of B 2/5 in Portland over Labor Day 2008, I contacted Aaron Feder by telephone. We had a nice conversation. This was the first time we had spoken in 40 years.

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.

[Note: Recently, Sgt. Jerry Rohr read this ambush story above and sent me an email almost apologizing for not coming back to check our positions. That was 40 years ago, but he is still thinking about the safety of his men. That is indicative of the kind of squad leader he was. Hey, Jerry, don't sweat it, man. We blamed the Green Weenie, not you. :-) ]

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. On June 26, 2008, I telephoned Daniel Duenas in Guam. We spoke for the first time in 40 years. Daniel is suffering from severe medical problems, including malaria contracted while in Viet Nam. I should not have waited so long to contact him and others. Thanks to Alfred Louie and others for their efforts to locate members of B 2/5 from the information in Sgt. Rohr's book.

Daniel was from Guam. He was very compassionate and very fond of the Vietnamese people. One time when we were patrolling up and down the narrow jungle paths in the mountains, our squad brought up the rear. I happened to be the last person in the company formation. Daniel was in front of me. During the stop-and-go movements of those ahead of us, we would talk. We fantasized (or were we really serious?) about leaving the company and going out into the jungle by ourselves. We would leave the death and destruction behind and live in the mountains until our tours were over and then rejoin "civilization" in time to go home. I remember letting the interval between me and Daniel and the rest of the company lengthen beyond the normal 10 meters ("Don't bunch up! Get your interval! One round will get you all!"). Eventually the fantasy ended and I got my proper interval.

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 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 better behaved than the others. I guess she noticed because she came over later in the day and gave me these flowers without saying a word.

Here I am pointing out some communist propaganda. Unfortunately, I agreed with it. Lies are just another weapon of war.

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!"
Occupying someone else's country is dirty business that would be wise to avoid.

Scott Gray and I with a poster of Mick that came with the May 1968 issue of Eye Magazine. On January 23, 2007, I spoke by telephone with Scott for the first in 38 years. On July 18, 2008, Scott and his brother Bill (also a Viet Nam veteran) visited me in Wisconsin. Below is the after photo.

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. I used to get a couple of dozen copies of anti-war newspapers through the mail like the Vietnam GI and The Ally. One issue included an FTA sticker. I passed them out to most guys in the 1st platoon. For a day or so, a bunch of us had FTA stickers glued on our helmets and other equipment. The officers and NCOs didn't say a word. We all had a good laugh. I wonder if today's modern army would tolerate a similar act of "freedom of speech".

"As the days and nights wore on, our platoon began to know each other to the point we were beginning to become temporary family while so far away from home. It was natural to know the five or six guys in your squad best because of living in close proximity day and night. We had a mix of races in the platoon with none claiming ownership to a variety of ideals. Some of the fellows were free spirits of the hippie generation and established their identity by making a statement in their dress, language, or mannerisms. A colorful sweatband across the forehead was common for someone who wanted to be a little rebellious from military life and was thought of as a free thinker. Another might have a rat-tailed comb sticking in his hair and maybe out from under his helmet or a peace symbol on a string of beads hanging around his neck."

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. I went on some missions around the country with VVAW. 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. I would survive Viet Nam as my vision had assured me.

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.

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." Thank you Sgt. Martinez. That was the first time anyone had spoken those words to me in the context of being welcomed home from Viet Nam. (Note: In June, 2008 I was having breakfast in Lone Rock, WI. A friend from Lone Rock who I had not seen in eight years had recently seen my Viet Nam web site. He said, "Mark, I didn't know you were in Viet Nam. Welcome, home." Tears almost came to my eyes when I heard those words again. The neighbor was a Viet Nam vet, too, but I had not known that either.)

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 ;-)