West Newsmagazine 2-21-18

30 I COVER STORY I
February 21, 2018
WEST NEWSMAGAZINE
Fifty years later:
The Tet Offensive remembered
@WESTNEWSMAG
WESTNEWSMAGAZINE.COM
By JIM ERICKSON
Cpl. Cottrell [Cott] Fox and the 11 other
Marines in the combined action platoon
[CAP] assigned to “Hotel 8” knew something
was going to happen.
It was late January 1968 and the men had
heard reports from CAPs at other “hotels”
– small Vietnamese villages – about an
increasing level of enemy activity working
its way toward their location just south of
Huế in central Vietnam.
The CAPs were units strategically
located in villages where they could train
the locals, known as Popular Forces, or
PFs, in military techniques, particularly
ambushes, and engage in whatever pacification
efforts they could. In most cases, a
CAP included 12 Marines and a corpsman.
An older brother’s service in the Marines
had led Fox to sign up for a two-year
enlistment in May 1966. The Webster
Groves native qualified for training as a
language specialist and became proficient
in Vietnamese. Fox had been in charge of
the Hotel 8 group since the unit’s sergeant
was wounded and evacuated for treatment.
Town & Country resident Cott Fox displays
artwork depicting a U.S. Marine in his office
at J. W. Terrill.
The beginning of Tet
At the end of January, a decision was
made by top commanders of communist
forces – one that followed months of planning
– for a major offensive set for the
early morning hours of Jan. 31. However,
seven towns and cities were attacked a day
early on Jan. 30. The premature strikes
apparently were due to confusion over a
revised North Vietnamese calendar that set
the first day of the lunar new year observance,
known as Tet, a day earlier than the
former calendar still used in the South.
The early attacks were repulsed within
hours. And, while the element of surprise
had been at least somewhat compromised,
top U.S. commanders still believed the
main enemy thrust would be at the Marine
base at Khe Sanh and that other enemy
activities were merely diversions.
But at 4 a.m. on Jan. 31, not long after
the wounded sergeant had returned, the
Hotel 8 compound, where Fox, his fellow
Marines and a similar number of PFs were
situated, found itself under attack on all
sides by an estimated 400 Viet Cong [VC]
fighters.
It was one of scores of similar attacks
on military targets, provincial and district
capitals, and hamlets throughout South
Vietnam, as well as on the major cities of
Saigon, Danang and Huế.
Because the onslaught came at the start
of the Vietnamese lunar new year, the
battles that would continue for two months
became known as the Tet Offensive.
Wounded initially early that morning
by an exploding enemy grenade that sent
shrapnel and debris into his lower back
and legs and later by a bullet in his right
arm, Fox and other remaining Marines
[two were killed during the night of terror],
along with the small number of PFs who
survived, held off the attackers until pinpoint
artillery called in from a battery some
distance away decimated the enemy forces
and sent those who remained fleeing for
their lives.
Taken by medevac aircraft first to a military
medical facility at Phu Bai and ultimately
to Cam Ranh Bay, Fox described
his harrowing experiences in an early February
1968 letter to his parents. Included in
the book “Letters from Vietnam” edited by
author Bill Adler, his message reads in part:
“It was the most unbelievable night that
I’ll ever spend. I’ve never really thought
that I was going to die before, but that
night I truly believed that I would.
“It was hell as no civilian and hardly
any Marine can imagine. No words can
describe it and no one can begin to appreciate
it unless he has lived through a similar
situation.
“I have never fought so hard in my life.
I have never wanted to see dawn break so
badly.”
Fox spent the remainder of his enlistment
recovering from his wounds. Returning
stateside, he used his veterans benefits to
earn a journalism degree from the University
of Missouri. He later became involved
in the J.W. Terrill insurance, benefits and
risk management firm headquartered in
Town & Country where he now is a senior
executive vice president. He and his wife,
Kay, also live in Town & Country.
Those who served
Around the region, there are many
veterans, like Fox, whose tours of duty
in Vietnam included the weeks of the
Tet Offensive. West Newsmagazine
caught up with four of them – members
of the Veterans of Foreign Wars
Post 5077 in O’Fallon and representing
three different branches of the
Armed Forces.
Jim Mueller, of O’Fallon, and Joe
Aiello, of Foristell, are Army veterans,
although Mueller was involved in
transportation and Aiello served in the
Army’s air wing gathering intelligence on
enemy locations.
Now the VFW Post’s chaplain, Aiello
frankly conceded he still prefers not to
talk about his experiences, adding that his
memory of those events is faulty anyway.
O’Fallon resident Bill Fisher was
assigned to security with the Air Force and
worked with two different canine partners.
Wolf, his first German shepherd, had to
be removed from duty after nearby artillery
shell explosions damaged his hearing.
Fisher believes the base where he was
stationed may have been a target in the Tet
Offensive but that early detection of enemy
troops gathering outside the perimeter
served to foil any plans to attack. He considers
himself lucky in that his only wound
while in Vietnam came when he fell in a
patch of cactus-like plants.
Ron Wunderlich of Lake Saint Louis
served with the Navy Seabees building,
repairing and improving roads, bridges and
other infrastructure essential for the war
effort. The Seabees’ task was an ongoing
one because those needed facilities regularly
became targets depending on who
might be using them at any given time.
Mueller’s convoys carrying supplies
Bill Hershey of St. Charles plays “Taps” during the
memorial service for Charles Morrison
and reinforcements to outlying areas were
always a potential target for land mines
or enemy ambushes. While the improvised
explosive devices used against U.S.
troops in conflicts in the Middle East and
Afghanistan have become more sophisticated,
enemy forces in Vietnam were
highly skilled in disguising roadway mines
and booby-trapping roadside areas where
Allied forces would head for cover at the
first sign of trouble, Mueller recalled.
The Army veteran became active in
the VFW after his service years. While in
national office, including the position of
national commander, Mueller returned to
Vietnam three times as part of teams trying
to learn the fate of possible prisoners of
war and those missing in action. He also
adopted a Vietnamese boy who’s now 44.
The thought of returning to Vietnam
or even watching war movies about that
Southeast Asian nation are things Fisher
prefers to avoid.
“I know what has happened since the war
has been sort of a natural progression of
life,” he observed. “But it would be difficult
for me to see the base I once protected
in the hands of those we considered the
enemy.”
From left, Jim Mueller, Ron Wunderlich and Bill Fisher, Vietnam veterans and members of VFW
Post 5077 in O’Fallon, recall their service during the Tet Offensive.