TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

I believe they must have thought I was dead, as I
observed them throwing their charges onto our
vehicles. I laid there for a half hour, when Huey
gunships arrived to drive the NVA from the immediate
area. After nearly 3 hours, during which time I applied
a tourniquet to my left leg, USMC tanks approached
from both East and West, and with this, the reactionary
force, I was loaded on to a “deuce and and half” given a
rifle, and we shot our way out of the area, and returned
to my Battery, where I was subsequently medevac’d to
a mash unit at Phu Bai, south of Hue. Even though I
had received multiple gunshot and shrapnel wounds,
my wounds were not considered life-threatening. I
remember the two young surgeons, exhausted after a
16 hour shift, the busiest week of the war for them, and
the deadliest week of the war for our servicemen killed
during this Tet Offensive. I was subsequently flown out
of Country to Clark AFB in the Philippines, and then on
to Yokosuka, Japan, where I had a second surgery, and
remained hospitalized for 5 weeks, before Dr. Wilson,
USN, Chief of Surgery, determined that by the time I
completed rehabilitation, was returned through
Okinawa and back into Country, that my 13 month tour
would have been completed, and that it was time for
me to rotate back to the states. I didn’t disagree with
his analysis. My hometown paper printed an article,
and I was inundated with letters while hospitalized in
Japan.
After Vietnam: Following discharge from the USN
Hospital in Long Beach, and 30 days convalescent
leave, I reported to MCB, Camp Pendleton, CA, where I
spent the last 1-1/2 years of my 3 year commission as
an Embarkation Officer in Staging Battalion, where we
Second Platoon
would train and logistically prepare units of 165
Marines for deployment through Okinawa, and on into
Country. I would escort them to either March AFB in
Riverside, CA, Norton AFB in San Bernardino, CA, or
MCAS, El Toro, CA, for nighttime flights overseas.
After My Initial Obligation was up: My Reserve
Commission was for 3 years. Although I grew up in a
Marine Corps family, served my country proudly as a
Marine, was married in my Marine Corps dress whites,
and will always be a Marine, I had never intended to
make a career of the service. I left the Corps on a
Friday afternoon, and started law school on Monday
morning. The Marine Corps taught me discipline, and I
made Law Review (top 10 in my class) after my first
year. I graduated from law school in 3 years, took a job
with a Long Beach, CA law firm, later worked in
Sacramento for the State of California, and
subsequently settled back in Long Beach, CA, where I
opened my own law office, and have successfully
practiced for the last 46 years.
My Current Life: I have been married twice. I have 2
children and 3 grandchildren, under age 5. I have
traveled extensively, and I enjoy golfing. I’m generally
in good health. I am definitely computer illiterate. A
few years ago, Bill Bau (1st Platoon TBS 2-67) and I
toured North and South Vietnam. We visited the Hanoi
Hilton, where the late Sen. John McCain was
imprisoned; Da Nang, where I’d never seen China
Beach before; Hoi An, where instead of eating C
rations as I did when I lived in that bunker for 5
months I attended cooking school where I learned how
to make spring rolls and other Vietnamese dishes; Hue,
where I’d never seen the city nor the Citadel while
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