... By the Spring of 1972, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) had completed its buildup and was ready to mount a largescale attack on South Vietnam. As part of the assault, two infantry divisions, 30,000 soldiers with tanks and artillery support, began to cross the boundary between the two countries and attack south along Highway 1, the main north-south artery. They would first have to seize a highway bridge over the major water obstacle, the Cua Viet River just north of the town Dong Ha. Only the Third South Vietnamese Marine Battalion was in a position to block the critical avenue of attack and buy some valuable time. To the 700-man battalion was entrusted the awesome task of stopping, or at least hindering, 30,000 North Vietnamese. ...

Click here, follow the links.

Regular readers of this site may wish to note that Arch Arthur, William "1stCav" Page, and yours truly all have very intense personal memories of the '72 Easter Offensive. Lord, was that really 35 years ago? It seems like last week. Some days it feels like yesterday.

Contributed by Bill Faith on March 31, 2007 at 02:13 PM in The American Warrior, US Marine Corps, Viet Nam | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: Logan

I served under this man while with the 1st of 2nd. I personally witnessed him have two live grenades thrown about 25ft in front of him without protection of any kind.

When the first grenade went off a piece of something cut his face slightly. Disregarding the pleas of coreman and other officers he stood there in the open while another grenade was tossed and went off right in front of him. He had to give a direct order to a Lt. to toss it just before telling him to shut up.

I was in the observation hole with a 2nd Lt. who exasperatedly said "the man is crazy". Well he wasn't crazy he just knew his hand grenades!

Col. Ripley was demonstrating the blast patterns of grenades and showing us that they had a limited kill zone. His reasons for doing this was to settle our fears and misconceptions about grenades.

This man is a born warrior ordained by God out of his mother womb. He the kind of man who gives the substance to legend.

Posted by: Logan | Mar 14, 2008 4:27:06 AM