"You did not desert me, my Brothers in Arms"

Bill Negron called to remind me that it was the 40th anniversary of the Tet Offensive. Every day is now the 40th anniversary of something that happened to us in Vietnam.

Our company was fortunate during Tet. We were near Con Thien doing bridge security at a position we called the "Washout." Cam Lo, a small village several miles south of us, was the northernmost civilian location in South Vietnam.

Vietnam veterans often did not get the positive recognition that veterans of America's other wars received. Today, in honor of Tet, I'd like to recognize Corporal Larry Leonard Maxam, then a 20 year old boy from Glendale, California. He was my Brother in Arms.

Days after the beginning of the Tet Offensive, I accompanied a sergeant on a trip down to Cam Lo to get a situation report for the Skipper on some recent activity. Two squads from Delta Company had been sent down from the Washout the previous afternoon to bolster security following the NVA ambush of an Army convoy.

We had stood lines in Cam Lo for several days shortly after my arrival, so I was familiar with the layout. Nothing, however, could prepare me for what I saw on this sunny February morning. Coming into the tiny village, we spotted six U.S. Army trucks on the side of the road, still smoking from the rockets that had leveled them the previous afternoon. Their frames were twisted. Several were on their sides. Blackened bodies lay in the cabs, burnt into the seats, all but irremovable.

We paused for a brief moment, and then moved on. There was nothing there for us to see and nothing there for us to do. As we drove around the corner, another horrific sight came into view. There before us was a pile of dozens upon dozens of dead bodies stacked as high as they could be thrown.

Gooks?

Yes, thank god they were all gooks.

The Marines from the two squads of Delta Company that had come down from the Washout the day before to provide security were now methodically grabbing body after body from the barbed wire that encircled the small perimeter that they had established. The only sound was that of our idling motor. The only smell was the omnipresent stench of cordite – the detritus of modern battle. The bodies had only been dead for short hours. It was a remarkably surreal scene - indescribable and instantly etched into my permanent memory.

Years later I was sure that it had only been a dream.

The previous evening, those two squads from Delta Company had held off a vastly superior force of NVA that had targeted the previously defenseless Cam Lo village as part of the Tet Offensive. In one night, these thirty-five boys confirmed 160 N.V.A. dead (with dozens of others certainly carried away.) Enemy body counts in Vietnam were routinely inflated by the higher ups. In this case, however, you could walk over and count them one by one. Thirty five other NVA were captured along with several enemy trucks and a flag signed by all of the troops that was to have been raised over the village after their anticipated victory.

Delta Company lost one Marine killed.

Nearby, the Army lost several more in the passing convoy that had been ambushed to begin the attack.

The entire scene was so far beyond anything that my sane mind could comprehend that, after a time, I forgot the incident but for recurring nightmares that continued for decades. Like many grunts, I had dozens of such memories that hung between the real and the surreal. They became part of our DNA. Therapy could bring some out over time. Most however were destined to remain right there, deep inside, as surely as if they inhabited a bone. They would not depart my body before I did.

A Delta Company Marine, Corporal Larry Leonard Maxam, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor that night. It was awarded posthumously. The citation reads as follows:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a fire team leader with Company D, First Battalion, Fourth Marines, Third Marine Division in the Republic of Vietnam.

On 2 February 1968, the Cam Lo District Headquarters came under extremely heavy rocket, artillery, mortar, and recoilless rifle fire from a numerically superior enemy force, destroying a portion of the defensive perimeter. Corporal Maxam, observing the enemy massing for an assault into the compound across the remaining defensive wire, instructed his Assistant Fire Team Leader to take charge of the fire team, and unhesitatingly proceeded to the weakened section of the perimeter.

Completely exposed to the concentrated enemy fire, he sustained multiple fragmentation wounds from exploding grenades as he ran to an abandoned machine gun position. Reaching the emplacements, he grasped the machine gun and commenced to deliver effective fire on the advancing enemy. As the enemy directed maximum fire power against the determined Marine, Corporal Maxam s position received a direct hit from a rocket propelled grenade, knocking him backwards and inflicting severe fragmentation wounds to his face and right eye.

Although momentarily stunned and in intense pain, Corporal Maxam courageously resumed his firing position and subsequently was struck again by small arms fire. With resolute determination, he gallantly continued to deliver intense machine gun fire, causing the enemy to retreat through the defensive wire to positions of cover. In a desperate attempt to silence his weapon, the North Vietnamese threw hand grenades and directed recoilless rifle fire against him, inflicting two additional wounds.

Too weak to reload his machine gun, Corporal Maxam fell to a prone position and valiantly continued to deliver effective fire with his rifle. After one and a half hours, during which he was hit repeatedly by fragments from exploding grenades, and concentrated small arms fire, he succumbed to his wounds, having successfully defended nearly one-half of the perimeter single-handedly.

Corporal Maxam's aggressive fighting spirit, inspiring valor and selfless devotion to duty reflected great credit upon himself and the Marine Corps and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.”

Corporal Maxam was just one of us. He had been a corporal, a fire team leader, a veteran of December 6, 1967. Until the day before, he too had been at the Washout, digging pissers, burning shitters, filling sand bags, and going on endless perimeter patrols. He was now the recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, as surely as if he’d been Audie Murphy himself.

In point of fact, Corporal Maxam could have been any one of us. This realization and the horror of what our Delta Marines had endured, snapped many of us in Charlie Company back to the reality that, although times were slack, the war was all around us, and it a matter of minutes we could again be in the very thick of it.© Jack McLean 2007 All Rights Reserved

Thanks, Larry. We all miss you a lot.

Semper Fi and God bless.

Jack