Ron Deverick:

Third Battalion/Twelfth Marines

"It’s like we lost a big part of our life the minute you got off that plane."

Bill Ervin:

Delta Company, First Battalion/Third Marines

"I had been out in the field less than a week and was just about asleep when all of a sudden, an explosion went off. We fell in the hole and our company position was being hit."

Grady Birdsong:

First Battalion/ 27th Marines

"One of the first rounds hit, probably 20 - 30 feet in front of me. Staff Sergeant Johnson was crying. He kept saying over and over, ‘It burns, it burns, it burns! Birdsong, it burns.’"

Greg Andersen: Medical Corpsman

Charlie Company, First Battalion/Third Marines

"When I was with the Marine grunt company you put up with very hot weather, carrying 80-pound packs up and down mountains, mosquitoes, people with malaria, people with heat casualties that were in really bad shape. And then on top of that, people trying to kill you."

 

 

Jim Murtaugh:

First Battalion/Third Marines

"I knelt over him and I disconnected his dog tags and I looked at them. I wasn't crying or emotional, but inside I felt emotional. He was from upstate New York and I promised that young man that I would never forget him. I had never met him in life, but I had met him in death."

 

Jim Beyersdorf: Medical Corpsman

Third Battalion/Seventh Marines

"We got on shore and as we headed into the village you heard explosions behind you and two of our Amtracs were fragged by the Vietnamese. All but one guy was killed by the explosions, most of them lost their legs or bled to death before you could do anything for them."