Digging into the Past
Midway between Hawaii and Japan on a flight across the Pacific Ocean, my thoughts as I drifted into sleep turned from the present, March 2, 2017, to the past and then to the present again. How did I get here? What was I doing on a plane to Vietnam? I remembered, of course. I was going back to July 29, 1968, when I was a rifleman with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 46th Infantry Regiment, 198th Infantry Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division (Americal).
Midmorning that day we were hanging around the helicopter pad at Landing Zone Young in the northern part of South Vietnam, waiting for choppers. Helicopters carrying 1st Battalion’s Alpha Company would land so Alpha could replace Charlie Company on bunker guard duty at LZ Young. We would then board the chopper and replace Alpha tromping through the jungle in search for the enemy. We were airlifted to Que Son Valley, about 10 miles away.
On the first day in the field, as we were setting up camp for the night on a hill, another chopper came in. Just before it landed, I heard a powerful explosion and saw the aircraft lying on its side. Earlier the Viet Cong had found an unexploded 500-pound American bomb and rigged it for remote detonation to bring down the chopper. The crewmen were beaten up but survived. The explosion, however, killed three members of Charlie Company who were on the ground—Spc. 6 Luther Sexton, Cpl. Donald Greene and Spc. 4 Billy Insall. Ten were wounded, and Staff Sgt. Jerry Auxier was missing in action.
Forty-nine years later, I was returning to Vietnam to
