B-MED Unit-: Late
Afternoon,
By John Testa
At the time of this recollection I was a Corporal U.S. Marine Corps. My
outfit was H&S Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines.
During major operations I was sent
by my First Sergeant to Regimental Headquarters (BMED) to report on unit
casualties. Early afternoon of
I vaguely remember the approximate arrival time of the first choppers, it
makes sense that the casualties should have been arriving in early afternoon or
at the least late afternoon time frame since the heaviest fighting started at
mid day, I had several other ops that I had to cover during my tour so that
might add to the time confusion but of the two main battles that we had the
heaviest casualties were STARLITE (August 65) and TEXAS (March 66). It was
dusk with Starlite, that’s my recollection.
Attached to H&S Company,
Headquarters Platoon, I was in an Admin Pool in the company CP, I made a few
patrols, a night ambush and was in a hole every night guarding the CP. I
didn't received any training on what to expect on causality reporting, the First
Sergeant just said go to Regimental Headquarters (at the Chu Lai Airstrip) that's also where B Medical
Battalion was located and where the First Sergeant said I was to go find out what I could about 2/4's
casualties. Looking back it was a total waste of time, whenever there was
a major operation, the people working on the wounded or processing the dying
didn't have time for me.
The first few landings on the August 18th were handled by the BMED CP
personnel but as the landings continued I was summoned to put down my rifle and
help carry the wounded from the aircraft. As I approached the landing area
fighting off dust and debris being thrown about by the moving blades several
wounded men lay wrapped in ponchos in the open hatchway, I grappled with the
body closest to the door with a corpsman, while lifting him off the slippery
floor board several objects fell from his poncho, while balancing his head and
shoulders on my lap I instinctively tried to catch the falling objects only to
find they were some of his body parts.
I finished carrying the marine to one of the holding stations tents and
went back and continued unloading, I did this for a long time. I still have clear recollections
of that night even today. The
Doctor’s and nurses took over once the marines arrived at the holding
tents. They segregated the wounded
based on their injuries, the most critical wounded directly to surgery, less
critical waited on line, others to burn unit tents, and those they couldn’t do
anything for but still had a pulse were sent to the dying tents. The dead were
sent directly to graves registration.
In one of the holding tents I saw a corpsman unlacing a pilot’s boots; he
had crashed and had severe burns over 90% of his body which was charcoal in
color from his head to his ankles. The only area’s that had skin left was on his
feet where his boots protected them. He died a short time later.
The burn unit tent had several other guys like the pilot that were too
badly burned and to far gone to do anything with and could only be given meds to
ease the pain until the end. I
remember the horrifying moans, even under the heavy doses of morphine. I resumed
my task the next morning of trying to identify 2/4 casualties but with the total
chaos from the night before I was unable to provide any information. I visited graves registration thinking I
could gather some information on the KIA’s. At the Graves Registration tent I found
two corpsmen washing down a dead marine’s body.
A Doctor would then note the probable cause of death, describing wounds
like shot through and through or multiple fragmentations completing the forms
with the deceased personal information from their dog tags. The body orifice’s
were then filled with cotton, put in body bags, tagged and finally moved to a
refrigeration area. Because of the number of dead they were being stacked
outside the preparation tent. The
final count of our dead and wounded was 46 KIA s and 204 WIA
s.
Out of the several causality
reporting assignments I was sent on I only recall providing one name and that
was because he was a friend of mine (he was in the CP Admin Pool but transferred
out to Company E right before that TEXAS operation), I ID him after he was
killed in that operation. We had spent many night perimeter night watches
together. I'm attaching a letter I wrote related to him and left at the
wall a few years ago.
