Chapter 144D
1/1/2010
Soldiers are People To
a not so simple twist of fate - dazed and confused
The first time I saw Terry Kindlon in person was in the Federal Court room unsuccessfully defending Muslim Yassin Aref from the government's terrorism charge of conspiring to buy a missile launcher. That was a far cry from when Terry was representing America on the battle field and earning one of the highest service metals, the Bronze Star. He confessed to me in an email that, "It was all a blur". While he has stated publically on several occasions his aversion to our current two wars, his son served a tour as a Marine over there. Terry has been a proponent of and an adversary to members of my family. This is more than a simple twist of fate, these are seemingly contradictions and a complex series of twists that would require a book, yet I will encapsulate.
Below are just a few excerpts along with the LINKS to the COMPLETE ARTICLES: *
DEATH DEFIED, LIVES DEFINED FORMER MARINES SHARE BONDS OF BLOOD AND TERROR FORGED ONE FATEFUL DAY IN THE FURNACE OF VIETNAM
PAUL GRONDAHL Staff writer
Section: MAIN, Page: A1
First Published in Print: Thursday, November 11,1999 *
Each Marine was convinced he would die, another corpse to add to the pile of numbing fatalities produced by the Vietnam War's Tet Offensive.
It was an eternity of charged chaos and the whizzing pops of enemy AK-47 rounds snapping all around them in the paddy, moans of pain and shouted orders, pleas for reinforcements and silent prayers.
Only a dozen Marines remained of Kindlon's 44-man platoon, most of whom were killed in the fierce combat leading up to the Tet Offensive, and Kindlon became platoon leader by attrition. His outfit was joined by Johnson and Nonay, Marines in 2nd Platoon Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, who had lost 19 soldiers in four minutes of a bloody battle.
``It looked like his forehead came loose,'' said Johnson, who went to Kindlon's aid. ``All I could see was the skin all torn off, part of the bone gone, and I thought his brains were going to come out the front of his forehead.''
For Johnson, finding Nonay and Kindlon has brought an end to his nightmares and a sense of peace. ``I learned in Vietnam that life's not long enough to be hateful or to feel sorry for ourselves,'' Johnson said. ``There's barely enough time to try to do a little good.''
WE MUST NOT FORGET THE COSTS OF WAR
TERENCE L. KINDLON
Section: MAIN, Page: A13
First Published in Print: Date Thursday, February 6, 2003 *
The United States is about to invade Iraq. It is, we hear, inevitable, although the rationale for an attack seems to change from day to day. International opposition to an invasion is substantial, while American public support is shifting.
Some of the most important lessons I learned are these: Don't start a war unless you have no other choice. Don't start a war unless there's a good and valid reason. Don't start a war unless you can justify the death and disability it thrusts into the lives of good, regular people.
Every single morning, when I awake, the first sound I hear is the ringing in my ears. The ringing takes me back to that bright, sunny afternoon when I was shot, and it calls to mind my friends Gunny Z and Lou and Lanny. When I think of them, I remember the tragedy of a pointless war where -- for no good reason -- too many lives were wasted or damaged forever.
Soldiers are people, too
From Vietnam to Afghanistan, when will we ever learn the lessons of war? By TERENCE L. KINDLON
First published in print: Sunday, December 20,2009 *I took a close look at the Marine on the next gurney. He had bullet wounds to his face, his arm, his chest, his side and his leg. After a moment's confusion, I realized the doomed Marine was my new friend, the sergeant I'd stood watch with the night before.
As we prepare to ship 30,000 more of our precious men and women to America's war in Afghanistan, there's one thing I know for certain, beyond the impersonal statistics that treat them like widgets.
In 1968, one sergeant's little girl went from being his princess to his orphan in the cruel flash of a muzzle. When will we ever learn?
Terence L. Kindlon is an Albany lawyer.
After the above article came out I attempted to identify the Sgt in the fox hole from searches on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. After contacting a few veterans from Long Island to Wichita I had a nearly matching KIA with an Hispanic surname but he had been adopted and was actually a Caucasian. Terry got back to me below indicating it was likely not the Sgt in question along with other related details. There is so much complexity and confusion deciphering the war's details, I've added links to make some sense of it. It is actually surprising how well documented the war was, even with all the chaos one can find some online hourly action reports in official daily journals.
from tkindlon
to terryolmsted
date Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 9:02 PM
subject Re: foxhole guy
Sorry, but I don't have the Sgt's name anywhere in my memory. I met him for the first time ever just minutes before sundown on the night of 5 Feb 68. He was from an altogether different outfit, not my battalion, and his unit wasn't important to me at the time. He was definitely Hispanic. My company, E 2/3, (Echo Company, 2nd Batallion, 3rd Marine Regiment 1st Marine Division) was commanded by an Australian Army Captain named Captain Ivan Cahill--he'd hooked up some sort of special deal with the USMC--and we had been on "the float" as a battalion landing team attached to the USS Tripoli for much of '67. During that time we were always moving around and I, first as a PFC and then as a L/CPL, just did what I was told and never cared too much about where we were located. When we were on the float we'd been all over "I" Corps -- the Provinces of Quang Tri, Thua Thien, and Quang Nam ,the DMZ area, the river called Cua Viet, Dong Ha, Khe Sanh, Hue (but when Hue was quiet, before Tet, not when the Citadel was being captured, etc.), Quang Tri, DaNang, etc. By the time we came off the float toward the end of '67 I was a corporal and 2/3 set up in a permanent base somewhere around DaNang. It was not too long after that when the first skirmishes of Tet started, and as soon as we had a permanent base we were out on patrol all day every day for the 4 or 5 weeks before I was wounded. During that time we were very steadily losing men. A lot of men. My platoon, 3d platoon, had a great many Marines killed on 12/26/67 (Operation Auburn) and people were being wounded just about every single day. My Lt and all of our Sgts were hit before 5 Feb and there was hardly anything left to the platoon by the time I was wounded.
I came back on the morning of 6 Feb from guarding the gun truck that I mentioned in my article, tore off and threw away my very smelly, ripped and grungy jungle utilities, took a shower from this contraption that was rigged up under a 55 gallon drum, got a brand new uniform and then, within minutes, we were called out again (our code name that day was "Sparrow Hawk") to set up a blocking force for a Vietnamese unit that was supposedly chasing the NVA 324B Division in our direction. After we took up a position in a little ville I volunteered for a scouting mission and that was when I was wounded. For the most part that whole period is a blur. Before I went out on my scouting mission, because we'd had so many casualties, and because my guys were just too tired to move, I had to borrow two Marines from a Echo Company's second platoon. One of the two guys who was with me when I was shot is named Gerald...he calls himself "Lanny" now...Johnson, now from Springerville, AZ., but I didn't even know his name until he tracked me down in 1998. I went to Arizona and hung out with him for a few days. I found out from Lanny that another guy in E 2/3, Lou Nonay from Denver, had been hit in the spine by a sniper while he was carrying me to the medevac chopper and Lou became a paraplegic as a result (and was flown out on the same chopper). I was pretty badly hurt and really messed up by the time I got to the field hospital and after I saw the Sgt. dying I passed out and didn't come to for several days. When I finally regained consciousness I was in a very nice hospital--still in Vietnam--but, after a short interval I started having seizures, lapsed back into unconsciousness and was pretty much out of it for a couple of weeks. During that time I was flown up the 106th Army General Hospital in Japan, regained consciousness, started to get better and decided that being in an Army hospital was weird since I was a Marine, but I didn't complain because Army food was about 10 times better than what we'd been able to get in Vietnam.
Anyway, that's most of what I remember off the top of my head. Hope it provides some clues.
After some surgeries at the Army hospital in Japan I was sent back to the states, by way of Alaska, in a C-141, and then placed in St. Albans Naval Hospital in Queens, where, among other things, I found out (1) that I'd been promoted to Sgt [my promotions to L/CPL, CPL and SGT had all been meritorious and happened very quickly] and (2) that I was being medically retired (initially at 100% disability, but this was cut down after a time), from the Marine Corps, despite my best efforts to stay in.
And then the VA sent me to college and law school and I became a lawyer.
And now, suddenly, it's 42 years later...tlk