Vietnam Revisited by Skip Vaughn

Author:Skip Vaughn [Vaughn, Skip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781640273344
Google: 8THSswEACAAJ
Publisher: Page Publishing, Incorporated
Published: 2017-07-21T00:42:44+00:00

Richard Knight

Vietnam veteran Richard Knight had seen enough during the war.

He vowed that he was finished with weapons and the military. He had seen more than enough carnage in the killing fields.

“I had seen so many dead bodies and things when we were out on patrols. It was a horrible sight to see,” said Knight, a machine gunner with the Marines in Vietnam from 1969–70.

He had done two years in college and got drafted by the Army on November 28, 1968, but joined the Marines that December 3. After thirteen weeks in boot camp, he had four weeks in gun school and then went to Vietnam in May 1969, where he served the next eleven months.

Knight, 67, of Huntsville, is originally from Excel, which is in Monroe County.

He served with the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, H Company. He was based in An Hoa and fought in the Quang Nam Province. “We went on patrol two or three times a week,” he said.

Their field engagements included the Operation Against the Communist Aggression in the Republic of Vietnam, June 6; Operation Forsyth Grove, July 1–3; Operation Durham Peak, July 20 through August 13; and Operation Pipe Stone Canyon, October 16–20.

That November 11 Knight was sent to Okinawa for six weeks of training on how to store and handle ammunition. He returned to Vietnam in mid-December and served as an ammo tech handler at the An Hoa base headquarters until he was shipped back to the States in March 1970.

Knight’s wartime memories include seeing an intoxicated comrade seriously injure himself accidentally while playing with a grenade. “All of a sudden that grenade went off,” Knight recalled. “I’ll never forget that faint cry. He was crying for his mama.”

With memories like that, Knight felt his best option was to leave the military after his initial commitment.

After returning to the United States, he saw antiwar protesters in California when he was flying out of Camp Pendleton. He also saw protesters when he landed in Pensacola, Florida, where his brother resided.

“When I came back from Vietnam, even in airports, we had people spit on us, call us baby killers,” he said. “They had a total misconception of what was going on in Vietnam. In today’s world, it’s turned around like 180 degrees. We have people all the time now come up and thank us for our service.”

Knight worked at Inland Steel plant in East Chicago, Indiana, from April 1970 until April 2004, when he retired after thirty-four years. He rejoined his wife and children in Huntsville, where he had bought a home in 1988.

He and his wife of forty-three years, Lillian, his college sweetheart, have two sons, Terrance and Kevin, and a daughter, Katrina, and three grandchildren. He serves as membership chairman and first vice president for Huntsville Chapter 1067 of the Vietnam Veterans of America. Among the chapter’s founding members, he invites interested veterans to call him at (256) 722-3027.

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