One-Niner by Richard Stuart Lippert

Author:Richard Stuart Lippert [Lippert, Richard Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Military
ISBN: 9781641387033
Google: vRlgDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Page Publishing Inc
Published: 2018-06-15T01:01:22+00:00

Echo company 2/5 memorial service November, 1968.

Waiting Fifth Marines start Operations Meade River. Notice faces: no think, no feel......... nothing!

Chaplain Lippert on Medcap with corpsmen bringing needed food and medicine to villagers.

Shortly after 0200 the Hotel CP and second platoon area are suddenly hit by small arms fire, rockets, and mortars. Sleep and boredom turned instantly into paralyzing fear and chaos. Combat is difficult enough during the day but at night it becomes terrifying not knowing the direction or concentration of fire.

As they lay on the deck, Bob questions out loud their need to be there: “Sir, I think we should fade back toward second platoon in back of us. It’ll be safer there.” Just as they start scooting on their bellies toward the trees in back of them, a squad of Marines next to them fire their bazookas toward the area of the burned out amtrac two hundred meters away. The firing of these projectiles creates a monstrous noise frightening both of them, assuming now the Viet Cong has finally infiltrated their position. So that by the time they did get back to the trees most everyone believes that not only are they probing Hotel’s position but are actually attempting a breakout right in the CP area where they can easily cross the river in back of Hotel and scoot out of sight—which means the battalion chaplain is right smack in the center of the action again!

When Richard and his assistant get to the tree line in back of the platoon CP, he experiences another of those strange phenomena of the war. After the word is spread that the chaplain is in the immediate vicinity, promptly a number of Marines start “clustering” around Strom and his assistant, hanging out next to them as if he is a rabbit’s foot and take on an assumption that somehow the chaplain will shield them from injury.

“Hey, Chaplain, you all right?” comes a whispered comment from a few feet away in the blackness of the night. “Ah, Padre, you got any more of those rosaries you had earlier today?” he hears from another direction. “I lost the one you gave me today.” Richard can hear a number of other Marines scurrying around, as if to get closer.

Abruptly Bob whispers harshly to no one in particular, “You guys get back to your positions. You’re gonna get us all killed.” Chaplain Strom is thinking that these Marines don’t know just how dangerous it is clustering around the chaplain but not for the reasons Bob is giving. Because by this time, after having been in-country for three months, Strom is beginning to believe that instead of being a shield against Charlie, he’s more like a magnet. Everywhere he goes he draws fire!

Suddenly the familiar sound of enemy AK-47 fire rakes the area—bullets are smashing into the trees and the CP area, appearing as if the enemy is in reality attempting a breakout right over their position. Lieutenant Kott is on the radio to the company commander, frantically requesting mortars from battalion and some illumination rounds from artillery.

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