Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is
Ray Hildreff. He's a US Marine Corps veteran and a US Army veteran,
and he served in the US Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. He received
a Silver Star for his actions at the Battle of Hill four eighty eight in
June of nineteen sixty six. We're going to discuss that battle in great detail
today, and Ray, thank you very much for being with us. You're
welcome. Where were you born and raised? Sir, Born and raised Tulsa,
Oklahoma, nineteen forty seven, night, Pril sixth. And was there
a history of military service in your family? There was not. My dad
ran away from home when he's like ten or eleven years old and joined a
wild wist show and was a pony rider and check rider there and didn't have
any schooling, And so by the time the World Wars came around, he
had a family and didn't have to go. And so I'm the only one
in the family that served. I take it back. I had a half
brother served in World War Two. He was a gunner on a bomber got
shot down over Belgium and Second World War. Why did you decide to join
the Marines? Well, I had seen some movies and Wallsbury movies, and
you know, I tell it to the Marines, and I just from watching
movies. I just determined, well that that's the kind of fighting unit I'm
want to be in. And for a long time they'd asked you a school,
what are you gonna do when you get out, I'd say, joined
the Marine Corps. Joined the Marine Corps, And eventually I did, but
it wasn't really for the reason expected. My mother died when I was fifteen
years old. My dad was in the sixties, and I was started to
get a little bit wild and run around doing things I shouldn't have been doing.
And me and her friend had went to a laundromat and broke into the
coin operated and soap dismissed her to get some gas money quarter back then desks
only twenty five cents to gallon, but we didn't have the twenty five cents
to buy a gallon of gas. So we've done and unbeknownst to us,
there was a eyewitness seeing us and called the police. And it's not about
a half an hour they tracked us down and taken us to jail. After
five days of the Tusson County jail, my dad got me out and we
had a heart to heart talk on what my future was going to look like,
and I decided it down after he asked, well, what are you
going to do? I said, well, I guess I'll join the Marine.
So I fell have me. So I went down to talk to the
recruiter. The recruiter says, well, let me talk to your probation officer
and I'll talk to Judge and see what you say. And so the probation
officer agreed to let me off probation. Judge says, well, if he
does, he can going to the Marine Corps. So March twenty fifth,
I joined the one hundred and twenty day lay program from the Marine Corps when
after duty in July first in nineteen sixty five. Now, Ray, one
of the things that we hear a lot from enlisted Marines is what basic training
was like and how it changed them and woke them up real quick. What
was it like for you? Of course, everything you see in the movies
is true. It was eye opening experience. I mean they were right in
your face on the moment you got off the bus until you graduated. You
were always i'll say, being harassed one way or another. But it's the
way they have of tearing you down ability back up, making a machine out
of you instead of an individual making a team number. Now later on you
also went through Sniper's School. What kind of criteria did you need to pass
that course? Well, while I was in boot camp all back up to
high school. In my high school we had a rifle team like football program
or other sports program. They called it a six hour after hours program.
And my sophomore year and junior year I was member of that rifle team and
I attained the level of distinguished Expert. And the senior year, the person
that had been I guess our overseer during the process for training decided he didn't
want to do it anymore, so they canceled the program. And so I'd
already had an interesting guns and so whenever the Marine Corps at a meeting says
when we're looking for volunteers to become Scott Sniper's I raised my hand. The
qualification pre qualification that you had to fire the expert, and I fired expert
in boot camp. So that made me be eligible to go to Snipper school,
but before that I had to become a recon marine, and so I
had to go through a short version of what's called rip RIP, the Reconductor
Notion program, which entailed a lot of recon training since a rubber boat training,
beach recon patrol, recons, things like that, and so I went
with the short version than it spent four weeks scout sniper training on Okinawa,
and so when we left Okinawa on the twentieth of March of sixty six,
I was attached to the first Recon Battalion and landed in July five days later
on March twenty fifth, and for the first few days it wrote shotgun while
they were unload the trucks, and then I went on working party for two
or three days afterwards, and that got assigned to First Patoon Charlie Company around
the first of April sixty six. What were your first thoughts of Vietnam,
not only the state of the war, but the very different climate and foliage
and people and all that. Well, it was a little bit exciting because
we left Okinawa on a LST, a lanting ship for tanks. The USS
Woodfield County and spent five days traveling from Naha Okinawa to July and of course
we could see the coastline a couple of hours before we landed. Just excitement
filled the air and didn't know what to think, what to expect, and
they told us so when we disembarked from the ship order to go off hot
Man, you were going to have our rifles and our m O and lockslad
and ready to go, not knowing what to expect, and so it was
just different. And it's just like a new world that smells, you know.
Everything was different, and as was Okanawa too because different countries, you
know, different surroundings, different territory, is just different. Describe what type
of assignments you were given then mainly these patrols. Describe what you were tasked
with doing as you went out on these patrols and what you had to be
ready for. Well, it would be different with each patrol. We would
go out and platoon size element. Of course, we were always understaffed.
We would have usually around anywhamber eighteen to twenty or so members of a patoon.
We would go out on our patrols and for the most part we spearhead
operations to be the eyes and ears of the of the marine grunts before they
went out on the patrol. So if an operations get ready to take place
a couple of days ahead of time, they send us out to recount the
area and send back any information on troop movements of things of that nature.
And that's kind of what we were on two on Hill four eighty eight on
Operation Kansas. We were part of it several teams that were stationed around the
Heblic Valley and our responsibility was to identify any activity reported back to command.
And we would also call fire missions, which would artillery usually sometimes it'd be
a bird dog with rockets or a machine gun fire. We would engage in
the enemy that way. Sometimes after we get out on the patrol, we
would split up part of the platoon to go one duration and they'll partly go
to the other drection we meet up at a different time, just patrolling the
area to see what was what was in the area. Every patrol was different.
We didn't know what it was going to be, and until we got
the patrol order of coming here, Sergeant Howard or a patun leader would call
us all together and brief us on what we're going to be doing where we're
going to be going. Now, when you're in that type of environment that
I'm imagining, it doesn't take long to form some pretty close bonds with the
people you're doing the work with. So explain what that's like. Yeah,
as we were going through Scout sniper school, there was a group of us
that kind of budded up a little bit and done a lot of things together.
As it turns out, two of them were assigned to the first patuone
Charlie company. I found out after I told you we don't want work details,
and we got assigned to the first patoon, and we found out that
there's another sniper team already assigned to that patuon and that was surprising too.
We were told that we were to go out and be attached to recon companies
and go out on two man patrols and set up our sniper camps and snipe
any any targets that we might see out there where we're there. So we
were quite Sh'S to see that there was already a snapper team in the platoon.
And consequently, we didn't get used as snappers on every patrol we went
out. We got used as regular reconniculture are so shorthanded. Ray, let's
pause right there. When we come back, we'll head to June nineteen sixty
six and the battle for Hill four eight eight. I'm Greg Corumbus. We're
talking with Ray Hildreth. He's a US Marine Corps and US Army veteran.
He's a veteran of the Vietnam War. Received a silver Star for his actions
at the Battle of Hill four eighty eight, and we'll talk about that next.
I'm Greg Corumbus. This is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles.
I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is Ray Hildreth. He's a
US Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War. He's also a US Army veteran.
He received a silver Star for his actions at the Battle of Hill four
eighty eight in June of nineteen sixty six. And we're now up to the
point where that encountered began. So June thirteenth, nineteen sixty six, to
be precise, you arrive at four eighty eight, described the hill first of
all, and what the purpose of the mission was that day? Okay,
well, this patrol was my sixth patrol, and it's the first time that
we'd been done a night insertion. All the other times we'd gone out early
in the morning for our insertions, and this time Operation Kansas we were spearheading
and the General had placed five different teams around the Hepnuck Valley. Our team
was team number two and our mission was to observe the valley and report any
sightings of any or anything that we thought that needed our attention. Right away,
our patoon sergeant certain Howard, saw activity and identified it as NBA and
call fire missions on the activity. The very first night we were there,
the thirteenth we landed, we could see strings of torches down the valley,
which indicated that people were moving along and we were expected probably maybe eight or
ten foot in between each torch, with maybe a couple of the people in
between each torch, and so we knew there was activity down there. And
when the day got there, you could still see the activity and the call
of fire missions, and there were secondary explosions and some grass huts and stuff
that were targeted, and so we knew that munitions were being stored there.
Later we were to find out that the day that we arrived on that Hill.
Also what was called the Sunrise Battalion had marched ninety days from North Vietnam
and had just arrived, and that Hiptock Valley at the same time that we
were in started on Hill four eighty eight. We would find out later after
I made a trip back to Vietnam. I met one of the end of
the day we fought against and he said that that was their first engagement with
the Americans, and they were just arriving at that time. So we arrived
on the thirteenth evening. Called fire missions on the fourteenth all day long,
I say all day long, of course she wasn't every minute. It would
be probably a half dozen fire missions during the daytime. Then on the fifteenth
the same thing, only it wasn't quite as many fire missions called. Turns
out, they decided there were to come up after us on the night of
the fifteenth, and there was an army unit stationed in one of the villages
down in the valley. Fayette saw that there was a large unit, battalion
sized unit that had been gathering and was appeared to be heading up Hill four
eighty eight. And so that was about just about dusk of the night of
fifteenth and so because of that cartoon, Sergeant Sergeant Howard called the team leaders
together and assigned perimeter defenses around the top of the hill. So we were
in two man teams on fifty percent alert, which meant that one man could
sleep if if you wanted to are necessary, or the other state awake.
And I guess probably a diameter would be at about twenty yards something like that
around the hill. And about oh about twenty three hundred hours or just before
that, my squad leader, Corporal Thompson came to me and my partner at
that time was James McKinney, and said, we're going to go to one
hundred percent alert, and he moved me. Were about ten yards from James
McKinney. Then as he turned to walk away, he stopped turned back to
me and he said, don't forget fire underneath any muzzle flashes, and that's
in the chill back, you know, like he was he was expecting something.
And so a short time later, you know, I said a short
time. It could be minutes, It could be at thirty forty minutes.
I am not totally sure. Rick Binns, who was on the north side
of the hill, him and his team Fire Team three others were spread out
and Rick was watching and he thought he saw something move, so he focused
on it. It moved again. Then he realized and there was only five
or six feet away from him, so he fired twice. And that's what
set off the battle. That was NBA s gotten ahead of the tune coming
up the hill after us. Shortly after that, they threw grenade tram back
up atop the hill. A lot of fire back and forth. It you
might say, all hell broke loose said. There was rifle fire, was
shing, gun fire, all kind of fire, trade fers going everywhere,
and then it got a short little all for a second, somebody opened up
with AK forty seven. I remember this very vividly. Tom Powells, who
was a M seventy nine man, he got hit in the gut by AK
forty seven. He screamed and got You could hear that scream throughout the whole
valley. He was he was hurt, he was hurt. I squeezed.
At that point, I still hadn't fired my rifle. My head, I'm
looking on the swivel, I'm looking all around, I'm listening, I'm intent,
I'm looking, just looking for anything, and more grenade go off.
And then I had told you I was in the fist person Alert with James
McKenny. He had been sitting with a poncho over him so he could smoke
a cigarette. Of course, he placed a poncho over his head when he
smoked a cigarette to hide the glow. And I remember he was had that
poncho over him. I heard a few shots fired, and a granite and
went off, and his poncho fluttered in the air and landed no more than
started four or five feet from me position I was at. And my heart
was racing then because I called out to him, there's there's no answer back.
So at that time I grabbed my cartridge belt run back up the hill.
I failed to mention that Thompson told me that if we got hit,
I was going to be a point man and to lead the tune down the
south finger of the hill down to the valley. So when I run back
up to the hill, Thompson was there and he challenge tread and I said,
it's me, Hildreth. He said, okay, take a position right
here at the point it put down a position right there. I said,
are we gonna bug out of here now, and he said, no,
we can't right now. We got somebody to hurt. So they called in
a MEDEVAC. Medevac come in. There was still heavy fire. Metavac tried
to land, couldn't got run off by the by the NBA, but their
automatic weapons fire. So then we knew we were stuck till morning. What's
going through your mind at this point and how would you describe the intensity of
what was happening around you. Well, again, like I said, I
still hadn't fired my weapon, and people are yelling I'm hit, I'm hit,
and I just it just made me more anxious, and I'm just hugging
the ground and looking around. And I heard some movement. I fired from
my first shot. Must have been fifteen twenty minutes after the initial attack,
and I'm just firing blind thought I saw something move and I was just kind
of reacting to what I thought I saw. I knew that I didn't have
any friendis in front of me, said if there was anything out there,
it was all end of me twenty three hundred hours. Of course, it's
the middle of the night. It's pitched black, so other than the muzzle
fire, is there any way to guide you towards what's in front of you.
Nothing just just looking, and the hilltop was a kind of barren head
like knee high grass. There were no trees up there. There are a
few rocks, but Sergeant Howard had placed his command post against a rock.
It was probably about the size of the Volkswagen, you know, about five
foot, you know, tall, about four or five foot six foot longs
like that. That's where he had placed his CPA. And so there are
a few people close to that rock, but I was probably at that time
twenty foot from it on the eastern perimeter. There was nothing to hide behind.
There might have been a couple of rocks there. There were some I
noticed when we went back. There were maybe twelve eighteen inches diameter. Would
have been decent cover if I had seen it. But there was no moonlight
there. There was no stars. It was overcasting. We couldn't see and
it was as dark as it could be. What happened next lots lots more
rifle fire grenades exploding everywhere. Then out of the lull of the firing and
one of the indiviator yells out Marine Judie in an hour, and so Sergeant
Howard says laugh at him. So we did. We've done a sarcastic laugh.
Hahaha, some of the bitches you haven't got us yet, come and
get us. Of course, a little bit more colorful language that kind of
quiet and I'm down. I would find out later in twenty eleven when I
went back to Vietnam and I met that Envia fought against, I asked him,
well, what do you think we laughed at you? And he says,
then we thought you were a much larger unit. And so because of
that, I believe that's why they didn't just try to overrun us. I
mean, they could have by share numbers, just walked off across the top
the hill, and we couldn't fire enough to kill them. All. That
made them cautious and they started probing again, trying to find out how big
our perimeter was, which I think probably with instrumental in thus surviving the night.
We didn't hear sticks clack clack clack, whistles blowing, and that was
the end of the signaling their units where to go, what knew, how
to move around the hill where they wanted to be at, And at one
point it be hail grenades just come over the top of the hill, maybe
a dozen or so just thump thump, thump, thump thump. As soon
as something but hit close to us, I as well as some of the
other guys, would just tumbled down the hill about ten foot and hug the
hearth as much as we can, just to keep, you know, stay
out of the way of the explosion from the grenade. Sometimes they were duds
because they were using those wouldn't handle grenades, and sometimes they weren't duds.
And then whenever grenade went off or didn't go off, and to crawl back
up to a position where we're at previously and try to go on from there.
Based Kamia Addison a wave attack. Probably around eleven thirty something like that,
Howard was on the radio. He was calling for flares. He was
calling for a box, an artillery box for those who don't know what an
artillery box is. It's a predydermined location that if we get into the problem
that our artillery support can fire. And the rounds had hit in a box
pattern around us to protect us from people coming up from below and the artillery
support that we had. They fired the box, but it was way off
to our north, so Sergeant Howard was trying to correct that and get to
get it back down or cover around us, but he was never able to
accomplish it. He kept asking for flares because the artillery with fire flares,
but even they were off target as well. We didn't get a good flare
presses until the flare ship arrived a couple hours later. What was the impact
of the wave attack, Well, it was mostly on the north side.
I didn't see it, I didn't experience it. I know that a lot
of the guys were getting close to be low and ammunition. Rick Benn's,
a squad leader on that side, come around asking for grenades or any extra
ammo that I have. I gave him a couple of my grenades. My
side of the hill, on the east side, was not heavily attacked like
the north and the west side was. They were primarily coming up from that
direction. Then they had we called them fifty calibers, and I'm not sure
there were high caliber weapons that started firing, and they started getting us in
a cross fire. And whenever that happened, Adams, who was probably within
the arms reach of me, one of the fifty calibers started raking across the
hilltop and hit him and the back above his left shoulder. He rolled the
hard rights as I'm hit, I'm hit, and rolled back over into something.
I'm gonna said, how bad are you hit? He had bad,
bad and you know if the last a bad bad like I just kind of
he just died in the middle of trying to say something. And when a
flare pop, I could seize back in just a gaping wound and along his
shoulder blade and on the left side, and he was dead. Flare pop.
I seen the machine gun. I positioned myself so that I get a
good sight on it, help her breath, squeeze the trigger, shot it,
and I happened to have a tracer around in my rifle at that time,
and I've seen the tracer leave the barrel of the gun and bury itself
up in the chest of the NVA so I can go down. And another
one came in view, and I repeated the same action and got him then
about I don't know ten minutes later, approximately another flare pop, and I've
seen him setting up another gun and I was able to get that team also,
And that's kind of all that happened on the east side at that time,
there's a lot of activity going on on the west side. Though I'd
call out named I'd call out, said Howard and get an answer, Thompson
get an answer. If I didn't get an answer, then I'd have to
positioned myself to cover a little bit of that area. At one time,
I was the only one covering the east and the south sector of the hill.
McKenny had been dead, mass Gradius Stead, Adamson dead, Carl Easie
was gone, so I had the whole area. So I was called out
names to see who was still alive, and if I didn't hear respond to
me, then I'd kind of kicked myself around and rock and face that direction
to see what it's like. Then I would kicked back around the other way
to just do that the rest of the evening. One time I'd called called
out to Thompson and he didn't respond, so I kicked myself back around and
he was on the west side of the perimeter near the rock for Howard had
ECP and a flare popped and I saw a silhouette. It's like his silhouette
was on his knees, reaching down like it was grabbing something. I yelled
out to Thompson again, he didn't answer. I fired my rifle and I
seen the silhouette grabbed his face and fall back. I had to find out
later our corman, Billy Holmes, saw the NVA dragged Thompson down the hill.
Thompson was in the hand to hand combat with that NVA, and it
buried his k bar into the back of the NVA, and I guess he
had been shot at point black range. We found him next morning, his
face blown off and laying next to the NVA with akbar buried into his back.
But Billy Holmes said that he felt something grab him. He started tug
on him. He said, then all of a sudden, the person that
was grabbing him, he said, his face exploded and he said he saw
him grab his face and fall backwards. Then my assumption that was what I
saw when I yelled for Thompson. He didn't answer, and then the flare
popped and I was able to see somebody grabb him, somebody laying down and
fired the shot, and it must have been that NVA that was grabbing or
Coleman trying to drag him downhill. And then it was kind of like I
described Strobe lights with the flares, how they burned the way they do.
And I looked over and I saw Billy Holmes Corman slow motion dragging yourself back
over to the safety of the big rock, and just with the flickering of
the flare, stuff like it reminded me of strobe lights. And then I
turned back back to the east side of the perimeter again, the east and
the south side, and like I said, it was like that, I'd
looked for a while in one direction, then look around the other way,
and eventually we started moving a little bit closer to the rock. We were
getting low in ammunition and started to Howard been calling and calling for help,
calling for help, and all of a sudden, there was a grenade went
off and they sound of a automatic weapon firing. Similar rounds hit the rock.
Whether it was the ricochet or whatever it was, I don't know what
happened. But I heard Howard yell out my balls, my balls, I'm
hit my balls, and he just kind of went silent. That's when I
really started getting scared, because he was like her rock. He was the
man in charge, he was who he looked up to. He's one of
the gags orders. Now he's out of the fight, and so I'm just
scared as I can be young. I'll take much CA bar out and I
stab it on the ground next to me. I'm ready for what's coming because
I'm almost out of the ammunition, and if they get close enough, I
was going to grab my k bar and take one moreph I could. And
then a few minutes later, the Huey gun ship was diverted from a they
were escorting I guess a metaback chopper and got diverted to Hill forty eight.
And the guy his name was Perryman, and I talked to him later and
he said he can look out to the west and see the tracers and stuff
going over Hill forty eight. They were all one of color. Of course,
we didn't have tracers, you know, we didn't have any machine guns
with us. They were all one color of the blue NBA tracers. When
he got there, he got to a position Howard came to and started talking
to him. And the call signed for the gun ship was Klondike and our
call sign was Carnival time. And so that was a talk going back and
forth. Klondike Land shoot that guy's coming up till after us and Klondyke says,
I can't see you. Where are you at because it was dark and
all they you see was muzzle flashes. They couldn't tell if it was in
VA muzzle flashes or if it was our muzzle flashes. He said, I
don't know where fire. I mean, he said, mark your positions so
we can't route of flares. And Howard got an idea. He had a
flashlight with a red lins on it. He said, I got a flashlights
with the red lins and Tom Leake says, okay, give us your red
light and he started flicking the red light off and on him. Klondyke could
share our positions then, and Howard said, fire twenty meters around our position,
will take care of the rest. So that's what they started to start
of making stretching runs, firing what they thought would be twenty meters around from
that hilltop and another who we arrived on the station, and they kind of
traded, making passes back and forth. Then they'd run out of ammunition and
I'd go back to July, or actually it was the July would be.
I hear there were stationed just north of July. I get the name of
the place where they're at they go back and refuel, re arm, come
back out and made more passes. Everybody was wounded, and I was I
was thinking, how come I haven't been wounded? Things are going to my
head and I being saved for something to be taken prisoner or what. I
didn't know, And so it was that that guilt feeling you get for thinking
the germinal part of you and everybody else got shot. Why me am I
being saved for for some sinister reason? Reason? There's more automatic equipment fire.
Get the rock next to Howard rip shade off. As something hit me
in the side, you know, and believe it or not, I had
a big sigh of relief. My guilt, as you want to call it,
was gone. I'd beden't hit. Luckily it wasn't a bad hit.
I felt underneath my jacket to feel is there any blood? And there wasn't.
I would I would forget about it later and later when I got back
for the next morning, taking a shower, the water run in running into
the wound. It kind of stung. I was washing myself. I went
to battalion age station. We got treated for. It didn't require much more.
A very small bandage on it, Harry Small. It gave me a
syrody, made me feel like part of the unit again. I know,
it's strange sounding left the way I felt. And then they were coming up
again into another wave attack. The Colonel Sullivan was back at CP at July
and he's been talking to Howard back and forth on the radio, and then
he was trying to call Howard ask him situation, and Howard was answering.
Howard was busy fighting. So after two or three calls from Sullivan to Howard,
Howard Golan phone says, I'm busy, damn it, and just suw
it down. And then he kept the mike keyed and Sullivan could hear all
the fire and all the activity and the grand age, everything going around.
So Howard cutting real shorts. You know, I'm busy. I can't talk
to you right now. Sullivan contacted tack Air at Division requested all available attack
error to come to our ag. So at four phantoms from to nane A,
four skyhawks from July, and fate crusaders off of carriers all converged around
the hilltop, dropping two or fifty or five per pound bombs. The mobs
would explode and it would shake us, you know, inches up off the
ground. They were exploding that close to us. That slowed down the attack
of the end of EA for a while. I guess the jets showed up
probably around three am, would be my best guests, three to three thirty
something like that. Whenever they spended all their ammunition they left. Things kind
of got quite for a while. There was a lull and the firing,
and everybody was saying that they were they were out of ammunition, are almost
out, and Howard said, throw rocks, and the rising. By throwing
the rocks, they'd think there might be a grenade and they would move.
We'd have a or target to fire it. From about three three or four
until sunrise, it was just kind of hit and missed. It wasn't a
lot of heavy fighting at that time at well. To say was that about
five thirty five twenty five cut had gone a quiet. Howard yelled out,
readily goes in twenty five minutes and there were the VC the ast her back
with find his automatic weapon. Turns out he would be a lone sniper.
They had been left behind, and he was the one that we tried to
move around a little bit and see us and fire. And then when six
o'clock come around, Howard yelled out vely, vely, time to get up.
We knew if we held out to till morning, that reinforcement to arrive.
The first reinforcement that arrived was he was a colonel new commander of the
Magic running in our group thirty six. He hovered over our position about twenty
thirty foot above ground, gave us the thumbs up and dropped a yellow smoke
for the MATIVAC to come in. That sniper that had been left behind saw
him and Perriman also the other Huey chopper the been there all night was behind
him, and the sniper opened up and got both birds. The front bird
that had the colonel edit Lieutenant Colonel kind of fluttered a little bit and then
took a nose dive down with the valley. The Perriman the bird behind him
followed falling down, but his radio was shot out. He couldn't make any
contact with him. Turns out that Colonel had been shot in the leg.
He bled to death before they could get him out the chopper. And then
it was probably two hours later that the reactionary group Charlie one five first Italian
fifth Marines the stunt to come up, and I was facing the east,
and I seen the chopper stiffed up over the clad cover. And they traveled
south and come back up from the south and landed a few hundred yards away
from our position and started making their way over to our positions. The first
one to get to me was a lance corporal named Reddy Terry Reddick, and
I asked him for a fresh magazine. He had him me in the magazine
and I said, stay low, I said. The snappers cut his pin
down. So he kind of stood up a little bit, looking swhere.
I don't see. The snipper opened up hit him in the head and he
just kind of went down this flickering in his hand like that. Just he
died right. The next two met then they had a lieutenant named Ron Meyer.
He had a nickname Stump because he was short and stocky. He'd come
up there and he got five or six hand grenades and he had Howard tried
to point out to him that the location of the sniper, and he tried
to lock the grenades over there to get him, and so throwing all the
grenades he could, he couldn't do it and he's going blind. So then
he grabbed kbar, put in his mouth, grabbed a couple more hand grenade,
started crawling down to the sniper. He made it about ten or fifteen
foot, then raised up to orange himself. When it happened, the sniper
shot him, and then a call went out for the corman. Corman came
up, crawled down to check Stump, and whenever he raced up, he
was shot. Another call went out for another corman, and another corman crawled
down and he could see that Stump was dead already the way his eyes were,
his head, and the other corman was still alive. So they formed
a chain human chain, and they pulled the corman and stumped back up.
The corman died a few days later in the hospital, and like I said,
Stump alerd dead. So Charlie went five lost three to that sniper.
And then there was also a FO for reserver with Charlie win five, and
he called in an n FA crusader and had the crusader strafing runs on the
snipers up behind. And you could see whenever the pilot flew by over the
hill top, he was so close to us clearly you could make out his
eyes. He could see clearly everything about him, that's how close he was.
He would start firing a quarter of a mile away with twenty milimeter cannons
and the ground was ripped up everywhere, but he was never able to get
that sniper, and eventually Charlie Went five sent a squad to envelope the sniper.
So they went down the east side of the slope and made their way
around and came up on him from the from the east while he was looking
up toward the south, started firing at him and he turned around surprise,
and they were able to get to him in time, and they took him
out with the band benette charge. So that's when the battle was over and
they were able to start taking people out. After the battle, I got
up. There was me and two others able to walk off the hill and
assisted you get on the chopper. I walked around the hill with the fifth
Marines checking out the bodies for any intel, and I haven't see one of
the NBA move down toward where the cipher's hat and I yelled out, there's
one moving and raised my gun, fired twice and getting ready to fire a
third time, and the marine Beshipes said, you got him, man,
you got him. I've just kind of zoned down, I guess you might
say. At that time, I was gonna keep fire until I was sure
I got him. I picked up some weapons. That was one of the
things that we'd do in recond if we'd done an ambush or something of that
nature, we'd take whatever it tells the could weapons to bring back so they
could do what they did for intel fuel weapons where they came from. And
so myself, Bossley, and Mulver Hill were the three were able to walk
off the hill and everybody else had to be carried off. We were the
last ones to leave, and we were on the chopper that McKinney was on
so very solemn flight back to July Hospital, and the wind was flapping through
the open of the helicopters Age thirty four helicopter. The hot show that was
over mc kenny was flapping and his way exposed his face. I knelt down
and tucking underneath his head and body were with the flat anymore. And we
got to Battalion made and they unloaded town. Bossy got off the gall off
and I went on threw him back to else. At first combattalion and turned
over my weapons and stuff. There, went to my tent, took a
shower, realized that I'd been wounded, went over to the tidy match station.
They docked me up, and after that I was expecting to go back
out the field. I was expecting. Now I got promoted to corporal,
I was expecting to go back and be a squad leader. Colonel Suland had
other ideas. He had been in Bunker Hill, as was Howard in Korea,
and kind of knew what combat was like. So he told me,
no, no Hill, Ruth, You're not going back. You're going to
be up here in h ands Timmy pick a job. Norman, when he
came back from the hospital, he said, I'd like to be the colonel
drivers, So he got a signed to be the colonel driver. Bossy did
he come back, said I want to be a motor tea, so he
became a truck driver. Coles Blow said, uh, I want to be
a supply, so he took a job and supply. We asked me what
I wanted, and I said I had in choice of battalion Mail Lordly or
S and C Clerk S and C. Secret confidential file clerk, so I
became a Battalian mail lordly and special servers in CEO for the rest of my
time there, and then I returned to in country. January tenth is when
I rotated back calastigned to Camps, North Carolina. A little later we went
to the Metal Water ceremony for Sergeant Howard, and Reader's Digest Dead a story
on us in May nineteen sixty eight issue, and the story they say we
were the most decorated unit for its size one hundred nine three years of American
military history. Thirteen Silver Stars, four Lady Crosses, and Medal of Honor
as well as the eight Purple Hearts were given in the battle. In addition,
there were a couple of silver stars given to people at Charlie Went five.
Also, there was another error group that had one of their gunners on
their on their chopper had been killed. All together that engagement took eleven lives.
They estimately we killed two hundred of them. With that twenty thirty yards
of that hilltop and the rock, there were forty three dead NVA and drag
marks indicated there were dozens more that had been hauled off. When I went
back in twenty eleven, and I met the NBA. Fought against asking because
I kept wondering how come they didn't just run over the top posts. So
I had questions I wanted to answer. Asked him how many was in his
unit, or first asked him how many died? And then he was very
cooy. So how many did you see? And I told him and he
says, well, there were forty four. I would find out later from
the guide whenever he took the NVA his name is Tien home. That night
he talked to another man that remembered the battle. He said, no,
there were many, many, many more people NVA that died that night,
not just forty three forty four that he said was there around around the hill.
But I wanted to know. That's when Luisa went back, I was
able to reach a travel agency in North Vietnam told him about the battle,
and they found lieutenant who was a ten leader there and they said, this
is his first battle. He remembers very well. And that's I met him
when I went there. Just a couple more questions in response to that incredible
story. I do want to go back for a moment to the point where
you took out two machine gun positions, but being armed only with your rifle,
it's going through your mind in that such a just fear and anxiety,
and you know, I've got to stop this guy. I mean, they
had us in a crossfire. He had just killed at ons, and so
I just had to take a breath, use my training as a sliper and
fire. Something had to be done. I had to get him, had
to take him out. If just fortunate, I didn't have to adjust much
to see him to get him U sights. And then when it happened again,
they started putting the crew back in again. I didn't take as much
time with that shot. I was more anxious, I guess in the second
time than it was the first time. Why you mentioned the incredible number of
honors within the unit of that size, the most decorated unit of its size
in military history. Eighteen Purple Hearts, thirteen Silver Stars, you being among
them, four Navy Crosses, one Medal of Honor. What does it mean
to you that their sacrifice, their service was honored so richly as a result
of what was known about that battle. You know they were honored, but
you know it wasn't enough. I don't mean that to be snark here in
the thing. But they gave their life. Nothing can make up for that.
It can give them a little constellation maybe to their families. But I
think about this every day. It's another day goes by that it doesn't come
up. There's only three of us out of the twelve that survived, left
live. Joe Coswell lives in Texas. And there's another guy in Martinez,
which was his first patrol with us. He was a radioman. He's hear
in Tulsa. We didn't have much chance to become close friends because he had
only been in the paton in two or three days when it happened. Thompson
had been with paton maybe four or five days, maybe a week before the
patrol. It was his first patrol. Carlisi was from New York. It
was his first patrol. He didn't look like he belonged to the Marine Corps.
He just you know, you get a sense of some people. But
he died violently. He died like a marine. He died fighting, but
he sure didn't look like he belonged there. His first patrol, Bosley had
only been like two patrol Glow. He was named Setay nine man. He'd
only been on one patrol before that, so they were all relatively new.
The only ones that had been there for a while was my team leader,
Masquarinas, who died and I could hear him. I didn't mention this earlier.
I could hear him sucking blood all night long, maybe ten feet away.
He didn't died until later on the minute of act. He died and
route back to the hospital, but he made it all night long, breathing
and sucking blood. Powals was screaming like I'm actually he finally calmed down,
but he screamed. You can hear him all throughout the valley other people.
I'm hit, I'm hurt. This runts my mind, right I just a
moment or two left in our conversation here. When you look back at your
service, and obviously this is as you mentioned many times, the thing that
comes to your mind every day is there's something you're most proud of from your
service that I went and served well. I stayed in my book that some
people called his baby killers. Okay, we didn't have the luxury of choosing
to go to Vietnam. I really didn't think I was going to Vietnam.
I joined it didn't enter my mind. Somebody else asked me, well,
aren't you afraid you're going to Vietnam? And I just kind of rolled it
off to na how they got enough people over there, they don't need me.
It never entered my mind that I was going to Vietnam until in boot
camp when they read our orders. Hildre, if they're going to a third
replacement company, Okanava, congratulationship going to Vietnam. At that point in time,
then I started thinking differently about it. We didn't run off to Canada,
we didn't BURNO draft cards. We joined even though I wasn't thinking about
Vietnam. They said, that's where you're going. Well, that's what I
signed up for. My country says they need me there, and that's where
I'm going. Lastly, sir, what does it mean to you to be
able to share your story? I like letting people know about it, especially
today, since it's been so long ago. I think people shouldn't know the
sacrifices that some of us have made on their behalf. For several years,
people wouldn't even talk about Vietnam. As a matter of fact, my wife,
we got married in two thousand and two thousand and three, she worked
for the University of Tulsa. I said, you work at the university.
Do you know anybody up there that you know, maybe as a writer or
a ghost writer. I think I'd like to tell the story of Vietnam.
She said, no, people want't forget about that. I said, no,
I think there's I think there's an audience for it. And then whenever
I found out that Charles Sasler was doing a book signing, I went to
meet him. I didn't get there in time to meet him, but they
gave me his contact information and I contacted him, told him about the story.
So let me talk to my agent, and the agent says, yeah,
we could sell a story like this. People want to know this,
and so Simon and Schuster gave us the best offer, which started writing the
book and is released in October of two thousand and three. I would hear
people say thank you for the service, but it didn't sound sincere, and
like I say in the book, more often now I hear it coming from
people, and it is settings this year, A lot of people just want
to speak on the rug or don't even want to talk about it. I
think it should be talked about. People should know how those are listening military
sacrifice ourselves for the good of the country. Right again. It's an incredible
story of service, and the way that you honor those who fought alongside of
you as you tell that story is extraordinarily appropriate as well. There are no
words to properly express our thanks, especially to those who gave their last full
measure of devotion there. But we thank you extraordinarily for your time today,
and we thank you as much as words can for the service you gave to
our country then and for many years afterwards. Thank you, sir, Thank
you, Greg. Welcome. Our guest today has been Ray Hildreth. He's
a US Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam More. He's also a US Army
veteran. He received a Silver Star for his actions at the Battle of Hill
four eighty eight in June of nineteen sixty six in Vietnam. I'm Great Corumba
and this is Veteran's Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus, and thanks
for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For
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