I received my first Purple Heart on September 19th, 1966 on Operation Deck House 4 while with B Company 1st Battalion 26th Marine Regiment first Marine Division. We were a Special Landing Force aboard the aircraft carrier Iwo Jima off the coast of Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin. I was a sergeant and squad leader of 14, 18 and 19 year old Marines. Four days before this operation, Sept. 15th, my boys gave me a party to celebrate my 23rd birthday. We had cookies,peanuts and Kool-Aid sent from home, and we talked about girl friends and what kind of cars we would buy when we returned to the states. We hoped to visit each other when we got home. We had become family. On September 19th, while on a search and destroy mission to locate and destroy a North Vietnamese Battalion, we were moving towards a village in the Quang Tri Province near the DMZ, each of us carrying sixty-five pounds or more of gear and weapons and sweating in the boiling sun. As we got closer to the village, you could hear your heart pounding, and the blood pumping through your temples. While I was moving forward, my eyes were searching for mines, trip wires, punji sticks, spider traps and snipers in the trees. My squad was on the left flank protecting the main body from being ambushed as we were moving forward when the point fire team went around a curve towards the village and was ambushed. My commanding officer yelled to me to come over. He told me to take my squad down the path around the curve and try to make contact with the point fire team and let him know what was going on. I went back and told my squad what we were going to do. We dropped our packs, checked our weapons and took off running down the path. One of the problems with combat is you never know when it is going to happen, and when it does, it is if the earth is screaming. Everything around you erupts into violence as it did that day. When we went around the curve, we were ambushed. Before I could yell the direction of the ambush and fall to the ground, the Marine in front of me was shot in the head and fell down to his knees. I fell pushing him flat on the ground and turned to see the Marine behind me go down with a head wound. I looked to the left and right side of the path to see if I could roll the Marine in front of me, who was still alive off the path, and told my squad to stay down and not to roll off the path, that the enemy had placed punji stakes on both sides of the path.. A friend of mine, and a friend to all Marines, a Navy corpsman came running around the curve. I kept yelling to him to get down when he was shot, got back up, was shot again, got up and was killed. He was awarded the Navy Cross for his valor that day. Forty-six years later I still wake up during the night yelling for him to get down. I knew the Marine in front of me would not survive if he did not get help, he kept yelling mama, mama. I decided to try to get him back around the curve out of the line of fire to get him help. I threw a red smoke grenade as far as I could, picked him up over my shoulders, picked up my rifle and started back down the path when a bullet went through his back into mine, knocking me to the ground. Our platoon could not reach us right away. It seemed like forever, and the Marine died. I stuck a finger in the hole in my back to stop the bleeding. We lay on that path, exposed, unable to move. If you did move, you were shot again. Ants were crawling all over us, eating us alive. It started to get dark. Your mind plays strange games while you are under stress. Believe me when I tell you that I saw my family and friends standing around my casket. I knew I would not survive this one. I don't remember how long it was before another squad worked their way forward to help us. When they did, we started moving back towards our platoon, firing, carrying, and dragging our dead and wounded. We finally made contact with our platoon, but the fight was far from over. For the next three days we were surrounded and fought like animals to stay alive. Jets dropped napalm within a few feet of our position, and Huey helicopters dropped food and ammo at tree top level and it exploded when it hit the ground. We would crawl over and get what we needed. Late on the third day, another Marine battalion hacked their way through the jungle and made contact with us. The enemy retreated. I was medevaced with the other dead and wounded. It would be three weeks before I could return to my unit. The NVA lost approx. 926 killed. Approx. 232 Marines and Navy personnel were killed in action. I was wounded again on May 2nd 1967 while with Golf Company 2nd Blt 3rd Marines during the Hill Fights, the first battle of Khe Sanh. also in the Quan Tri Province of Vietnam. My wounds were not that bad. A piece of shrapnel was embedded in my hip. The Company corpsmen took it out and put a dressing on it, and I stayed with my men. After a long battle we took hills 861 South,and 881 North at a cost of 168 Marine and Navy personnel killed in action during the fighting. 443 men were wounded in action. 824 NVA were killed by body count, and another 551 were probably killed. Lt. General Victor Krulak stated that the intensity of the fighting in the Khe Sahn Hills "was the toughest fight we had in Vietnam.” The 3rd Marine division was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for their valor. I would like to say that war changes you, it changes you into someone, or some thing you never knew you were. It will make your soul bleed. In order for you to understand what I am saying you would have to experience war. Then and only then could you begin to grasp the horror and madness of the death and destruction that surround you twenty-four hours a day. And if you are lucky, and I emphasize lucky and return to the world, war is not just something you are going to leave on the battlefield. It will be with you until you take your last breath. Sincerely and Semper Fi Kenneth Leland Sergeant, USMC Vietnam 1966-67
About "Purple Heart Story - In Their Own Words" – this is a series from those who have submitted their story online.
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Bill McCraney http://www.polk-county.net/newsdetail.aspx?id=34903
Maurice Johnson http://www.polk-county.net/newsdetail.aspx?id=34905
Arthur Iverson Meeks http://www.polk-county.net/newsdetail.aspx?id=34911
John J. Beckman http://www.polk-county.net/newsdetail.aspx?id=34943
David E. Mac Morran http://www.polk-county.net/newsdetail.aspx?id=34958
Randall "Jerry" Glover http://www.polk-county.net/newsdetail.aspx?id=34959
Florence M Littles http://www.polk-county.net/newsdetail.aspx?id=34997
David Fuller http://www.polk-county.net/newsdetail.aspx?id=35008
Earl Shaut http://www.polk-county.net/newsdetail.aspx?id=35045
Joseph P. Sloan http://www.polk-county.net/newsdetail.aspx?id=35046
Mike Mason http://www.polk-county.net/newsdetail.aspx?id=35047