Memories of ?The Walking Dead? are still standing tall

[thedrifter]

July 4, 2004


Memories of ?The Walking Dead? are still standing tall

By PAUL FATTIG
Mail Tribune


Dave Hendry and Marshall Belmaine will drink a solemn toast to an aspen tree growing in Hendry?s back yard in Medford today.

Actually, they?ll be drinking to five aspen trees growing in a tight group.

"The first one is for Bill Angelo, our fire team leader," Hendry explains, pointing to the first tree on the left. "That second one over, the one leaning a bit, that?s Larry Geiger."

The third one represents Belmaine, followed by Hendry and Sgt. Segum.

The former Marines don?t know Segum?s first name. They just knew him as "Sergeant."

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"He got dinged pretty good ? the same day Marshall was wounded and Larry got killed," Hendry says.

The trees Hendry planted years ago ? they proudly stand some 20 feet tall now ? represent their fire team in Khe Sanh and Con Thien in what was then South Vietnam in 1967.

The fire team was part of Bravo Company, First Battalion, 9th Marines.

Corps historians would refer to the 1/9 as "The Walking Dead."

"We got wiped out on July 2," Hendry says, later adding, "On the Fourth of July I went to the naval hospital in Guam where I spent two months. It was the best Fourth of July I?ve ever had.

"That?s when I really came to appreciate the Fourth," he adds.

Hendry, 56, who hails from Seattle, is a former U.S. Postal Service employee in Medford. Belmaine, 57, originally from Medford, Mass., but now living in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., worked in property management.

Both retired early because of the wounds they suffered in Vietnam. Belmaine came to Medford for the Fourth so he and Hendry could salute their fallen comrades together.

Their names and photographs are in military history books about those now-distant battles on Hill 861 and during Operation Buffalo in Con Thien. Belmaine was a sergeant when he got out of the Corps; Hendry was a lance corporal. When they were wounded, Belmaine was 20, Hendry still at teenager at 19.

As they sit down at a patio table in Hendry?s back yard, Belmaine lays out three packs of cigarettes in front of him: Kools, Pall Malls and Benson & Hedges.

"That?s a carryover from the C-rations," he says, referring to the tiny packs contained in the military meals. "You never got the kind you wanted in the rations."

Now he does.

"But I?ve narrowed it down ? I used to smoke five kinds," he says as he lights up a Pall Mall.

Hendry, who could serve as a passable stand-in for actor Donald Sutherland, albeit a bit heavier, chuckles at the comment as he takes a drink from a late-morning beer.

As they began recalling Vietnam of 1967, Hendry said he and Geiger, a buddy from basic training, were both ordered to the same fire team upon arriving in Khe Sanh. But Hendry was delayed a few days in joining the team because of a bad case of bronchitis.

Eager to join his buddy, he decided he was well enough to go to Hill 861 and climbed aboard a CH-46 helicopter. The aircraft was hit by enemy fire.

Although bloodied, Hendry survived that March 16, 1967, crash landing.

"They called me ?Lucky? after that," he says.

After returning to the hospital for a few more days, Hendry tried his luck once again at rejoining his buddy from basic at Bravo Company. This time he made it.

During his first patrol, fire team leader Angelo called a break, prompting Belmaine to peel off his boots to soak his tired feet in a pool of water.

"When Angelo told him to get his boots on, that we were moving out, Marshall just ignored him," Hendry recalls. "Angelo told him again. Marshall still ignored him. Then Angelo put the barrel of his M-14 rifle up against Marshall?s temple and told him to get his boots on. Marshall just said, ?Screw you? or words to that effect.

"I thought, ?Oh my God, these guys are crazy,? " he adds.

Maybe they were. Or maybe the times were crazy.

Belmaine recalls once being so crazy for water on patrol that he drank from a stagnant pool.

"I just squatted down, pushed the algae aside ? there was a water buffalo turd floating right there and there was an oil slick ? stuck my head down there and drank like an old horse," he says.

He survived, thanks to having the constitution of an old horse.

After his ears became plugged in April, Hendry could no longer hear while out on patrol or on listening posts. For their safety, his fire team members figured he had best get his ears reamed out back at the medical unit at Phu Bai.

"I was out for a few days ? they couldn?t fly me back in because of the fog," he says. "When I was able to get in on a C-130, I walked over and saw Marshall on a cot and Angelo next to him. They both had medivac tags on."

When he asked where Geiger was, they said he was in the nearby tent. Inside were several body bags.

"I unzipped Larry?s body bag and hugged him," he says.

The fog that temporarily prevented Hendry from rejoining the fire team probably saved lives back at Bravo Company, Belmaine figures.

"They had zeroed in on us with their mortars," Belmaine says. "They were up on ridges on two sides."

Geiger was likely killed by the same mortar round that wounded Belmaine and Angelo.

"But after the fog settled in, they couldn?t see us anymore," Belmaine says.

Belmaine would later be wounded on Hill 861, first taking shrapnel in his right leg. A few moments later he was shot in the left arm while trying to help a wounded Marine. Once more he was medivaced out.

While Belmaine was recovering on a hospital ship, the unit was sent to Con Thien on the border of what was then North Vietnam. Hendry was walking point on July 1 when the unit was attacked.

Rounds slammed into his right arm and hip.

"When the CP (command post) got overrun, we could hear them killing everybody," he says.

The surviving Marines moved into a thicket of bamboo for cover. But the rounds were so thick that the bamboo began falling. They moved again.

Hendry stopped to bandage a Marine whose right arm was nearly shot off. A mortar round landed nearby, wounding Hendry in the legs, wrist and hands.

"Yeah, I was hobbling pretty good by then," he says.

Reinforcements in the form of rumbling tanks finally arrived. A corpsman removed Hendry?s pants and bandaged his wounds.

"I started walking up the road again ? my boots on, flak jacket and helmet and no pants," he recalls. "I didn?t care."

Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at pfattig@mailtribune.com

http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2...es/13local.htm


Ellie