LZ Margo:

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THE WRITER

     The elevator doors opened, delivering me to the hotel’s first floor. In the hallway, a sign stood on an easel outside a vacant conference room. “Battalion Landing Team 2/26. Reuniting and Remembering.” A somber photograph filled the board beneath the headline. A Marine stood behind his machine gun in a knee deep fighting hole. His helmet was missing and flak jacket hung open. His eyes glazed over in a thousand-yard stare. Superimposed words alluded to the story on his face. “LZ MARGO… LEST WE FORGET.” 

     I searched Landing Zone (LZ) Margo online before I arrived. The results were disappointing and scant. Whatever it was, veterans came from around the nation to remember it. They invited me to join them and document the experience. I felt bad, having never even heard of the place. I wished I could see through the eyes of the man in the photo to grasp the story they told.

     I followed signs to the continental breakfast room and paused at the entrance. Hotel guests packed the room, but I immediately picked out the table full of men I was there to meet. Unsure of where I fit in, a voice from behind prodded me along.

     “You here for the reunion?”

     “Yes, I am.”

     “You somebody’s son?”

     “No sir. I’m the writer.”

     “Ah, the writer! Come on, these are the guys you want to speak with.”

     He walked me to the table and introduced me to the group. They grabbed a chair and made room. I listened to their discussions as I ate my breakfast. Shortly after I joined them, another interruption followed.

     “Y’all are veterans?”

     All of us looked up. The woman posing the question was not looking at me, so I kept my mouth shut. Forty years separated me from anyone else around the table. I doubted she considered me one of the group. Though not as trim as they once were, and more grayed, the men surrounding me were indeed veterans. No matter their age, even an outsider cannot mistake a bunch of Marines. The gentlemen closest answered for the group.

     “Yes we are. Marine Corps.”

     “Oh alright! What brings everyone to Detroit?”

     “Here for a reunion. I haven’t seen these guys in 50 years.”

     “Oh wow! Well, thank y’all for your service!”

     Without waiting for a reply, the stranger walked away to her own table. Everyone looked at each other with a familiar blank expression. This must have been the thousandth time they heard it since their country decided they deserved respect.

     “It just feels hollow,” one of the men finally remarked.

     Another veteran described the best “thank you for your service” he ever received, when the owner of a restaurant ordered several rounds of drinks for him, on the house. Another passed around a humbling thank you note and $10 bill, left on his truck anonymously by a gold star mother.

     One of the veterans adeptly closed the conversation, to a resounding, silent affirmation.

     “The best respect we get is from each other.”

     I reflected on their comments as we finished eating. In their eyes, my Eagle, Globe, and Anchor allowed me a seat at their table. They welcomed me as a brother. I realized, though, I was no different from the clueless stranger who disrupted our conversation. I did not understand what these Marines had experienced any more than she did. How could I possibly capture it into words?

THE REUNION

     We left the dining area and entered the conference room. No agenda dictated the day, other than allowing Marines to catch up after 50 years. This proved an easy task. I watched them speak as if they were life-long friends.

     “This is incredible,” reflected one veteran, “it feels like we are just picking up right where we left off.”

     They laughed at each other’s stories from boot camp and experiences from the rear in Vietnam. Many of the veterans fought together through the siege at Khe Sanh. Even the discussions of this infamous battle eventually led to the place that altered their lives.

    “I put more Marines in body bags at Margo than I ever did at Khe Sanh.”

     The sentiment echoed around in many forms. One person spoke of a senior enlisted Marine who survived LZ Margo. In his younger days, this Marine fought the Chinese at the Chosin Reservoir. Even he proclaimed Margo worse than any attack he experienced in Korea.

     I discovered an alarming majority of the men present were Purple Heart recipients. Further investigation revealed most of those were wounded on the same day, September 16, 1968. I overheard one Marine discussing his foot that was blown off. I watched him walk in a perfect gait to refill his glass and return to his table. When a seat became available, I approached.

     “John, did I hear correctly, you lost a foot at Margo?”

     “Yeah, out on patrol a few days before the attack. I stepped on one of those toe-popper mines. Took the end of my foot off. They got me out that day. The mine took my foot, then gangrene took the rest…”

     He continued talking as he lifted his pant leg and removed a prosthetic limb extending down from his knee. I struggled temporarily, processing his words and his leg, now separated above the table before me. He discussed the surgeries, the constant pain, how prosthetics advanced over the years, and the normality of it all now.

     “…I walk five miles every day after breakfast.”

     I hoped my words were appropriate, but continued feeling my inexperience. I surveyed the room, full of Marines as extraordinary as the one seated next to me. I felt the bond between them. I saw regret and sorrow for their brothers lost at LZ Margo, and the open wounds left inside. I sensed the importance of this reunion, and the healing power it possessed. No one outside the unit knew details of the battle. Their Corps glossed over it as an embarrassing footnote. Their country belittled the scars it left. These men grew accustomed to being ignored. They kept each other alive and fighting through Vietnam. Their memories of each other faded little through half a century. Now, "each other" was precisely the reason they came.

THE MISSION

     I worked my way from man to man piecing together the story. How was it possible I had never heard of Margo? What could have happened that haunted the survivors for the rest of their lives? One man pulled me aside.

     “Let’s get you with the General. He’s the person you need to talk to.”

     Major General Jarvis D. Lynch entered the room. Every Marine present straightened. Fifty years ago, they knew him as a Major, the Battalion Operations Officer. I plainly saw he was still their Chesty Puller. I introduced myself, and asked him to tell me how the battalion ended up at Margo. He told me their journey began at sea.

     Aboard the USS Princeton, 2nd Battalion, 26th Marines reformed as a Battalion Landing Team (BLT). Gaining tanks, artillery, reconnaissance, engineers, and more, the battalion grew as a truly powerful force. Word spread of a coming operation in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). They could never be sure. The battalion passed from regiment to regiment, operating in different areas. They called themselves “The Nomads.” They had no home.

     They arrived at Camp Carroll in early September, just south of the DMZ. Lynch worked to solidify their orders. Generals in charge of their fate placed the battalion in LZ Margo, 15 miles from the Lao boarder, deep in enemy territory. Word passed to move out in 24 hours. While the battalion prepared, Lynch learned as much as he could about their destination.

     Intelligence told him Margo was established two months earlier. It transitioned into a Fire Support Base, but currently sat abandoned. The LZ occupied a hilltop, blasted barren by US airpower. Triple-canopy jungle surrounded it for miles. Draws and ravines created an uneven surface on the hill. As a result, only one chopper fit in the zone at a time. A map revealed steep slopes down from three sides of the hill into the Cam Lo River, flowing in a jagged horseshoe around the LZ. The hilltop looked small, certainly too small to accommodate a BLT. Most concerning, the hill was actually low ground. Fingers and mountains rose up in all directions.

     Margo would be the first of several stops across the DMZ, sweeping the NVA back towards the coast. The single helicopter limit in the LZ meant the insert would be painfully slow. It dawned on Lynch the operation was set to commence on Friday the 13th.

     “That date was not lost on the Marines,” he remembered.

MARGO

     We spoke for nearly an hour before the General left the room. Our conversation created as many questions as it answered. The LZ seemed such an obvious poor choice. How did the battalion get stuck there? I learned I was not the only one still asking the question.

     I found Lieutenants Kent Wonders and Alan Green, who told me their stories. As the assistant to Major Lynch, Wonders remained close to the Command Post (CP). When they arrived, sporadic rifle fire targeted the incoming choppers, but the insertion proceeded without incident. Marines quickly filled the LZ. Major Lynch immediately sent the rifle companies north off the hill.

     Wonders moved around the CP and units still occupying the LZ. He took stock of their new home as he walked. Bomb craters and old, shallow fighting holes dotted the hilltop. It reminded him of WWII photos from the Pacific. Water pooled in a hole at the bottom of a draw, filled by a natural spring. Several Marines surrounded the pool filling their canteens.

     “We might run out of food, but at least we have water.”

     Wonders arrived back at the CP sooner than he anticipated. Somehow, the LZ seemed smaller in reality than it looked on the map. Marines in every direction settled in. He found one of the radio operators digging a hole and dropped his gear next to it.

     “Mind if I help? We can share this one.”

     “Works for me, sir, but good luck getting anywhere. This hill is like a rock!”

     Wonders grabbed his entrenching tool and jabbed at the ground. The pick sank less than an inch. Several hours of digging yielded a hole 18 inches deep, large enough for one man to lie flat. It seemed more like a coffin than a fighting position. Exhausted, the Marines dropped their e-tools. An explosion north of the LZ interrupted their rest.

     “What was that? Mortar?”

     “Sounded like a mine. Fox is down there on patrol. Probably one of our own mines, left over by whoever was here before us.”

     Shouts for corpsmen echoed up the hill. The radio in the CP crackled to life, calling for a medevac. Wonders took a swig of his canteen and surveyed the surrounding heights.

     “First casualty. We haven’t even seen the enemy yet.”

     Alan Green arranged his platoon of 81mm mortars. He picked an old bomb crater for his Fire Direction Center (FDC), and fanned the rest of the platoon out to dig gun pits. The awkward terrain prevented normal dispersion. The Marines attempted to dig in, but quickly hit rocky soil. Instead, they unpacked their mortar ammunition and filled the ammo boxes with rocks and dirt, stacking them up around their mediocre holes.

     They established primitive firing positions to support the rifle companies in the bush. They worked to deepen the holes and dial in their aiming stakes. Wiremen strung telephone land lines from the FDC out to each of the eight gun pits. The radioman established contact with forward observers in each company. As the Marines fortified the FDC and brought in ammo, Green noticed a large megaphone sitting next to the radio. “USS Princeton” was stenciled on the side. His ammo sergeant noticed the quizzical look on his face, and answered the question before Green could ask.

     “I liberated it from the Navy before we left the ship. Didn’t seem like they were using it.”