Having closed Operation Cochise on the high note that we did on 17 August, who would have denied us the right to feel a bit triumphant? We hadn’t exactly taken Mount Suribachi, but it was a rare moment for us. Given the obligation of reporting on the outcome of engagements–with due regard for our own and enemy casualties—Cochise gave us a good number of bodies to count. The day stood in stark contrast to our mortar and rocket belt experience, in which we might have had one, two, or three bodies to report along with innumerable (real or imagined) blood stains.

But over the years, the triumphant feeling I felt in August 1967 turned into something less, and I began to question the importance of that day’s accomplishment. Instead, I came to wonder, over and over, if we had abandoned the opportunity to engage on our terms in a bigger and more important fight, one that might have precluded much more bloodshed later. Essentially, I came to believe—given the number of uniformed North Vietnamese troops we saw on the way to that mountain, the rice caches we spotted hidden in the hillsides, the troops we saw and fired on in the valley below, and the amount of fire we took as we moved through the region, that on top of that “boulder strewn” mountain we were looking down on the command center of the 2nd NVA , and we were on the edge of a much greater fight, had we only realized it and taken the opportunity. Instead, as Bud described it in our previous post, tired, thirsty, and somewhat depleted, and perhaps to meet another challenge perceived by higher headquarters, we abandoned that high ground.

Yes, we force-marched our way to a triumph, but, as Otto Lehrack described in his book, it was not long after we (Lima) left that the Fifth Marines we had been sent to help were again in fierce fights with units of the Second NVA Division. In what came to be known as Operation Swift, both sides suffered severe casualties, and I learned after Swift ended that Father Capodanno had been killed and  LtCol. Webster had been relieved of command, apparently for something he did or failed to do during the operation. I’ve never heard a satisfactory explanation of the reasons.

One story had him refusing an order from the regiment–he’d had two of his four companies of 3/5 placed under the operational control of another battalion, 1/5–not a happy situation for a commander at that level.  Perhaps he protested to his cost; perhaps he was ordered to give up another one; perhaps he had been told to move units into untenable situations; perhaps some tactical decision he made was deemed to be a mistake. An alternative explanation suggested that he was held responsible for the death of Father Capodanno by giving him permission to accompany a company into combat. (Though I think a very much higher authority was responsible for that one.) I’ve talked to Col. Webster three times since seeing him during Operation Cochise. He has declined to address the topic.

Over the years I’d come to wonder if our departure from that mountaintop denied us the opportunity to prevent the events that followed in Operation Swift. I can’t confirm it today, of course, but the gnawing has persisted for a very long time, even with the knowledge we have gained in retrospect about the operational habits of the NVA in this region.

One source of such information many years later is an officer who went to Basic School with me, Andrew (“Andy”) Finlayson. On leaving Basic School and arriving in Vietnam, he became a special kind of grunt, a leader of so-called Force Recon Marines. As such, he and a handful of Marines were regularly flown into distant places to spot major enemy forces and either call in artillery or air strikes on them or simply report their movements for strategic and tactical planning. Andy would serve a second tour as an officer in the CIA-managed program to capture VC leaders known as the Phoenix Program. He would serve a full career in the Marines and retire as a full colonel.

I had wondered what Andy might have known about the events of Cochise and then Swift and the relief of Colonel Webster. Andy offered the following, which points to another kind of frustration that those of us in contact with the enemy would experience, an unwillingness or inability of higher headquarters to respond to information received from troops below:

I do not know why Lt. Col. Webster was relieved. In fact, I was unaware of his relief until you sent your email to me. I will try to go back an look at my participation in Operation Cochise, since it is in my OQR and I am sure I was patrolling during that operation. In fact, I think I may have confused it with Union II in my book Killer Kane since I was on a hill overlooking the area where both Capt Graham and Father Capodanno (both MOH winners) were killed. My team observed large groups of NVA moving towards the village where the incident took place and I tried to call in arty on them but the clearance was denied because of “friendlies nearby.” In the hours before the fire fight we observed groups of five or ten moving east, as I recall, all NVA with most having brush attached to their packs to make them hard to see. What was so frustrating to me was the fact that our reporting did not get down to the 5th Marines in time to warn them. If I had had their company frequencies, I could have called them and warned them. Instead, I relied on 1st Recon Battalion and the Division G-2 to relay our Salute reports to them. Never happened for some reason.

“Some reasons,” I’ve concluded are the stock answers to questions veterans of combat inevitably carry with them. The “what ifs,” the counterfactuals, and the unknown pieces prowl endlessly in their imaginations, offering explanations they will rarely, if ever, be able to substantiate.  The questions need not be–indeed seldom would be–about grand strategy, the sort of thing generals and military historians ponder endlessly to endlessly varying conclusions. The hardest questions are the ones veterans direct at themselves and those immediately above them, “what if I had (or had not) done X?” or “Why wasn’t the sergeant or the lieutenant there when I needed him?” or “Why didn’t someone tell me that?” or “Why did I choose that route instead of the other?” and on and on and on.  Post-traumatic stress—a game of Post-Traumatic 20, 30, 40, ∞  Questions.

But I would have little time for that game after Cochise. Lima returned to its 3/1 compound below Marble Mountain, where after some local patrol activity with First Platoon I was ordered to Okinawa to attend a one- or two-week course on planning and managing the combat loading of Marines and their heavy equipment onto amphibious landing ships–Embarkation School.

The Marines of Third Battalion, First Marines, a battery of 105mm howitzer cannons, a platoon of tanks and another of amphibious tracked vehicles and more–numbering about 1,100 Marines was going to get “special.” As Special Landing Force (SLF) 3/1, we were going to do what Marines did during World War II, launch attacks on the enemy from the sea.

And so, I was given a two-way ticket on military transport to Okinawa to learn how to put SLF 3/1, in fighting shape, onto the five ships that we would board, first for training in the Philippines and then back to war, this time in the north, by the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Vietnams.

I don’t remember the date I left, but it was surely in late September, not long after Operation Swift ended,  that in Danang I boarded an Air Force transport with about 60 passengers. Apart from the flight crew, I was the only living person on board. The others lay in repose in aluminum caskets, with one-way orders home.  Perhaps Father Capodanno was among them. Perhaps a Marine I knew. Perhaps a friend or two.

Again, no knowing.

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