Jerry and his platoon participated in Operation Prairie III between March 19 and April 5, according to his military service record. Meanwhile back in the States, the anti-war movement was building. On April 15, a massive demonstration was held throughout the country against United States involvement in Vietnam. New York newspapers featured photographs of protestors burning draft cards in Central Park, and similar rallies were headlined throughout the nation.
As demonstrators marched at home, Jerry and his new roommate, Tom Downes, fought side by side against the Viet Cong before their Battalion was rotated back to Okinawa to reorganize, get new equipment, and bring the unit up to its normal complement of men. They sailed together through Subic Bay in the Philippines and stopped at the port-of-call for five hours before continuing on to Okinawa. Tom knew Subic Bay well, having spent several years there during his youth while his father was in the Navy. His friend was in the mood for a cocktail, but drinking was forbidden on board the ship. The two men hopped aboard a launch for the short run to the dock. Once ashore, they headed for the Subic Bay Officers Club, which was set on the waterfront and surrounded by lofty palms. As they approached the entrance to the sprawling white compound with the red tile roof, they learned that a party was going on inside, and a brawny officer guarding the door gave them the brush-off. Looking past him, they could see that all of the naval officers—many accompanied by their wives—were wearing their dress whites.
While First Lt. Downes and Second Lt. Akers were clean-shaven and neat, they realized that the utility green uniforms and heavy jungle boots they were wearing were not exactly appropriate for the festivities going on just a few feet away from where they stood. Refusing to let them in, the heavy-set naval officer blocked the club’s doorway, but his efforts to bar the men’s entrance was met with resistance by Jerry, who moved within a few inches of the stocky man and demanded that he and his officer friend be granted admittance. It was clear to Tom that Jerry was not interested in compromise, even though the man he was confronting was considerably bigger than him. Jerry wanted to fight the guy, and seemed unwilling to listen to reason. His behavior did not surprise Tom. On the contrary, he knew that his friend had a temper and would never back down, no matter what the odds.
Sensing that his subordinate was ready to attack, and not wanting to offend the officers inside, Lt. Downes stepped between the two, and asked the naval officer if there was another club nearby. Suddenly, the three men were joined by a full Navy Commander who directed them to Cubi’s Point. Facing the superior officer, Jerry backed down. The two men hailed a cab for the Cubi’s Point Officers Club that was located on the grounds of the Naval Air Station. But once inside, they were disappointed to find the bar practically empty, so they stayed just long enough to have a couple of drinks.
Jerry’s drawn-out confrontation with the officer at the first club had eaten up much of their shore time, and suddenly it became evident to Tom that they were dangerously close to missing their ship’s scheduled departure for Okinawa. At Tom’s insistence, the two Marines departed the club, flagged down a taxi, and headed back to Fleet Landing, where the launches were docked. When they arrived, they discovered that the last boat had already left for the ship and they were at risk of being left behind—and potentially facing a court martial. As Tom worried about his future in the Marines, Jerry took action, leaping aboard a twenty-six-foot launch and convincing the helmsman to shuttle them out to their vessel before it left port. Realizing that he did not have much of a choice, Tom joined his friend, who was not the least bit concerned about their predicament. As they neared the ship, Tom could see that the seamen aboard were in the midst of raising the launches and gangplank. With just seconds to spare, the two reached the boat, jumped onto the ramp, and Tom breathed a sigh of relief.
In Okinawa, Tom found himself in the role of peacemaker on more than one occasion. The young Marine officer remembered one incident in which he and Jerry had gone to a club with two other officers and become embroiled in a confrontation with officers from the Reunicin Armed Forces Police, who had a reputation for harassing personnel on leave. The four, who were all dressed in civilian clothes, were having drinks together at a table and making some noise. Several members of the military police force approached them, demanding to see some ID. But when the first officer handed over his card, and advised the policeman that they were all military officers, his comment was dismissed out of hand. Instead, the cop demanded to see IDs from all four men seated at the table. Finding their behavior obnoxious and pushy, Jerry stood up, announced he had had enough, and declared that it was time to “clean the floor” with the police, all of whom were armed with billy clubs and side arms. It took more than a little convincing from Tom and the other members of his party before Jerry backed down and agreed to leave the nightclub.
As they walked out, Tom, who hailed from the northeast, thought to himself, “no wonder we had such a hard time winning the Civil War.” It was clear to him that his friend was a gentleman of the old school, a man of honor who would not accept or ignore any slight. Jerry was afraid of nothing, and no one.
* * *
Jerry returned to the base at Dong Ha, but Tom remained in Okinawa and was sent back to the United States at the end of his tour. Though Tom was happy to be headed home to a wife he hadn’t seen in months, there was a piece of him that regretted leaving Vietnam. The young Marine lieutenant felt that the long and arduous year he had spent “in country” truly had a purpose, and that the role he played was an important one, one on which he placed a high value. He was certain that Jerry—who he knew did not have a wife or even a special girl to go home to—felt the same way.
But Tom could not have anticipated how his countrymen would react when he flew back to the West Coast. Stepping off the plane in his Marine uniform, the lieutenant was stunned when people in the terminal began spitting at him, and accusing him of being a killer. Racing to the men’s room, he quickly pulled off the uniform he had been so proud to wear and changed into street clothes to escape the taunts.
He had been home only a couple of weeks when he received a letter from Jerry describing how a surprise attack with mortars had killed dozens of Marines at Dong Ha. The territory was considered a “safe area” and therefore none of the men had dug any holes to protect themselves from enemy attack, a mistake that turned out to be fatal. Jerry had been hurt in the fighting, but his injury was not serious and he was able to return to duty soon after. Within days, he was back with his platoon and taking part in Operation Prairie IV. The Operation proved a blood-bath for the 26th Marines, with 164 men killed and 999 wounded. But Jerry’s platoon was in Operation Prairie for only two days before the men were reassigned to Operation Hickory, the first major Marine thrust into the DMZ.
On May 29, Jerry and his company were taking fire from North Vietnamese troops as they advanced up a hill. Another company was ascending the same hill from the other side as the Viet Cong fired on them from emplacements farther up the hillside.
Dennis Dawg Thun, a member of Lima Company, was there with Second Lieutenant Akers as the Marines moved forward. Throughout his tour of duty, Dawg and members of his mortar unit were routinely called upon to participate in sweeps of hills that had been deemed strategic by their commanding officers. The young Marine spent his entire thirteen-month tour in the jungles of the northern portion of South Vietnam.
It was one of the areas most heavily sprayed with the herbicide Agent Orange, which was applied continuously throughout the time that he and Jerry were on tour there. When he had first arrived “in country,” Dawg was assigned to Camp Carroll, where he slept in a tent. But for weeks at a time, he was ordered to participate in night sweeps of the area that had him traipsing through the broad-leaf foliage of the dense, jungle-like terrain. Night after night, he endured the frenetic buzz of mosquitoes swarming about in his helmet, and suffered from a case of jungle rot so severe that layers of his skin flaked off from scratching at the bug bites that covered his body. Duri
ng the monsoons, he braved nights of pouring rain, sleeping in holes he had dug for himself, and fighting off the mosquitoes, snakes, and leeches that lurked all around him. Often, his clothing was so damp that seventy-degree temperatures had him feeling colder than any winter evening he had ever endured in his hometown of Chicago. Yet, despite the atrocious conditions, he found his nights sweeping the jungle preferable to those he spent at the firebases that were riddled with rats.
Crawling on his hands and knees, Dawg, who had been trained as a mortar man during his six months at Camp Pendleton, was keeping an eye on his superior as he made his way up the hill. In previous battles, he had served under Jerry Akers as a forward observer. But this time, he was about ten feet behind him. He noted that the Second Lieutenant lay just off to his right, and was facing uphill. Another Marine, no more than ten feet away from Dawg’s right shoulder, lay on the ground just behind Akers.
Keeping his head low to avoid the continuous barrage of enemy gunfire, Dawg was astounded when he saw Jerry spring to his feet and point his M16 rifle at the head of the Marine next to him.
“I’m gonna f—king kill you, mother f——r!” Akers screamed at the grunt. “You f—king shot me, you bastard! And I’m gonna f—king take you out!”
Bullets whizzed by from up the hill as Marines lying on the ground nearby watched the unfolding drama in disbelief. Dawg kept firing at enemy positions, while keeping a close eye on the confrontation that was going on just a few feet away. Suddenly it became clear that Akers had been shot in the buttocks, and was convinced that one of his own men—the Marine who lay cowering on the ground with Jerry’s rifle aimed at his head—had pulled the trigger. Apparently, seconds after he was shot, Jerry had quickly turned to look behind him. When he noted that he had only friendly troops to his rear, he immediately surmised that he had been targeted by one of his own men.
Jerry had heard stories of platoon leaders killed in action, not by the enemy, but by disgruntled members of their own platoon. But he could not believe it was happening to him. In a rage, he continued to scream threats at the ashen-faced young grunt who lay wide-eyed on the ground with a look of sheer terror emblazoned on his face.
Dawg lay frozen on the ground, worried for the poor guy’s safety, when suddenly he spied an enemy soldier pop up from a spider hole in front of him. Instantly, he and the other Marines opened fire on the man and then watched as he dropped to the ground. It was only then that Jerry and the others realized that they had been advancing over enemy soldiers who were dug into the hill.
Akers and his company pulled off the hill that night, and moved back to a safer position where choppers were able to evacuate the dead and wounded, and bring in food and supplies. But the enemy assault continued through the night and some of the Marines were hit and killed by 122-mm rockets. Jerry was flown to safety and hospitalized with gunshot wounds to both buttocks.
It was just weeks before this battle that Jerry had been reunited with his childhood friend, Ray Walker, which had turned out to be a lucky break for Jerry and his parents. He had heard that Ray had been assigned to the base at Dong Ha. But his old pal had no idea that Jerry was an officer there.
As Ray stepped out of one of the buildings on the base, he heard a voice over the loudspeaker beckoning him to another building. Hurrying to get to his destination, he brushed by an officer who immediately challenged him, saying, “Don’t you salute lieutenants, Sergeant?” Turning to shoot the lieutenant a dirty look, Ray suddenly realized that the officer was his old friend, Jerry Akers. Jerry had learned that Ray was stationed there and tracked him down to say hello.
The two men enjoyed a great reunion, and caught up on old times. A few weeks later, Ray learned that Jerry’s company and battalion had been in a deadly firefight, had sustained numerous casualties, and were being evacuated back to the base by helicopter. Racing to the runway, the lanky, dark-haired Marine scanned the stretchers that lined the airstrip in search of his childhood friend. Finally, he found Jerry, and learned that, although he had been wounded, he was going to be okay. Relieved that his buddy had made it out alive, he returned to the barracks, and sat down to write a letter to Jerry’s mother. He wanted to advise Mrs. Akers that her son was in pretty good shape.
Normally, it took three to four days for a letter mailed from Vietnam to reach Sheffield. But in a bizarre twist of fate, Ray’s correspondence took just a day and a half to arrive. It reached the Akers home just hours after Marine Corps personnel had visited the family to inform them that Jerry had been wounded in action. But that is all that they were able to tell Jerry’s parents. Hours later, Ray’s letter arrived and Mr. and Mrs. Akers breathed a sigh of relief.
Jerry did not return to combat until the middle of June. On July 1, the Marine Corps elevated him to the rank of First Lieutenant. His underlings would now salute him. He continued to lead his platoon in a variety of operations until he was made an Aerial Observer in August of 1967. He went on to display the same kind of courage in the air as he did on the ground, and was later awarded an Air Medal. His military service “in country” also earned him the Vietnamese Service Medal with Two Stars.
Jerry went on to receive another Air Medal for his heroism, and was also awarded a Gold Star for his bravery. In addition to his medals and awards, Jerry earned points with his men. While he followed the Marine Corps’ strict code of conduct, and never fraternized with a “stripe” (enlisted man), Jerry was well liked by his troops, admired for his keen leadership and his devotion to his men.
In his new role as Aerial Observer assigned to fly on a single-engine plane, he went out of his way to locate members of his own unit who were stationed on the ground for special air drops. One day, Dawg and others in the unit were carrying out orders to perform a sweep of a hill when they observed a small aircraft circling overhead. Suddenly, Playboy magazines, packs of cigarettes, and candy bars came raining down on them. Looking up at the plane, the grunts saw their lieutenant waving through the window. The men had no idea that he had been transferred to the Headquarters Battalion of the Third Marines, and that he had received training as a pilot before he enlisted in the service. It was not the last time that Akers would deliver special gifts to his men. Whenever it was possible, he would find his unit in the field and bestow precious commodities like cigarettes on them from above.
On October 14, 1967, First Lieutenant Jerry Ray Akers returned to the United States after his back was seriously injured in a plane crash. When he left Vietnam, among his medals were two Purple Hearts, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Gold, and the coveted Silver Star. During his tour of duty, he had been wounded five times, and according to a spokesman for the U.S. Marines, he had participated in thirteen major operations. He had also been repeatedly exposed to a dangerous chemical.
An estimated nineteen million gallons of the plant killer Agent Orange was used in South Vietnam during the conflict, with the broadest use of it applied by air from C123’s during the height of the war—1967–1968—the time that Jerry Akers was stationed there. It would be several years after the U.S. military left South Vietnam before adverse health effects developed in military personnel as a result of exposure to the herbicide and others that were applied. The earliest health concerns about Agent Orange were about the product’s contamination with dioxin. In tests on laboratory animals, dioxin caused a wide variety of diseases, many of them deadly.
Studies performed on those exposed to Agent Orange turned up a variety of disturbing findings. The Vietnam Veteran Outreach Program, which was disbanded in the late 1980s due to lack of funds, published a summary of illnesses suffered by those exposed to high concentrations of the herbicide. Among them are Cloracne, liver dysfunction, cancers, birth defects, and severe personality disorders. Psychiatric symptoms include violence, irritability, anger, severe depression, suicide, frenzied (manic) behavior, tremors, memory loss, loss of concentration, and severe personality changes. It is unclear whether Jerry Akers suffered any ill effects from his repeated
exposure.
In January of 1968, Jerry again reported to the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia, and was assigned to a seven-month stint as an instructor of the Basic Officers Extension Course. In August of 1968, he was elevated to the rank of Captain and became an instructor of the Orientation Course at The Basic School, where he taught infantry squad tactics.
In 1969, he was transferred to the Temporary Disability Retired List. His status as a disabled veteran entitled him to military benefits, which included a small stipend on which he could live.
Later that year, he and his friend Robert Brown, whom he had met in 1966 at Officer Candidate School in Quantico, took off for Europe. For Jerry, it would be a long-overdue vacation, and an opportunity to pal around the continent with one of his closest Marine buddies. Their first stop was Rome, where they rented a car and leisurely drove the Italian countryside en route to Barcelona, Spain. One of the highlights of their lengthy adventure was diving into the cool waters of the Mediterranean from the lofty cliffs of the gorgeous Spanish city on the sea.
Upon returning to the United States, Jerry re-enrolled at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, where he resumed his studies at its prestigious School of Law. When he returned to the sprawling campus in September of 1969, he decided, once again, to drop his childhood name of Jerry, and assume his given name of Jeremy R. Akers. He had always dreamed of bettering himself through education, and did little to hide his desire to flee the stigma of his rural roots and join the ranks of the nation’s upwardly mobile urban professionals. He was convinced that the more formal name was better suited to the profession he had chosen to pursue.
Because Jeremy was now older than many of his classmates, he opted to forgo dormitory-style living and to seek accommodations off campus. During his second year, he found an ideal arrangement through a friend he had made in the Marine Corps. Ron Castille had been sharing a grand old country house with four other students just outside of Charlottesville. And as luck would have it, a spot opened up when one of the roommates entered the military.
Fatal Romance: A True Story of Obsession and Murder Page 7