Guns Up!

by Johnnie Clark

  Jesus Quintana kept right on being a hero, and he found an “A-gunner” for his new work. This wonderful, gutsy Christian and his equally brave and lovely wife have taken in more than sixty-five foster children. They also found time to raise two kids of their own. Jesus Quintana is now a gunsmith in Indianapolis. He built a replica M60 and brought it to the memorial for Big Red. Five of us gunners who came home had a gunners’ service at Red’s grave: a helmet with GUNS UP! printed on it, some salty jungle boots at the foot of the grave, and the M60 in front of the marker. Richard Chan, Marty Lynch, Jimmy McGinnis, Jesus “Joe” Quintana, and me. I never knew any 0331s in the Fifth Marines who were not killed or wounded.

  Jimmy McGinnis was Red’s A-gunner. Jimmy was with Red when he died. Jimmy is a quiet, humble man from Tennessee, and those people who know him now probably have no idea what he has been through. Cpl. Marty Lynch taught a boot named Johnnie Clark how to fill sandbags and clean a machine gun. He was all-Marine in Nam and all-Marine now. John Carrow was there from Weapons Platoon, and he still looks like a Marine. Sergeant Hall played taps at our personal machine-gun ceremony for Red. I never mentioned Sergeant Hall by name in the book, but he was there.

  M.Gy.Sgt. Stacy Watson was also at the service. He was a corporal in Nam with the Third Platoon. At one point I almost lost my foot to jungle rot and had to be medevaced out by riverboat down the Truoi River. It was Cpl. Stacy Watson and Gunny McDermott who took me out on that boat. I also wrote about a wonderful Marine named Jack Ellenwood. Jack Ellenwood’s real name was Cpl. Frank Burris. He graduated from Dixie Hollins High in Saint Petersburg, Florida, the same school my wife and son graduated from. I wrote that he had the photo of his baby boy in his helmet. It was actually a baby girl with bright red hair. Frank Burris was Stacy Watson’s best friend. They were squad leaders in Third Platoon.

  At Bridge Two on Highway One going south from Phu Bai, Stacy ran into his buddy Frank showing off a photo of “the most beautiful baby anybody ever saw!” He and Stacy had served in H&I together. Stacy said that Frank wanted to get home to that baby and his wife more than anything. He wanted it so bad, he was going to refuse to go into the bush. He had to see his baby. Stacy talked to Frank, and eventually Frank decided to do his duty. Frank made Stacy promise to look his wife and baby up and tell them how much he loved them if he didn’t make it back. Stacy still shows the pain when he speaks of that loss on August 9 1968, when we could not get a medevac for Frank. Stacy Watson told me that the night Frank Burris got hit, he lay there saying that it was his million-dollar wound. He was going back to the World. Frank talked of looking up our old friends for us when he got home. Mostly, Frank was talking about his baby girl and clutching her photo. I hope that if she ever reads this she will know that her father’s last thoughts on earth were of her. I was there. I want Mrs. Frank Burris to know that Frank wanted terribly to be with her. I want to tell Frank’s daughter: “Your father was a brave Marine, and he clutched your baby photo to him as he died. He loved you and wanted to come home to you more than anything else in the world.”

  When the memorial service for Big Red was over, I came back to Florida. In so many ways, I was coming home from Nam again. Though I had trouble sleeping, it still felt like a chapter had finally been closed. I was wrong. The mail brought another surprise newspaper article. A Milton, Florida, man received his Purple Heart twenty-eight years after being wounded. That man was PFC Pat McCrary. Jesus Quintana sent me the article.

  I called Quintana, and he told me that I had to know this guy because his story sounded like that of the night that Unerstute was killed in Dodge City. Quintana had been wounded and was not in the big graveyard battle I described in the chapter “Dodge City,” but he had read about it in this book. After reading the article, I agreed with Quintana. The details were uncanny: Dodge City, Arizona Territory, Second Platoon of Alpha 1/5, August 1968. I searched out a Pat McCrary in Milton, Florida, and gave him a call.

  Our conversation was astounding. Not only was this guy in the same battle, but he was the Marine named Barnes: Pat McCrary was the one who was screaming for us to come help him with a wounded buddy that night in the Arizona Territory. Pat remembered me. He said that we actually joined the Corps together. I was doubtful because it seemed impossible to me that someone could remember a guy he stood in line with to join the Marine Corps almost thirty years ago. Then Pat told a detailed story that only someone who was there could possibly know. I was being given a 4-F discharge by Navy doctors in Jacksonville. I had a hernia, or so they said. They were not going to let me join the Marine Corps. I don’t think I ever told anyone that story. I did not know anyone else on earth who would remember such a thing even if they witnessed it. Pat did.

  “We thought you were the dumbest——on earth!” Pat said with his big country-boy laugh. “You started begging them doctors and doing back flips and push-ups until they finally brought you in some room. Then you came out and joined the Corps! We thought, This guy is nuts!”

  I was absolutely blown away. I could not believe that anyone could possibly remember something like that. But it was true. Pat described me perfectly in all respects. It was like finding a lost brother. There was only a voice at the end of a phone, but it felt as warm as a big hug. Though Pat had joined the Corps with me in Jacksonville, we did not really know each other. When we reached Nam, Pat was put on Phu Bai security detail, so that afternoon and night in that graveyard was his first experience in combat. I thought he was a boot. In the chapter titled “Dodge City,” I thought Pat was the Marine who got shot eleven times and was dragged away. In that story, I called the Marine yelling for help, Striker. The man yelling for help was PFC Pat McCrary. The man who was hit at least nine times by three enemy .30-caliber machine guns (I wrote eleven times but have since been corrected by Richard “Medically Accurate” Chan) and dragged up in front of an enemy machine gun was actually a Marine named Sonny. We think Sonny was from New Jersey.

  Though he was shot to pieces and nearly drowning in rising water, Sonny refused to call out when he heard us looking for him because he knew we would be killed. Pat McCrary lay out in that cemetery, yelling and kicking grenades away from himself and Sonny until he ran out of ammo. When he finally went looking for help in the pitch-black monsoon rain, we thought he was the NVA coming toward our lines. In the flash of an enemy mortar going off, I saw the silhouette of an American helmet an instant before we shot at him. I screamed, “Don’t shoot!” and ended up nearly drowning him and myself when I pulled him in on top of me. Pat was not only brave, but he was also wounded that night.

  In 1997, Pat McCrary, then a mailman in Milton, wanted a Purple Heart license tag. The State of Florida would not give him one because there was no record of his ever having been wounded in combat. Pat got mad. He raised a fuss and eventually discovered that our records had been destroyed during a 122 mm-rocket attack at the An Hoa combat base. There was a direct hit on the records shack that killed some Marines and blew up our records.

  A couple of years ago, I was pursuing my usual impersonation of sleep when the phone rang. It was late. The voice at the other end of the phone sounded remotely familiar.

  “It’s Fred Huteson.”

  “Fred Huteson. Sorry, it doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Corporal Huteson, Johnnie. Alpha-one-five. Vietnam.”

  I was stunned for a few moments. Cpl. Fred Huteson was the real name of one of the squad leaders I wrote about in Guns Up! He was one of those real heros our country ignored. We were wounded together, spent our last night in Nam together, and spent time in Yokosuka Naval Hospital in Japan together. I hadn’t seen him since then.

  “Johnnie. I’ve been trying to find you for twenty-eight years. For all these years I wanted to thank you for what you did that night in the graveyard in Dodge City, outside of An Hoa.”

  All I could do was cry. I had made a decision or two when I was eighteen that I’d give my life to correct. I was praying about some of those painful memories when Fred c
alled. It was the most wonderful phone call I ever received in my life, and it was no coincidence that it came when it did. I admired Corporal Huteson a great deal. He was a salt. He had been wounded in the Battle of Hue City, and though only twenty, his cool courage under fire made him seem much older. He was a leader. Pat McCrary, Pvt. Buford Unerstute, and Sonny were part of his squad.

  That night in that Vietnamese cemetery was the first time he had lost one of his men. He took care of his men even if it meant risking his own life, which he did more than once. After I almost drowned PFC Pat “Mac” McCrary, McCrary told Gunny McDermott that Sonny was still out there and badly wounded. Corporal Huteson volunteered to crawl back into that killing zone to search for two of his missing Marines. We could not find them: PFC Unerstute and the Marine named Sonny. Sonny had been dragged away by the NVA, and Unerstute was dead.

  Buford Unerstute was very much as I described him. The guys called him Cowboy because he was from Oklahoma, not Idaho as I had thought. I won’t give his real name because I do not want to hurt his family. If they already know that the Marine I wrote about was their son, I want them to know this. In my heart, I feel that Cowboy was the bravest Marine I ever had the honor of serving with. I never met a Marine who was that terrified. He never should have made it through boot camp. Cpl. Bob Carroll, who was Sudsy in the book, recently told me a story about Pvt. Buford Unerstute. Bob said they were on a patrol one day in An Hoa Valley when they spotted three NVA troops standing on a hill a long way off. Bob said they were so far away that it would have been a long shot even for the M60. Lieutenant Pruit was thinking about calling in some 105s, artillery, just for the practice. Even at that distance, with an entire platoon of Marines around him, Unerstute began trembling in absolute terror. I relay this story for this reason. Try to imagine being in a jungle war like Nam. Then try to imagine being so torn apart inside with fear that you cannot control your body. Then try to imagine your lieutenant telling you the nightmare is over. You can go home. Then try to imagine what kind of courage it takes to say, “No.” Cowboy may have died of fright, but he did not die for lack of bravery. I feel honored to have known him.

  Corporal Huteson’s phone call was from the Lord. It brought up a lot of tears but healed many wounds. Just having such a fine man think well of me for one of those times when I did something right seemed to ease much of the guilt I felt for those times when I dropped the ball.

  In the chapter “Dodge City,” I wrote that my A-gunner told me that Gunny was putting me up for the Silver Star. Corporal Huteson told me that he and a couple of the other guys were put up for medals that night and no one got them. Cpl. Fred Huteson’s phone call made me feel better than any medal ever would, but Fred was curious about the records, too. I guess I had always wondered about that night. Wondered if my A-gunner was just exaggerating or if I had dreamed the whole thing up. But for twenty-eight years, I never pursued it. I knew that for each time I did well, I matched it with a moment of eighteen-year-old stupidity. In my foolish rationalization, I always thought a medal might balance those moments of disgrace or failure. I know the VA is full of men living with similar pain for a million different reasons. Sometimes you just can’t forgive yourself. Thank God, He can and does.

  Cpl. Bill James sent me a small roster of some of the guys from the old platoon. Up to that point, I never knew the gunny’s name. I only knew him as the gunny with the shotgun. Not exactly a mailing address. Gy.Sgt. Mac McDermott, Yuma, Arizona. He was the most gung ho Marine I ever knew. He was the kind of man those “hero” actors like to imitate, as long as they can put them in a WWII movie. He was happy to hear from me, and I was surprised that he even remembered me.

  “Gunny, you remember that night in the graveyard? Dodge City? An Hoa?”

  “Yep. And it wasn’t that——Swift Eagle that led the men back into that graveyard, Clark.”

  “Oh?”

  “That was me, Johnnie!”

  “Sorry, Gunny. I couldn’t remember every detail.”

  He laughed. “It’s okay.”

  “What happened to you after we put you on that chopper, Gunny?”

  His life sounded like a John Wayne movie. After the gunny was wounded with Corporal Quintana, he was medevaced out. I thought his time in Nam was over. I was eighteen and the gunny was in his thirties. I thought he was in his forties; he seemed like an old man to me—one very tough, very brave, very gung-ho, old Marine. He thought we were wasting Marine Corps money if we were not making contact with the enemy. He was the consummate Marine. He not only went back to Vietnam, in spite of objections, he got hit three more times while serving as an adviser. None of it impresses him. He is still the gunny.

  Gunny remembers vividly the day Jesus Quintana was wounded. He speaks with reverence for God about that moment when Quintana took out his Bible as he lay in his own blood, with no legs below the waist. Gunny McDermott remembers clearly when Quintana looked up at him with a spiritual light in his eyes that went beyond reason and said, “I’m going to make it.” That was one of the last times I remembered seeing the gunny.

  Gunny McDermott made a lifelong impression upon me. I wrote a couple of other books loosely based on him and another warrior I admire greatly, a Korean War–era gunnery sergeant named Francis Killeen. Gunny McDermott is one of those special warriors the Marine Corps seems to breed when America is in trouble. The gunny went back to the States in September 1968. He immediately drove those around him insane until he was sent back to Vietnam. He got back in May 1969 and stayed until August 1970. He was assigned to the Army as an adviser with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, 4th Battalion, 6th Regiment, 2d ARVN Division in Quang Nai Province. He said the Army called him “Mac the Magnet” because he managed to draw so much fire. I laughed. Those of us in Alpha Company understand. During his second tour, he managed to find the enemy with his usual regularity. He was wounded a total of six times but refused three of those Purple Hearts to keep from being sent home. Three Purple Hearts or two serious wounds, 48s, and you had to go back to the States.

  Gunny McDermott was promoted to the rank of sergeant major in March 1977 and was transferred to Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego. He was the Training NCO while stationed at Parris Island, South Carolina. Somehow, I always pictured the guy wearing a Smokey the Bear hat on Parris Island. Sgt. Maj. McDermott’s personal decorations include the Silver Star, three Bronze Stars with Combat V, three Purple Hearts, the Meritorious Service Medal, two Army Commendation Medals with Combat V, the Combat Action Ribbon, and two Vietnamese Crosses of Gallantry.

  We spoke for a long time, then I decided to ask him a twenty-eight-year-old question. To tell you the truth, I did not know what to expect. It made me nervous to even broach the subject of a medal with a real hero. But after nearly three decades, I wanted to know if it was just my childish imagination or if he did tell my A-gunner he was putting me up for a Silver Star. I also now had a responsibility to the other guys who were put up for medals that night and never got them. One thing I could depend on with the gunny was that he would be blunt.

  “Gunny, did you know our records got blown up by a 122?”

  “Oh, sure. Killed a master sergeant, I think.”

  “Pat McCrary just got a Purple Heart after all these years because his records were blown up in that attack. Corporal Huteson and some of the guys were supposed to get medals for that night.”

  “I heard about that.”

  “Look, Gunny, I’ve wanted to ask you this question since I was eighteen. My A-gunner came to me that night and told me that the gunny was putting me up for the Silver Star.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  Like I said, blunt. My heart sank a little. At least, and at last, I knew the truth. I felt embarrassed and a little bummed about it. “But why would my A-gunner tell me that?”

  “It wasn’t me. It was Gunny Poertner.”

  “Who is Gunny Poertner?”

  “He was the compan
y gunny. Remember Poertner at An Hoa, big red mustache?”

  I did remember the guy. He had a really impressive moustache, looked like a Viking. “I do remember that guy, Gunny! But he wasn’t in the bush with us, was he?”

  “Sure! On company-size operations. Remember when Lieutenant Molonolf of Third Platoon got killed in An Hoa?”

  “Yeah.” I remembered that Lieutenant Molonolf was an Australian. I called him Lieutenant Hawthorn in the chapter titled “Pay Back.”

  “That’s when I took over the third herd. Gunny Poertner became company gunny with Captain Nelson.”

  I was flabbergasted. I never knew there were two gunnery sergeants in Alpha Company. Of course, at eighteen, there was a lot I never knew. Retired M.Sgt. Billy Poertner remembered every detail. He said that he did write me up. He would do it again. Our company commander, Capt. Scott Nelson, remembered some of that night and a few of the guys also remembered. Doc Turley remembered. He was everyone’s favorite corpsman. Shortly after Gunny Poertner wrote me up for the Silver Star for the second time, he died. At least four other Marines, whose records were also destroyed, should have received medals for their selfless acts of bravery that night. Cpl. Fred Huteson, PFC Pat McCrary, PFC Richard Chan, and Chan’s A-gunner, name unknown. And there may well be others and probably are. L/Cpl. Bruce Trebil may have been another Marine who risked his life to save others in the graveyard. Gunny McDermott, too. The Marines of Alpha 1/5 risked their lives for one another every day.

  Some of these Marines had more time in combat than I had in the chow line. They showed up brave the way civilians show up for work. The Corps doesn’t hand out medals easily, must be part of the budget problem, because it sure wasn’t a lack of guts by 1/5 Marines. I pray and hope that the others will be honored. If it doesn’t happen, it won’t be due to a lack of effort by our officers. Our officers are still dedicated to their men. Total professionals. Lt. Col. Joe Griffis and Capt. Scott Nelson have always gone above and beyond for their men. They still do.