The Walking Dead: 1st Battalion, 9th Marines added a lot of names to the Vietnam Memorial
We likely not heard the last from this fabled Marine unit, which again unfurled its colors for Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. The Walking Dead will rise once more.
Members of the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines engage the enemy during one of the many battles at Khe Sanh, South Vietnam. (Photo: Jim Canady9th Marine Division History) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A veteran who served his country in the United States Marines during the Vietnam War just came out victorious in a two decades-long battle against his Homeowners Association (HOA) over his right to fly the American flag on his property.
Veteran Richard Oulton began this battle back in 1999, when his HOA informed him that he must take down his flagpole because his neighbors had complained that it was “a disturbance to their community.” Enraged that he was being told that he could not fly the flag that he had risked his life for, Oulton took the case to court. Unfortunately, he lost the case and had to take the flag down in 2003, but the veteran refused to give up.
Wanting to fight for his right to honor his brothers who died in Vietnam, Oulton enlisted the help of Virginia Delegate John McGuire (R-Henrico County), a former Navy SEAL who assisted Oulton in getting his voice heard. Finally, earlier this month, Oulton got the victory that he had been fighting for the past twenty years, and he can now fly the American flag once again.
To mark his victory, Oulton is planning to fly the American flag that was in his military bunker when he served in Vietnam. During the war, Oulton’s battalion lost 747 of his brothers, giving it the moniker “The Walking Dead” because it had the highest casualty rate of any single battalion in the history of the Marine Corps.
Oulton’s HOA didn’t know with whom they were dealing.
When you think of The Walking Dead, what comes to mind? Zombies, Rick Grimes, Negan and his beloved, barbwire-laced bat, “Lucille”?
Forget what you think you know about The Walking Dead ― the real Walking Dead, the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines (1/9), endured more hell on Earth in the jungles of Vietnam in the late 1960s than any fiction writer could ever recount.
In fact, the horrors of the fictional The Walking Dead television series pale in comparison to the real horrors of Vietnam suffered by the Marines of the 1/9. Operation Buffalo, Operation Big Horn II, Khe Sanh, Dewey Canyon and a long list of other hard-fought battles by the 1/9 resulted in two Walking Dead Marines earning the Medal of Honor, 18 more receiving the Navy Cross and 60 earning Silver Stars, including Oulton.
Operation Buffalo
In his book, Blood, Sweat and Honor: Memoirs of a “Walking Dead Marine” in Vietnam, author and Walking Dead Marine Corporal Derl Horn tells of battlefield atrocities endured by 1/9 Marines during Operation Buffalo, also dubbed the Battle of July 2.
Moving north along Route 561 near Con Thien, Horn and his fellow Bravo Company Marines received orders to conduct a search-and-destroy mission in an area near the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
Prior to stepping off, Bravo was warned by company commander Captain Sterling Coates that five North Vietnamese Army (NVA) battalions, totaling more than 5,000 men, were camped out somewhere along the DMZ. In an attempt to provide his Marines a sense of security and reassurance, Coates told Bravo Company, with a total strength of only 150 men, that it would be unlikely they would make contact with any of them. Unknown to Coates and the rest of the Marines of Bravo, they would soon make contact with the NVA ― in fact, Captain Coates was killed in action that very day.
The Marines of the 1/9 quickly earned their nickname as they walked into the middle of the five NVA battalions. They were caught in a U-shaped ambush, receiving fire from the front and both flanks. The fire was effective and accurate, with artillery in support. The Marines found themselves outnumbered, with their platoons essentially cut off from one another.
Alpha Company stands down from Operation Chinook, carried out near Khe Sanh during the height of the seige of that Marine camp. (Photo: Edie Smythe/Kansas City Star) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What if I’m wrong?
Fighting to make their way back to the landing zone, the 1/9 Marines encountered a strange sight: An NVA soldier wearing Marine Corps fatigues removed from the body of a dead Leatherneck. As a mortarman, Horn was armed with only his .45-caliber pistol. The NVA soldier had spotted them, and put two rounds into one of Horn’s fellow Marines. Horn took aim and fired, putting the NVA soldier down. Horn clearly needed more than his .45, and he did not have to search long to find an M16.
Another Walking Dead Marine, Lance Corporal Ray Linebaugh of Alpha Company, recalled trying to establish contact with Bravo Company. It was then the NVA turned their attack on Alpha. Linebaugh, taking cover in the relative safety of a ditch, was taking incoming mortar fire when he spotted an NVA ahead wearing a Marine flak jacket and carrying an M16. Linebaugh hesitated as he thought, “What if I’m wrong?” However, he opened fire after seeing the man greet a soldier dressed in a full NVA uniform. Linebaugh cut both men down.
The figures amassed by the 1/9 during Operation Buffalo in terms of casualties, gallantry and number of enemies faced and destroyed are astounding. According to the official Marine Corps’ after-action report from Operation Buffalo, dated August 1967, the battalion suffered 113 Marines killed in action (KIA), a staggering 390 wounded in action (WIA) and one Marine missing in action (MIA).
Gallantry in action
In his book Marine Rifleman, Medal of Honor Recipient Colonel Wesley Fox recalls receiving orders to the 1/9. Arriving at Third Marine Division headquarters, then-1st Lt. Fox asked for an assignment to a rifle company — a bold move for a command normally reserved for a captain. The personnel officer told Fox there was no shortage of assignments available in the unit. This was mostly due to the high casualty rate the unit had suffered in multiple battles.
“No one wants to go to that battalion,” the personnel officer told him. “Secondly, if you do — regardless of rank — stick around long enough, you’ll end up the commander.”
Fox enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1950. He saw action in Korea and rose through the enlisted ranks to reach first sergeant. At a time when most men would have been content with retirement, Fox decided to start over again and became a second lieutenant. Finding himself in Vietnam as a Walking Dead Marine, Fox would soon go on to earn the Medal of Honor for heroics during Operation Dewey Canyon.
Fox was not the only Walking Dead Marine, however, to earn the Medal of Honor in Vietnam. While assigned to Alpha Company 1/9, Sgt. Walter Singleton posthumously received the Medal of Honor for his actions during Operation Prairie III in March 1967.
According to his Medal of Honor citation, Singleton came under intense enemy small-arms fire. He left his position of relative safety and made multiple trips to evacuate numerous wounded Marines out of the kill zone. Singleton managed to identify and neutralize the enemy position that had inflicted heavy damage on his fellow Marines. In the process, he killed eight of the enemy before he was mortally wounded.
Carl Ted VanMeeteren, Elijah Fobbs and James H. Stogner ― highly decorated survivors of The Walking Dead Battalion. Photo: Courtesy James Stogner) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Recognition
Not all Walking Dead heroics have been recognized in a timely manner, however. Jim Stogner was a young Marine assigned to Charlie Company 1/9. Vietnam veteran and author Pete Mecca chronicled Stogner’s heroics in a 2014 article that appeared in The Covington (Ga.) News.
During Operation Big Horn II, Stogner’s platoon was ambushed by the NVA. Machine gunner Eli Fobbs was wounded by enemy fire and dragged off by several NVA soldiers. Stogner, who used an illumination round to his advantage, cut down three NVA before his M16 jammed.
Instead of heading for safety, Stogner drew the only reliable weapon he had left, his Ka-Bar combat knife. As Stogner contemplated his next move, he could hear a Marine crying out in pain. It was Eli Fobbs. The NVA soldiers were driving sticks into Fobbs’ gunshot wounds.
It was then that Stogner, according to Fobbs, “came out of the darkness screaming like a wild man.” He stabbed one NVA in the chest before wrestling another to the ground and killing him too. Stogner then threw Fobbs over his shoulder, picked up the M60 and scrambled for safety.
Stogner’s bravery would go formally unrecognized for more than 50 years, although that soon will change. During an America’s Conservative Voice phone interview with Stogner Wednesday, he casually mentioned. “I found out on Monday I am being awarded a Navy Cross.”
Better late than never.
The Dead will rise again
As Jim Stogner told the story of how the 1/9 came to be known as The Walking Dead, he also recalled how his unit killed Ho Chi Minh’s nephew in battle. According to Stogner, Uncle Ho nicknamed the 1/9 “Di Bo Chet,” which translates to “Ghost Walkers,” and vowed revenge. Ho Chi Minh reportedly enlisted an entire NVA division to annihilate the 1/9. Defiantly and in true Walking Dead style, Stogner said, “They never got the job done.”
When the smoke cleared, action during the Vietnam War had added 747 Walking Dead Marines’ names to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Combat operations ended for the 1/9 in 1969, although it did not mark the last time this storied battalion would fight. The Walking Dead kept marching, seeing action during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in support of the Global War on Terror. The unit’s colors were rolled for the final time ― so far ― in 2014.
Nevertheless, this is likely not the last we will hear from this fabled Marine Corps unit. The nation will call again, and The Walking Dead will rise once more.
Mike Nichols is an advocate of the counterrevolution with a four-step plan to defeat Fascism: We Organize. We Stand. We Resist. We Fight. He is a regular contributor at the GenZConservative news website and has a regular blog at Facebook presence at Americas Conservative Voice-Facebook.