3rd Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment. Killed in Action September 10, 1967.
Woody was on patrol in an area between Khe Sanh and Con Thien Vietnam,
known as "Ambush Vally". Woody was 20 years old. This is the only picture I
have of him. It's his high school senior picture. You gave all my brother Marine.
READ THE BOOKS "AMBUSH VALLEY" by Eric Hammel,Presidio Press (1990)
particularly chapters 12-18.
"LIMA-6" by Colonel R.D. Camp JR. with Eric Hammel, Pocket Books (1989)
particularly chapters 11-16
I only knew Woody for a few months while he was in Zula company. He was
reassigned to 3/26 and I lost contact with him. He was killed about a month later.
Philip Robert Curran, L/Cpl. USMC, was reassigned from Khe Sanh to Marble
Mountain Marine Air Base per his request. Philip was killed the next morning
after he arrived at Marble Mountain on August 28, 1967. He would have been
21 years old in 18 days. Philip was a good friend and Marine,he is truly missed
by all who served with him. Philip was most likely the smallest Marine ever, he
was only 4' 11" tall and about 120 lbs. But he was a gaint of a man.
When I was in school in history class we received a paper called "current events"
on a weekly basis. I recall reading about French Troops engaged in a war in a
country called "Indochina". The French Generals and their American advisors
expected Ho Chi Minh's rag-tag Vietminh guerrillas to be defeated easily.
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But after 8 years of bitter fighting and 2.5 Billion dollars in American aid, the French
lost a crucial battle at Dienbienphu. The French realized they couldn't win this type
of guerrilla war and cashed in their chips and left Indochina defeated. The U.S. A.
also had military advisors in Indochina as early as 1955. Little did I realize when I
was reading about this Indochina war that I would be there in person a few years
later. Indochina would later be named Viet Nam.
Another strange event was, Khe Sanh was set up to be like Dienbienphu where the French were defeated. In January 1968 Khe Sanh Combat Base started to look like
Dienbienphu, there were even trenches dug like what the French had.
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President L.B. Johnson even had a scale model of Khe Sanh Combat Base in the
White House to keep close tabs on what was taking place during the 77 day seige.
To quote President LBJ " There ain't gona be no damn Dienbienphu".
Scale model of Khe Sanh Combat Base in the White House
