Guts of Steel

Navy Corpsman Lee Webber, front, of Guam, stands at attention on the runway in Khe Sanh during a ceremony for fallen comrades. (By Frank Johnston – The Washington Post)

Today, Horney bought his lieutenant a Coke.

Rob and Horney, in a red "Force Recon" cap, stand at attention saluting a dusty spot on the edge of an abandoned airfield south of Da Nang where Horney has buried the can of Coke.

"Taps" plays from a loudspeaker on the bus.

Also in the small formation stands retired Col. Bruce F. Meyers, still rugged at 72, a 28-year veteran who in the 1950s founded the first Marine Force Recon company and, in 1968 – after Richard Sutter's death – brought Richard's regiment to fight in the triple-canopy jungle west of this spot.

On the bus, Meyers enthralled Rob and the others with tales of those days – "leapfrogging" his battalions up ridge lines; using ammonia-sensitive "pisser sniffers" mounted on helicopters to detect enemy troop concentrations; greeting newly arrived lieutenant and presidential son-in-law Chuck Robb with the plea, "For chrissakes don't get waxed or you'll end my career."

The brief ceremony over, Horney, 50, a construction worker in Illinois, wipes his eyes and lights a Marlboro. Bill Stilwagen, 48, who'd been a Marine radioman and helicopter machine gunner, squeezes his hand.

"Full circle, brother," he says.

As Rob and the others spread across the airfield in search of old sandbags, C-ration cans and other mementos, Ben "Baby-san" Dunham – a 49-year-old ex-Army Ranger with a ring in his ear, a black beret and golden hair falling to his shoulders – finds the shade of a scraggly tree with his ex-Ranger buddy William "Knot" Dickey, 48.

Having served together, they've stayed pals over the years and now operate a hardwood flooring business out of Nashville and Chicago. Knot's getup is as irreverent as Baby-san's: gray shoulder-length hair, cowboy boots, a black hat festooned with beads. He was a sniper with more than 40 confirmed kills.

Even during the war, men like Baby-san and Knot were legends, daring what few would: As Ranger LRRPs (for "long-range reconnaissance patrol"), they'd moved quietly through the jungle in four- or six-man teams, playing cat-and-mouse with death as they tried to pinpoint enemy positions.

"There isn't a LRRP who hasn't walked into an enemy base camp," Knot explains, almost nonchalantly. "Often you could walk right out, because Nguyen is so comfortable out there he wouldn't see you."

"At night we'd crawl into the thickest cover we could find," Baby-san says. "You put out your Claymores" – antipersonnel mines – "and then listen. At night the jungle comes alive."

"You can feel trouble," Knot adds.

"Nguyen wasn't bashful about looking for you with flashlights," Baby-san continues. "Usually, we'd let 'em shine and move on past. That's when your nerves are at peak, and you know what's inside you."

A Marine walks up with some 30-year-old junk.

Baby-san takes a green C-ration can, turns it over in his hand.

"Pecan Cake Roll," the stenciled label reads.

"This was my favorite," he muses. "I'd take four of these on patrol, and have one each night while I was on radio watch. We observed 'noise discipline,' and it took a long time to open the can."

It took 45 minutes.

An Unpayable Debt

Some days were worse than others, and some you spend the rest of your life trying to come to terms with.

"We'd already had six KIA and 32 wounded during the day, and we were low on ammo," Howard A. Christy, 65, recalls. It was May 21, 1966, southwest of Da Nang. Suddenly, his battered company took small-arms fire from a hamlet.

Everyone hit the deck. Christy, in command, radioed for fire support.

"We destroyed the town with air and heavy artillery and napalm – bombs, machine gun strafing, 8-inch howitzers, 155-millimeter guns," says the retired lieutenant colonel, now a historian at Brigham Young University who has written extensively on the moral dilemmas of combat; on the trip, Rob listened with fascination as Christy gave the younger, active-duty Marines graphic lessons on the realities of war.

Out of the black smoking ruins that day had walked a family – a grandmother whose burned flesh hung in shreds, a distraught mother, a 10-year-old girl carrying her little brother, who had a chunk of shrapnel embedded in his brain.

They walked up to Christy, and the girl handed him the boy.

"He died in five seconds [in my arms]. She went berserk and she was pounding on me with her fists and crying. ... The mother let down her hair and got on her knees and sang a wail of death.

"I stood there. I said, 'Tell her I'm sorry. Tell her we suffered a lot today, too.' What do you tell the mother of a 5-year-old boy you just killed?"

On the trip, Christy wanted to find the girl – if she's still alive – to make amends. "I was going to give her $100, and apologize."

There wasn't time.

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