On Sam Wetzel’s desk inside his comfortable north Columbus home, tastefully decorated with rugs, art and artifacts collected during a distinguished and lengthy military career that took a lanky West Virginia kid around the world and back, sits a piece of paper.
Handwritten on the page are 16 names, all U.S. Army soldiers killed in action while under Wetzel’s command in Vietnam in the summer and fall of 1968 and the first couple of weeks of ‘69. For more than six months, Wetzel, a lieutenant colonel at the time, commanded 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment.
In front of each name is the date the soldier met his fate, and to the right of the name is the soldier’s rank. Some have coordinates that show the exact location the soldier was killed. There are also hometowns, places like New York, New York, and Wichita Falls, Texas.
Wetzel, a devout Catholic, takes the list to St. Anne’s Church for weekly Mass. “I pray for these guys every Saturday night,” Wetzel said.
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There are five names on the list that stand out because they come in a cluster on two separate days in November, just before Thanksgiving.
First Lt. Kevin Burke, Anita, Iowa; Cpl. Michael Crescenz, Philadelphia; and Sgt. Danny Hudson, Chadron, Neb., died on Nov. 20, 1968. Three days later, Spec. Thomas Dickerson, Thomaston, Ga., and Cpl. Harold Glover, Silver City, N.C., were killed. The closeness of the coordinates — 38W-014, 38W-016, 38W-018, 37W-055, 37W-056 — tell another story.
The latitude/longitude identifiers point directly at a place that rises out of the central Vietnam landscape between the South China Sea and Laos. All five men died 50 years ago this week during a brutal seven-day battle for control of Nui Chom, a mountain in South Vietnam’s Quang Nam Province, just northwest of Hiep Duc.
Nui Chom in the fall of 1968, was a 3,000-foot cold, wet, bloody climb into the depths of hell.
Wetzel’s battalion made that assent, inch by bloody inch, hour by hour and day by day through the jungle and the stiff resistance of an entrenched North Vietnamese force.
The North Vietnamese Army was hiding men, weapons, rice and a medical facility on the mountain.
The U.S. forces had the help of air support dropping bombs and hundreds of artillery rounds launched from the bottom of the mountain, but the bulk of the battle was fought on the ground by infantrymen.
Wetzel, much of the time from his perch inside a command and control helicopter that hovered above, directed the fight. Sometimes the chopper was so low it took incoming fire.
Today, Wetzel is 88 years old and his body is ravaged by decades of cancer and scarred by two wars fought more than a half century ago.
Many of those who served with him and were not killed in battle are now dying at an old age and a steady clip. Wetzel, a 1952 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point where he played basketball, prays for them, too.
“My classmates are dying off, one at a time, every week,” Wetzel said. “I don’t plan on dying — yet.”
Part of the reason for that is Wetzel and those who served under his command still have a story to tell — a powerful war story.
A notable part of Wetzel’s story happened on Nui Chom. It was less than a week in a distinguished 34-year military career that saw him rise through the ranks to three-star general before his retirement in 1986, where then-Lt. Gen. Colin Powell succeeded him in command of V Corps in Frankfurt, Germany.
But that week in November 1968 is one he and others who were there will never forget. As most of the survivors reach their 70s, that week in November 1968 is still seared in their memories. Some have spent a lifetime dealing with what happened on Nui Chom.
Over the years, there have been very few detailed reports about the battle or the men who fought their way to the peak; through an NVA encampment that included a command headquarters, hospital and hundreds of bunkers camouflaged and dug into the hillside; some connected by a series of underground tunnels.
The only extensive public report of the battle was by Sgt. George Hawkins and it came in the May 1969 issue of Americal, a magazine devoted to the 31st Infantry Regiment.
Much of what has been written about Nui Chom is about Michael Crescenz and his undisputed bravery taking out three well-fortified enemy bunkers and killing six NVA fighters as he fought to get to a medic and wounded soldier. Crescenz was posthumously awarded the highest honor a soldier can receive, the Medal of Honor.
The Veterans Administration Hospital in Philadelphia bears his name and his remains rest in Arlington National Cemetery. Wetzel nominated Crescenz for the Medal of Honor and was at the White House in 1972 when President Richard Nixon bestowed the honor to the fallen soldier’s family.
But Crescenz’s heroics are just a slice of the Nui Chom story.
At the 50th anniversary of the battle, Wetzel and the men who fought under his command want people to know more.
“I want people to know about the bravery of all my men at Nui Chom,” Wetzel said.
Establishing command
On a hilltop west of Tam Ky, in the mountains southwest of Da Nang, Wetzel assumed command on July 23, 1968.
Wetzel grew up in the West Virginia mountains, and was battle tested as a company commander in Korea nearly 15 years earlier. He was prepared to command the fight and deal with the harsh mountain terrain.
Arriving 20 days before he was to assume command from Lt. Col. Fred Cully, Wetzel did not wait to begin asserting his influence. Drawing on his mechanized infantry experience, Wetzel first showed members of F Troop, 17th Cavalry how to reorganize the inside of their M113 Personnel Carriers with loading plans that would help them to quickly get to their weapons and other equipment in a combat situation.
The 31st Infantry Regiment had a storied history. Born on foreign soil in 1916 and nicknamed the “Polar Bear Battalion” after its deadly battles in the bitter Siberian countryside, the Regiment had suffered the Bataan Death March in World War II and saw extensive service in Korea before being reorganized into battle groups in 1957.
Now, in command of the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, Wetzel recognized the tactical disadvantage of his battalion headquarters.
“Our position on this small hill, in my opinion, was untenable and difficult to defend, so I moved our battalion command post to hill 445, LZ West, a higher hill with good defensive positions,” Wetzel observed.
He also found some poorly constructed, abandoned bunkers that he knew would not withstand mortar fire. During his service in the Korean War, Wetzel learned what a solid, well-built bunker looked like and he also knew such a bunker held one of the keys to survival.
“I showed the troops how to build proper bunkers with good apertures, proper structure and sharp rock roofing that would save lives,” Wetzel said.
Wetzel’s battalion, with four companies, had a service area of about 15 by 10 miles. It was the westernmost unit toward Laos in the Americal Division and was situated 37 miles from the coast of the South China Sea, allowing the North Vietnamese an entry point into South Vietnam from the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.
Wetzel recognized the quality of his officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers in the battalion and it did not take the troops long to figure out Wetzel was hard-nosed, regular Army and didn’t play games. Alpha Company medic, Sgt. William “Doc” Stafford was one of those Men.
“He was a hands-on, spot-on guy who commanded respect,” Stafford said. “He was disciplined.”
As his men engaged in “small” fire fights in the service area, Wetzel went back to the basics and prepared to fight the enemy on their turf. He wanted to see his Reconnaissance Platoon.
“They were situated on a hillside and they needed a lot of help,” Wetzel concluded.
He asked for a Ranger-qualified lieutenant in his battalion. It was not long before Lt. John Garrett reported to Wetzel.
“We are going to start operating at night,” Wetzel told the junior officer. “I will give you 30 days to train your platoon to operate at night and sleep during the day. When you think you are ready, come back to me and I will go out with your platoon and take a look.”
Garrett didn’t need the full month, coming back to Wetzel 28 days later with the news his troops were prepared to take the night away from the North Vietnamese.
“I went out with them, and, sure enough, they were ready,” Wetzel said.
Getting his men ready for a fight
Vietnam commands were limited to six months, while enlisted rotations usually lasted a year. The faces around Wetzel were constantly changing; old out, new in, normal troop rotations, soldiers taking scheduled leave or being evacuated out from injuries. Wetzel knew that training was the key to their survival.
From “owning the night” to drilling for precision shooting, he resisted “quick fixes” — instead he constantly trained his men.
If war can have a routine, Wetzel and his men settled into theirs. Every day, Wetzel donned his white helmet and boarded his Command and Control helicopter to visit the troops in the field, do reconnaissance for and kill NVA or VC, sink the small oared boats, known as sampans, on the river, conduct supply and evacuation missions, and many times to spot the enemy for the rifle companies.
At night Lt. Garrett’s specially trained platoon would sneak up on North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers, often capturing the surprised enemy combatants, seizing weapons and gaining intelligence as to enemy locations. North Vietnamese resources were being discovered daily.
Delta Company found and destroyed an empty enemy base camp large enough for a company; a forward observer reported heavy equipment and a well camouflaged road leading northeast in the direction of Laos; and artillery was called in when Bravo Company reported seeing four Vietcong with backpacks enter a Hutch.
Wetzel would speak to all the new arrivals, and the speech was usually pretty simple.
“I would tell them the NVA are usually wearing green uniforms or khakis and Vietcong are wearing black pajamas,” Wetzel said.
There were way more NVA than Vietcong in that part of the world. After the warning about the enemies, Wetzel would offer more advice.
“Listen to your NCO or lieutenant, keep your head down, helmet on, weapon clean, change your socks daily, and always be alert,” he would say. “We have the buddy system and always know where your buddy is.”
His last piece of advice was clear. “It is dangerous out here and I want you all to go home alive,” Wetzel said.
Not as easy done as said. In mid-August 1968, Jack Bisbee, an enlisted man in Alpha Company, was assigned to Wetzel’s Battalion. Bisbee left Wayne State College in Nebraska and joined the Army.
He could have been assigned to a chemical unit stateside in Alabama, but instead he volunteered for the Infantry.
“Do you believe that?” he asked. “I mean that’s how stupid I was.”
First, he found himself in northern Germany guarding “nuclear missiles and all the crap.”
“I did that for months and months and months,” Bisbee said. “I walked in and said, ‘I want out of here.’ They said, ‘We will have to send you to ‘Nam.’ I said, ‘I don’t care.’“
On Aug. 14, 1968, he got his wish and landed in Vietnam. He was stunned when he got off the helicopter the day he reported to his unit.
“I get off the chopper and I look over and there’s a guy I went to high school with sitting on the side of the hill,” Bisbee said.
It was Rod McFee of Ottawa, Iowa, an agricultural town of about 5,000 people where corn and beans grew in the summer. And not only did they go to high school together and play on the same sports teams, they had been classmates and friends since kindergarten.
McFee remembers it, too. “A resupply helicopter came in on a handmade landing zone, and started throwing off mail and supplies,” McFee said.
McFee then saw this kid, wearing a brand new uniform, and thought: “Great, we got another young gun we are going to have to bring along.”
Then, McFee recognized Bisbee. McFee remembers grabbing Bisbee as he approached him, “So, he didn’t run into one of the helicopter blades.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” asked McFee, who had been in Vietnam for about five Months. McFee, then without being asked, offered one piece of free advice to his old friend. “I am going to tell you something, they shoot real bullets over here,” McFee said.
Asked why he said that, McFee was honest. “I just wanted him to know that the NVA and VC don’t f--- around,” McFee said.
While the fighting force was shaping up, Wetzel received notice from home that his personal life was not as strong as his military unit. But he knew it was coming.
He received what amounted to a “Dear John” letter from his wife, Margaret, when her attorney had divorce papers sent from the states. When he departed, Wetzel knew the marriage was about over.
“It had been going down a long time,” he said. “I was not pleased to get the papers from a lady lawyer and not from her.”
He also knew he was protected by the 1940 Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act, which gave protection and legal rights to armed forces personnel during wartime.
His concern was for his teenage children, Margaret Ruth and Bobby.
“I wrote back saying that I would not sign anything until I was back in the U.S.,” Wetzel said.
He quickly turned his attention back to the mission and his battalion.
“We were busy in contact practically every day so I dismissed thinking about it and kept working to lead my troops and search for the NVA and kill or capture them,” Wetzel said. “That’s the way I am. I do not dwell on anything negative a long time. Just get on with the job.”
The Battle of Nui Chom
Part 1: Lt. Col. Sam Wetzel takes command of 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment
Part 2: Getting ready for the fight
Part 3: The first shots are fire on Nui Chom
Part 4: Making a plan on how to attack Nui Chom
Part 5: “He altered the name on my bullet”
Part 6: Finishing off the climb to the top
Last in a series: Thanksgiving dinner on the top of Nui Chom
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