10/22/2024
Operation Medina II
Greater Love has no one than this,
Than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
John 15:13
The Unseen Hand
Morning Bible Study
From the life of
George Hutchings
There is an unseen hand that is shuffling the cards, and his name is Providence. Providence turns a card over, and it is our day. Will we play the card, draw, or fold. Sometimes we hold the cards until they make a hand, other times we throw them away. Either way, the card is dealt, and we make a play.
It was October 12, 1967, and Charlie Company, First Battalion First Marine Division waited on the flight deck somewhere in Vietnam. My platoon waited in the 110-degree heat for the choppers. The heat bore down, and the choppers delayed. We were ready to get it on! A card was being dealt and we would play it today! On October 22, 1967 I turned 18 years old.
This was the beginning of Operation Medina in the Quan Tri Providence, Vietnam. It was a search and destroys operation. Our orders: Engage the North Vietnam regulars, well equipped, hardened, and experienced fighting solider and kill them.
We waited baking in the hot sun. We needed a distraction and Lance Corporal Roy Mussen (17) of New York broke out a smoke and a deck of cards. Corporal Bice (21) of Texas City, Texas (never smoked but played cards and walked with a Texas swagger) and Sergeant Livingston (tall lean black man who never joked) joined in a poker game. We played, smoked, and cussed the heat and delay. I lost all my money, but so what? Where would I spend it?
While we played cards other Grunts (nick name for Marines given in (Korea) shifted their gear as extra ammo was being pass out. We were taking on extra bandoleers of M60 machine gun ammo, gr***des, and M16 clips. Everyone noticed the silence amongst the activity; the wait took on an eerie feeling. It was a deathwatch.
The men leaning against their gear reminded me of John Wayne flopping his saddle on the ground and leaning back using it for a pillow. Marines hundreds of them waited in line for what looked like miles some writing home, some taking a smoke and others trash talking and bitching. The heat sucked our energy and Mussen said, “I feel like a worm with the wiggle knocked out!”
Mussen looked like his self-description. He stood about 5’8” and weighed about 125 pounds. He sported a neatly trimmed mustache. We always laughed at him because he carried a M79 gr***de launcher. The rounds he carried looked larger than his waistline. He looked small enough to put down the barrel of that cannon.
In a battle against the silent fear of lurking death men talked trash. Marines spit in the face of death with talk like, “I’m rough and I’m tough and fight better when wounded, a lot of men tried a lot of men died and a lot of men wish they hadn’t.”
The last sight remembered before the choppers arrived was Marines sucking on their canteens. The wait had been long, hot and the Marines were using precious water that would be later needed.
The choppers began to arrive like swarming birds. We jumped aboard not knowing where we were headed. Soon we spied a bald hilltop in the middle of triple canopy jungle. The hill was covered with elephant grass and the chopper hovered about five feet above the grass. The jump looked to be about 5 feet but elephant grass might be 12 feet tall, so our jump was closer to 15 feet rather than the 5 expected. With the extra gear, longer jump, and inclined hill we were off balance when we hit ground.
The Vietcong could be in the jungle waiting to make us into hamburger. Instead of firing on us, they may have had a good laugh. Here was America’s finest jumping from a chopper only to roll down the hill like a spastic rag doll.
We collected ourselves and began to hack our way through the jungle with machetes. The going was slow, and our hands quickly blistered up from the chopping action. The jungle was thick, and our arms quickly became heavy. Blazing our own trail through jungle was hard work and we rotated point men to distribute the heavy hacking action.
The time was about 15:00 hours (3:00 PM) and the column stopped to rest. A climber was needed to go up a tall tree to find a reference point. The Company needed to know exactly where they were. George Boze volunteers for the tree climb. Trees, green trees on rolling mountains as far as the eyes could see, we were lost.
The Company Commander shot an azimuth (direction of a compass) and made a mark on the map. We resumed the march. There were tensions: 1. We knew not to talk because we could give away our position 2. The noise of hacking our way through jungle announced miles ahead that we were coming. 3. The smoking lamp was out because the enemy could smell the smoke long before our arrival 4. The sound of hacking through thick bamboo was not the only sound; we were hu***ng through the mountainous terrain. Our heavy grunts could also be heard.
Marines who had been trained in stealth and knew the value of silence announced their intentions. They may as well have sounded a trumpet.
Darkness was moving in, and we had not reached our destination. The time was about 17:00 hours (5:00 PM) and we discovered a trail. In jungle warfare never take a trail. The trail means someone else was there and they can be watching. We were desperate to reach our destination before dark and the Second Lieutenant gave permission to use the trail for 100 yards. The easy walking would speed up progress.
The point man hit the turn in the trail and all hell broke loose. Machine gun fire opened and 13 men were killed instantly. I had never heard such noise nor seen such death and momentarily froze. A moment of shock filled up my senses. Someone knocked me down and then I got back into the fight. At the time, I did not know that we had walked into an enemy ambush three times our size.
The squad units had been disrupted and a new group of men formed my squad. Our orders were to take the top of the hill. The time was now 18:00 hours or (6:00 PM). The darkness blocked the vision of our hand in front of our face. We had to climb a mountain hill, covered with triple canopy in the dark!
Lucky for us the major battle was at the bend on the trail with little resistance up the hill. We often heard gr***des dropping from trees but could not see where the soldier was. Sometimes the trees would explode with a muzzle flash from snipers, and they were easily located and eliminated. In other worlds we shot them like squirrels from their nest.
The hill was taken. Our job was to keep the enemy force from surrounding the main unit and wiping out our troops. We were out of water and could not even get spit in our mouth. My tongue swelled up like cotton as I watched the battle below.
Our men were yelling, “I’m out of ammo, help we are being over run.” But my orders were to secure the top of the hill and I held my position. In watching that battle, I had the sensation, not a vision, just a sensation that I had died and went to hell. I could see the machine gun tracers; see the gr***des exploding, and men yelling in pain. I did not know that Isaiah had written that, “Hell was a place of darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.” For a moment, there was a premonition that Hell awaited me.
Delta Company was being held in the rear to rescue us; it was time. Charlie Company was out of ammo and Captain Jack Ruffer had made three counter attacks without ammunition. On the last counterattack, Captain Ruffer picked up his entrenching tool, stood up and began to sing the Marine Corps Hymn. Every wounded man did the same. The enemy became confused and disappeared into the canopy.
Delta Company was finally arriving. We had no passwords, and the enemy could imitate our voices. The Viet Cong were adept at imitation. A question had to be asked that the G***s would know nothing about. Someone from Delta Company yelled, “Who won the World Series?” I yelled back, “Who has a news paper?” The reply came back in hardy attitude, “Jack Buck, just announced that the St. Louis Cardinals Won the World Series.” Someone from Delta Company has been listening to the game on Armed Forces Radio.”
A tumultuous scream went up, somewhere people were playing baseball and all would be well with the world.
It was midnight and we dug our foxholes. And now, as hot as it had been, rain began to fall, and we slept and took our watch in a hole full of water. In one hour, we went from hot as hell to freezing. I peed down my leg to get warm, it didn’t work. In the morning, I told the Marine in the hole with me not to drink the water. He said, “I did the same thing!” It was Friday the 13th and not a shot was fired.
The See Bees repelled down ropes with chain saws and cleared an LZ (Landing Zone). We began to evacuate the dead and wounded. Resupplies were being delivered. One hundred thirty-four Marines were killed on that hill that night and now the stench of blood filled our nostrils.
October 14, 1968, I am sitting at my foxhole removing one boot and putting on a dry pair of socks. A soldier must take care of his feet. The order came to me to go to the bottom of the hill to a creek on a water detail.
I was cussing about the assignment and Bice said, “George, I’ll go for you.” I told him there were just some things a Marine had to cuss about. While putting on my boot and preparing to go. Bice went in my place. He had no sooner gotten out of the line of perimeter than he was hit in the chest with a rocket. All we found left was his head and his boots. We knew his boots because he had written his name on them.
I had a premonition a vision, or an epiphany I had been placed in a pocket of protection because God had a work for me to do in my old age. In that epiphany was a promise, it was a vision, but I did not yet know it. I had heard the voice of God and did not recognize him. Bice had died in my place just as Christ had died in my place. And it came to pass that at 66 years old, life came full circle. I was ordered to go for water, but I needed my boots. And now, what am I doing? I’m going for the boots and headed for the water. I have collected over 4,000,000 pairs of used shoes, kept them out of the land fill, put them on people’s feet and am providing water for about 500,000 people.
What was I doing, I was going for the boot and going for the water. I am now, “The Shoeman” going for the shoes and going for the water.
Medina was a bitter card, we played it. We had no choice.
About one week later, we walked out. The dead and wounded had been evacuated. We had not had a hot meal, a bed, a shower or shave. We were subject to open defecation. We were filthy to the extent that we did not recognize one another except by voice.
We were laden with gear. I carried extra M79 rounds for Mussen. Even hauled an M60 Machine gun. The walk out was hot and heavy. After a time, we reached a gravel road and began the long walk back to division area. Many people fell out from the heat and load and had to be evacuated.
Me, I had a talk with God. I told him I was not going to believe in him anymore. How could God allow such things to happen. A few minutes later he said to me, “Who you talking to?”
In Acts 17:26 The Bible records these words. “In him we live and breathe and have our being.” In other words, God has established the time and the place for a man to live. It was October 1967, and a great battle had been fought. But it was not my day to die!
Below is CPL. Quentin Bice who died in my place just as Christ had died in my place.
