Kenneth Marze was drafted into the army and started infantry training at Fort Pork, Louisiana in July of 1967. If you have ever been to Louisiana in the middle of summer you can appreciate the miserable heat and humidity, if not you can only guess. About the only good thing to say about it is that you were acclimated to the conditions of South East Asia with out having been there. This was a plus as most all of the infantry trainees would be going to Vietnam upon completion of their training.
Marze was no exception and after a 30-day leave, he arrived at the Bien Hoa Airfield in the Republic of Vietnam on the January 5, 1968. Marze was an 18-year-old, full of piss and vinegar, anxious to get the war over with. Stationed at the 9th Infantry Division base camp at Bearcat with the 2/47th Infantry he learned that the LRRPs were looking for volunteers. He threw his name in the ring to become a LRRP and by the end of January 1968, he was accepted.
It had been almost a year since the first casualty, Leroy Lynn Miles, of the LRPD. Kenneth Ray Lancaster of Silver Spring, Maryland, became the second while in the final phase of training, the combat patrol, at the MACV Recondo School. There are varying accounts of that fateful morning of 3 January, 1968. Following is the most accurate as seen through the eyes of a man that was on that mission, Tony "Ape" Hanlon.
"I feel I need to set the record straight concerning the events regarding Ken Lancaster's death. The excerpt from 'Rangers at War LRRPs in Vietnam' is not the truth. There was no fire fight that morning. The following account of the events that day is as accurate as I remember them.
I had the misfortune of being with Ken Lancaster on the student patrol when he fell from the chopper skid. There were seven men on the team: Special Forces Sergeant First Class Jason T. Woodworth, one Korean liaison officer Lieutenant Chi Keun Hong, Kenneth Lancaster, George Kozach, William Rudge, Tony Hanlon, and a Korean student. We had inserted at dusk into a very small landing zone halfway up a mountainside. The chopper couldn't land forcing us to jump five to ten feet to the ground. As point man I was first out, then Woodworth and Lancaster, followed by the remainder of the team. We grouped, set a perimeter, monitored the area for a bit, and then proceeded down the mountain. Near the base of the mountain we found super high speed trail four to five feet wide. We crossed the trail, got to the bottom of the mountain and started up the other mountain. I don't remember how far or how long we traveled but we did take a break.
I need to regress to shortly after I arrived in the Nam. I cut one or two coils off the spring that held tension on the selector switch so I could flip my 16 to auto easier and quicker. While moving in the dark, somehow my selector switch was moved to semi. During our rest stop I was moving slightly to adjust my position, my M16 resting against my left shoulder, the barrel near my cheek when it discharged. After I got my night vision back we were told to move out. We moved up the mountain for the remainder of the night. At daybreak we came upon a somewhat level area overgrown by elephant grass. The team prepared the pick up zone while the SFC Woodworth called for extraction.
Now here's the really f-----d up part. Three birds came into view from behind the mountain , the pick-up bird and two Cobras or Gun ships, I don't remember for certain which. I do remember all three choppers were firing everything they had. The pick-up bird came in, set one skid near the ground and hovered while the team loaded on. To our amazement there were two men riding on the pick-up bird. We scrambled onto the chopper and it lifted off unaware that Lancaster and Kozach were still on the ground. I'll never forget the look of sheer terror on the door-gunners face as I boarded. He was firing his M60 into the tree line. We didn't know Lancaster and Kozach hadn't gotten on board and were holding on to the skid as we lifted off the ground. I don't remember how high we were when we became aware of Lancaster's grave situation. The team members on that side of the chopper tried to pull him in but were unable to. When Ken fell, it was as if time had stopped.
This was a F-----g nightmare and shock. I need to go back up to the extraction. We (the team) didn't know there were two pick-up birds, the second one picked up Kozach without incident. Why were there two men in the first bird? Who knows? I don't. Why wasn't the team informed of two pick up birds? Who knows? I don't. SFC Woodworth was the most learned man on the team. He should have been the last one into the chopper. However, Ken Lancaster did what we were all about; making sure his team was safe, costing his life. 'Rest in peace Ken."
Marze was a husky lad and certainly looked the part in his camouflage battle dress, hands and face painted black and green to blend into the surrounding jungle. He was indoctrinated into the LRRPs fast and was selected to fill in on a ten-man ambush patrol. Preparing for his first mission, he was thankful for the training at Fort Polk, as the weather was hot and sultry.
The ambush was set along a trail that showed visual sign of recent use and gave a high probability of success. The patrol barely got the claymores in place and settled into position when 10 NVA came walking down the trail. The guy that was supposed to set off the claymores missed the signal so the patrol leader hollered out for him to detonate the ambush. The NVA were well into the kill zone when the ambush was initiated and in the excitement of battle, Marze stood to get a better line of fire. The concussion (back blast) from the claymores threw him about 10 feet, slamming him to the ground. Stunned by the force he quickly got to his feet, thankful to be alive. On his cherry mission Marze helped to eliminate ten enemy soldiers, received his indoctrination into the LRRPs, and earned his Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB).
On January 24, 1968, near Binh Son, a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol that included Team Leader Greg Foreman, observers Thomas Wayne Hodge, Edward Chaffin, George House, and Gary Hollenbeck, were moving cautiously along a trail. Indication of heavy and recent use was visible as they came to a crossroads. Foreman and House moved out to investigate the crossing, the other three stayed put to provide security. Chaffin saw four Viet Cong coming up behind Foreman and House preparing to fire on them. Acting quickly and decisively he, Hodge, and Hollenbeck took them under fire. There was an intense fire fight and Hodge was fatally wounded.
The VC was lucky this day as Hollenbeck and Chaffin's weapons jammed. Both men applied immediate action, clearing their weapons, as Foreman retrieved the mortally wounded Hodge. They continued to pour heavy fire on the pursuing enemy, breaking contact using the standard reaction drill. The team began their escape and evasion as the VC regrouped and started to pursue the LRRPs. With the enemy in pursuit it became necessary to leave Hodge. Some members of the team covered his body with leaves and twigs, and then booby trapped it. The patrol continued their E&E. Arriving safely at the pick up zone; the team was extracted and returned to Bearcat. There they were met by a LRRP reaction force that returned to the scene and retrieved Hodge's body. Thomas Hodge was posthumously awarded the Silver Star in recognition of his action that was instrumental in allowing the team inflict heavy casualties on the enemy and make it safely to the pick up zone. Chaffin and Hollenbeck would later be awarded the Bronze Star with V for their action.
The time spent at Bearcat was quite different than what was to be at Dong Tam. Rockets or mortars were seldom spent attacking Bearcat but the opposite was true for the delta base camp It was not unusual for Dong Tam to be hit once a week with rockets or mortars. It was during such an attack on 11 February 1968 that George Jonathan House was killed. A 122mm Rocket came through the roof of the double story barracks and shrapnel from the rocket killed George.
Only the best were called to be LRRPs, including the chain of command. Lieutenant Dale L. Dickey received his tutelage while performing as one of the operation officers under the best commander at the company level in Vietnam, Captain Clarence Matsuda. Upon Matsuda's departure in February 1968, Lt. Dickey took command and the LRRP Company never missed a beat. "There were no precedents for protracted operations in a water-filled land five feet above sea level. The trackless, inundated wastes south of Saigon, required learning on the job as the VC were pursued. Their first forays and contacts being history, the LRPD had gained a reputation among friend and foe alike. An elite, cohesive, determined, hard charging unit, they proudly carried the nick name of "Reliable Reconnaissance" into their second year of combat."
When the division base camp moved to Dong Tam, located in the Delta, an opportunity came for some of the LRRPs to cross train with the Navy Seals. Marze was one of the first to go on a mission with a seal team. It was an experience he will never forget. Only if you have been there and smelled the stench of death could you ever imagine what it was like.
Most seal insertions were at night, dropping of navy patrol boats (PBR) and walking in to a predetermined objective. This particular night the seal team, with Marze as a member, was inserted and walked about six kilometers. They came to an area with several hooch's scattered in the nipa palm. What the patrol thought to be a small village turned out to be a large NVA base area. It was near 0100 hours when two seals opened the door to one of the hooch's and stepped in. The hooch was lined with cots on both sides, occupied by about 30 sleeping NVA. Marze was providing rear security as the two seals opened fire with their Stoners (an automatic weapon with 150 round drum). A young VC girl wounded two seals and the interpreter when she threw a grenade thrown from the hooch. As she tried to escape out the rear of the hooch, Marze shot and killed her.
As the patrol pulled out of the area, Marze picked up the wounded interpreter in a fireman's carry. The wounded seals were able to move on their own, as they waded and swam numerous canals making their way back toward the river. The surviving NVA were yelling and firing their weapons as they searched for the seal team.
The team made it to a rice paddy, about 1500 meters from the contact area, before they were pinned down by automatic weapons fire and occasional mortar rounds. With the wounded men it was impossible to get back for extraction by boat so the team leader called for a helicopter pick up. Marze was later quoted as saying, 'I never will forget, while we were pinned down, I was laughing while this seal was crying."
The helicopter was sent in at about 0230 in the morning to pick them up. The LZ was hot and initially the pilot refused to go in and make the pick up. The navy chief told him if he didn't come in, they would shoot him down. There was a short lull in the firing and the Pilot came in to pick up the team. The chopper hovered just off the ground as the seals scrambled onto the chopper. The navy chief was the last one aboard and took a round that was fortunately stopped by the battery in the radio on his back. The chief submitted Marze for an award but the paperwork was lost and nothing came of it.
A team led by Staff Sergeant Johnston Dunlop spent some tense moments in Long Thanh Province as the team observed the movement of about one hundred Viet Cong. It was late afternoon when the team entered the Binh Son Rubber Plantation about eight miles South of Bearcat. Within thirty minutes after the insertion the patrol spotted ten Viet Cong soldiers moving along a well used trail. "As time passed, we continued to see uniformed enemy soldiers," related SSG Dunlop, of Auburn, New York. They were well armed with AK47 rifles and 81mm mortars. Over 100 enemy were counted in the next couple of hours. At dusk, Dunlop called artillery on the trail as the enemy passed. "As the shells hit the enemy would move off the trail. They would wait, and then move on after the shelling stopped."
After the patrol was extracted, SSG Dunlop flew over with an Air Force forward air controller and pinpointed the enemy location. Division artillery bombarded the location.
The VC used various ways of communicating and was forced to improvise due to a shortage of radio equipment. Some used single shots to communicate, sometimes they struck bamboo sticks together, and lanterns were sometimes used at night to communicate as well as navigate. Marze was to learn this on his second mission out, a five-man reconnaissance patrol.
Normal insertions took place early in the morning or near last light. This seemed to be the times that contact was least likely to happen. Most times LT Stetson would be on the chopper used to put the LRRP team on the ground. He and the team leader would make sure the correct LZ was used. This day was no different than many before. It was an hour or so before dark and the huey was flying at tree top level. A cobra gunship was providing support from near by. The insertion chopper came upon the LZ and briefly touched down. The five LRRPs hit the ground and moved into the treelike even before the huey was back in the air. The choppers would remain in the vicinity long enough for the team to get settled into their night position.
The team moved into the jungle some 300 meters and circled for the night. They had been on the ground for thirty minutes and all was quiet. The team leader gave Stetson the all clear saying, 'the steak is cold', the LRRP code that meant all was clear. If the 'steak was hot', the team would have been extracted for an insertion into the alternate LZ. As the darkness engulfed the five men, all that could be heard was the 'Fuk U Lizard' calling out, fukuuuuu, fukuuuuu.