MOS & Casualties

Quote from Guest on December 15, 2025, 4:28 am

MOS AND CASUALITIES
By Craig W. Tourte

Marines are pretty much Marines, regardless of any particular Military Occupational Specialty (MOS). I never fixed my bayonet like Marines Mike Powers and John Rowland who served with Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment and I never charged an entrenched enemy bunker or ridge line like Marine Steve Wiese who served with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment, did during his 18 month Vietnam combat tour which included the “Ghost Patrol and Revenge Patrol.” I never sat month after cold isolated month on the top of a lonely hill in an isolated corner of Vietnam, like Marine Phil Nuchereno, watching his friends being picked off one at a time, wondering when and how his time would come. I never commanded men on an isolated entrenched hilltop, like Lieutenant Ernie Spencer, Commanding Officer of Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment, and to say that I was particularly brave or extraordinary would be a stretch. After all, I was just a private and did the job the Marine Corps assigned to me; I was just a regular Joe. I knew a lot of just regular Joes at the Marine Corps Combat Base of Khe Sanh in 1967 and during the terrible 77 day Siege of that base in 1968. Marines like Bill Poland and Beryl Bushaw who went about their very dangerous job with little sleep and little food. Men who fought their own battles for survival every day and somehow, perhaps through just plain luck, persevered.

Some are surprised to learn that there were, “other than infantry (grunts) at Khe Sanh.” Marines like Donald Saunders, Ken Williams and Wilbur Stovall, the Company Clerk of Headquarters Battery, 1st Battalion, 13th Marine Regiment. All Killed in Action at Khe Sanh during that long and bloody Siege. None assigned to infantry units, but all three were Marines.

Although my personal knowledge of the Marine Corps Combat Base at Khe Sanh is somewhat limited to the period of time I was there, roughly July 1967 to sometime in April 1968, as I look back it seems like I was there forever. To this day, certain experiences remain vivid in my memory and dreams. I have read extensively about the events of the Siege and have spoken to numerous individuals who were there with me. Each recalls a somewhat different yet similar experience.

Certainly, the Military Occupational Specialty of the men in the various services were dissimilar however I am quite sure infantry and supporting arms made up the majority of those on the base and surrounding hills. As such, it would make sense that most causalities were to those that held the MOS of an infantryman or related combat specialty. It is generally assumed, there were anywhere from 5,000 to 6,000 men at the Khe Sanh Combat Base and in the surrounding hills late 1967 and early 1968, a fair amount of military personnel, at least by Marine Corps standards. But regardless of the exact number of U.S. and allied personal at Khe Sanh, it is accepted that the number of North Vietnamese Army troops in the area was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 plus with supporting arms, including tanks (Attack of the Lang Vi Special Forces Base by NVA tanks.)

I don’t know the ratio of infantry to other Military Occupational Specialties on the base, but there were certainly many different and varied military specialties present among the Marine, Army, Navy and Air Force and even civilian contractors. Cook’s, truck drivers, office clerks, engineers, Navy Seabees, medical personnel, electricians, mechanics, wiremen, artillery, forward observers, graves registration, supply, radar, fork lift drivers, heavy equipment operators, air traffic control, tanks, supporting arms (50’s and twin 40’s) to name just a few. To look at those who were present, you could not tell one from the other, they all looked the same. Each carrying their individual weapon wherever they went. Red clay stained ratty green uniform, tired, scared, skinny, undernourished and exhausted, grunt, clerk and cook. Each MOS took casualties and all faced the same dangers together. All had their time in the V ring, not one safer nor job easier than the other.

Marine Tom Horchler was a truck driver with Headquarters Battery, 1st Battalion, 13th Marine Regiment, who risked his life daily, taking rounds while he drove his truck to the dump, hauled water, C rations, sandbags, artillery shells from the landing strip to the guns and picking up the dead, gently transporting their lifeless bodies to Grave Registration. A moving exposed high value target, no trench, armor, sandbags or overhead to protect him, unable to hear the rounds leaving the guns of the enemy, unable to run, hide or even hope, all he had was just luck and a prayer. Continuing his very dangerous duty all day and then standing guard half the night in the trench line waiting for the expected ground attack.

Tom Horchler knew he had a dangerous job; no one had to tell him it was dangerous and no one had to thank him for his effort at supporting “them.” It was the job the Marine Corps assigned to him, and at the Marine Corps Combat Base of Khe Sanh, it was just as valuable, just as necessary and just as dangerous as any other. There were many at Khe Sanh during the 77 day Siege of 1968 just like Tom Horchler, not an infantrymen, but a Marine, doing a job which was just as dangerous, just as dirty and just as necessary as the rest of the jobs that had to be done.

At Khe Sanh we were all the same and it did not matter what MOS the military had given us. There was no safe place, no place to rest, to hide or sleep, no place safer than another. We were all the same at Khe Sanh no matter the MOS, officer, enlisted or civilian contractor. We all shared in the danger equally and our casualties reflected our presence.