Preston, Michael W.

Michael W. Preston

January 26, 1945 – January 30, 2022

Michael W. Preston of Angels Camp, California, passed away January 30, 2022.

Mike “Animal” was a USN Seabee assigned to CBMU 301 Det Bravo at Khe Sanh, Vietnam during the 77-day siege of the Marine Combat Base in 1968. His awards include Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon, Presidential Unit Citation, Navy Unit Citation, National defense medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Vietnam Champaign Medal, Vietnamese Gallantry Cross Meritorious Unit Citation, Vietnamese Civil Actions Medal Meritorious Unit Citation.

One of the most memorable and disastrous events that occurred out of a litany of disastrous events is what has come to be called the “Ghost Patrol” that happened on February 25th, 1968, when the Third Platoon, Bravo Company, 1/26, went outside the Khe Sanh Combat Base on a patrol that turned into a catastrophe.

One of the men on the “Ghost Patrol” received serious facial wounds but survived, got back into the combat base and was medevacked out, eventually making it back to the States and then medically retired from the Marine Corps. Military doctors created a new face for this Marine, but more was damaged than the his body, and in the mid-1970s, he committed suicide

In his last few years, Mike Preston, set about to get the man’s name etched into the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The Wall) on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Even though this Marine was not technically killed in action in Vietnam, many of the Khe Sanh veterans felt strongly that the man’s death eight years later was a result of his wounds received on 25 February 1968.

Mike Preston, who has a great deal of experience helping veterans, spent forty-five months working with attorneys (including the casualty section at USMC Quantico who encouraged Mike during his efforts), other veterans, medical personnel, doctors and the VA in attempts to see to it that the Marine would be properly honored as he deserved.

Mike spent a lot of his time working with disabled vets. He’s helped get another Vietnam veteran’s name on The Wall. Mike has taken thirty to forty veterans to visit The Wall to “make their bones,” as he calls it. He counseled vets from our current conflicts, trying to help them understand all those feelings that are inside them that they cannot comprehend, the unexplainable rage and paranoia and sense of distance from anyone who wants to love them. Mike says, “The healer is being healed by healing another. After all, we are our brothers’ keeper.”