Yesterday Was Sacred

On August 8, 2026, I knew it was going to be a special day. One I would certainly never forget. I looked forward to it like no other day I can remember in a long time.

And yet, there was no way I could be fully prepared for the experience.

For weeks, through multiple conversations with my father-in-law, David Glenn Rogers, I had been going backward in time, learning about the 13 months he spent near Khe Sanh during the Vietnam War in 1966 and 1967. Business was taking me to Ho Chi Minh City—a place that had never been on my Bingo card as a future destination. From there, it was only a 90-minute flight to Hue and a three-hour drive into the country where Dave had once lived, slept, marched and fought.

In the fall of 1966 and spring of 1967, Dave was a 23-year-old Marine oUicer from Fairmont, West Virginia, serving with Mike Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines—Mike 3/3—under circumstances impossible for me to imagine. I was born in July 1967, three months before his Vietnam tour ended. Decades later, our lives would intersect through his future daughter, TiUany, the love of my life.

Dave was the kind of deeply patriotic young man who believed serving his country meant something. He understood sacrifice, even before he knew how much it could demand. For many men of his generation, the price would be steep. They were sent to fight in a distant country that people back home barely knew or understood.

The more I learned about Dave’s Vietnam experience, the more I began to understand not only the young man who went there, but perhaps more significantly, the man who came home.

What struck me most was how firmly he refused to let Vietnam become the definition of the rest of his life. He carried it, certainly. But he would not allow it to keep him from becoming the husband, father and man his family needed him to be—if he made it home at all. He fought to return to the Fairmont family he had grown up loving, and eventually to build one of his own in Texas.

I knew much of what he had experienced because Dave had meticulously preserved it. He wrote journals and articles for the Khe Sanh Veterans Newsletter. He prepared recollections for military reunions. He kept a scrapbook containing every letter he wrote home from Vietnam and notebooks filled with correspondence to historians about what happened there.

He spoke often about “Death at My Door,” a poem he wrote about Hill 881S, later engraved on a monument in San Antonio. I had seen books on his oUice shelf about the First Hill Fights of Khe Sanh and other nonfiction histories that described Dave and his unit; and even a novel the author said Dave was one of many who helped inspire.

Once the business trip became real, I started these conversations with Dave knowing I had to see the places that, until then, existed for me only in random moments when he shared such memories. I hadn’t really dug deep into them. It helped that the entrepreneur I was meeting owned a touring company and could arrange a private trip into the area.

I do not think that was a coincidence at all.

 

For weeks beforehand, I read everything of Dave’s I could get my hands on and researched the 1966–67 period relentlessly. Most importantly, I sat with him and listened. Sixty years later, he talked me through those camps, roads and hills as if parts of them had never really left him.

Our private guide was a history major who grew up just outside Hue and was himself the son of a military man. His father had served with the ARVN infantry during what people in Vietnam call the “American War.” He knew the Hill Fights. He knew Mike 3/3. That mattered to me.

His knowledge surfaced almost immediately on the drive west from Hue. He pointed out sites and told stories along the way—places Dave may not have been directly connected to but would certainly recognize from the history around him. Camp Evans. The “Highway of Horrors.” Quang Tri. Cam Lo. Other bases, bridges and landmarks from the war.

I listened intently, but these were history lessons. They were not yet Dave’s history.

Then, in the distance, Rockpile appeared. As we rounded a turn, there was neighboring Razorback. For weeks they had been names and pictures. Landmarks in somebody else’s memory. Now both were rising out of the landscape right in front of me.

I stepped out of the car onto a bridge that had not been there in 1966 and began to shake. I had not expected that reaction. As I walked around and listened to the descriptions of what sat before me, the questions suddenly came faster than I could answer them. Did Dave walk here? Where did he sleep? Was his camp over there? Was that the river where he bathed? What did this valley sound like with Marines everywhere?

Several cars were parked along the road. A handful of other people walked around taking pictures, and I wondered whether they, too, had family members who had once spent time beneath these hills. Then I tried to imagine myself at 23 years old, living here in a war I did not understand, carrying the responsibility Dave carried, wondering every day whether I would ever see home again.

And I kept thinking about Tiffany.

This was her father’s history. These were the places behind stories she had lived beside her entire life. Why was I the one standing here instead of her? I felt enormously fortunate to be there, but part of me wished I could somehow give the experience to her. She was away at the lake with friends that weekend, and I sent her a few photographs just to let her know I had arrived.

But it wasn’t the same as being there.

The guide pulled up a map from Dave’s era showing exactly what we were looking at. Then he opened photographs from an old LIFE Magazine about this very location. I could look down at the screen and see the landscape as it had appeared during the war, then raise my eyes and look at the same ridges today.

Some of the old trails were still there among the houses, bridges and low humming motorbikes passing by — faint reminders of how isolated this place had once been. We drove down a narrow path between Rockpile and Razorback, with Mudder’s Ridge oU to the right. At one point the road became so tight I wondered how we were ever going to turn around.

I photographed the Rockpile from every angle I could. Then Razorback. A pack of baby goats followed along for part of the way, a bit of levity to a somber moment and a peaceful contrast to everything I had been reading about this ground.

 

At those early stops, I kept commenting on how lucky we were with the weather. What I did not know was that our guide had been quietly worried about what waited farther west. He knew the place foremost on my mind was Hill 881S, and the forecast since the night before had called for heavy rain and almost no visibility.

After spending most of my time on the other side of Rockpile and learning “Elliott Combat Base” was the oUicial U.S. Military name for the spot, it was time to move. One of the most peaceful periods of the day, that area was now surrounded by a lumber facility, native tribal residents, lazy cows and another set of friendly goats.

The guide continued his history lesson as we traveled toward Khe Sanh, pointing out Camp Carroll, Vandergrift base and Signal Hill along the way. I listened, took pictures and filed away names I wanted to ask Dave about later.

Following lunch in Khe Sanh, we drove to the Khe Sanh Combat Base museum. That was where the weather began to noticeably turn. The wind was stronger at the higher elevation and across the wide open ground where aircraft had once landed. The old airstrip was now largely a field of thick grass, scattered with relics of aircraft and reconstructed bunkers. Rain began moving in, and the temperature dropped enough that I wished I had brought a jacket.

For the first time all day, I seriously considered the possibility that I could travel halfway around the world and never actually see Hill 881S, only about 10 kilometers away. Dave had not talked with me much about the combat base, although I knew it had been part of his time there. Now I had photographs to bring home and a new set of questions to ask.

By the time we left, the rain was heavier and visibility had fallen sharply. Because Hill 881S is now on property controlled by a wind farm company, we did not have permission to go onto the hill itself. The plan was to climb Hill 881N and reach a point near its summit with a direct view across to Hill 881S.

It would have to be enough.

As we wound around Hill 881N and drove higher, my heart began to sink. The rain intensified with every turn. The higher we went, the less we could see. Near the final curve below the summit, a modern white building appeared on the right. Below it was an open gate, with wind turbines scattered across the surrounding ridges. I asked the guide what it was.

“The wind farm oUice,” he told me. That gate was the way toward Hill 881S on the other side. “The gate is open,” I said. “Let’s just go!”

He laughed and politely explained that there was a guard on watch even if not visible from the road. We kept going. The rain got harder. My hope of seeing Hill 881S was disappearing by the minute.

Finally, I asked him, “Where is it exactly?”

He pointed straight into a wall of gray clouds. “It’s right there.”

Right. There.

 

I could see nothing except rain, clouds and two wind turbines looming in that depressing gray like goalposts in an end zone. Somewhere between and beyond them was the hill I had traveled halfway around the world to see. And I was not going to see it.

We drove a little farther to what the guide said was normally the best viewpoint from Hill 881N. Again, nothing. For several minutes, I just sat in the car in silence. The guide and a business colleague who had come along and also had a family connection to the war both knew I was gutted. Nobody had anything useful to say. The summit of Hill 881N rose to our right. To the left, toward Hill 881S, the gloomy weather seemed to grow darker and heavier.

It seemed foolish even to get out of the car. All I could think was that I was going to return home and tell Dave, “I got close, but I never got to see it.” Then someone asked what I wanted to do.

The rain was coming down harder. Visibility was getting worse. But I knew I did not want to live with that ending. I had come too far and thought about this moment too many times. If I could not see Hill 881S, I was at least going to stand on top of Hill 881N and look toward it.

I told my colleague he could stay in the car. I was going. I jumped out and started up the muddy, steep incline toward the viewpoint below the Hill 881N summit. Within minutes I was soaked. The guide caught up wearing a full rain suit. I, unfortunately, had only a T-shirt and shorts. I turned toward Hill 881S.

For a moment, there still was only that now immovable gray. Then I saw something. At first it was barely more than a darker shape inside the cloud—a faint line where the sky seemed to change. Then the outline sharpened just enough to become unmistakably a hilltop. I pulled out my phone and started taking pictures and video. For perhaps two minutes, I could make it out.

“Is that it?” I kept asking the guide. “Did I get to see it?” “Yes,” he said. “That’s it.”

Hill 881S was in view. Not clearly. Not completely. But there. And then it was gone.

The rain came harder, now driven by gusting wind. I still wanted the summit of Hill 881N. Following the guide, I climbed the rest of the way, stepping and slipping through mud on the steep ground. Bomb craters from the war were still visible around us. I found myself thinking that my clumsy climb in the rain was nothing compared with what Dave and those Marines had moved through under fire on the hill across from me.

At the summit, the guide pointed toward the location of the Khe Sanh Combat Base area we had just visited. On a clear day, he said, we would have been able to see it easily. That day, we could see nothing.

There was a lone grave marked by a cross near the summit. Standing there in the rain, I told the guide I needed to record a video for Dave. I hadn’t planned that. It was completely spontaneous. The wind was blowing so hard I had to turn my hat backward to keep it on my head. I was soaked to the bone. None of it mattered.

Nearly sixty years after Dave had fought on the neighboring Hill 881S, I was standing on the summit of Hill 881N recording a message to him.

We finally started back down. Hill 881S had vanished completely. I was concentrating on not slipping into one of the old craters when, almost instinctively, I turned for one last look toward that hidden hill.

 

And there it was again. Faintly at first, the gray outline returned. Then the cloud seemed to move across the landscape like a curtain being drawn back from a stage, revealing just enough of what had been hidden behind it. The guide had already made it back to the car. I stopped where I was and recorded another video.

God had given me one more moment with Hill 881S.

This was not how I had imagined any of it. I had wanted a clear view. I had wanted to stand as close as possible, even if I could not reach the base or climb Hill 881S itself. Instead, I was cold, drenched and staring through rain at a hill that appeared only in fragments.

By the time I got back into the car, with a three-hour drive back ahead of us, I was smiling. Tears fell as well, but with a smile. It was better this way. Not easier. But somehow more meaningful.

As I started writing this two days later, I was still emotional about it. Those emotions continued for days as I updated the draft, wanting it to be perfect for Dave and TiUany when I got back home. I cannot wait to tell them both the full story of August 8—to walk them through the photographs, show them the videos, let them hear the rain and wind on top of Hill 881N, and end with that final unexpected glimpse of Hill 881S.

I am fortunate to travel all over the world, and I have had more extraordinary experiences than I deserve in one lifetime. Normally I post pictures and videos as I go. Part of it is simply how I keep a record for myself, something to look back on as I get older and more forgetful. Part of it is sharing the journey with friends and family who care enough to follow along.

But this day was different . I posted nothing while it was happening. Those moments belonged first to Dave and Tiffany. The next morning, I posted only one photograph with a simple caption. It was my favorite image of the entire day.

 

I was not facing the camera. I was not posing to say, “I was here.” I was simply standing with my back to the lens, looking at the terrain. Without the caption, almost anyone else would see only a man looking at two mountains. But Dave, Tiffany and I can see something entirely different.

We know what those mountains mean.

For weeks, I had been learning this landscape through Dave’s own words—through his letters, typed recollections, maps, photographs and the stories he told me face to face. Razorback, Rockpile, Hill 881N and Hill 881S had existed for me as names attached to events that happened right before I was born. Now they were physically in front of me.

Believe me, I wanted to post the entire journey. I had documented so much leading up to this day that it felt unnatural not to share it. But once I reached those places, I could not bring myself to pose and smile where I knew so much pain and suUering had occurred. I could not make a selfie out of ground where Dave experienced things that still live with him physically and emotionally.

These were n

ot moments I wanted to broadcast in real time. They were moments I wanted to protect. I wanted Dave and TiUany to see them first—not in phone texts, not mixed into a social-media feed, but sitting together with me while I could tell them where I stood, what I saw, what I felt and what happened when the clouds briefly opened over Hill 881S.

 

The glimpse of Hill 881S made a wonderful story, but I deliberately kept it to myself.

For decades, Dave carried those places home with him. He also preserved them: in letters, scrapbooks, typed recollections, correspondence with historians, reunion materials and finally in a poem engraved on a monument that will outlive all of us. Much of it sat quietly in a closet, waiting. For one day, I had the privilege of walking into the geography behind those memories.

I could never experience what Dave experienced there, nor would I pretend to. But I could stand in those places knowing his story. I kn

ew the names. I knew what he had written. I knew what he had feared for decades. I knew what he later learned. And I knew things about the young Marine who had once looked across that same terrain that almost no ordinary visitor standing there would know.

In that sense, I got to carry a small part of Dave with me—not physically, but as his son-in-law, standing on those hills sixty years later with his words in my head.

And there was one more part of the day I did not expect.

I did not grow up with a natural father I could be proud of, and I always felt that absence. During the drive, our guide occasionally slipped and referred to Dave as my “dad” instead of my “father-in-law.” At first, I corrected him. After the Rockpile, Razorback, the rain and wind, Hill 881N and those fleeting glimpses of Hill 881S, I stopped correcting him. On the drive back, I told him it was okay.

I had found a father I could be proud of.

That connection came to me through Tiffany who has spent her entire life being a proud daughter—and for very good reason. She also never hesitates to remind me that the best I can ever hope to be is the number two man in her life.

And that is just fine with me.