Good Bull - Aggie Marines in Vietnam

This account of a real event that occurred in Vietnam relates part of why I am so proud be an Aggie and why the Aggie Spirit burn so bright.  In the email chain that brought this story to me, the man who was saved in this story referred to a fellow Aggie as "Sir" and talked about the A&M memorabilia he will be passing down to his grand children.  This story came to me through members of the Corps of Cadets, including a yell leader.  Those bonds remain strong.  These are men of character, honor and respect.  This should help any outsider understand why we say "Farmers Fight!"

I certainly hope Cpt. Beggs doesn't mind me sharing this story with whoever may stumble across it.  It's worth sharing and recounting.

 

My Friend Charlie

Charlie Rodenberg was raised in Old Ocean, Texas, by a mother and father who had both been in the Marines in World War II. Charlie was the type of kid who would play in the garbage dump with you, if that’s what you wanted to do, help you hunt birds with BB guns, and trade already been chewed gum with you if you liked his brand better. In short, he was all you could ask for as a friend.

I first met Charlie when we were both students at Texas A&M. Charlie and I were cadets in the same unit in the A&M cadet corps, which was made up primarily of Air Force ROTC cadets. Charlie and I were the only two Marines in the unit. After finishing college and getting our commissions, Charlie became a pilot and I became an infantry officer, so although we were in the Marines together, we rarely saw each other due to being in different “communities”---his was aviation, and mine was infantry. However, Charlie and I did have one momentous meeting that occurred in Vietnam; one that I wasn’t even aware of until almost forty years after it occurred.

It was on a warm day in January---in Vietnam, the month of January can be quite warm---when Charlie and I had that momentous meeting. Just two days prior to my meeting with Charlie, I had just returned from a 5 day “R and R”, or as the military referred to it , “rest and recreation”, in Hawaii, with my wife. Wars continue after R&Rs are finished, so two days after kissing my wife goodbye in Hawaii, I was back in Vietnam, leading a combat operation against enemy forces. It was during that operation that Charlie and I were to meet again.

Our operation had been uneventful up until we started taking some sniper fire from a small hill. I deployed my Marines and started doing all the things Marines are supposed to do in such situations, when one of my Marines found himself isolated in a potential minefield. I tried to “talk” my guy out of where he was by getting him to retrace his steps, but he was too scared to move. So, I ran up the hill to get him myself, and that’s when I stepped on it.

“It” was a landmine. When it exploded, I was not only filled full of holes, but also had a leg almost torn off and was blown into the air. When I came back down to earth, I landed on my head, which apparently ended up pinching some nerves in my spine. So here I was, with the memory of my wife’s last kiss fresh in my mind, lying in the red dirt of a hill in Vietnam, rapidly losing blood. In addition, I was blinded and paralyzed from the waist down, temporarily as it turned out, thank God. But all I knew then and there was that I was badly hurt, and that I might never see my wife and children again.

One of my sergeants immediately called for an emergency medical evacuation, or medevac, flight for me. I couldn’t move my legs or see, but I could hear all of what was going on around me. I heard the radio operator acknowledge the medevac helicopter pilot’s “inbound” call by saying “Roger, Peachbush 1-7 inbound 5 mikes.” That meant that in 5 minutes, I would be on a helicopter being flown to the nearest medical facility, where I’d be patched up.

There was a problem, though. The area where I lay wounded was in a tree line, and there was no place nearby that was suitable for a helicopter to land. There was a piece of equipment called the “jungle penetrator” that had been designed just for situations such as this, but its use had recently been banned due to safety reasons. There were 3 things that could happen if a jungle penetrator was used, and two of them were bad: the jungle penetrator could snag on a tree as it was being brought back up into the helicopter, thereby tethering the helicopter to the ground, or it could break and the wounded Marine attached to the other end of it could fall to his death. Because of these liabilities, an order went out to all aircrews that use of the jungle penetrator was prohibited.

As I lay there listening to the radio operator talk with the helicopter pilot, it became obvious to me that the only way off that hill for my bleeding body was for the pilot to use the jungle penetrator to get me out. It was either that, or bleed to death before I could be moved to a place where a helicopter could land to pick me up. Then I heard the magic words spoken by my radio operator: “Roger, standing by for the jungle penetrator.” The helicopter was hovering directly overhead, and over the noise of the blades, I heard the JP come down through the trees. The sniper shifted his fire to the hovering helicopter, but the pilot held station so that he could try to save the life of a wounded Marine. My Marines tied me to the JP, and I was winched up into the helicopter without incident, although I don’t remember much of it. I lost consciousness as I was being pulled up into that beautiful, ugly CH-46 helicopter. Had the pilot of that helicopter,whose callsign was Peachbush 1-7, not taken the risk of deploying the jungle penetrator, I would surely have lost my life that January day. That pilot, through his courage and willingness to take a risk in trying to save another Marine’s life, did just that---he saved my life. It would take me almost forty years to find out who that pilot was.

As time went by, I regained my sight and the use of my legs, and ultimately became as near physically normal as is possible for someone who had suffered such an injury. Many years went by, and all of us boys from the Class of 1968 became the old men of the Class of 1968, but we stayed connected through phone calls and emails. During one of those email exchanges, our classmate Dan Wimberly sent out an email that marked the passing away of an Army helicopter pilot, Ed Freeman, who had braved enemy fire countless times during the Battle of Ia Drang to rescue wounded soldiers. I replied to Dan’s email by recounting the incident where a courageous Marine helicopter pilot had risked his own life, the lives of his crew, and his career by choosing to do what was needed rather than what was permissible. I ended my reply by writing “I do not know who the pilot of Peachbush 1-7 was, but I will be eternally grateful to that unknown helicopter pilot who saved my life.” That email was sent out to my circle of A&M classmates, among whom, of course, was Charlie Rodenberg. And Charlie answered that email simply with the following words: “Mike, Peachbush 1-7 was yours truly.” Imagine my surprise. I had seen my old friend Charlie several times over the years, but did not know that he was the man to whom I owed my life. If he had not been courageous enough to disobey standard orders, I would not be here today talking about him.

All of you know that Charlie was a man of deep convictions, courage, and love. He loved his God, his country, his family, and his friends. And we all loved him, and we will miss him. Thank you, old friend; thank you for my life. I wish I could have done something to save yours. May your homeward flight be as beautiful as your life. Peachbush 1-7 has checked off the net, but not out of our hearts.
 

Michael R. Beggs
Captain, USMC (Retired)
4 Feb 2011