June Trip to Vietnam June 16 and 17

We will spend the majority of our time around Hill 4-11 and the Quang Ngai area that we operated as a platoon. During our time building and securing Fire Support Base Hill 4-11, we endured many hardships and enemy attacks. There were two platoon members killed and one critically wounded in the first week. The company even had the tail end of a typhoon hit during the first week on the Hill. While viewing Google maps I found Hill 4-11 first, overgrown with vegetation, and the surrounding area appeared the same, but much more populated than in 1969.

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FSB  Hill 4-11

I searched and found the August 13th, and August 15th, locations where the enemy killed and wounded half of the platoon. Overall, the areas looked the same, rice paddies and fields, and the hedgerows looked as I remembered. However, in several areas, buildings and roads were built that didn’t exist in 1969. I added August 8th, to show where the platoon went after leaving Hill 4-11 the first time and received a replacement, Tommy Thompson. August 12th is where the platoon met the other units for the task force before moving out the next morning. August 14th is where we blew many tunnels. The August 19th location is where a tank hit a mine, and the platoon stayed back to secure the area around the tank. The map indicates the position of the firefight on January 14, 1970, where Kidwell and Morris were killed.

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August 8
August 12
August 13
August 14   
August 15  
August 19  
Quang Ngai Airport (Closed)
Horseshoe 
January 14​

Military Map 1969

Mike and I were in the same division and brigade, different battalion than Lieutenant William Calley, arriving one year after the massacre. My Lai was in the same province, Quang Ngai, across the Song Tra Khuc river, from the area that our platoon patrolled and where 13 of our platoon brothers died. When this story broke, the division, still in Vietnam, changed all signage from Americal Infantry Division to read “23rd Infantry Division.” This was how damaging the name “Americal” reflected on the soldiers and the Army.

The government of Vietnam built a memorial in 1978 to the victims of the My Lai Massacre in Son My. The Vietnamese media referred to the incident as the Son My massacre because My Lai was not the only hamlet involved. Mike and I thought it a good idea to visit the My Lai Memorial while touring the Quang Ngai Province.

GOOGLE MAP - Click to View
My Lai Memorial