Bullet Through the Jaw: COL Walter Joseph Marm Jr.

Ken Harbaugh:

Hi, I’m Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors In Their Own Words and the Medal of Honor Podcast. This is a stand-alone interview, but we highly recommend everyone check out our Medal of Honor Podcast episode about Marm before giving this interview a listen. It’s called “The Battle of Ia Drang Valley: Col. Walter Marm Jr.”, and the link is in the show description. Thanks, and enjoy the interview.

I’m Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors In Their Own Words. In partnership with the Honor Project, we’ve brought this podcast back at a time when our nation needs these stories more than ever.

Warriors in Their Own Words is our attempt to present an unvarnished, unsanitized truth of what we have asked of those who defend this nation. Thank you for listening, and by doing so, honoring those who have served.

COL Walter Joseph Marm Jr.:

My full given name is Walter Joseph Marm Jr. I go by my middle name, Joe. And born and raised in Washington, Pennsylvania and went into the Army five days after graduation from college, Duquesne University. And I went in because the draft was there and I would've been drafted, so I enlisted under the College Option Program. I went through basic training and advanced individual training and into officer's candidate school at Fort Benning, and I was commissioned in April of '65, so I enlisted in 5, June '64. Went through basic, advanced training, then into OCS, so it took 10 months total time period to get my commission.

And then I was headed off to Fort Jackson to be an executive officer for a basic training company. After I completed some more army training, the Ranger School and then Airborne School, and then I would be going to Fort Jackson. But while I was in Ranger School is when they changed the orders for about 35 in our company of 150 and reassigned us to the 1st Cav division, which was forming up at Fort Benning. They needed lieutenants and we were a ready source of qualified lieutenants, so I never finished Airborne School. Some of my ranger classmates did. They went to the Airborne Brigade. I went to the 1st to the 7th Cav, which was a straight leg unit, it wasn't airborne. And so I spent that short period of time from July to August working with my men and preparing to depart for our departure for Vietnam.

I was a brand new second lieutenant right out of Ranger School. No way did I envision a short time after graduating from college, I'd be in the jungles of Vietnam or the Highlands in our case, the mountainous area of Vietnam. But I graduated. Vietnam wasn't even talked about in '64 much. I didn't know anything about it. Even when I enlisted in basic and advanced training in OCS, they talked about it a little bit, but we had no idea that we would ever be in combat. In fact, when the sergeants or our instructors used to talk to us about, "You're going to go to Vietnam." We used to kind of chuckle to ourselves, not to them, but it was kind of a scare tactic and because there were no major units in Vietnam in the early sixties, in early '64 and early '65. So had no idea that I would be leading troops in combat in my first initial tour after graduating from OCS, because I was supposed to be going to Fort Jackson as an XO of a basic training company, and that was supposed to be my first assignment.

The best training I had for my preparation was Ranger School, because day after day for nine solid weeks, you're leading troops and working with small unit tactics. So that was a tremendous advantage or a plus for me. Having that type of background for my initial job. OCS was great too, but Ranger School was more specific in terms of preparing me for my first assignment, but I didn't realize that I would ever be in combat, and just never thought it would come off.

In OCS, we were trained in tanks, armor personnel carriers, and to a limited extent, we did some limited air assault tactics, but not to any great extent. Not having over 400 helicopters at our disposal. It's a tremendous feeling and having all those assets, I never had an experience of not having them like some of my contemporaries that were in a straight leg type unit and then maybe their second tour came to the Cav and had the air assets in the Cav. We were never lacking. Anytime we needed any type of support at all, it was almost there at a moment's notice if the birds could get in weather-wise, that was all we needed. We could clear out a landing zone in a matter of minutes just by demolishing the trees with C-4 or other means to create a landing zone that the helicopters would hover, and just if their blades could get through, they would hover right down and pick up our wound and get them out of there or resupply us by dropping ammunition or food off right over at treetop level. Plus we just had great support. I just can't say enough for the 400 helicopters and the crewmen and the pilots that manned the planes. It was just great to have that air mobility asset at our disposal.

We arrived the middle of September and we carved out our area at An Khe with our hands and with picks and shovels and machetes. It was troop labors to carve out an area, a secure area. And so we were very, very busy getting that ready plus defending our perimeter, and so we spent the early days and weeks defending ourselves and on the perimeter we're out working. So it was very... They were very long days and it was some pretty tough times for our troops. Plus we had some local missions. I know Captain Nadal's was still the intelligence officer and sent me out on my first patrol right when I got there. It was a reconnaissance patrol that I had to organize and I did it just like I'd been taught in Ranger School of doing rehearsals and briefing my men and then going out.

It was just to go out, and intelligence, the reconnaissance patrol, just going out and wrecking, ordering the area, looking for any type of intelligence, not actually a combat patrol, though we were locked and cocked and ready to go if we had any type of activity.

So I took the patrol out and we found a little bit of intelligence, but nothing really major. We went out about a thousand meters and looked around and we're looking for signs of trails, and I marked on my maps where the various trails were, and I came back and Captain Nadal debriefed my platoon, actually my squad. I went out with one squad with about 10 men for this type of a patrol. Plus, so we had a lot of little local patrolling.

And another activity, I had to secure a downed helicopter. A helicopter had crashed and my platoon went out and put a perimeter on it while they investigated and tried to determine why this crash happened. It was fairly quiet. We didn't have any activity. We weren't probed or anything, but we had to keep a constant patrolling during the day while they examined and tried to piece together why the aircraft went down.

Vietnam is a very beautiful country riding in a helicopter. It's cool up there. And we're sitting usually six to eight per helicopter, per aircraft. And it's just my thoughts were that it is a very beautiful country. I like to come back here sometime when it's peaceful. Haven't been back, but it was just a very, very lush green, gorgeous country from the air. Much tougher though down in the jungles, in the mountainous terrain. Much tougher sometimes. Not all the time, but it can be tough to navigate sometimes. And we went in and some of us, it was around lunchtime and some of us were waiting for the order to go and we're eating some C-rations, waiting to be told what to do next.

One of my OCS classmates, and a fellow 1st of the 7th Cav platoon leader was... I guess had found some enemies and North Vietnamese soldiers and was pursuing them. And his platoon got trapped and he had radioed back to the company commander. So our mission was to go up there and to try to get him out of the entrapment.

And so we started going up with two companies online, and we saw some NVA in their pith helmets and uniforms, and some of our guys didn't know whether they were friend or foe, but quickly realized there were bad guys out there. And so we started shooting at them.

Now the terrain, it was somewhat elephant grass and sparse vegetation. It wasn't the real thick jungle that you think of Vietnam, so it was fairly open, and there wasn't a lot of cover outside of the trees. So if you got down and the enemy sprayed the area, you had a chance of getting hit.

A runner came over to me and said, "The company commander's been shot. You're in charge." This is Captain Nadal. So one of the runners came over and told me that the company commander has been shot. You're in charge. And so I went over to start coordinate with the other company commander on what we're going to do and how we're going to get up there and exactly what we're going to do. And I saw Captain Nadal come in and it was good to see him, but it reminded me of Ranger School, because they used to change leaders right at a very strategic point. And I said, "Boy, just like Ranger School, they're putting me in charge at a very critical point." And that runner left off a very important word, if. Okay, if the company commander gets shot, I would be in charge. So I went back to leading my platoon again, which was good for me in terms of being able to take care of them.

The biggest thing is trying to coordinate, keeping everybody moving and online and trying to get up to the platoon. That was our mission to try to get up to that platoon before night fell. We'd keep inching forward, and we were taking a lot of incoming fire from the tree line and from up in the trees from the NVA. And again, we didn't know what we're up against. We just knew there was bad guys out there, and we were trying to get up to that platoon that was trapped. And I was strategically placed. There's a lot of these solidified anthills about six to eight feet high that are very hard rock, rocky type substance with trees and foliage all around them. And the NVA used these as very strategic positions either to get up and around and shoot from. And there were a number of these to our front. One particularly in front of me that seemed to be holding us up every time we inched forward, they would start opening up from us from this particular one. Again, I'm looking kind of where my platoon is and that's kind of my battle.

See, we're moving forward kind like about maybe 200 soldiers online going up towards that... We had two companies and we were trying to get up to that platoon that was trapped on the side of the mountain, and there were many things in our ways. Some could move faster than others. We tried to stay in line because we had our artillery prep in front of us, artillery preparation and the mortar fire that was out to our front. So we wanted to be careful we didn't get too far, and plus we could maneuver better using the proper fire and maneuver as we move forward.

But anyway, in my little war for my platoon was this machine gun bunker or anthill. We didn't know what it was, but there was... We're taking a lot of fire from that particular area. They were using it probably for concealment and camouflage.

I don't think it was a prepared position. And when you think of they spent hours digging it out, and I think they were just around and behind it, and maybe up on top of it. And there were some NVA in trees too, but I shot a LAW into it, a light anti-tank weapon. That probably did some damage. Don't know how much. Made a loud explosion like you would expect from this weapon, and it's an anti-tank weapon, and had a big cloud of dust.

In the heat of battle, it's very hard to yell or to talk. I tried to tell one of my men, Sergeant Smith, who was a draftee and a buck sergeant, one of my team leaders in one of my squads, to throw a grenade over the top from where we were at. He thought I meant... Correction, I tried to tell him to run up to it and throw it over the top. He thought I meant throw it from where we were in place, which was about 30 meters away and very hard to do to get it over the top, throwing it from that distance. That's why I wanted him to run up and throw it over the top. He threw it from in place. We all got down and once I saw it, I told everybody, get down, and it didn't get over. It landed in front and short, so it didn't do a whole lot of damage. So without further delay, I say, "Hey, I'll just do it myself." Because we were taught and we believe as an infantry officer and a platoon leader in the infantry school is lead by example. I wouldn't ask my men to do anything I wouldn't do myself.

So I just decided rather than wast any more time, I'd do it myself. So I ran forward and got to the bunker or this anthill and threw a grenade over the top. Grenade went off. I went around and I shot my rifle into some other NVA soldiers that were around that position.

And then I wanted to get my men up forward so we could get to get to the platoon. And that's right when I turned sideways and I was shot myself. Bullet entered my left jaw and come out in my right cheek. And my men got up to me, don't know where the bullet or the weapon or the enemy came from, because bullets were flying all over the place. But my men got up to me pretty quick and after I was evacuated, one of my men helped me back to the battalion command post and they continued on trying to get to the platoon. They didn't make it that night. They came back and consolidated and prepared for the night activity. The platoon was in a pretty good location. We had solid steel of artillery fire that they were calling in around their positions all that day and that night. So they were fairly safe for a while. They had enough ammunition to sustain them.

I think being that was the first big battle, it was kind of a slug fest, kind of like a brawl. Little firefights, little actions, and a composite made up a big action. But everybody had their own little piece of that particular battle that they can tell you about. I'm just really thankful for the support that I got. I was evacuated. I was a walking wounded. I was able to walk back to the battalion CP command post, and I was evacuated along with some other wounded. They were bringing in some resupplies, I don't know what the order was, but I was tagged and worked on a little bit by the medics, but they didn't do... They put bandage. My sergeant put a bandage on me up near the bunker and evacuated me.

I was on a ward at Valley Forge where I recuperated with facial wounds and we all... There's always someone worse off than you, but for an inch or a couple of centimeters one way or the other, and I could be dead. It could have severed a jugular vein or hit me in the temple or just a matter of... I'm just very, very fortunate that it just wasn't my day to do it. Some of our troops made it through the whole battle without a scratch, and they were in the thick of the battle and we were very aggressive and being a machine gunner that's... Or our other types of riflemen, we're in the heat of the battle and made it through the entire battle. And that's the way, it's kind of the fate of war. You just have to continue to do your job until it's your turn to go.

I kind of had the feeling that there wasn't a bullet meant for me, so I didn't feel that I was going to get hit. And I have a religious, maybe that nothing was going to happen to me. Second tour is not quite that way. I was more cautious as a captain, but my first tour as a lieutenant, I just didn't think that there was a bullet meant for me, and I think many of our troops were like that. Until you feel the sting of a round or a piece of shrapnel, I was very careful, wasn't like I was... But as a lieutenant, we're moving around more than a private or one of our sergeants trying to keep control. We have radios, but sometimes the radios aren't working, so I don't know.

The bullet entered the left side of my jaw. It shattered the jaw, went along the fore of my mouth and come out along the right side of my neck. I didn't lose any teeth, but it shattered the jawbone underneath the left side, and my mouth was wired shut for about two months. And I recuperated back in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, which they opened up the hospital for Vietnam. And so I was on a strained baby food diet for two months, and not having lost any teeth, it was kind of hard to eat, but I managed. I didn't lose too much weight, and it was a very nutritious diet.

I got a letter from my captain, my company commander, Tony Donal, and he said he was putting me in for a very high award, so I got an interim Silver Star. I didn't know it was an interim award, so I was awarded the Silver Star and I thought that was my high award, because that's the third highest outside of the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, then you have the Silver Star. Being a young officer, you don't really know what a Medal of Honor, what it takes to get a Medal of Honor. So I thought that was my award.

Then later on, a reporter named Stanley Heimoff called me and interviewed me and told me that I was being put in for the Medal of Honor, and that's the first that I had heard about it. So then later on the army called and said, "Come out of the woods. Come out of the mountains of North Georgia," where I was working with the rangers and go up to Washington to receive for the award ceremony. They had flown a load of an airplane full of my soldiers from Fort Benning up to join me, and my relatives were flown in too from the Pittsburgh area, and I drove up from North Georgia to be for the ceremony as a very, very impressive and very nice to see all the soldiers there that I had served with and to be with my family for a short period of time. And most recipients, and I feel that I'm the caretaker of the medal for these brave men that served with me in Ia Drang. Any one of, there's many valor's deeds that went on there and I just thank Captain Nadal and Colonel Moore for recommending me for the Medal of Honor. It took about a year for this award to be processed through the army and for the actual ceremony. The day of the action was 14 November and the Medal of Honor ceremony was the 19th of November 1966, a year later, almost a year and a few days later.

So I feel I'm the caretaker of the medal for all the brave men and all the brave and valorous things that went on during that action. And so it's their award and I'm just the holder of it for them, because there's so many brave things that go on in the heat of battle that weren't seen by, you need two eyewitnesses, that may not have been seen or the soldier by anyone. Just in the heat of battle, sometimes you don't have time to jot this down, and I'm sure they didn't do it until after action report and after the battle was over before they wrote this up. So I'm just the caretaker of it. I'm very, very proud to be a part of such a fine unit as the 1st Cav division. I couldn't have asked for the luck of the draw out of OCS to be with great troop leaders and sergeants like we had in the Cav. I could have been in another unit somewhere else. It's just kind of a very fateful day.

Because I was wounded in 1965 in my tour, I didn't get a chance to finish my tour as a platoon leader. I always felt that I should have gone back after I recovered, the army sent me down to the Mountain Ranger School in Dahlonega, Georgia to work with the Ranger students after I recovered. And I decided to stay in the army after talking with General Moore and Captain Nadal about staying in, and most of my contemporaries, most yes classmates were going back as captains who had served over there as lieutenants again. So I felt I should pull my share of the hardship tours, too. And so I volunteered to go back and I was going to go back in '68, but I went up and was General Kenards aid for a year, and so I delayed my going over there until '69. I went over there all of 1969 with the 1st Cal division. Again, my order said 173rd, but when I got in country, they asked me if I wanted to go to the Cav and I decided to go with the 1st Cav, because they needed me. The 173rd is an outstanding unit, but they were doing pacification work in '69, and I felt like it'd be more beneficial and it'd be more of a benefit to the 1st Cav. So I went back again.

We were involved in a lot of contact throughout '69. It was a very, very busy year. The division had moved down south at the end of '68, so in '69 our unit was down in three core and we had left the division base camp of An Khe, and we were setting up on fire bases, battalion-sized fire base where one company would secure the fire base along with... And there was like the battalion headquarters was there. We would have mortars and artillery right in this fire base in one company. It was like somewhat of a stand down for that company to secure that while the other companies would be out patrolling within the proximity of the artillery that would support us.

We had tremendous support again in '69 from our air assets. The helicopters were our eyes and ears. They would direct us and tell us where the enemy was located and many times and we had what they called the Aerial Rocket Artillery, ARA, gave us tremendous support, very close in, direct support. We had great support from the Air Force too with the C-130s and just a stream of small arms and rockets from the Air Force too and the fast movers. I can't say enough for the support. If you're sitting there and hear an incoming round from a naval gunfire, what a thrill for an infantryman to hear this tremendous support that we were getting from the Navy, and from the Navy's fast movers too. The Navy jets would give us tremendous support too, but we were able to talk to our own helicopters. We couldn't talk to the jets. We had to go through battalion. We didn't have direct communication with them, so they had to go out a little bit further. We got tremendous support, close end support from our own mortars and 105 and 155 howitzers that could just walk them right in. And that's the best way to do in the enemy if you have to with this heavy firepower before the infantry goes in and closes and destroys the enemy with ourselves. That's the best way to do it, to reduce our casualties.

I didn't experience pot smoking or any of the fragging that you hear about in my unit or around our battalion. I think because we were so busy, we were either on a far base defending it where you'd have to have at least one man awake at each fighting position throughout the night. And so it was a constant rotation. Or we'd be out in the field going through the, out on a specific combat operation. So it was very... And we'd be very, very busy and we would have an in-country R&R on occasion where we'd go back to a rear area. And I didn't have any problems with marijuana or any... Did have some drinking problems where the troops would let off steam with primarily beer, but that was just to let off steam. Like I said, I didn't smell pot out in the field. Troops, they didn't take it out to the field with them, at least my unit they didn't, or I didn't smell it.

And we stayed very, very busy and so our minds were always alert and combat soldiers I think probably had less incidents of problems with drugs than some of the rear troops that had more time on their hands. So we didn't go to the rear after we got done work, it was to a fire base, which was... And we had fire bases that were hit in '69, that were hit by either rockets or by a direct ground attack by the NVA. So we were always alert to this. So we were doing constant patrolling during the day, so there wasn't too much slack time except during some of these down times and we went back to refit and refurbish where the troops went on their own individual R&Rs, too. That helped to give them a time away from the combat area.

I've heard of soldiers being spit upon, but I didn't experience that at the end of '69 when I came home, which is right around Christmas time. And it's a very long flight. I didn't have... I remember once a group of soldiers, there were some civilians that gave us the peace sign. I didn't know it was a peace sign. I thought it was a V for victory, so I gave them the victory sign back. I didn't realize until later that it was the peace sign.

Long wars are very, very tough. We've been blessed recently with short wars, and some of our Desert Storm, Desert Shield were, as an Army reservist working with the Army reserves, we activated many, many of our soldiers for that conflict. It was over very quickly, and our soldiers did a magnificent job. So like Vietnam though, anytime we have a long war, it's very, very tough to keep the home front when mothers and when family members see their soldiers getting wounded and killed. It's very, very tough to sustain a war like that. We experienced that with the British in the Revolutionary War. They got tired and fed up with our guerilla tactics that we were doing, and they said they didn't need this. And they went home. We never lost a battle. We had great troops. The Air Cav was there to support us 24 hours a day, anytime, anything we needed. We got very proficient at cutting fire bases out of the woods by just blowing up trees and clearing out an area big enough to set the helicopter down. We were very, very good at our craft of soldiering, and the air assault landings have been perfected to an nth degree and we had over 400 helicopters to support us 24 hours a day.

I'm very lucky to have served with such an outstanding unit as the 1st Cav. It's just a tremendous, tremendous unit. There was a spree, and the pride that we had of being in the 1st Cav, we saw a lot of combat. The troops were very motivated and dedicated. They knew if they were wounded, they would be evacuated very quickly and be taken care of. If we needed support, the helicopters would be in there to support us with anything we needed. Aerial, ARA, gunships, anything we needed, they would be there.

And I just want to thank all the men that served in the 1st Cav division for their support. It's a team effort. We couldn't have done it without each and every soldier to make the Cav as great as it was. I think the helicopter was the Jeep of the Vietnam War. It sustained us. It was our lifeblood. And when it was too bad for the helicopters to come in, that created some uneasy feelings for our soldiers on the ground. They were up there and throughout would help us find... Sometimes they would help us navigate. They would say, "Okay." We would pop smoke and they would give us a grid coordinate. They had encrypted it so it wasn't in the open, but, so we got just tremendous support from our helicopters.

Ken Harbaugh:

That was COL Walter Joseph Marm Jr.

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