U. S. Marines recoil as an NVA shell detonates in an ammunition dump, Khe Sanh, 1968. Photo by Robert J. Ellison

by TheSanityInspector

7 comments

  1. “In other words: it’s a huge shit sandwich are we’re all gonna have to take a bite.”

  3. I dont think I’ve ever seen a clearer photo of an explosion happening that close and that large to someone.

  4. My grandfather was at Khe Sanh in ‘68. I don’t remember the exact dates, but he was involved in the fight against the bunkers in the hills to the North of the base. He lost a few friends on a particularly nasty push towards a few dug-in positions; he said at some points you could’ve stuck a hand out and caught nothing but lead. At some point his pal with the M60 pushed ahead of the group, sprayed his weapon into the ground just out of view of the rest of the team, and then suddenly jerked a few times before rolling back down the hill. “His face was all purple and black, but without a wound. I assumed he was shot through the heart.”

    The fight ended when they were ordered to fall back out of the radius of air support coming in, but my grandad said that he wasn’t quite quick enough, and when the plane came in to drop a 500 on the bunker it was so low that him and the pilot made eye contact before the explosion threw him another 20 yards down the hill.

    He survived this and a million other little deaths that should’ve been his last, but it was the drink over 50 years later that got him.

    If you’d have asked him on his death bed, he’d have told you “it was all borrowed time”.

    Semper Fi to Michael Donovan, of the 2/1 Marines “The Professionals”. I wish I had spoken to you more.

  6. Didn’t call it the “Siege of Khe Sanh” for nothing. Occurred during the 1968 Tet Offensive.

  7. I had a friend whose father got a Purple Heart in Vietnam just like that.  He was in an Army artillery unit when their ammo dump got hit by sappers. Next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital.

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