Join Kim Monson as she sits down with Marine Veteran Carl Leppard, delving into the untold and critical battles during the Vietnam War. Carl shares his firsthand experiences, recounting a detailed narrative of the chaotic yet heroic skirmishes that did not reach the headlines. Learn about the battle strategies, the dire conditions, and how Carl’s decisions impacted the outcomes against formidable enemies.
SPEAKER 05 :
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and her other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. These stories will touch your heart, inspire you, and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Monson.
SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. The show comes to you because of a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France for the 72nd anniversary of the D-Day landings. I returned stateside realizing that we need to know these stories. We need to record them and broadcast them and archive them. So, hence, America’s Veterans Stories. Very pleased to have on the line with me Carl Leppard. And this is part two of our interview with Carl Leppard because there’s so much to talk about on his experiences as a Marine serving in the Vietnam War. Carl Leppard, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Now, when we finished up part one of our interview, we were talking about a battle at the Cadi River. And is there anything else that we need to know about that particular battle? Because you were on one side of the river, and what, approximately 20 of your colleagues were on the other side. And if the North Vietnamese and the Chinese would have been able to get across that bridge, they would have annihilated it. You know, our forces, correct?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. I didn’t, of course, know that at the time. But, pardon me, our TAOR, our Tactical Area Responsibility, particularly at this time, because we were just fresh into Vietnam a few months, right? The Vietnamese were very strict people. You did not go out of your area of responsibility. And second, at that time was General Wallace, or sorry, General Walt. He has his orders, and you do not cross that line. Now, I was illegal on the other side of that bridge. So the Marine Corps would deny anything that happened over there. But when the general, and I’m saying the general himself, got the mayday call from me, because that must be hand-given to him by Marine Corps regulations, he is the person to get it orally in his hand, regardless of the time. So when he saw that there was a raider in trouble, and he was a former raider, he sent me the best he had, his two destroyers. So it would have been good for the Marine Corps not to know anything about this battle over there, and they went to extreme lengths to hide it. Carl, just a quick question, though.
SPEAKER 09 :
If you had not been illegally on the other side of that river, they would not have been stopped. The enemy would not have been stopped, at least.
SPEAKER 06 :
I wouldn’t be on this phone. Right. I mean, we’re done here. I mean, 20 people. The thing is, is that the north side of our TALR is the Cottey River. An enemy force, they were not enemy forces per se in any quantity north. But if they were able to amass some forces to the north, there was nothing to stop them from attacking the Da Nang airfield. So we do know now, and only I think since maybe 2008, 19, 18, at a Marine Corps reunion where I found the source of all these records. Do we now know what occurred? Back then, I killed a lot of people. That’s very true. And that’s a matter of normal business. I hate to say normal, but we do our jobs and don’t really think much about anything else. It’s not my business. I don’t clean up that battlefield. That’s somebody else’s business. But we do know that the 7th Strike Force Battalion made a very lengthy envelopment from the south all the way around the edges of our TOR in the mountains on our 10 miles to our west. and then came down on the plane of the Cottey, sorry, of the plane above the Cottey River Bridge, and the battalion records show exactly that. That’s part that they did not find to redact. And they did redact entire sections of the record. They’re totally blacked out. So I was not aware of any of this piece of business, but this force hit us. I was not aware of how many. When I got illumination, I knew we were in trouble because I could see Listen, there were one hell of a lot of NBA. Now, NBA is different. North Vietnamese Army, okay? Those are professional paid soldiers, right? And they’re wearing khaki and khaki helmets and so forth. And they’re formed in an orderly order of march. This is highly unusual. They are moving. Now we know that they’re a strike battalion, which means that they don’t have anything but fully automatic weapons and demolitions. These people are killers. They’re coming. Fortunately, I saw they were a rather large force here and the general had sent me the first destroyer, the Craig. We got on them immediately. They were very close to the bridge. They could have started to cross. And I put HEVT, or Fused Quick as they say in the Navy, over that element. And they were desperately trying to silence me, of course, but I had moved. And they were then trapped under this enormous pounding. So I pounded them for about five hours as they moved back to their original location. And I put 250 rounds of HEV to your fuse quick on their last position, totally destroying any and all that were left. So that was my business, and I took care of it.
SPEAKER 09 :
So, Carl Leppard, I’m going to ask you a real novice question. But here you are. You’re on the side of the bridge. It’s just you. This is a big forest with the illumination. You realize that there’s a lot of enemy there. How… How do you get it so exact when you call it in the destroyer? Because in World War II, my understanding is you had to have observers to try to get the coordinates figured out. So how could you, under intense pressure in a battle, make that communication and get that location right? Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, that’s one of the reasons Lieutenant Reeder sent me over there. I mean, you know, technically I was a forward observer, qualified. I mean, I went to map and arrow photo school. I carried my map case everywhere I went. I knew grid locations or fire concentrations of artillery, where they were, what their frequencies were. And if we back up to Okinawa, where I was on the range there, I… I regulated and controlled air attacks and so forth and bombing missions in coordination with artillery and so forth. So, you know, you had a person actually here that’s well-schooled. I’m looking as an observer of Carl Leppard. I mean, I’m looking at him. And he’s extremely qualified for this particular piece of business.
SPEAKER 09 :
So it’s with great confidence. You call in the destroyers and you push the enemy back. But it took five hours. So what happens after that, Carl?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I mean, I followed them until they were destroyed, but I ended up at the 2nd Regional Force there north of the bridge, which they call a battalion, but it was a local militia. And I had a Vietnamese Army officer. Sergeant with me, Sergeant T, he broke off to tell the Vietnamese they were located there near the beach. And that would be about, oh, three-eighths of a mile, maybe half a mile up the beach from where I started. And I was out in front of them to the west about 50 yards or so. So I could see the impact areas and control that fire. So I retired after that through all of the remains of that battalion, if that’s what you want to say.
SPEAKER 09 :
And what was the date?
SPEAKER 06 :
I had no idea. There could still be some people alive here. I was only by myself, so it was kind of dangerous.
SPEAKER 09 :
Kind of. What was the date of this battle?
SPEAKER 06 :
28th and 29th of July, 1965. Okay. So what happens then after that? Well, in the morning, I mean, I went back to my original position and when I had dismissed the ships. Listen, this is Navy thing here. Once the ships are giving artillery commands or, sorry, naval gunfire commands by a person on the beach, Okay. That person is in control of those ships. If I put them on the bottom, they go. They came in shallow for me, as shallow as they could get without beaching themselves, and they risked their ships to support my element, which was the 20 Marines on the other side, of course. So they do not control this battlefield. The person on the beach controls them. He’s commander. He’s ultimately responsible for every round fired. So God knows who the man was on this beach. Regardless of how you try to hide it, no one pulls the trigger on a destroyer without God knowing his name. Okay, so this battle was completely hidden. That’s no problem. I don’t really particularly care. Marine Corps records begin in 1965, kind of after this occurred. They don’t go back that far, okay? And any record of it was pretty much expunged, but we were able to find… a record from the commanding general Walt to his regimental commander informing him that a battalion of Viet Cong was attacking my position, that two companies were engaged, and that he had deployed destroyers. That remains on the record. In naval gunfire, they start from the first round they fire, and go forward i think this starts about firing of 101 or something they cannot expunge or erase what the naval guns shoot somebody has to be responsible and accountable so okay bottom line that’s all for that um
SPEAKER 09 :
So, question, is the reason that this battle is not well-known is because you were outside of the TOR, that’s the tactical… Area of Responsibility. Area of Responsibility. Oh, so it’s the T-A-R of Responsibility.
SPEAKER 06 :
T-A-O-R, Tactical Area of Responsibility.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. Is that why it’s not well-known?
SPEAKER 06 :
Perhaps, other than the fact that I’m quite sure President Johnson was aware. He had told the people we were not engaged, right, in combat. And the Marines actually were. you do not, the general will not allow a violation of the T-A-O-R. It’s a court-martial offense. Oh. So the fact that they put me technically just a few feet over the line across that bridge was illegal. And because they killed 300 Chinese, they know because they sent a shore battery to sea. Wow. They even sponge that one, too. But… And 300 dead Chinese may have brought the Chinese into the war, so they wanted to bury this deep. We heard something, you know, that’s the Arvin’s territory. They may have done something. I mean, look, they took extremes to say we weren’t there, I guess.
SPEAKER 09 :
But it was necessary that you were on the other side of that bridge. This is fascinating, Carl Leppard, a Marine veteran. We’re talking about his experiences in the Vietnam War. And a sponsor that I greatly appreciate for America’s Veterans Stories is Hooters Restaurants. They have locations in Loveland, Westminster, and in Aurora on Parker Road. And great specials Monday through Friday for lunch. And for happy hour, great place to get together with your friends to watch the sporting events and just have some great food. In particular, their fish and chips and their nachos are delicious. I hear that their fish tacos are quite good as well. So again, thank you to Hooters Restaurants for their sponsorship of the show. The official Marine Memorial is located right here in Colorado in Golden at 6th and Colfax. It was dedicated in 1977, and it is time for a facelift. And the USMC Memorial Foundation is working diligently to raise the funds to make that happen in a great way that you can honor our military. To say thank you to those people who have put their lives on the line or have given their lives for our freedom is to support the USMC Memorial Foundation. And you can do that by going to usmcmemorialfoundation.org. We will be right back.
SPEAKER 08 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier. And thank you for listening. And welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. I’m talking with Carl Leppard. He is a Marine veteran from the Vietnam War. This is part two of our interview because he was involved in some very serious battles, and we don’t know about a lot of them. But you have completed this battle at the Cottey River Bridge, and it was a very important battle. And you said the Marine records had not gone back that far, but this battle got the Marines’ attention, yes?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. Oh, yes. What’s interesting is the Commandant of the Marine Corps. The Commandant of the Marine Corps’s name was General Wallace M. Green. Okay. And we became, well, intimate. Not necessarily, but professionally. Because I had driven him around for about five days previous in another shore landing and so forth in Washington. in the United States. All right. And so primarily because I could drive a vehicle. It’s a longer story there. But I could read a map and the general, regardless of time of day or night, if he wanted to be on a particular location, I was to put him there. So I was very efficient at that. So the general knows who I am, aside from him having probably a photographic memory. Now we come to the Cottey River Bridge. Trust me, the commandant on the Marine Corps knows, so does the fleet commander. You do not pull the trigger on destroyers like this in a combat situation without everyone all the way back to the White House knowing it. Okay, so what’s happening next, if we fast forward.
SPEAKER 09 :
Just a quick question on that, Carl. If you’re in battle, you need to be able to react almost immediately. Yes. So with the commandant, the fleet commander.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, he reads. And I mean, General Green reads. He gets a report from the commanding general forces there every day and maybe several times. Our fleet commander as well. I mean, Krulak, Victor Krulak, he knows exactly what goes on. I mean, if the general asks him, yes, that’s Carl Leppard. I mean, please.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. Okay, great. Okay, good. So the commandant, the fleet commander, they’re all aware of this. So what do we need to know?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, what happens is, and I will just tell you this in advance, there was a number of times in my military career that we crossed paths with a commandant of the Marine Corps. So when your name pops up several times there, he knows precisely who that person is. So this next battle is called Chulai, and it occurred on the 18th of August. Okay, so then there’ll be another one at Le Bon. These battles were recorded, but specifically the general, the commandant of the Marine Corps, got the report that came from me. Okay. Then finally, when he’s leaving the Marine Corps, I’m on the drill field, he spots me again. So anyway, it’s interesting.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. So what happens?
SPEAKER 06 :
So what happened was is that this battle, this movement of Marines down to what an area called Chu Lai, which is Krulak’s name in Chinese, actually has nothing to do with Vietnam. That’s his name, not a village or whatever. Okay. So, they’re preparing to engage the 1st Regiment, VC Regiment, down there, because the Arvin troops in May had been wiped out further south at a place called Quang Nai, but in any case… There were about, there were, I can be actually exact, there were 16,000 enemy forces from July on down. Okay. So we needed to get in there. We had two battalions down there, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, and a new airfield, and 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, and they were located about, oh, five miles further north on the beach. Okay. So this battle was supposed to happen on August the 10th, but we got hit on the bridge, and that scared the holy hell out of the Marine Corps, so they sent the Italian 9th Marines onto the airfield instead. Okay, so now the battle is scheduled for the 18th. They are short about 250 men down there, so they robbed different battalions of men to fill in to where we could bring those units up to full strength. I was sent down to Hotel 24 with machine guns, etc., to fortify that unit. My company, we went down together, our Raider company, H23, went down to fill their positions of H24 while they were engaged and to protect the west flank of this division, which is very important because no one knows anything about what I’ve just said. Everything is shiny and rosy if you read about our battle down there, but it was never that way. We actually could have been hurt real bad. But in any case, we’re down there. I’m there on the 17th. We went into battle on the 18th about 7.30 in the morning. We had about, from records, we see that we lost about 90 people before 11 o’clock. So we landed about 7.45. We had taken about three-quarter casualties of the company before 11. Oh, my God. I was hit coming out of the helicopter, and there’s where the problem started. My machine gunner got hit twice. The gun itself got hit and was destroyed. I got hit running in my right boot heel, which I thought my leg was blown off, and attempting to stand. I couldn’t. I got hit in the helmet. My helmet was connected by a chin strap. It knocked me out cold for a time. I really don’t know how long. But I tried to pursue our company by following the blood trail of our dead, etc. And I never connected with them or saw them ever again. So now, what happens is that… We had a division size operation here of some consequence. I guess what the readers would not be able to follow me, I’m afraid. But the bulk of the force itself, the major concentration of enemy forces was where H24 landed. They engaged to the east of them a hill called Nam Yen 3. There was a hill to the west of that called Hill 43 that they didn’t take it. And so when they engaged Nam Yen 3, they got hit and then also hit from the rear. I came in on the second flight. right, of helicopters. First flight, a lot of those were seriously down, smoking or burning, and a lot of chaos going on, a lot of shooting. And so they had my platoon, second platoon, engage that hill, 43, and then they went off. doing that somewhere. I’m laying in the sand face down somewhere. And I followed to that hill. I knew where we were supposed to go. And when I got there, nobody was there. I was nearly out of ammunition. I was robbing some of the people who were rocket men or machine gunners that were dead to getting their pistols, ammunition, anywhere I could get it. And so I fought my way out of Hill 43 and went to where I thought the unit would be, because my instructions and so forth, I have them on my map. I know where I’m supposed to be and where they’re going. So I go to Nam Yen 3, and my God, they’re not there. And there’s one hell of a lot of enemy on that one. So, okay, fine. Cut to the chase here. I went to another one called Nam Yen 4. I ran into my battalion commander on top of that one thinking my unit is there for sure. And they’re not there, and I told that colonel to get his damn ass off of that hill. It’s VC control. I left, so did he. Okay. In his helicopter, thank you. Bull Fisher was, I don’t know, I think Bull Fisher got the Silver Star twice on Iwo Jima. No. listed man he’s now the colonel okay man this uh so i proceeded north trying to find my unit um and there was one hell of a lot of vc running every freaking place and a lot of them So I had accumulated three other people by then. I’m not sure where they came from or who they were. I think they were from India Company at the time. And I put us inside the, quote, bushes of a little hill I was looking for this morning. I think it… It’s not on any kind of map here. It’s about 22, so it had to be about 80 feet or 90 feet tall. But it was big enough for just us. There’s a lot of jungle around, but it was a good position as a jungle instructor. And, you know, I may have had… I don’t know, 15 rounds of ammunition. They had none. I gave two to everybody, you know. And so we had to be very careful about what we were doing because we didn’t have any ammunition. We didn’t need to engage anyone except with a knife or absolutely danger close. And basically, there was about 100 of them that ran past us in the open, full packs, everything. They came under artillery fire and were destroyed. We could see that. There’s probably 30 or 40 of them that came by us close, but they didn’t smell us, and that’s fine. So the next day I went to another village. Question.
SPEAKER 09 :
You just said something. They didn’t smell us. And I was interviewing somebody that said that there were different smells of…
SPEAKER 06 :
vietnamese or americans because of what what we ate is that accurate well you don’t wear deodorant right uh i didn’t bathe except uh no well i did i did take a shower once while they burned my clothes uh back in uh June, I think. We were pretty ragged and hadn’t changed clothes for, I don’t know, several, three or four months or whatever in the jungle. But other than dressing my wounds, I didn’t bathe. I mean, you didn’t. There was no opportunity. You didn’t use deodorant or whatever. And you stank like they did. Normally, you can smell. You don’t smoke unless you’re told to. You don’t urinate or defecate unless I tell you to. The Viet Cong are very religious about when they eat. They eat every four hours. They begin at 6 a.m., right? So at 10 o’clock or whatever, I tell you to defecate or urinate, you get hemorrhoids because that’s when you go. You eat when I tell you to. You drink when I tell you to. You sleep when I tell you to. And if you don’t, I pull your dog tags, which means I have control over your life. You will pay attention to business. Now, on this business of me moving from point A to point B sounds a little unusual, but it is not. In the Marine Corps, it’s called missing a movement. If you are not on location at the time and place that you were assigned, you were either dead or you’re missing, which is a court martial offense and could be an execution offense in combat. So they must know where You must be where you’re supposed to be. So I proceed along my map exactly where I’m supposed to be, my company or not. And as it turned out, I was the only one from my company who arrived on phase line Banana next to Echo Company and reported to my battalion commander, Hotel Company, was on the line with a compliment of five. OK, I don’t know who those five were. Presumably they put them some other place. And he told me to move in on the edge of Echo Company with my compliment. And in the next day, the next morning, he’d give me my instructions.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, we’re going to stop right there, Carl Leppard. This is absolutely fascinating. The Center for American Values is located in Pueblo on the beautiful Riverwalk, and it was founded for several reasons. One, to honor our Medal of Honor recipients, and they do that through… over 160 portraits of valor of Medal of Honor recipients. But additionally, they are teaching these foundational principles of honor, integrity, and patriotism through many of their educational programs and also their On Values presentations. So for more information about the center, go to AmericanValuesCenter.org. That’s AmericanValuesCenter.org. We’ll be right back with Carl Leppard.
SPEAKER 02 :
All Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 07 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening.
SPEAKER 10 :
Go!
SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome back to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. The show comes to you because of our sponsors, and a sponsor that has been with us for many years is Hooters Restaurants. They have five locations, Loveland, Aurora, Lone Tree, Westminster, and Colorado Springs. Great place to get together to watch the games, have great lunch specials, happy hour specials, How I got to know them is a very important story about freedom and free markets and capitalism. And it’s an event that occurred when I was on city council and really helped me learn the proper role of government. It was a good question. And so we’ve become friends, and they’re sponsors of the show. So check out the Hooters restaurants and their five locations. I’m talking with Carl Leppard. He is a Vietnam veteran, a Marine. And we’re talking about these different battles. And in the Battle of Chulai, you said that you needed to get from point A to point B. There’s a time you’re supposed to be there. You arrived there. You were the only one from your company that was there. So what happened then, Carl?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, Colonel Fisher came and he recognized me because I had confronted him the day before at night and demanded that he exit his vehicle and get in front of the headlights to be recognized. And they said, do you know who I am and all this other business? I said, yeah, I do. Or, you know, until I do, then you will step out of that vehicle or I will shoot you down. So he did and presented himself. That was my first introduction. So when I reported to him at Phase Line Banana, there were three lines. Let’s see. First line was Apple, a very long line. And on that line is supposed to be the 3rd Marines, the 7th Marines, the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, on this line, elbow to elbow. And in the middle, next to Echo Company, is supposed to be Hotel. But I’m the only one in hotel. I’ve got some stragglers from other units that had lost themselves and so forth, another story probably. But that was it. Okay, so the colonel recognized me immediately and said, oh, step out in front of the headlights. I said, well, yes, sir, I’m sorry. And so he told me to fall in, and the next morning he would give me an assignment to fall in next to Echo with my compliment.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER 06 :
So the next morning, the colonel said for me to, he asked if I had a map, and I had my case, of course, and I said yes. And he said, and column two. I want you to go back to An Kong 2, and I want you to clear the battlefield, and I want you to take your compliment and clear the battlefield and protect the wounded there. I said, aye, sir, and I’m gone. An Kong 2 was a right… There’s a stream bed right there, and 3rd Battalion, yes, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, they’re over on the south side. Hotel Company is supposed to be on the north side of that little creek, depression, river, swamp, what? well there are a lot of dead people everywhere i mean please um hundreds you know well over 500 but in any case the the battlefield itself was fluid There’s little bitty hills, right, and that’s called, like, Nam Yen, this and that and the other, Nan Cong. These are little high rises that are above the rice paddy itself, full of big bamboo, a lot of, you know, bushes, et cetera. And these Viet Cong, man, were all over the damn place. I mean, we’re talking about… Well, I can be exact. There was over 5,000 of them there. So I had seen 100 of them at one time go past me to the south. They were coming from Echo Company straight south, or sorry, straight west, escaping. But Gunnery Sergeant Carr took them down with some artillery, which I seriously appreciate. Meanwhile, I’m hiding in the bushes like I’m supposed to be, and I see what’s going on. So we had about 90 Marines that were seriously wounded laying in the open. our helicopters were shot to pieces, and I can be pretty bloody exact on that. There were just very few of them that were flying. And to try to get out this many wounded, and we had over 200 wounded men, It was impossible. We lost 80% of our helicopters within the first three hours. And every time they’d come in for wounded or whatever, they’d be shot to pieces. So bottom line is… We did not have a resupply of water. We did not have any ammunition, okay? I mean, please. And so we had trouble. And these wounded, we were trying to consolidate them in a spot of some sort of safety with the river to our back. Theoretically, we had some bad water to give our wounded, right? But we had no morphine. We had nothing. Okay, so I arrived there to try to dispatch all the living wounded Viet Cong and to account for all of the dead to report to my battalion commander. I was wounded twice during that exercise. You know, but, you know, I was in… We’re getting into an area of sensitivity, but I will tell you that they couldn’t dress my wound because I was 100% blood. So they had me strip off my clothes, and I exchanged them with some of the dead that were not so soiled, and treated me and allowed them to go back about their business, okay? So we secured our battlefield there, dispatched any living enemy forces, killed any that we could find, and generally protected that element. Then the next day from there, we had pretty much those guys removed. Some of India Company, I think, came in to give some assistance. I proceeded back to Phase Line Cherry, which is closer to the beach. And I am doing what I was ordered to do, clear the battlefield. And probably don’t need to speak too much about what that’s about. Okay. So in the end, I think I finished my business, I believe, on the 24th. We had began on the 18th. And I returned to my unit. And the unit, of course, was gone. My old company that was filling those positions, defending from the west, they were gone. There was a first sergeant there, and I think some Remington Raider person in headquarters there with them, packing up all the people’s sea bags and all of that. I was very bloody. You know, I mean, flies had no place to sit on me. I mean, it was bad. But a captain came and a sergeant came that same morning, and they wanted to interview, presumably, H24 on tape. which is kind of interesting because you know it was real to real back then and the first sergeant says well they’re gone you know they’re they’re not you know they’re not here you know um and so but we’ve got corporal leopard over here and of course they interview me and uh the captain got ill and Couldn’t take it because of what I looked like and left the tent losing his lunch. The sergeant then carried on the interview, and it was taped. Now, we know today by Marine Corps record that only one after-action report was taped for July. Okay. They don’t say whose name it was, but they did take me. So General Green got the full nine yards of things that I don’t want to talk about. He got it all. Again, and he knows who it was on that tape. Okay, so now we know that H24 by 1600… 4 o’clock in the afternoon, 1630 to be exact, they were ordered to withdraw earlier in the day. I didn’t know they were withdrawn to the west to where they originally landed. And they had a complement of 24 men remaining of 152, I think. So I didn’t know about any of that. I didn’t know they, you know, they’re supposed to be going where I went. Okay, fine. So they sent them back to Okinawa to be reformed. I mean, they were not an element at all anymore. Okay, so I don’t know how long I was there, but I went to regiment then, and then they sent me to a place called Mike 39. And I was shot down in a helicopter coming in, and we got heavily engaged and so forth with some Viet Cong on the ground there. I called in some artillery, which they didn’t find was the right thing to do. I just call artillery when I need it. I don’t go through channels. Plus, I just was arriving. And so the battalion at that time had a little bit of a problem with Carl because he doesn’t go by procedure. Oh, boy. So they sent me back out to get my face repaired. I had some of my uniform jammed up in my nose. My face was kind of arranged a little differently. And then I came back with my old machine gunner from Hotel 2-3, Ron Smith, and we promptly get shot down again coming in. So, today, I have a record today because I was trying to follow where my Marines, when they were split up, they split us up to the entire division, and that was a bad thing. But in any case, they sent some of the more— Combat proficient, shall we say, people from Hotel, the Raider Company, 2-3, down to Mike 3-9, and some other companies as well. So Ron Smith was there with me. Raymond, C.D. Raymond, was my rocket man. We had Private Parsons with us. We had Miller and Butler, or no, we didn’t have Miller. We had Butler and we had Harden, a bunch of people from Hotel 2-3. Flying in on October the 3rd now, when I was shot down the first time, I lost 21 of the complement of my platoon, which is I think we only had about 40. So we lost most everybody.
SPEAKER 09 :
Let’s let’s stop there, Carl. We have one more segment. I’m talking with Carl Leppard, a Marine veteran serving during the Vietnam War. We will be right back.
SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening. And welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. And I’m talking with Marine Vietnam veteran Carl Leppard, and we’ve talked about two battles. There’s a third, and that is the Battle of Le Bon. So let’s talk about that, Carl.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, okay. Well, basically, the Viet Cong NVA, and they try to say this is all Viet Cong, but we had NVA there, North Vietnamese. But on the 29th of October, they had planned to wipe out the Da Nang airfield again. But this time, they were interdicted in two different locations by patrols and artillery. Okay, but on the evening of the 30th, I was ordered to hold an ambush in a place called Le Bon I, right in the middle of this marketplace, pretty much on the river. Across the river from me was Alpha 1-1. My friend Sergeant Dempsey was over there, and he was the platoon sergeant of that. So we’re there at midnight, and I’m getting fire now from 360 degrees. They’re trying to find me in there, and I knew we were in trouble. There were nine of us, and so… I had to fight our way out of that situation, and I broke out through enemy fire. We had six wounded and made it back to our company. They sent me to battalion immediately, probably 3 o’clock in the morning, and Major Hopkins was there, our executive officer of the battalion. who was formerly my company commander back in the United States. And I drew him a picture of what this looked like, because then they had already slaughtered the Marines across the river there during the night, and these vampires were looking for someplace to hide. Well, the attack was about 1,500 Viet Congs. Part of that unit was called the 45th. BC, a main force battalion. We engaged them first ourselves down in July. And before that, at Quang Nai, they killed an unbelievable number of Vietnamese Marines and Arvin troops. They wiped out 997 Arvin. But in any case, they’re the bad boys that made the attack. They had been hiding underneath of the marketplace in Le Bon. And so I visited with the battalion commander, told him the situation, drew him a little picture of where you could hide, possibly hide, a force of that size, and that they were definitely in Le Bon. He grabbed his battalion and some company other units from other companies, and we immediately proceeded on Le Bon in the daylight. So we engaged Arvin on our west flank, engaged about a company of Viet Cong trying to flee to the north. They went into Le Bon. We surrounded it. I located where they were underground. The battalion commander or XO brought in the demolitions. We blew that marketplace up. It sank from five feet to eight feet in some areas, some areas 15 feet. It sank. We surrounded that for 24 hours, and there was no one that came out alive. So the 45th and its complement was about… Well, there were between 400 of that unit. Presumably they had lost some, so we can say 400 pretty easily to 500 died at that location. I know the names of the battalion commander and all of his company commanders and exactly where they’re at. Wow. So that ended the 45th Battalion, and I’m real happy about it. You can ask me because I have compiled a record of any village you wish. I can tell you the commander’s name in 1965, his complement of men and what arms that they carried. Period. So at July, I can tell you exactly who was engaged, his name of what unit, Viet Cong unit. There were not one regiment. There were two. There was a second Vietnamese regiment there. So I know precisely and exactly how many were there, their names of their company or battalion or commanders, et cetera. I know their names and their exact positions. But this is part of being map and arrow photo guy. You do this. You know, so I record tunnel sizes when I’m there. If there’s a tunnel that’ll hold 400 people, we know how many people it’ll hold. So I know precisely the 7,500 people that were around us there, and we worked every day to kill every single one of them we could find. So it’s a game. They were trying to kill us. We were trying to kill them. And we did it very professionally. And I’m very happy about the people I served with. So wounded again on last, on December the 5th. They asked me to leave on December the 6th because the wound was bleeding and we couldn’t control it in my neck. So I proceeded back to the United States by way of Okinawa Kui Hospital and was promptly assigned to the drill instructor school at San Diego.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, my gosh. Wow. What a story. Carl Leppard, we have maybe about a minute left. How would you like to button this up for our listeners?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I don’t know. The Marine Corps is a very small place. I mean, and we’re very well trained. I mean, at times we didn’t have what we needed to have, but those are normal errors in combat and so forth. Things happen. You need to adapt. and take advantage of your training. And I think that we did it very efficiently. And generally, your E4s, your non-commissioned officers who were your leaders, right, they were generally very, very professional and well-educated. And I find no fault with any of them. I’ve fought with a lot of them, and And I’m very thankful and grateful to have done that, particularly with the upper command there. General Walt, for sure. General Wheeler, for sure. Hopkins, General Hopkins, for sure. I can go on. Colonel Martin, for sure. All of my platoon commanders were the best I think we had.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. Well, Carl Leppard, thank you for sharing all of this with us. This is so important. I really do appreciate it. And my friends, as we hear these stories, it is very apparent that we stand on the shoulders of giants. God bless you and God bless America.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
SPEAKER 03 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ Management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
