Free Bringing It All Back Home by Philip F. Napoli Page B

down to the river, and it’s deep, and it’s flowing fast. So we get across the river, and now we are making our way back to the battalion. And on the way back, we had to pass by the woman. She was still there. It must have been midday by now. She was just lying there in the sand. No one had come to get her or anything, and we passed by her. There were no repercussions. I didn’t think about turning [the officer] in, but it was out-and-out murder and nobody said anything, nobody did anything.
    He says it again, as if to drive the point home.
    I felt like I was losing a bit of my humanity. But I would hold on.
    The memory of this event echoes through his life. The sights and sounds are as vivid for him today as they were in 1967.
    In the next letter to his sister he wrote:
    I hate being away, I hate everything I’m doing and seeing. I’m getting by but I feel like I’m being skinned alive. I’m losing something out here, I just hope it returns when I leave this place. I wouldn’t mind carrying such a heavy burden if I could believe in what we are doing.
    On February 14, 1968, Delta One, a sister Marine company, was on point just ahead of Giannini and walked into a minefield. Six or seven Marines were badly injured. Giannini was ordered forward by his company commander, “Mad Dog,” to assess the situation and report back. When he arrived at the scene, Giannini found Delta One’s platoon commander crying from grief. The helicopters couldn’t land; they were forced to hover off the ground for fear of detonating additional mines. As casualties were loaded on board, Giannini stayed with a Marine who ended up being the last one put onto the chopper.
    When we got him to the chopper, he was right there. His head was right there in front of me. And what happened is, when the Marines went to pick him up to put him on the chopper, his head went forward. And I surmised that he must have seen his legs for the first time because all of a sudden his head fell back and his eyes were wide open. And you could see he was turning white. The blood was draining from his face. And that’s it. That’s the last I saw of him. He was gone in a swirl of dust. I don’t know if he lived. I’m hoping that he did live. If he did live, I would say that he looked like he would be a double amputee. It was that bad. It was bad. But all these other Marines were the same way.
    Maybe the next day, I guess, we went back to Quang Tri. Back at the base, the battalion tells the company commander they want me to go out. They’re going to send out a section of 81-millimeter mortars with me. They’re heavy mortars, and they want us to establish a combat base out from the battalion. So, again, here we go the next morning, my platoon. We load up on slicks [ a Bell UH-1 helicopter used for troop and ammunition transport ], with a section of 81-millimeter mortars. And my platoon, altogether seventy-eight Marines, we go out west. I don’t know how many klicks [kilometers] out west, but pretty far.
    And they drop us on a hill, and here I am, by myself. I’ve got seventy-eight Marines. I’ve got a section of mortars which I’m not allowed to fire. Only battalion fires these things. You’ve got to go through the battalion fire center. I don’t have authority to fire these things. I have to clear it through battalion. But as we’re flying in, I notice we’re not too far from the village and the minefield [where the Marines had detonated the mines].
    We’re on the hill. I’m by myself. We dig in. I send my listening posts out. I set my defensive fires. And while we’re on the hill, one of my sergeants walks up to me. He’s got a little pup in his hand. I mean, a little newborn pup. He said, “Lieutenant, I found this pup down the hill.” He said, “What should I do with it?” I said, “It’s got to be a pup from a VC tracking dog. Kill it,