{"id":29502,"date":"2010-05-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-31T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/WP-IMPORT\/2010\/05\/31\/matterhorn\/"},"modified":"2010-05-31T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-31T03:00:00","slug":"matterhorn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/matterhorn\/","title":{"rendered":"Matterhorn"},"content":{"rendered":"<table width=\"750\" border=\"0\" align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\">\n<tr>\n<td align=\"left\" valign=\"top\" class=\"style1\" scope=\"col\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/WP-IMPORT\/wp-content\/uploads\/old-imgs\/5-31-10-matterhorn2.jpg\" width=\"245\" height=\"242\"\/><br \/> (Snuffies. US Army photo)<br \/> \u00a0<br \/> The citation indicates that the President Johnson took pleasure in the award for the Navy Cross for these actions:<br \/> \u00a0<br \/> <em>\u201cDuring the period 1 to 6 March 1969, Company C was engaged in a combat operation north of the Rockpile and sustained numerous casualties from North Vietnamese Army mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, small arms, and automatic weapons fire\u2026. First Lieutenant Marlantes skillfully combined and reorganized the remaining members of two platoons, and&#8230; initiated an aggressive assault up a hill, the top of which was controlled by a hostile unit occupying well-fortified bunkers&#8230; the attack gained momentum which carried it up the slope and through several enemy emplacements before the surprised North Vietnamese force was able to muster determined resistance&#8230; completely disregarding his own safety, (he) charged across the fire-swept terrain to storm four bunkers in succession, completely destroying them. While seriously wounded, he \u00a0continued to lead his men until the objective was secured, a perimeter defense established, and all other casualties medically evacuated\u2026he resolutely refused medical evacuation for himself.\u201d<br \/> <\/em> <br \/> God, what is contained in those few dry formulaic words. Matterhorn expands the experience to nearly six hundred searing pages.<br \/> \u00a0<br \/> There is a larger context to the Marine campaign to block the NVA\u2019s advance, of course. This is not a strategic account. A marvelous companion piece is the novel \u201cLotus Eaters,\u201d by first-time author Tatiana Soli. I am glad I read them in sequence, and both are fresh in my mind.<br \/> \u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/WP-IMPORT\/wp-content\/uploads\/old-imgs\/5-31-10-matterhorn3.jpg\" width=\"91\" height=\"137\"\/><br \/> Soli&#8217;s book was of the city, of Saigon, and the Bush was a place to go to see the elephant. <br \/> \u00a0<br \/> Matterhorn is all elephant. No civilians at all. <br \/> \u00a0<br \/> Sort of stunning to read it on a lazy weekend to finish at first light on Memorial Day.<br \/> \u00a0<br \/> I am not giving a thing away if I tell you of the chills that ran down my spine as I heard in silence the chanting of the surviving Snuffies on the hill and the drumming on the c-rat box:<br \/> \u00a0<br \/> &#8220;If it&#8217;s good enough for Parker&#8230;<br \/> Then it&#8217;s good enough for me&#8230;&#8221;<br \/> \u00a0<br \/> The names went on and on, like they do on the black Wall downtown.<br \/> \u00a0<br \/> It is a day to remember.<\/p>\n<p> Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra<br \/> www.vicsocotra.com <br \/> <em><a href=\"http:\/\/vicsocotra.com\/rss2.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Subscribe to the RSS feed!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Snuffies. US Army photo) \u00a0 The citation indicates that the President Johnson took pleasure in the award for the Navy Cross for these actions: \u00a0 \u201cDuring the period 1 to 6 March 1969, Company C was engaged in a combat operation north of the Rockpile and sustained numerous casualties from North Vietnamese Army mortars, rocket-propelled [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}