Khe Sanh « Bravo! The Project

There’s a photograph of BRAVO! Marine Tom Quigley receiving a purple heart medal while in a hospital bed somewhere in or near the Republic of South Vietnam.

The photo was taken on April 1, 1968, two days after Tom was wounded outside Khe Sanh Combat Base in what has since become known as the Payback Patrol.

Tom served as the radio operator for Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Marines’ company commander—or Skipper, Ken Pipes.

Tom is on my mind the last few days. He passed away on Tuesday, March 22, after battling for 17 years with serious health issues.

Tom, like so many of the men who survived the Siege of Khe Sanh, was a tough, tough man. He was also funny and loving, a family man, a hard worker, a success at many things, a friend. A good and kind person.

Tom liked to tease. He teased me a lot and I will miss his humor, his wry observations about people and about me.

I remember that day when Tom got wounded, March 30, 1968, fifty-four years to the day from this writing.

I was a radio operator, too, for 2nd Platoon’s platoon sergeant. We were running down the NVA trench on the way to the very front edge of that nasty battle. Staff Sergeant Alvarado and I moved out in order to mark the extreme edge of our perimeter so artillery barrages could be called in to create a barrier between counter-attacking NVA troops and us. This would allow us to save our wounded and retrieve the dead in an orderly withdrawal.

As Staff Sergeant Alvarado and I ran down the trench, I noticed the company command group—Skipper Pipes, radio men including Tom, corpsmen, the company gunny, several forward observers—all standing in a bomb crater.

As Tom liked to say, “The fighting was intense.”

And he wasn’t exaggerating when he said that; the sky chock full of smoke and fog and the cries of fighting men, and wounded, too; the noise…the noise.

I looked again as we ran on, and a barrage of mortar rounds landed in and around the command group; and when the smoke cleared, Marines were scattered everywhere, on the ground, on their knees.

The platoon sergeant and I ran on and years later, when I had the honor of interviewing him for Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor, I learned about Tom’s wounds and how even though he suffered from a concussion that forced blood out of the pores of his skin and serious shrapnel wounds, he helped evacuate the others in that bomb crater back to the rear where the medical teams endeavored to provide medical attention to the injured.

Seeing a wounded Tom receiving his purple heart while in that hospital makes me think about how, instead of getting help for himself, he made sure that others were taken care of. I will always admire the sense of duty, loyalty, and courage that compelled him to ensure other wounded men were served. Tom personified the Marine motto: Semper Fidelis.

Badly wounded, he put other wounded men first.

Tom told me that because all of those men died back there at Khe Sanh, he needed to “live a good life because they never got the chance.” And he did have a good life.

Tom didn’t need to talk about all of this. You just knew it, the kind of man, the kind of Marine he was.

Semper Fidelis, Tom. We are going to miss you. Really miss you.

You can read Tom’s obituary here: https://www.staabfuneralhomes.com/obituary/thomas-tom-n-quigley/.