03 Sep 20 To Steve Smith, my childhood friend. We grew up together and played pee-wee football together. The last time I saw you was when your platoon passed in front of our lines at Khe Sanh. We got to say a brief hello to each other, not knowing I would be saying good-bye to my friend. Three days later, you were taken away from us. Even though our colors were different, our friendship couldn't tell. You are greatly missed, my friend. Kenneth Baldwin USMC

 

A Note from The Virtual Wall Throughout the war the North Vietnamese Army enjoyed a sort of sanctuary within and north of the Demilitarized Zone, since the United States was extremely reluctant to conduct operations within the southern half of the DMZ and flatly refused to cross the DMZ midline into the northern half or North Vietnam proper. While the NVA-controlled areas were subject to air and artillery strikes, the NVA troops became very adept at tunneling and otherwise concealing themselves. They also became very adept at passing through the relatively thin Allied lines along the DMZ and were perfectly capable of deploying regimental-sized forces behind those lines. On 07 Feb 1968, at the height of the NVA/VC Tet Offensive, Kilo Company, 3/3 Marines tangled with an NVA battalion on the road running from the artillery base at Alpha 3 to Gio Linh. Although Marine courage and Allied fire superiority once again forced the NVA to withdraw, the battle was extremely costly - 30 dead from Kilo 3/3, 4 dead from H&S 3/3, and one each from Alpha 1st Tanks and Fox 2/3.

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