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Owen Ditchfield

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For his second tour in Vietnam, Owen Ditchfield was assigned to the 101st Airborne in the A Shau Valley. Arriving just after the battle at Hamburger Hill, he was leading a patrol in the same area when the unit was pinned down by multiple enemy gun emplacements. A relief platoon ran into the same fire from the bunkers, but then Gordon Roberts stood up and charged the first position. Before it was over, four enemy positions were taken out and Roberts would deserve the Medal Of Honor. (9:25)

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After nearly getting wiped out at Hill 996, Owen Ditchfield's company spent some time clearing hilltops for landing zones near the Laotian border, where high tech surveillance equipment could trigger remote ambushes on the enemy's supply trails. He relates how life back at the base camp was nearly as dangerous as being on patrol in the jungle. (6:53)

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Halfway through his second Vietnam tour, Owen Ditchfield was put in charge of the division's Kit Carson Scout program, which used Viet Cong who had turned to the South's side. These soldiers were so useful that American units competed to recruit them as they finished their indoctrination. (6:55)

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He was flying in a Chinook, in transit to pick up some Kit Carson Scouts, when an enemy on the ground sprayed the aircraft with automatic weapons fire. Owen Ditchfield was leaning over reading a book and that meant that the bullet that hit him in the head did not kill him on the spot. (4:04)

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The Kit Carson Scouts were Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese soldiers who had defected to the South. Many of them worked with American units to give insight to the tactics of the enemy and Owen Ditchfield was in charge of the program in his division. He would take them to fire bases where one of them would give a startling demonstration to the American soldiers. (3:07)

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After his second tour in Vietnam, Owen Ditchfield was assigned to the personnel office at Fort Benning. One day, he received a letter from a Vietnamese interpreter who had been left behind and was trying desperately to get out. That started a process that would end happily for both of them. Another happy outcome awaited Ditchfield when he was pushed out by the drawdown. (3:20)

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Owen Ditchfield reflects on some of the strange things he encountered in Vietnam and has an answer for why he does not suffer from bad psychological effects due to his service there. Then he gives some solid advice to future generations of soldiers. (3:43)

Owen Koch

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Owen Koch and three friends all went to enlist together in 1943 with the idea of serving together. That proved impossible and the four friends wound up in four different services. It was the Marines for Koch and, after boot camp, he became a communications specialist. (4:42)

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After the successful Marine assault on Roi-Namur, Owen Koch's unit prepared for further action but he missed the Iwo Jima assault because he came down with a rare medical condition which landed him in the hospital for months. (4:47)

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One of Owen Koch's tasks was to carry and deploy big spools of wire for field telephones. Simple enough, but his partner was 6' 4' tall and that made for a comical sight as they tried to keep the spool level. The randomness of death in war was driven home when his friend Frank Reed was killed just inches away as they shared a foxhole. (3:59)