Behind the Wall: “The Family Serves Too,” Margaret’s StoryBy Mary Lynn Heath
With dark blond wavy hair and a movie-star smile Larry Welsh proudly walked his bride, Margaret, down the aisle of their hometown, Kansas City, Kansas church on June 17, 1967. Margie, a beauty with straight brown hair, long eyelashes lining big dark eyes, was 20 and her high school sweetheart groom had just turned 21 the day before their wedding. Wildly in love and devoted to each other, they decided to settle in their hometown, Margie working for Dial Financial and Larry a switchman for the Santa Fe Railroad Company.
The honeymoon was not yet over, when Larry received his draft notice to report for duty on November 3, 1967. Larry and Margie sat embracing on the kitchen floor as they read the induction notice, and cried that their dreams for the future would have to be put on hold. The following months Margie followed Larry as he moved to Ft. Benning, Georgia, then to Ft. Polk, Louisiana to receive his NCO (non-commissioned officer)training. Although Larry spent all his waking hours on the base, the few hours they could be together were precious. In early December of 1968, Larry was deployed to Vietnam.
Larry was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 22nd Infantry, Company C. A sergeant, he was a point platoon leader serving near the Tay Ninh province in South Vietnam on the Cambodian Border. On January 4th, 1969 his platoon took an Eagle flight north towards heavy jungle. Company C was made up of two platoons and was charged with “sweeping the area north to south in search of enemy camps.” Being the point squad, Larry’s platoon led. He took five out of the six men in his squad into the brush where he and his point man found Vietcong tracks and began to follow them into denser jungle.
After finding logging trails, a scout dog was sent to help them. The canine alerted them of a scent to their right. Larry took four men and went about 75 meters finding more tracks that seemed to lead to a centralized area. Larry writes in a letter to Margie:
…My men and I felt very odd, I think since we were point squad and we had seen everything and knew Charley was in the area. …We were about 50 meters away from the company and we just lost view and stopped for chow. We were just starting to spread out when we were hit and found ourselves in an ambush. From here things happened so fast I couldn’t explain it in writing. I will have to tell you after I get home-if I make it. My squad had 50% casualties, but somehow I got them all back.
All I can say is we had the quickest reflexes that day. In less than a minute time, I had changed and shot 7 magazines and threw a smoke grenade for cover and started pulling back. I think it was the fastest run I ever made (a run for your life!). After we got back out of the ambush we found artillery shells booby trapped so they pulled the company out. The rest of the day was very busy and I was down to two men so they called in artillery and helicopters to get us out.
The next day they spotted by air 49 bunkers which would be a battalion. We haven’t gone back yet, but in the next couple of days this company and another will return.
This probably seems like a diary but it maybe tells you what happened. My feelings, I didn’t have any until I got back to base camp, I was more worried about my men. Thank God they’re all alright. They’re back out here with me now. I guess I was lucky I didn’t get hit. I got burned a little from a grenade. The three men I have will receive Purple Hearts and I’ll get my C.I.B. (combat infantry badge).
Lately there has been a lot of action in the area and the next two weeks something is going to happen. There’s supposed to be 10 battalions heading towards Tay Ninh from the North, West and South. ………I’ll be praying that I make it home in one piece.
By the time you get this letter I’ll have been in country for more than 30 days so I’ll just have 11 months left. ……I want this year to hurry by so I can go home to you. ………..I’ve got to go and pickup C rations for my squad so I’ll write more later.
Love forever, Larry
This is the last letter Margie received from Larry written on January 6, 1969, one day before he was declared M.I.A--missing in action.
Private First Class Robert F. Harlow, the point soldier of Larry’s platoon, was the last person to see Larry alive. From the 45th Surgical Hospital Private Harlow wrote in a statement on the day Larry became MIA that the platoon was surprise attacked with heavy artillery which “knocked us off our feet.” One man was killed and Harlow was severely wounded. Harlow hid behind a hollow log. This statement was transposed from Harlow’s report:
…A few minutes later, while lying beside a log, I was approached by SGT Welsh who asked if (someone should notify my next of kin). I told him I was hit, however, I felt as if I could make it. He then told me he was going back to get help and (to) lift the friendly artillery air strikes which were coming in at the area. Harlow writes that Larry’s bare back was peppered with fragmentation wounds as he walked to find help into an area where artillery shells were falling.
The following is an excerpt is from http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM2XZ: Returning to the battle scene the next day, searchers found one man dead and a wounded man hiding in a hollow log. The wounded man told the searchers what he knew about Larry. The search team found Welsh's eyeglasses, wallet, shirt and the watch with the silver chain wristband that he wore, but Larry was not seen again.
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“I was at work the day the Army called me and asked me to come home.” Margie recalls. “No Army wife ever wants to get that call or see two officers approaching her home. Arriving home, I couldn’t wait to get inside, so I was on the curb when they handed me the Western Union Telegram and told me that Larry was missing in action.”
Margie says she was in denial initially, thinking her notice must be a mistake, unable or unwilling to believe Larry could be missing. Or perhaps trying to will it to be a mistake. Then an overwhelming sense of worry and concern for Larry consumed her. She feared he might be a POW, might be mistreated at the hands of the enemy. The thought of someone hurting her husband, and not knowing whether he was dead or alive, was torture to her. And then blame and anger set in. It lasted for 40 years.
“I couldn’t be mad at the Army because I was too patriotic. So I blamed the Vietnamese people as a whole for taking Larry from me,” she explains. “I finally realized that most of the Vietnamese people I blamed weren’t even born during the Vietnam War. Plus, how could I be angry at a people who Larry died trying to free? It was then I had to let go. There was no one left to blame.”
On February 11, 1974 Larry’s status was changed from MIA to “MIA presumed dead,” but even then Margie did not have a sense of closure. “In some regards you never totally heal,” she confides.
“When a serviceman goes off to war, those left behind serve too,” Margie says. “And when a serviceman is killed, those left behind are casualties of war too.
Whenever I hear of servicemen killed in Iraq, I immediately think of the wives and mothers. I know how they feel.”
Margie explains that in the late 60’s and early 70’s American serviceman took the brunt of the public’s anger concerning the Vietnam War. It pained her to see and hear American citizens spitting on soldiers and calling them “babykillers.”
She stresses if citizens disapprove of a war to not take it out on the soldiers but rather to write and call the policy makers, the politicians
Margie is thankful for the Vietnam Memorial Wall and the traveling replicas. “These are important because the Vietnam soldiers were never really given a hero’s homecoming like other war soldiers. The Vietnam Memorial Wall is the very least we could do,” she says. Tearfully she adds, “The Wall is my closure: It is Larry’s headstone.”
On September 3, 1974 Margie began a new chapter in her life by marrying Vietnam Veteran Dan Maupin. They settled in Piedmont, Oklahoma and their daughter Kimberly graduated from Piedmont High School. Kimberly and her husband now live in San Antonio with their two young boys. The youngest was born this year on January 7, 40 years to the day after Larry was declared M.I.A.
“I will always remember this day,” Margie says. “Now I have something happy to remember too.”
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