Author’s note – I wrote this in September of 2019 while on a work trip to New Mexico. Keep that in mind as you read it, as I have not updated it to reflect current events.
Imagine your country is at war. Which isn’t hard, since here in America we’ve been actively engaged in combat in Afghanistan for 15 years. Now imagine you’re 17 years old and the war is in Vietnam. It’s 1968 and you’re just beginning your junior year in high school in Santa Fe, New Mexico. High school isn’t enough, and the war isn’t going to last forever. You’ve seen the demonstrations against the war, the casualty figures being released weekly…but none of that dissuades you from what you are about to do. So you do what young American boys have been doing since our nation was founded. You dropout of high school and enlist. In the Army. As an infantryman. A nearly 100% guarantee that you will be sent to Vietnam.
You endure the trials of basic and advanced infantry training, take a quick Christmas leave to be with your parents and four younger brothers, and just after New Year’s Day, 1969, take your seat on a government chartered airliner filled with young American servicemen and take flight for Vietnam.
Now stop imagining, because this story is real. The 17 year-old’s name is Willie Danien Martinez. The son of Mr. & Mrs. Willie A Martinez of Santa Fe, New Mexico. His four younger brother’s names are Andrew, Jesse, Eric and Floyd.
When tens of thousands of American men were being conscripted into the Army to fill the ranks, 17 year old Willie enlisted of his own free will. Either he lied to the recruiter and said he was 18, or he convinced his parents to sign the release letter, allowing him to enlist. I don’t know. There’s a lot about Willie I don’t know.
I do know that he served in the same battalion as my wife Garnett’s uncle Donald Sperl. Not at the same time, and well after Donald had been killed, so there’s no chance they ever met. But that’s not the point. The ‘Braves’ of the 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment are fading into history. Nearly 270 men of the 3/12 Infantry gave their lives in Vietnam. Many more were wounded. Even more came home not officially wounded, but suffering just the same. Malaria, dysentery, jungle rot, chronic fatigue, post-traumatic stress didn’t qualify you for a Purple Heart, but the effects were often life altering. After the war, the 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry was moved to Germany, and was eventually, in 1997, inactivated. Its military lineage is complete but its human lineage should never be forgotten.
Back to Willie. On January 8th, 1969 he walked off that commercial airliner and into the oppressive heat of South Vietnam. Based on what I know from the experiences of others, he spent a few days getting his initial gear and then off he went, assigned to the ‘Braves’ of Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division.
For Alpha Company, January and February were full of patrols, and light action against the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. They lost only one man killed-in-action in those two months. In March though, the frequency and intensity of enemy contact increased. The casualties began to pile up.
On March 27th, 1969, elements of Alpha Company were inserted into Landing Zone (LZ) Cider in Kontum Province. The mission was reconnaissance-in-force, or ‘go find the enemy and kill them’ in layman’s terms. The NVA found Alpha Company first and unleashed a well-executed L-shaped ambush from a series of hidden bunkers. As Alpha Company fell back and re-grouped, they realized several men were missing. They assaulted the enemy bunkers and were repulsed, losing more men in the attempt. By the end of the day on the 27th, eight members of Alpha Company were missing, including 18-year old PFC Willie Martinez.
After two days of heavy artillery and air strikes, Alpha Company attempted to move into the initial engagement area from the March 27 ambush in order to recover their missing men. Again they were repulsed, losing an additional six men. For the next week intensive artillery and air strikes pounded the area. More ground forces were inserted and the dead were finally recovered, including young Willie Martinez. He had been in Vietnam for just 78 days and for his actions at LZ Cider that day, he was posthumously promoted to Corporal and awarded the Silver Star, which is America’s third highest award for gallantry in combat. Two men were never found, and another, Sergeant Gail M. Kerns, had been captured and moved into North Vietnam. He was eventually repatriated in February of 1973, after nearly four years of captivity, but his story is for another day.
Last week I visited Willie Martinez’s grave at the Santa Fe National Cemetery. It sits in Section V, amongst other veterans that died in the late 60s. I arrived at the cemetery in the late afternoon, around five o’clock. It took me a few moments to get my bearings, and then I made my way to gravesite 1342, about ten rows deep and fairly centered in the middle of Section V. The dark green grass was high, and tickled the sides of my feet. I placed two pennies on the top of his headstone, a ceremonial act of remembrance. One for me, and one for David, whom you’ll read about shortly. The evening sun, still high enough that the shadows cast from a nearby tree stopped a few feet short of Willie’s grave, beat down on me as I sat in the grass at his grave. The heat was a little uncomfortable, but it was important for me to just sit, and remember this 18 year old American.
I’ve got one of those now. An 18 year old American boy to call my own. His name is Josh. And on the very day that I sat before Willie’s grave, my son sat in an Anchorage, Alaska military medical clinic, undergoing his initial physical examination, in hopes that he too could serve his country. Irony sometimes catches us when we are least prepared.
There’s another side to the story of Willie Martinez, and it starts at the Moratorium Against the Vietnam War in Washington D.C on November 15, 1969. A young non-violent anti war protester named David Bromberg was handed a piece of cardboard with the name Willie Danien Martinez on it. He marched past the White House in the middle of the night and yelled Willie’s name out, in hopes he would disturb the sleep of President Richard Nixon. He marched, with over a quarter of a million more Americans, to the Capitol, where they placed the cardboard cutouts into wooden coffins. David will never forget that night, and he will never forget Willie Martinez. Willie would have been 69 this year and David is in his 70s now. I contacted him before I traveled and he had two simple requests. If I meet any of Willie’s family, tell them to read his posting on the Vietnam Veteran’s Wall of Faces page https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/32793/WILLIE-D-MARTINEZ/. His other request was for a small pebble from Willie’s gravesite. I found a small pebble and also pulled three long strands of grass from just in front of his headstone, and will send them to David’s home in Pennsylvania this week.
David said it best in his post on the Wall of Faces site. “I never knew Willie Martinez. But I’ll never forget him. He deserved a life. They all did.”
