Larry Barnett here. I did visit your website. First let me say you did an awesome job. A fitting tribute indeed.
You are more than welcome to post any or all of this letter on your site.
I was not with Echo Company on Koh Tang. I was with Golf Company and I was shot down on the east beach. Just as "Stump" told you I deal with the same issues every day. A large part of the healing process for me has been meeting wonderful folks like yourself.
I began searching for Tang survivors around early 1995. At that time there were very few websites dedicated to the operation. I think the first search I did yielded about 5 websites, all very generic in nature. At the time I wasn't very Internet savvy, but I began posting to any veteran website that I could find. After about 3 months another G company Marine named Dale Clark from Seattle, WA contacted me. To say I was ecstatic would be an understatement. Shortly thereafter, we made contact with another G company Marine named Tim Trebil. Fortunate for us Dale kept a copy of orders from Okinawa and Tim was able to start contacting all member on the list. Unfortunately at that time we had no direct contact with any of the Echo company marines.
As we began to grow, obviously many stories were about. Danny, Joe and Gary were the number one topic. Our first tangible pieces of this huge puzzle began to surface in mid 1998. I was contacted first by a freelance journalist from Califonia named Mike Hargrove (no relation to Joe Hargrove) He was however doing an article on Joe Hargrove. I was also contacted by a crewman aboard the U.S.S. Henry B. Wilson J.J. Hamrin of Illinois. Both were trying to create a timeline for May 15, 1975. While both men did excellent work there was still a lot of speculation. At least, though, we had a place to start.
We were able to place one of the Gun Team near the center of the west beach perimeter, shortly before the last chopper or 2nd to last chopper took off. He was looking for ammo. There are yet many unanswered questions. For example. Your uncle's squad leader told me that once the evacution of the west beach began, he placed Danny, Joe and Gary to his inside. A yet unknown person, placed them back on the right flank, uknown to the squad leader. Another example. Why did the echo company commander leave the island with his marines still on the beach. Capt. James Davis gave clear instructions to the echo company commander to evacuate echo first. When the echo company commander got on the helicopter Capt. Davis asked him if he had all of his company accounted for. He stated yes. Obviously a false statement. Many years later Capt. Davis told me that he was not aware until we were back on ship that any of echo's marines were on the beach. As of this date we have not been able to make contact with the Echo Commander. Needless to say his behavior leaves a whole lot ot speculation and none of it good. Ironiclly enough, I had told my wife a couple of months earlier that I felt like I needed to return to Tang.
In early 2000 I had contact with my first Echo company marines. Gale Rogers, Curtis Myrick and Clark Hale. All in the same platoon as Danny, Gale had been working with a book author (Ralph Wetterhan) from California. As I am sure you are aware, Wetterhan's focus was entirly on the Gun Team. Gale had called me and said that he was trying to organize a return trip to Koh Tang and wanted to know if I would want to go back. My response was :"HELL YES". Our objective was to learn anything we could about Danny, Joe and Gary after our withdrawl from Tang. I am not sure how much of the trip has been related to you, so I will hit the high points. Danny's Platoon commander and the other 2 echo marines returned to their last know postion. We had already interviewed the island commander, so we had a pretty good idea where they would have been. I did notice that same picture on your website.
Now what I am going to say is pure speculaltion on my part. I have no hard evidence to back up my conclusion here. Just good old fashioned common sense. We still had a lot of nagging questions and at the top of the list was "why". Why didn't they move with each perimiter consolodation? Why didn't they move towards the chopper when they would of had to hear it? Why were they put to the outside of their squad leader and by whom? For what reason? They should have never been there to begin with. I feel that the only reason they couldn't move to consolodate was because "they couldn't" and here is my reasoning why. During our walk along the west beach we noticed that there was a large "point" that stuck out on the beach approximatly 40 to 50 feet. This point was left of their position and between them and the evacuation point. Please understand that during all this chaos, our air support was pounding the hell out of the Khmere. The safeist place on the island, at this point was as close to the perimeter as they could get. I believe that during the final consolidation, that the Khmere placed themselves between Danny and the final extraction point. To me it is the only reason that the would not have moved. The only other reason would have been that they would have been ordered not to move. Either way they held the position. Lotsa tears will hold up there for a bit.
Danielle, we did take extensive video's of our trip. They will help. I am sending this email to our Archivist Fred Morris.
fredbmorris@mchsi.com I am going to ask Fred to send you a complete copy of the videos we took of their return to Tang. Be sure to send Fred your address and we will get those to you ASAP. Send me your address as well. I recovered beach sand from the west beach during my return. This sand was recovered very close to Danny's last position. I would love to send your family a bit. Here is mly contact info;
Anything we can do for you and yours, we are at your service