The Platoon Names

When Marvin's son was approximately ten to twelve years old — sometime in the early 1980s — Marvin was describing the structure of D Company: three platoons, Cat, Range, and Skull. His platoon was Cat.

His son, being a child, said that Skull sounded the coolest, and that he would have chosen Skull.

Marvin said: Skull was decimated by a helicopter crash.

He did not describe the crash further. He did not give a date, name casualties, or elaborate.

His son then said he would have chosen Range instead.

Marvin said: Range was wiped out by an ambush.

He said nothing further. The conversation ended there.

Marvin was referring to two specific events. The helicopter crash that killed most of Skull Platoon occurred on May 10, 1972 — also killing CPT Kenneth Rosenberg, the Company Commander (Skipper 6) — after Marvin had left Vietnam. His discharge was effective December 2, 1971. He knew about it, which means news of it reached him after his return — most likely through Larry Cate, his only sustained postwar friendship from the unit.

The ambush that destroyed Range Platoon was the engagement of April 20, 1971 — the event that killed three men and wounded many more, documented elsewhere in this archive through multiple firsthand accounts. Marvin was in the unit when it happened. "Range was wiped out by an ambush" is the only direct statement he ever made about that day to his son. He did not repeat it.

The following is recorded in the son's own words:

Looking back, I wonder if I offended him a little by suggesting I would have wanted to be in the other platoons — the ones that were gone. And in doing so, I may have missed my only opportunity to learn more. It turned out to be exactly that: the only opportunity. He never came closer to the subject again.