Sadler Delivers Memorial Day Speech

Retired U.S. Marine Corps Col. Woody Sadler of Lexington, past district governor of Rotary District 7570, served as the guest speaker at the Memorial Day Ceremony in Marion, N.C., sponsored by the Rotary Club of Marion, N.C.

The following is the full text of his speech.

Memorial Day 2023

Thank you for having me here today. Frank has been asking me for years to come to his beloved hometown of Marion, as the guest speaker on Memorial Day, and we were finally able to make it. You are lucky to have a patriot like Frank. You have a wonderful site and a fitting memorial up on the hill to those who not only died in defense of our country, but also to all of you and others who are serving today or have served and made the commitment to defend our way of life.

There is a lot you can say on Memorial Day. You can recount the valor’s of lost brothers and sisters in arms, you can recount your own experiences, or you can just reflect. REFLECT, that is an interesting word. Reflections can be good, or they can be bad, uplifting or depressing, but they are always there. Reflect on the day you reported to the recruiting station to be shipped off to God knows where. Once there, you were greeted with open arms and a lot of shouting. It was a whole new world and most of us wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. But from the beginning you could feel the bond of brotherhood forming. By the time you were finished with boot camp, you knew that the guy or gal next to you had your back, and you had theirs. It is a bond few in the civilian world experience. Most who served since World War II never fired a round in anger, but were ready to do so if called upon. The bond is still there, between all that have served.

Memorial Day started just three years after the end of our bloodiest conflict, the war between the states. Almost every family was affected by that carnage. The numbers are staggering, over 620,000 Americans died in the Civil War. Ten percent of the American population served in that war. In WWII eleven percent of the population served and 407,000 died. In the Viet Nam war 9.7% of the population served and 58,000 lost their lives. Those wars lasted over a number of years, and many people came in and out of the service. Though we are not currently in an armed conflict, it is interesting that today only .4% of the population serves in the military, and according to the Vice Chairman of JCS only 1% of the population will experience military service.  All who have served are an elite band of brothers and sisters.

As Frank mentioned, I served 28 years in the Marine Corps, and I tell everybody I’d still be in if I wasn’t so old. That experience shaped my life, and I believe it changes the lives of all who served. The military services bring Americans from all walks of life, all social and financial strata, all races and creeds and puts them into the military melting pot.  We learned to live together, we were given a moral and value system, we learned to respect each other and rely on one another. It took many a lost soul and gave him or her a focus and meaning to life. When we leave military service, we make a positive impact on the communities we return to.

In 1966 all in my class at VMI knew where we were going. Viet Nam was heating up and the military was expanding. In two years we will mark the 50th anniversary of the end of that conflict. I graduated in June and following some very intense training, I was in South Viet Nam by April 1967. I was like the majority of those young men entering the military service, indestructible, eager, and ready to defend my country. On my way overseas, I could not buy a drink in the airports. There was always someone who wanted to buy a drink for a young Leatherneck heading for Viet Nam. Things changed by the time I returned.

I arrived in Da Nang aboard a commercial airliner. That night I went to the club and heard a Filipino band singing country and western songs. I knew at that point that this was going to be a crazy war.  The next morning, I was on a plane heading for Dong Ha, a major supply base on the Demilitarized Zone, referred to as the DMZ. I figured things were going to get more interesting up there when the crew chief said, “When I drop the ramp, jump, we’re not shutting down. Welcome to the war.” I spent my whole 13 months inside “Leatherneck Square,” along the DMZ. I always seemed to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, all intense battles; Gio Lin, Con Thein, Tet, and my last battle Dia Do, as part of Battalion Landing Team 2nd Bn 4th Marines, BLT 2/4. I met a lot of patriots. Young men who volunteered and many who were drafted. They were all professional, well trained, and dedicated to their fellow Marines. We knew we had each other’s back.

My first experience of being on the wrong end of an artillery round was in Gio Lin, the northeast corner of Leatherneck Square. On this baren hilltop surrounding an old French fort, Marine and Army artillery overlooked North Vietnam, protecting the direct approach to Dong Ha and disrupting NVA supply line in North Vietnam.  On my first day after sunset the artillery and mortar rounds started impacting our position. A Lance Corporal asked, “Sir, where is your gas mask?” I wasn’t told to bring one. I didn’t know that the last line of defense, if we were being overrun was to set off tear gas flooding our position. That was not a restful night, in fact, I don’t think I got any sleep. Fortunately, the grunts on the other side of the wire kept the North Vietnamese at bay that night.

The monsoons arrived in September. My battery and I found ourselves knee deep in mud, during the siege of Con Thein, another fire base surrounding an old French fort. The mud actually turned out to be our friend absorbing the impact of incoming shells and reducing the effects of the shrapnel. Just the same, over 50% of my Marines received purple hearts. One day in September, we had 1,500 artillery and an unknown number of mortar rounds dropped in and around our position, which was not bigger than 4 football fields. But thank God, we didn’t lose a man in the three and a half months we were in Con Thein.

After Christmas ’67 our battery became part of BLT 2/4 and we moved aboard ship. The Navy knows how to live. We gladly exchanged our muddy poncho liners for clean sheets and our C-rations for hot chow. However, our ocean cruise was interrupted by a Vietnamese holiday called, Tet, which sent us all back on the helicopters heading inland again. A little over a week before my 13-month tour was to end, BLT 2/4 became engaged in the battle of Dia Do. Our battalion was deployed across the front of a well-trained NVA division heading for Dong Ha. By the end of the battle, we were no longer an effective fighting force, but neither was the NVA division. Our battalion commander was wounded, the SgtMaj was dead, and 2 Marines were to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. While 200 Marines lost their lives, the North Vietnamese division suffered almost 3,000 dead. You Tube has an 8-part series on the battle.

The day after the fight, I was ordered home. I left the field and went back aboard the old USS Iwo Jima to turn in my gear and pick up my orders. I was scheduled to fly to Da Nang the next morning. The Battalion Adjutant called me to his office and said, “Lieutenant your last official duty in Viet Nam is to escort 81 of our Marines to Delta Med in Da Nang.” I will always remember that trip. Eight helicopters in formation flying down the coast of Viet Nam. I had a headset on but the silence over the radios was deafening. All you could hear was the beat of the helicopter blades. The pilots and I knew that this was the first leg for these Marines on their journey home, where they would be laid to rest in hometowns across America. I was walking home; they were going home draped with their country’s flag. They paid the ultimate price in defending our way of life. On Memorial Day I reflect on that day and always remember those Marines and all the others from all the services who have given their lives for this great nation. I pray for them, and that God gives wisdom to our leaders to guide our country wisely so young men like those will not have to pay the ultimate price. Please let us pray the Marine verse of The Navy Hymn:

Eternal Father, grant, we pray

For all Marines. Both night and Day

The courage, honor, strength, and skill

Their land to serve, Thy law fulfill

Be Thou the shield, forevermore

From every peril to the Corps.

Semper Fidelis and God Bless America.