Former Marine Louis Mello II recalls his service in Vietnam

Second of three parts

“My dad was drafted into the Army and decided instead to join the Marines in World War II. When I signed up for the draft, he emphatically told me, ‘Don’t join the Marines!’ ”

Louis Mello II, a San Luis Obispo native, had every intention of following his father’s mandate. But his induction physical turned him into a Marine.

As Louis recalled, “That morning we had a physical (they took anyone that was breathing) and took a written test. We were given a file folder with our info in it and headed to a room where we gave our folders to the soldier in charge and then sat in the third row. A Marine Corps gunnery sergeant came into the room, pointed to the first two rows and told them they had just volunteered to join the Marines. I was glad I was sitting in the third row.

“The room quickly filled and the gunny sergeant came into the room a second time looking for four more volunteers to fill his quota. There was complete silence. He gave a little pep talk about the Marines. There was complete silence and no volunteers. So, he went over to the desk with all the folders on it ... 6 feet 4 inches, he turned to shake my hand, his lips quivering and his eyes as big as saucers.”

Then, he randomly pulled Nick’s folder.

“The gunny must have said something funny, because everyone was laughing except my buddy, Nick Greenelsh, and me. The gunny said to give him the ninth folder in pile two and that was mine. Our lives were changed forever as we were now in the Marine Corps and would be heading to the Marine Corps (Recruit) Depot in San Diego.”

Louis later learned that his lifelong Avila Beach buddies, Tommy St. John and James “Butchie” Sylvester, were “drafted” into the Marines under identical circumstances.

“Once we were at the recruitment depot in San Diego, we were stuck in the barracks polishing brass and waiting for our info folders to catch up with us. We finally got our hair cut, were issued uniforms, and given M14s. Our six months of boot camp had begun!

“This was followed by specialized training at Camp Pendleton. I was taught to be a machine gunner, how to stay alive, how to fight as a team and how to kill the North Vietnamese Army. I was trained to be a fighting machine.

“I got to see my parents when they came down to San Diego for my graduation from Boot Camp and then again when they gave me a two-week leave before being shipped to Vietnam.”

Following an intense combat experience, Louis wrote his parents, “Nobody shoots at a Mello and gets away with it!”

On Dec. 20, 1968, Louis was wounded in the right thigh while on patrol in Quang Nam Province. When the medics said that he was “recovered,” he was sent back into combat.

“While I was in Vietnam, my uniforms and Purple Heart were stored in a building that was hit by a rocket and everything was destroyed. They replaced my uniforms, but not my medal.

“After 13 months of being shot at, having to shoot at others, living in a foxhole, eating cold food and ‘C-rations’ and sending home the bodies of my comrades, I took a plane to Okinawa where I stayed for four days while they replaced my uniforms.

“I got to stop for a half hour in Hawaii. At age 21, I could buy a drink. I then flew to Travis Air Force Base, got off the plane, knelt and kissed the ground while some protesters spat at us and called us ‘Baby killers!’

“We then got on a bus to Treasure Island and would be released to the world in five days.

“We were expected to go from heavy combat in Vietnam to the streets of California in less than two weeks and be perfectly normal.”

Louis knew that the dreaded sounds and smells of combat would be with him for the rest of his life. But he also had a serious, battle-stress issue with his eye that had been ignored by the Naval medics in Vietnam.

To be continued.

Dan Krieger’s column is special to The Tribune. He is a professor emeritus of history at Cal Poly and past president of the California Mission Studies Association.

This story was originally published November 12, 2016 at 8:09 PM with the headline "Former Marine Louis Mello II recalls his service in Vietnam."