Mortar Attack at LZ Montezuma 
3rd Bde HQ, 25th/4th Inf Div,
to include the 2/9th Arty
24Jun67

                                            Enemy mortars landing at helipad                                                           Mortar shrapnel shreds tent                                                       

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Enemy mortars hit a lucrative target at the
174th Aviation Company helipad & living quarters

I only had about 3 weeks left of my tour and I was having a hard time sleeping, so it was not unusual to be standing outside our tent in the early morning hours.  But on the morning of the 24th, mortar rounds started dropping not far away.  I saw immediately that they were "walking" the rounds in toward the helicopters on the helipad.  I ran into our tent and got everybody up and in the bunkers.  Then I grabbed my camera, climbed the shower and took some pictures of the attack.  The attached side by side picture shows a picture during the attack, and the exact view I had of the area of the helipad from our tent.

When the attack ended, I walked over a few tents away and entered one that had taken a direct hit.  The dead and wounded had already been taken away, but I could tell from all the blood on the floor and the huge, gaping hole in the ceiling of the tent, that there had been some serious damage done.  I knew that I would never forget that gaping hole in the tent against the night sky, so it was really weird to find a picture of it years later on an aviation website (it's attached).  The 174th Attack Helicopter Company had posted that picture along with this account of the attack:

"The tent housing many of the 409th Transportation Corps (TC) Detachment (our mechanics) took a direct hit from a VC mortar with a contact fuse during a mortar attack that hit the 174th Company area at Duc Pho during the pre-dawn hours on 24 June 1967. Two mechanics were killed immediately and 35 total were injured.  The entire unit was still living in tents and more permanent facilities (the bunkered hootches to come later) had not yet been built. SP4 Larry Guentzel and SP4 Thomas Dickinson died instantly in their sleep. SP4 Gary Markle was severely injured with brain damage from shrapnel and survived as a paraplegic for over 29 years with only partial use of one arm. He could not use his legs or other arm. The doctors could not remove the shrapnel from his brain, and in the mid-1990's pieces of that shrapnel finally shifted enough to also take his sight. In 1996 he suffered severe burns when he was unable to control the hot water in a bath. He died of complications from those burns on 28 Sep 96."

It was really sad to finally learn the extent of the damage that mortar attack had inflicted.

submitted by
Danny Yates

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FROM THE FILES OF THE 174th HELICOPTER ATTACK COMPANY

The tent housing many of the 409th Transportation Corps (TC) Detachment (our mechanics) took a direct hit from a VC mortar with a contact fuse during a mortar attack that hit the 174th Company area at Duc Pho during the pre-dawn hours on 24 June 1967. Two mechanics were killed immediately and 35 total were injured. Jim McDaniel was sleeping three tents away and took the first two of these three photos of the tent the next morning. The entire unit was still living in tents and more permanent facilities (the bunkered hootches to come later) had not yet been built. SP4 Larry Guentzel and SP4 Thomas Dickinson died instantly in their sleep. SP4 Gary Markle was severely injured with brain damage from shrapnel and survived as a paraplegic for over 29 years with only partial use of one arm. He could not use his legs or other arm. The doctors could not remove the shrapnel from his brain, and in the mid-1990's pieces of that shrapnel finally shifted enough to also take his sight. In 1996 he suffered severe burns when he was unable to control the hot water in a bath. He died of complications from those burns on 28 Sep 96. Markle's wife considers his death a direct result of his wounds in Vietnam and is attempting to get his name added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. She has not been successful. One Shark pilot in the tent next to this one took some shrapnel in his back.

Source: Fred Thompson June 1992, Jim McDaniel August 1996, Ted Saunders September 1996, and 14th CAB unit history for 1971 (Sloniker) July 1992. (Photos 1 and 2 by Jim McDaniel, photo 3 by Andrew Karsada, Duc Pho, June 1967)