Neil, Micheal

Marines

"I really believe that the Marines, Soldiers, Sailors -- World War II maybe had the greatest generation -- but the finest generation fought in Vietnam. Because they fought in a time when it was all that antiwar fervor going on. But they stood up and they realized their obligation to our country. And they went and they served. And those that served under those circumstances, an unpopular war, to me were the finest."

Description of Interview:
Michael Neil was raised in a Marine family, mostly in San Diego, California. After graduating from law school at the University of California Berkeley, he went to OCS at Quantico, Virginia, graduated in 1966 and was commissioned in the Marine Corps. After six months of Basic School at Quantico followed by 30 days of leave, he deployed to Vietnam in June 1967. As an infantry second lieutenant, he became a replacement platoon commander in Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, and joined his new platoon in the field. After six months, he became a spotter in the back seat of an O-1 Bird Dog. Neil remembers patrols and ambushes, a corpsman being shot through the leg, hand-to-hand combat, heroic Marines “like out of the movies,” and a medevac pilot do “one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen.” He recalls sending Corporal Larry Smedley (later Medal of Honor recipient) to squad leader school in Okinawa, the “excellent appointment” and hunting skills of Southern boys, the black Marines who called themselves splibs, and the sharing of letters (“our only form of real entertainment”). He describes saving a Marine recon unit, getting a shrapnel wounded from a tomato can landmine, waking up under white mosquito netting and thinking he had died, and getting a little peck on the cheek from Raquel Welch at the Bob Hope Show. Neil also comments on “the worst example of a Marine officer” he’s ever seen; flame tanks, sappers, Bangalore torpedoes, and RPGs; his Marines mascot GTO, newspaper articles in the San Diego Union, and Irish whiskey in a plastic baby bottle.
 
Key Words: Long Beach, California, San Diego, University of California Berkeley law school, Young Socialist Alliance, officer candidate school, OCS, Quantico, Virginia, Basic School, Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, Hill 55, Hill 41, Hill 10, Da Nang, platoon commander, O-1 Bird Dog, Marble Mountain, China Beach, Navy Cross, Chieu Hoi, Medal of Honor, 4th of July, Silver Star, H-34, 120-millimeter rocket launchers, AO (aerial observer), Okinawa, splibs, grunts, napalm, airstrikes, Bouncing Betty, San Diego State, Happy Valley, flame tank, Bangalore torpedoes, CAP unit, San Diego Union articles, LAX, SKS-44, AK-47, Marine Corps Recruit Depot Museum, Chicom, Chinese communist grenade, MCRD, Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, Gitmo, Guantanamo Bay, Reserves, Reidy O'Neil's
 
Key Names: Jean Hadley “Cheesy” Neil, Grace Pauline Neil-Sullivan, Corporal Larry Smedley, Corporal Dohanish, Rudyard Kipling, Rich Gannon, Smedley Butler, McKinley, Colonel Bill Davis, General Ray Davis, Evans, Captain Kevin Larsen, Raquel Welch (Raquel Tejada), GTO, Johnny Callahan, Bill Coleman, Bill McAdam, Mike Reidy, Platoon Sergeant Joe Lambert
 
Interview Date:
September 12, 2017
 
Service Date:
1966-1993
 
Unit: 
Company D, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines Regiment, 1st Marine Division
 
Specialty:
Platoon commander
 
Service Location:

Hill 55, Hill 41, Hill 10, Da Nang, I Corps

 
 

Read the Complete Transcript of this Interview.