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Operation Just Cause REF #:1998 750515 Mayaguez Incident
This page is dedicated to the memory of a brother Marine whom I have never met. PFC Gary Lee Hall, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, 3rd MarDiv, of Covington Ky.
PFC Hall was a member of a machine-gun team that hit the beach on Koh Tang Island along -w- other elements of the 9th Marines, in an effort to secure the release of the crew of the USS Mayaguez. PFC Halls' crew landed in the second assault wave, ancountering heavy resistance from the Mayaguez's Khmer Rogue captors. Initial estimates of enemy strength were of a platoon-sized element, instead - the two helo teams assigned to this area encountered a battallion.
The US assault prompted the communists to release the crewmen, who were placed in a small boat and picked up by an American destroyer. PFC Hall's gun crew were assigned to fight a rearguard action, covering the extraction of their fellow Marines. Hall served his gun until all ammunition was exhausted, and was ordered to withdraw to the helicopters during the last pickup.
PFC Hall and his gun team never made it to the helicopter. Their bodies were never recovered. They remain officially listed as Missing In Action, along with so many others in southeast asia.
A footnote to this story; in 1988 the communist government of Kampuchea offered to return the bodies of US servicemen killed in this area. The number of bodies it offered to return exceeded the battle losses for the ground/air campaigns of the main war effort, and the likelihood is high that PFC Hall & his fellow Marines are included in this group. The US government refuses to recognize the government of Kampuchea, and so the offer was never acted upon.
PFC Hall remains among the missing
The privilige of living under freedom is an expensive one. This page is dedicated to those men and women who have paid a high price so that the rest of us can go about our normal lives. Thousands of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and my fellow Marines remain unaccounted-for...very likely their fate will never be known. Please remember these men and women in your prayers, as well as the families they left behind. Only God can take look after our missing friends now, but it remains to us to never forget them and make their sacrifices mean something.
If you are of legal age, then vote! If it is within your power to go out and change something that you view as unjust...then do so! If all you can do is just make yourself heard...speak out!! Silence and inactivity are the best ways to guarentee that the freedoms these men & women served will be lost - make it worth their efforts......
May God save the United States.
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