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The great snuffie trek home
On Monkey Mountain, Da Nang, Vietnam in 2017. Left to right: Michael Stokey, Bob Bayer, Dale Dye and Eric Grimm.
By Michael Stokey
Get some. I’m not sure what that some was anymore. A remnant of war, slip of the past, a time when everything was at its worse and you and the men around you were at their best – when you were really one for all and all for one? But, in our case, to get some meant you had to get there.
Enter Tim Davis and The Greatest Generations Foundation. Capt. Dale Dye, USMC Ret., a fellow First Marine Division Combat Correspondent had gotten to know Davis a few years ago. A trip most of us avoided for 50 years was in the brewing. A trip down the rabbit hole.
Left to right: Mike Stokey, Rick Grimm, Dale Dye, Gus Hasford and Bob Bayer.
Some of the guys already prepared for an emotional ambush. We were U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents and our Holy Grail was the press pass. It was the most bastard unit in Vietnam – in any war for that matter – and it was also one of the most casualty-ridden. One of our fellow loose cannons was Gustav Hasford, now deceased, author of the novel “The Short Timers,” which was turned into the movie FULL METAL JACKET. Other correspondents had slipped beyond the perimeter. Now, seven remained who agreed to make the run, nine Purple Hearts and three Bronze Star Medals for valor between them. Mostly sergeants at the time, they included Dale Dye, Mike Stokey, Steve Berntson, Robert Bayer, Eric Grimm, Richard Lavers and Frank Wiley. We signed the dotted line to go back again. To go back with each other. To go back alone? Sorry ‘bout that.
