A Tribute to Sandy

11/11/11 End the wars.

Marion Lee “Sandy” Kempner
(April 16, 1942 - November 11, 1966)

There is a room on the third floor of the Rosenberg Library in Galveston, Texas, labeled “Sandy’s Room.” The furnishing of it was funded by one of Galveston's "upper crust" families, and is dedicated to the memory of Marion Lee “Sandy” Kempner, who was killed in the Viet Nam war. Sandy Kempner was, by all accounts, a remarkable young man. He attended Duke University where he was on the Dean’s List, he spent time in the Peace Corps, and after initially deciding to enter law school at age 24, Sandy instead enlisted in the US Marine Corps, leaving behind a life of sailing and society, wealth and influence – influence which you will glimpse when you read about his being visited in the jungles of Viet Nam by a representative of Brown & Root (as in KBR/Halliburton)* at the behest of his mother to see that his platoon got needed equipment. Sandy landed in Viet Nam in July of 1966, and died there a few short months later on November 11.

Following are excerpts from letters printed in the American Jewish Archives journal under a chapter called “Letters from Sandy.” The first two excerpts are from letters to the Kempner family from Marines expressing condolences for their loss, and the remainder are taken from letters from Sandy to his family while serving in Viet Nam.

* Raymond International, Morrison-Knudsen, Brown & Root, and J.A. Jones Construction - calling itself "The Vietnam Builders." [...] The Vietnam Builders had entered into a contract with the US federal government, via the U.S. Navy, as the exclusive contractor for the huge military buildup that was to come; there would be no open bidding or otherwise competitive process.

RMK-BRJ did 97% of the construction work in Vietnam. The other 3% went to local Vietnamese contractors. Between 1965 and 1972 Brown & Root (Halliburton) alone obtained revenues of $380 million from its work in Vietnam.

~~~~~

January 20, 1967
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Kempner:

I recently received the news that your son and my friend Lt. Kempner was killed in Vietnam. No news could be more tragic. I am truly very sorry and wish to express my sincere sympathy for you and your family.

[...]

I wrote to you once before when your son was in the hospital with a gunshot wound. Your son had asked Sgt. Dees to write to you but Sgt. Dees found it difficult and asked me to write a letter for him which I did; because Sgt. Dees had been asked to write we decided that he should sign his name. I'm sure that he and you will forgive me but because of this and your very kind reply to that letter, I feel that I know you and the love you had for your son.

My name is Ken MacLean, and I was the Company corpsman assigned to 1st platoon Mike 3-7. Lt. Kempner was my platoon commander, but he was also my friend.

[...]

I think that Lt. Kempner believed very strongly in what we were doing in Vietnam. He was concerned about the people and how they reacted to our presence. Your son went on many patrols that he didn't have to in order to gain a better knowledge of the terrain and also to see to the safety of his troops.

[...]

I treated your son when he was wounded the first time, and he helped me when I was shot through the face on November 7.

[...]

If you can understand, there is a kind of love that you feel for men with whom you go through a little bit of hell with. I am sure that Lt. Kempner felt it for his men and that his men felt it for him. That is why it is difficult to express my sense of loss and to express my heart felt sympathy for your loss. And it is that love that makes me want to help ease your grief. Please forgive me if my effort is in any way adding to your grief.

[...]

I feel very helpless at this moment and I can only pray that your
grief is not more than you can bear, and that you might know that your son's death was not in vain. His courage and sense of duty will be a source of inspiration to many of us who were associated with him.

Your son recommended me for the Silver Star for doing nothing more than what he had done many times. I shall always cherish that recommendation and the memory of the man that made it.

Yours sincerely,
(Sgd) Ken MacLean

~~~~~

January 12, 1967
Dear Sir:

[...]

Sandy led by example and never hesitated to expose himself to direct his troops or close with the enemy. The executive officer of the battalion told me he just met Sandy on patrol-they engaged the VCs in a sharp flurry and the major said, "While I was ducking for cover behind some rocks, there was Sandy frowning over his map and pointing towards the VCs, standing bolt up, utterly ignoring the fire." He was what the Marine Corps calls a hard-charger. Both the battalion executive and his company commander thought he had the makings of a top officer and were hoping he would make the Marines a career

[...]

Johnson said, "He was exuberant and outgoing-He didn't hesitate to say what he thought and felt, even if it didn't follow the official line-He was fresh, eager and determined, just what a platoon commander should be. He left his mark on his troops and would have been heard from and would have been known throughout the Corps if he had decided to make it a career."

[...]

The exact circumstances of his death were recounted to me in detail [...] The refugees had fled from My Loc, where the enemy build-up had caused an increased demand for rice and the villagers were pressed into service as coolies and serfs. In desperation, thousands of them had quit the area en masse, bringing literally nothing with them when they came walking into Tien Phu/Chulai. So the Marines decided to escort them back to their homes that they might gather their rice harvests and collect their belongings.

[...]

It was on one such patrol that Sandy was hit. He was leading his platoon and they were coming in west to east from a patrol of the outer paddies when they spotted a booby trap (a Chinese Communist grenade with a trip wire attached). This they disarmed. No sooner had they proceeded 30 yards when they saw another mine; this was a 35 pound high-explosive 105 mm. artillery round. Sandy disarmed it and then picked it up, placed it on his shoulder and told the patrol to move out toward base, where he would turn the round over to the G-2 shop. Some 200 yards farther they came to a fast running stream and cut north to a fording point. That too was mined and a Marine near Sandy tripped it-there was an explosion and Sandy and another Marine went down. Sandy directed the corpsman to take care of the other Marine first. When they examined Sandy, they found he had been struck in the abdomen by a piece of shrapnel. [...] He was conscious but in deep shock. He was not in pain at all but his coloring was not good. Within a few minutes, a helicopter arrived on the scene to medevac both Marines. His platoon sergeant, Staff Sergeant William Krajcigs, carried Sandy to the helicopter. During the flight to the hospital, he succumbed and his heart stopped beating.

[...]

But, to write for a minute as a Marine, from talking to those who knew him in combat, I know he left something. He loved his men and watched out for them and cared for them. And they remember him and will continue to do so throughout their lives. They're not much for writing because they don't quite know what to say. [...] He will be missed and he will be remembered in these ranks.[...] He was what we think a commander of Marines should be: professional but human, both very brave and compassionate.

[...]

Yours sincerely,
(Sgd.) Bing,
F.J. WEST, Jr. Capt. USMC (R)

~~~~~

Letters from Sandy

20 July, 1966
Dear Mom and Dad:

I'm in Viet Nam. I'm in the First Division, which is based in Chu Lai. My Regiment is the 7th which is, of course, generally regarded as the best in the Marine Corps, and my Battalion, the 3rd, has done the most and the best fighting in that Regiment. My Company, "Mike" or "M", has just moved to a new position and is having some opposition. I know that this will not be appreciated by all, but I must say that I'm terribly happy to be here and I am feeling quite confident about the whole scene.

[...]

Love,
Sandy

~~~~~

24 July 1966
Dear Mom, Dad and Etc.:

I am very sorry that I have not written in so long, but life has been getting a little hectic around here. I will say only that I have had my first ablution in three days this morning and have yet to shave off my four-day beard, but there's hope,-I finally got to take off my boots to pour the water off!

[...]

I'm in Mike Company, on a hill called Tren Dan, which is about one mile north of the Song Tra Bang River at about Coordinate 574924. Two days before I got here we were almost overrun, with my Platoon taking the brunt of the losses, but now we have fire and tanks with infrared yet. We are probed every night, and I have patrols every night, and it would all be exciting as hell if I had time to think about it.

The monsoons seem to have started early and it's raining every night, two to seven feet of water in every hole.

[...]

I would give my left nut to have a hot shower, but I would give both to have enough equipment for my men. But we will get all of it as soon as the clerks and dentists and et cetera at Division and Regiment finish picking out what they want.

[...]

Love,
Sandy

~~~~~

1 August, 1966
Dear Mom and Dad, Shrub, Peach and ?:

[...]

Life is creeping on in its petty pace: patrols, ambushes and snipers. One satisfaction is that out of necessity I have become a scavenger and now I am a familiar sight in salvage yards, trash dumps, supply sheds and the like. In a party at Battalion I saw an ice box lying around unattended and was thinking seriously how I could steal it, when I turned to find the S-4 and the X.0 of Battalion watching me attentively as they had been warned of my newfound talent and latent proclivities.

[...]

I don't think I can be any more detailed as to my location except to say that my Co-ordinates are 573922, and if you see nothing on the map of this location, don't let it throw you. Not even Rand McNally would be found dead in this place.

[...]

Love,
Sandy

~~~~~

7 August, 1966
Dear Mom, Dad, and And So Forth:

Jesus, Mom, three rainsuits? Anyway, thanks for getting them to me so quickly as it rained the night I got them. I put one pair on, only to find myself sweating to death, but then, jumping from the pot into the fire is my forte anyway.

[...]

I have just given a class on ambushes. I was chosen because of my charm, intelligence, and messianic-like personality, and besides, I am the only graduate of the Basic School besides the Captain in the whole Company and therefore have all the books.

[...]

So I gave a brilliant dissertation on the fine art and the finer points of committing mayhem from a hidden position on unsuspecting and probably innocent people to a sea of young and blank faces. As I finished there were resounding cries of "Bravo," "Encore," etc., flowers were thrown, and I was carried off to my tent by my audience. As I think I might have stated, my Sergeant got my people into shape and they are now obeying orders without question, as exampled by the above.

[...]

Mom, don't worry about the shortages here. As I wrote Jim Kean, after listing a long line of bitches and complaints, "In short, it's like all wars have ever been, except that I'm in this one."

Love,
Sandy

~~~~~

August 9, 1966
Dear Mummum and Muggins:

[...]

Muggins, I am told that to put it mildly, you have some reservations about this [...] You, of course, are not alone in these feelings but a couple of points should be made. Our claim to legality is that we were invited to come here by the Viet Nam government and, however flimsy that legality is, considering the flimsiness of the government's claim as the legally constituted one of this country, such is the peg upon which we hang our hat, and it is a lot stronger than many we have hung it on before, such as the Spanish-American War, a host of expeditions against South American sovereignties, or, for that matter, our declaration of war against Germany in World War I. But the legality or lack of it is really of no importance because our friends on the other side are not bothered by such trivialities and, if we are, then we can primly say that we have followed the legal and narrow trail and to lose the battle to an opponent who is not playing by our rules. We are here because we think this is where we must fight to stop a Communist threat, but not having gained momentum in conquering this country could bow us out of Asia altogether. And perhaps out of existence.

[...]

Love,
Sandy

~~~~~

12 August, 1966
Dear Almoo:

[...]

We have been doing a lot of work in the villages lately, of the community development type, so it looks as though I will never get away from the Peace Corps days. We must be really messing up these people's minds: by day we treat their ills and fix up their children and deliver their babies, and by night, if we receive fire from the general direction of their hamlet, fire generally will reach them albeit not intentionally; they must really be going around in circles. But I guess that just points up the strangeness of this war. We have two hands, both of which know what the other is doing, but does the opposite anyway.

[...]

Love,
Sandy

~~~~~

2 September, 1966
Dear Mom, Dad, Shrub, the Egg and Peach:

Sorry to be so long in writing, but I have just come back from an abortion called Operation Jackson and I spent a three-day's "walk in the sun" (and paddies and fields and mountains and impenetrable jungle and saw-grass and ants, and screwed-up radios and no word, and deaf radio operators, and no chow, and too many C-rations, and blisters & torn trousers and jungle rot, and wet socks and sprained ankles and no heels, and, and, and,) for a Battalion that walked on roads and dykes the whole way and a Regiment that didn't even know where the Battalion was, finished off by a 14,000 meter forced march on a hard road.

[...]

Then, two days after we got back, we played Indian Scout, and my Platoon splashed its way through a rice paddy at 3:30 in the morning in a rainstorm to surround a hamlet which we managed to do somehow without alerting everyone in the district, which is surprising as we made enough noise to wake up a Marine sentry. It was "very successful" since we managed to kill a few probably innocent civilians, found a few caves and burned a few houses, all in a driving rain storm.

[...]

Love,
Sandy

~~~~~

September ?, 1966
Dear Mom, Dad, Shrub, Peach and Pet:

For God sake, put another twist in the cornucopia. Between the food and all the ants that are trying to get at it, there is no room for anyone on the hill. I have received three (3) packages, two of food and one of socks, and the two envelopes of lemonade, etc. and of magazines. Now everyone can relax, I don't need any more of anything except the magazine and occasional boxes of cookies as I am surfeited with stuff that I will never eat through, although my Platoon and Company might achieve that goal in slightly less time.

Now, Mom, do not-I repeat, do not go tilting at any windmills over this supply thing. Most of this gear is here. It is just a little slow in getting to us sometimes, and frequently you are a little faster (as usual).

[...]

Please, mom, don't bitch to anybody. Everything is all right, except that there's a war on.

Love,
Sandy

~~~~~

September 16, 1966
Dear Mom and Dad, doting father-to-be, Peach and Fuzzy:

While walking down the road one day, in the merry, merry month of September, my squad got into a heluva fray, and lost (momentarily), one member.

ME!

I am all right, I am all right, I am all right, etc.

A carbine round hit me where it would do the most good, right in the butt, the left buttock to be exact, exiting from the upper thigh. It hit no bones, blood vessels, nerves, or anything else of importance except my pride. It was, however, a little bit closer to my pecker than was comfortable, but that is as good as ever, although it is now going through a year's hibernation.

I am writing this letter in the hospital less than one hour after I got hit; so please don't worry.

Love,
Sandy

~~~~~

Received October 20, 1966
Dear Mom, Dad, Shrub, Peach, and Early Bird:

[...]

Dad, I would like to comment on your statement that this was the wrong war for us to be fighting. In the first place, of course, there has never been a right war for us to fight. War, as our German geniuses say, is politics of a different means, and as a play called Command Decision puts it, war is entered into when politics, reason, discussions, and civilization have failed. It is the return to the primeval ooze.

[...]

We reward those who are for us, neutral, or willing to give up their arms to us (Chu Hoy-Open Arms). It is these for whom we create C.A. [Civic Action] projects like Phu Le3 where, in the initial phases, he can find protection from V.C. if not the legal governmental predators, (but at least now he only has one to pay off to), medical and dietary aid, schools, and simply a chance. We punish others, sometimes, perhaps frequently, innocent others, by destroying their village (which is almost never done, and wouldn't have been in No Name 1 except this Company has lost over 70 men dead and wounded in it or just outside of it), burning individual houses from which we get fire, or just make life so intolerable for them that they have to move. Now they can either go into our protected hamlet or they can go somewhere else, in which case they are probably V.C. or V.C.--influenced. Will it work? Wait and See.

[...]

The constant and consistent invasions of South American sovereign states had little to do with "traditions of decency", and the country which planned and perpetrated the fire bombing of Dusseldorf and Tokyo and the bombing of Nagasaki certainly can't claim any monopoly or tradition of "regard for mankind". We look out for our own interests, sometimes badly and occasionally well. As far as it being dreadful to have to participate here, it is dreadful being here; but as far as the participation, I personally have lost five to ten men in No Name, and was in fact, shot, myself, not 400 meters from it. This strategy may not be perfect, but it makes more sense than anything else I have heard lately, including atom bombing the place, trying to fight an orthodox war in a country which for the most part, is constructed to make that alternative a giant blood bath.

[...]

I met Mr. Brown's man in Viet Nam. He looked as though he belonged as much in the construction business as Aunt Fannie, but he couldn't be nicer. He had evidently gone all the way up to the D.M.Z. to find me, where, but for the grace of the photographers and the deficient light in those regions, I would have been, finally going to Regiment where he queried the Regimental C. 0. as to my whereabouts. That gentleman, Colonel Snoody (would you believe it?) by name, who undoubtedly did not even know of my existence hitherto, now does, and is no doubt damn curious to find out what kind of black market operation I'm running in league with RMK-BRJ. Mr. Ragans came in a civilian truck with a security officer of the Chu Lai RMK-etc. operations named Roma Haynes, who is an All American boy aged 35 with a pot belly, plus an interpreter-none of them armed, and all dressed in loafers, short sleeved shirts, slacks, etc., with about six inches of mud in the dry spots. Mr. Ragans apologized for the absence of Mr. Allison, the head of Brown & Root, who was unavoidably detained in Saigon, but that he had so wanted to come and meet me! [...] They were extremely kind, offering me the refreshment
facilities at their Chu Lai operation, and all the names of all the people to ask for there for that and various and sundry items of which I might find myself in need, which at that point ranged from dry socks, to a claw hammer, to a piece of ass,-and not necessarily in that order, but all of which they assured me were available.

[...]

Tell Mr. Brown that I don't know what he uses to get such response from his people, but if it's anything else besides money, I wish he would tell me so that I can use it on my people! Whatever he did, he obviously used the triple whammy instead of just an every day single or double, which is no doubt a direct result of the person who requested it in the first place. [...] Thank you, Mom.

[...]

Love,
Sandy

~~~~~

Oct. 20, 1966
Dear Aunt Fannie,

[...]

Viet Nam [...] is a country of thorns and cuts, of guns and marauding, of little hope and of great failure, yet in the midst of it all, a beautiful thought, gesture, and even person can arise among
it waving bravely at the death that pours down upon it. Some day this hill will be burned by napalm, and the red flower [on it] will crackle up and die among the thorns. So what was the use of it living and being a beauty among the beasts, if it must, in the end, die because of them, and with them

[...]

There once was a time when the Jewish idea of heaven and hell was the thoughts and opinions people had of you after you died. But what if the plant was on an isolated hill and was never seen by anyone: that is like the question of whether the falling tree makes a sound in the forest primeval when no one is there to hear it: it makes a sound, and the plant was beautiful and the thought was kind; and the person was humane, and distinguished, and brave, not merely because other people recognized it as such, but because it is, and it is, and it is.

[...]

The flower will always live in the memory of a tired, wet Marine, and has thus achieved a sort of immortality; but even if we had never gone on that hill, it would still be a distinguished, soft, red, thornless flower growing among the cutting, scratching plants, and that in itself is its own reward.

[...]

Love,
Sandy

~~~~~

30 Oct. 1966
Dear Marion,

When I last saw you, you professed an interest in the Civic Action programs that were being pursued by the Marine Corps in general and my company in particular, or perhaps it was the company we were keeping at the time.

[...]

Despite the importance placed on the C.A. program, or perhaps because of it, it is impossible to get the right stuff at the right time. To wit: we have a hospital in Phu Le3 and therefore we need medicine [...] Requests for medicine goes in once a month in a form that would take Houdini to unravel. Battalion cuts the request in half, Regiment halves that, then Division, then M.A.F., then CARE, and then God knows who else including the dock workers in Saigon who steal their share. How long does this take? If you are lucky, it takes 45 days from the time Battalion sends in its combined request (all, the companies) to Regiment. If your company sent in its request in the beginning of the month, then the minimum is as much as 75 days. Have you ever had to tell a child with ulcers gaping at you from her arms and legs to wait two months at which time the richest country in the world may send some penicillin which is itself of a type no longer used and whose maximum date of use passed two years ago and which some pharmaceutical company managed to get rid of, gain a reputation for generosity thereby, and garner a tax write-off all at the same time?

[...]

So of course, you don't use the normal channels or at least you don't depend on them. You have career officers in the Marine Corps putting their careers on the line every time they send out troops to steal gear to be used for C.A. work; you have Navy doctors going through warehouses with a basket under their arms stowing boxes of Mercurochrome and bandages surreptitiously in their utilities and the basket like a shoplifter in a grocery store; corpsmen write to nurses to steal medicine from hospitals at home and send them to V.N.; S and G-5 personnel cumshaw, beg, steal, and abscond all kinds of gear which they hand out to C.A. people as if it were gold which, considering the trouble gone through to get it, might as well be.

[...]

My reason for being here is because the Marine Corps sent me here, my willingness to be here stems from my belief that we are doing, if "right" is a word unusable when describing international politics and/or war, a "righter" thing by being here trying to give these people a chance and a choice, than if we were either not in it at all or if being in here enough to keep the place from being taken over without a chance to say yes or no. (I recognize that most of these people couldn't care less, as long as they are left alone, but even so, communist regimes have never been known for letting the people in general, and farmers in particular, alone). Most of us here are willing to let V.N. go in whatever direction it wishes, but I for one, and most others I believe, want a guarantee that these people have a choice not (to gather in a slogan from a different but somehow pertinent NEANDERTHALIC mentality) an echo.

Love,
Sandy

~~~~~

Marion Lee “Sandy” Kempner (April 16, 1942-November 11, 1966)

Sandy’s page on the Viet Nam War Veterans Memorial Wall Online