They Marched Into Sunlight

Varied Fare They Marched Into Sunlight. David Maraniss. Simon & Schuster. 561 pages; maps; $29.95.

David Maraniss has written a wonderful book in They Marched into Sunlight. It is a work that ties together the desperate battle that the 2-28 Infantry (Black Lions) fought in Vietnam and the student protest that turned into a violent confrontation with police over Dow Chemical Company's recruiting at the University of Wisconsin's Madison campus a generation ago.

Adding to the drama of his story is knowing that what happened over those few days in October 1967-both in Vietnam and the United States-set the stage for the march on Washington a few weeks later.

Sixty-one Black Lions, including battalion commander Terry Allen, died in the ambush that is one of the two connecting story lines of Maraniss' work. The protest against the company that manufactured Agent Orange and napalm is the other. The disparate stories come together in a surprisingly human way at the book's conclusion.

Maraniss, who won a Pulitzer prize for his biography of football coach Vince Lombardi, "When Pride Still Mattered," has tied together lives of dozens of soldiers, students (including Dick and Lynne Cheney), a troupe of mimes, businessmen, academics and politicians in a stirring narrative that superbly captures the tensions that rent American society then and continue to divide us to this day.

More important, he shows, through telling detail, how the events of 35 years ago still resonate in the lives of the men and women whose stories he so compelling tells. Among the most poignant stories is that of Clark Welch, who returned to Vietnam with a number of the surviving Black Lions decades after the battle that claimed so many.

The citation that accompanied the awarding of the Distinguished Service Cross to Welch in 2003 described the maelstrom that was October 17, 1969. It says, "His first sergeant called to him that enemy soldiers were executing American wounded. [Welch] again rose to his feet, raced forward and killed two more enemy soldiers, then fell unconscious but still alive from five battle wounds and loss of blood."

Most of the men in Welch's company and Alpha Company, whom they were following, died that day. The Vietnamese, veterans from the North, left the scene thinking that all of the American soldiers were killed. Later, a platoon sergeant from within the battalion was sent to reestablish contact with the unit. He found Welch and another soldier against a tree surrounded by 60 dead Vietnamese.

Years later, after meeting with some of the Vietnamese he had fought against, Welch wrote, "We together admire the toughness and bravery of our magnificent soldiers-on both sides. We together grieve for the terrible losses-on both sides."

Maraniss shares with us Welch's grief and story. He shares dozens of such stories in this singularly powerful book.

-John E. Grady

Copyright Association of the United States Army Nov 2003
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