Vietnam veteran gets 'minute' of fame

By John Myers, Internet Photojournalist

Bill Stubbs holds the March 21, 2003 issue of Time magazine that features a photograph of him being dragged away wounded at the battle of Hue City during the Tet offensive in 1968.

Jan. 31, 1968, is a date Bill Stubbs is not likely to forget. It was the second day of the Tet offensive in Vietnam, and Stubbs was wounded for the first of three times in that fight.
A war photograph taken of Stubbs being dragged to safety by some Marine buddies was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 80 decisive moments in its 80th anniversary issue.
"It took 35 years to make Time magazine," he said. "I wasn't feeling too good that day."
One of Stubbs' fellow church members, Sidney Hodges of Hamlet, spotted the picture in the March 21 issue of Time, recognizing it was Stubbs because the photograph was part of a Memorial Day display last year of veterans at Spring Hill Wesleyan Church of Hamlet.
"He saw the magazine photo and said, 'That's Billy there!" Stubbs said of Hodges.
Stubbs, 54, is a Scotland County native who married Barbara Quick of Hamlet. He and his wife attend Spring Hill Wesleyan Church, where they were married, and live near Wagram.
He was 18, a Marine machine-gunner just out of boot camp when he was sent to Vietnam, and was only two weeks from the end of his one-year tour when the Tet offensive began.

Tet offensive battle

The photograph was actually taken on Feb. 4, 1968, the third time Stubbs was wounded during the defense of Hue City. He was wounded first on the second day of the offensive, Jan. 31, 1968, then again on Feb. 1 and again "for the third and last time" on Feb. 4.
The third time, Stubbs was hit in both legs by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade while he and another Marine were carrying a wounded comrade on a wooden door.
But though he was out of action, Stubbs' unit of 53 Marines was surrounded by eight divisions of North Vietnamese Army troops, and he wasn't evacuated until Feb. 5, 1968.
And though he was wounded three times, he only got two Purple Hearts. "I'm not a hero. I'm a veteran," he said. "About every one of us was wounded when we got out of there."
When the Tet offensive began on Jan. 30, 1968, Stubbs' company of the First Marine Division found itself alone and surrounded in Hue City with NVA and Viet Cong troops.

5 Marines executed

Five members of the unit were separated from the company and fought until they ran out of ammunition, then surrendered to the enemy. "They executed all five of them," he said.
Another Marine who was killed at Hue City, Platoon Sgt. Alfredo Gonzalez, "saved our lives that day" by drawing fire from the NVA so his platoon under fire could reach safety.
Gonzalez was killed the same day Stubbs was wounded the third time, Feb. 4, 1968, in Hue City, and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously. A U.S. Navy ship was later named in his honor, a guided-missile destroyer, DDG-66, the USS Gonzalez.
Another Navy ship, an AEGIS cruiser, CG-66, the USS Hue City, was named after that Tet offensive battle in Vietnam, the only ship named after a battle in the Vietnam War.

Urban warfare

Watching the battle for Baghdad in the war in Iraq, Stubbs said he is reminded of the door-to-door fight to retake Hue City after it was occupied by NVA and Viet Cong troops.
"We didn't have any of those M1A1 Abrams tanks. The M-60 tanks we had in Vietnam could be knocked out with an RPG. It was a rich man's war and a poor man's grave.
"I lost a lot of buddies over there. Freedom has a cost," Stubbs said.
Stubbs said he volunteered for the first Gulf War in 1990, but the Marines declined.
"They said, 'Let the young ones go and see how they do. We'll call you if we need you.'"
Stubbs said he backs President Bush on the war in Iraq, and says the first Gulf War was ended too soon by President George H.W. Bush. "We blowed it in '91. When we got right there at Baghdad we should have kept right on going. We should have finished it then."
He said of the president, "I think he's doing the right thing now. It was going to get a lot worse if he didn't. They're going to have to make a believer out of some of those people."
And when he sees protesters against the war in Iraq, it reminds him of the Vietnam war protesters. "I got a problem with that. What burns me up is when I see 'em burning flags."