Ultimately, Capers would receive two Bronze Star Medals with “V” for valor and three Purple Hearts. Capers didn’t receive the citation until 2010, which was 43 years after the actions of that fateful day. One man lost a kidney, another lost a leg ― all of the Marines but the dog survived that battle. It finally went airborne, later crash landing. But he wanted to get his men out of there. What the citation doesn’t say is that at least two times Capers got off the tiny H-34 helo because it loaded down too heavy and couldn’t take off. “Barely able to stand, Major Capers finally boarded the helicopter and was evacuated.”
“While struggling to maintain consciousness and still under attack, Major Capers demanded continuous situation and status reports from his Marines and ensured the entire team was evacuated before himself,” his award citation reads. Even after taking on morphine he coordinated supporting fire and moving his team to the helicopter extraction that saved their lives. Capers sustained multiple wounds from both the explosion and subsequent “dense barrages of direct and indirect enemy fire.”īleeding profusely and moving under two broken legs, Capers shook off the shock and continued fighting, directing his men in the counterattack. On the final day of their jungle jaunt, an enemy daisy-chained claymore mine triggered an attack on his team. But Capers pursued the enemy calling fire on their base camp, which reports following these events would show thwarted an attack on Company M. Two more contacts on the second day, which resulted in 22 enemies killed in action, but also severely wounded one of his Marines. The first day of that planned four-day march, the recon team found out there wasn’t any reason to “suspect” a regiment was in those deep jungles. They were to observe the NVA regiment to protect the flank of Company M, 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines. They weren’t there just to gather more intel for reports back to headquarters. That meant creeping up on a force of 1,500 or more enemy soldiers with support far in the rear. The mission: maneuver through rugged enemy territory and locate a suspected North Vietnamese regimental base camp.
He snaked through that jungle terrain, sporting a recent battlefield commission as a second lieutenant, leading just nine 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company Marines and a dog named King. Jim Capers stepped off on what was to be a four-day foot patrol into the jungles near Phú Lộc, Vietnam. Black Force Recon Marine, battlefield commission, Vietnam War hero … snubbed for the Medal of Honor?Īuthor: Todd South | Originally published by Marine TimesĪt the end of March 1967, Marine 2nd Lt.
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