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Season 10 Episode 26 | 28m 30s | Video has closed captioning.
Fifty years after the last US troops left Vietnam, three wounded Marine veterans reunite at Patriots Point Naval Museum in Charleston to remember Lucy Caldwell – the Vietnam volunteer who wrote 'last letters' home to their families, when ‘Lucy’s Boys’ weren’t sure they’d make it back alive. It’s a story you’ll see only on PBS Charlotte, about how one person can make a difference.
Aired: 05/17/23
- [Announcer] Support for Carolina Impact comes from our viewers and Wells Fargo.
- [Narrator] Wells Fargo has donated $390 million.
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- [Narrator] To support housing affordability solutions across America.
- You're never gonna get it!
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Wells Fargo, the bank of doing.
- [Announcer] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.
This week on a Special Carolina Impact, PBS Charlotte travels to Patriots Point Naval Museum in Charleston for the inspiring story about one woman during the Vietnam War.
- She said, "Sure, Marine."
And she'd come over and introduced herself as Lucy Collins.
- [Announcer] Helping hundreds of wounded Marines overseas.
- I reached for my shotgun.
I realized a blast had blown my left arm off.
- [Announcer] Reconnecting with their families back home.
- [Lucy] To tell them not to worry, and that he was okay.
- Which my parents said, that was like the best thing that could happen.
What a lady.
- [Announcer] Just when they needed each other the most.
- When there's a Marine car in front of your house, and this is happening every day.
- [Announcer] We'll take you to the emotional reunion 50 years later.
- I want to personally say to you thank you for your service.
- Meeting all of Lucy's Boys was one of the best things that ever happened to me in my life.
- [Announcer] PBS Charlotte presents Carolina Impact "Lucy's Boys: Letters from Vietnam."
(exciting music) - We're here in Charleston Harbor on the flight deck of the USS Yorktown.
This is where the choppers and fighters took off and landed during the Vietnam War.
Lots of memories on this old war ship.
Yorktown earning five battle stars during Vietnam.
It's retired now, but it's got a proud history, much like the Marines who earned their battle scars in Vietnam but who still visit here at Patriot's Point to reunite and to remember.
(bagpipes playing) - To all who have served in Vietnam that are here today for this special service of remembrance, we are here to say to you, welcome home.
- [Jeff] Dale Wilson drove down from his hometown just north of Charlotte for this ceremony.
Clebe McClary made the trip from nearby Pawley's Island, and Tom Mundy flew in from New York.
Three Vietnam veterans who never met during the war, but will never forget who they met during the war, that special Vietnam volunteer they're celebrating here.
- As we honor Lucy Caldwell, her life and selfless actions towards our troops, Lucy's Boys, to maintain freedom for us and to foster freedom around the world.
(bagpipes playing) We love this country.
We love these vets, these men and women who have served and given so much.
- Yeah, this is a story about all these names etched in stone and etched in the memories of friends and families, all these lost loved ones who served and died in Vietnam, as well as the wounded who served and survived Vietnam, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, all suffering and separate because of the fighting in Vietnam.
- Get the machine guns up here.
- Our team got hit and I got wounded.
- [Jeff] But still writing from Vietnam.
- They were all over us before we knew what was happening.
- [Jeff] Many letters asking for prayers, some simply saying goodbye.
- Fall out, fall out boy, get up here.
- Please don't worry about me.
(soldiers yelling) I love you, Clebe.
You know, let's tell your wife, let's tell your wife what happened.
- Tara Reeves wasn't even born yet when her dad sent his letter from a Vietnam battlefield hospital, not knowing then if he'd ever see his family again.
- A young man from Georgetown, South Carolina.
He's a very much decorated Marine, Lieutenant Clebe McClary.
- [Jeff] But in 1969, Clebe McClary made it back from Vietnam with half an arm, a missing eye, and a story to tell.
- You have never lived until you nearly died.
Maybe that doesn't mean a great deal to you.
It didn't to me until I nearly died.
About 10 or 12 of the enemy in what we call a sapper unit, probably better known to you as a suicide squad, started running up the hill.
These men had grenades tied around their waists.
As I got near, another grenade came in.
As it did, I threw my hand up, it exploded.
It blew my left eye out.
A couple other grenades came in and took my legs out from under me.
As I was going through the air, all I could think of was, man, where's my shotgun?
As I reached back for it.
I reached for my shotgun, I realized a blast and blown my left arm off.
- [Jeff] It's a story McClary still tells today as a retired Marine, now in his 80s, with his wife Deanna at his side.
- Oh, I begged him not to go to Vietnam.
I pleaded with him.
But there's a Marine car in front of your house, and this is happening every day in the same scene that we all know that when the car is there, it usually means they're dead.
- [Jeff] And their story of that night on that hill in Vietnam, well, it's still just as vivid now as it was more than 50 years ago.
- It really is, and I have a hard time because it brings back memories you're trying to put out of your head, and I go blank on that hill quite a bit.
I laid there, it seemed like hours.
I never wanted to live so bad in my life.
If I could only see my men get off that hill alive.
If I could see my wife one more time.
(audience applauding) - When he stood up there, they all stood.
When he finished speaking, they all stood.
- But I was scared to death.
Man, I was petrified.
Even in the hospital, I really didn't know how she was gonna react.
- She said, "Well, he's alive."
I went, "What?
He's alive?"
- [Jeff] The letter that came a few days later, dictated by her husband in his hospital bed, gave Deanna hope, and so did the letter writer.
- Lucy Caldwell, USO.
And I thought, who is Lucy Caldwell to be in there with this bloodied body and sitting there letting me know he's alive?
I always wondered.
- [Tara] I've written this letter exactly as your husband has asked me to.
It is an honor.
- [Jeff] And years later, re-reading that same letter, their daughter Tara wondered too.
- Lucy Caldwell, USO.
I started Googling Lucy Caldwell.
I thought, I'm just gonna explore who this woman is.
(church bell ringing) (patriotic music) - [Announcer] Well loved and well remembered by all alumni.
- [Jeff] That search brings us to football Saturdays here at Princeton University.
- [Announcer] Hear the Tiger fans cheer the first touchdown in the victory over Yale.
- [Jeff] Where Lucy Caldwell was the wife and widow of longtime Hall of Fame Princeton coach Charlie Caldwell.
But at age 56 and now alone, Caldwell left her home in Princeton for Vietnam as a volunteer, spending three years at the USO in China Beach.
The Princeton papers are filled with stories about Caldwell, known in Da Nang as Lucy Baby, collecting donations from friends back home for all those weary Marines in the middle of a war zone.
But in Vietnam's battlefield hospital wards, Caldwell was best known for spending countless hours comforting the wounded and writing hundreds of letters for those injured Marines known as Lucy's Boys, including a young lieutenant from South Carolina named Clebe McClary.
- And in this field hospital, he could not see, so he never saw Lucy.
But in this hospital, when he did regain consciousness, this precious woman, he remembers her sweet voice and probably the click of her heels.
She sat beside his bed and befriended him.
She got daddy to talk about his patrol.
I mean, that's a real gift.
I can only imagine her sitting next to his bed just kind of coaxing it out of him and what a tremendous role that was.
- I didn't know any of that 'til really just recently who she was, but I remember her being there, and then she wrote some other letters too, I think.
- [Jeff] In fact, Lucy wrote a book about all those letters for all those injured Marines, letters that often prepared their loved ones for those injuries, too.
- He was there in the bed and he said, "Honey, it's me, it's me.
I know I'm not too pretty to look at, but I thank God I'm alive to be with you right now."
- [Jeff] And for those Marines who didn't make it home from the hospital, well, many of those Lucy letters were also their last letters.
- Lucy was a mother too, and I think putting her heart in that mother's heart or that wife's heart, this is what I would want to hear, but I think Lucy recognized the value in a handwritten note.
These are treasures.
- Lucy Caldwell's book, published back in the '70s, about her years as a USO volunteer in Vietnam, is titled "SIN: One Way Economy Class," which refers to the boarding pass on Lucy's one-way flight to Singapore, which eventually landed her in Vietnam.
It's a flight that countless Marines and Marine families are glad that Lucy Caldwell made because of the difference that Lucy Caldwell made in their lives while she was there.
(typewriter tapping) - [Lucy] On one of my last nights in NSA in early 1970, I stopped to talk with the man who lost both legs and his right arm.
He was in his early 20s.
- [Jeff] Chapter 33 of Lucy Caldwell's book, "Willy and the Third Herd," is the heroic story of this young North Carolina corporal leading his fellow Marines through a Vietnamese ravine.
- [Lucy] They were in the bush outside An Hoa.
- [Jeff] That's not Lucy's voice you're hearing, but these are her words.
- [Lucy] Willy was from the Fifth Marines and had been point man on patrol when it all happened.
(gunshots firing) - I was getting close to the time of coming home.
- [Jeff] Dale Wilson, known as Willy to his Marine platoon, isn't so young anymore, but that moment that Lucy Caldwell writes about, that memory of his last patrol in Vietnam, doesn't fade easily.
- I had my people spread out good.
Everybody's far enough away and going through the ravine.
My point man motioned the way to go, and that's when it went off.
(explosion booming) - [Jeff] Wilson had seen this kind of Vietnamese booby trap before in these Marine training films at Parris Island, Camp Lejeune.
- [Narrator] The Viet Cong rely heavily on mines and booby traps to knock out vehicles and kill their enemies.
(explosion booming) On footpaths and trails, along hedgerows, on fence gates and on rice patty dykes.
Many VC mines, like that prepared with this mortar round, are rigged for detonation with pressure-type devices made of bamboo or of wood.
These are some of the explosive devices the VC plant as mines and set as booby traps.
- Best I can understand is command detonated an artillery round.
We fire stuff out and if it doesn't go off, they can put a blasting cap in it and run it under the rice paddies, and there's not much way of seeing wires.
(explosion booming) All my guys were circled there.
I told them to get a perimeter going.
They was all in the circle.
- [Lucy] When he had been hit, Willy's first thought had been for the platoon.
Even as parts of his body were torn from him, Willy turned back to yell a warning, "Don't come near.
It's okay, but stay there, leave me alone.
Don't get hurt."
- Just leave me on the poncho.
This leg was gone, and this one the boot blew off, so I probably knew something was happening there.
When my hand fell off, I knew I was hit pretty good, but they got me on the chopper.
The corpsman went with me and put me to sleep for the surgery.
It must have been the same night because I woke up and there was food there.
It looked like a little lady walking down the hallway there, and I was trying to eat those peas and they was going off the plate.
I said, "Ma'am," I said, "Give me a hand on this supper here 'til I learn how to navigate this thing."
And she said, "Sure, Marine."
She come over and introduced herself as Lucy Caldwell.
- [Lucy] With a smile of pure courage, Willy asked if I'd help him with his tray a corpsman was setting down.
- She helped eat my plate there, guiding the corn and peas of all things.
- [Lucy] After a few mouthfuls, he looked up.
"Are you the one who helps with letters?"
"Surely am."
- Just a fine lady.
We sat there a couple hours and talked, and I asked her to write my folks a letter, because I was concerned that they'd be worried about me.
- [Lucy] So we wrote a letter to his family on a farm outside Statesville, North Carolina to tell them not to worry and that he was okay.
- That's you?
- Yeah.
- [Jeff] Wilson shows us his Lucy letter in this Vietnam scrapbook, a now-yellowed clipping also published in the Statesville newspaper.
Lucy writing to his family that, "Of course, I stayed with Dale until he went off to sleep.
He is the most remarkable man, as you well know, and my heart aches with yours to have him so critically wounded."
You know, the honest truth is you didn't know whether you were gonna survive at that point, did you?
- There was very few that did, triple amputees.
There was very few back then.
I realized it wasn't so much about me.
I think it's hard to believe how hard it is on the parents and the ones behind, you know?
- [Lucy] Then Willy asked almost shyly, "Would you possibly have time to write a second one?"
"Of course, I'm all yours.
Who does this one go to?"
- Well, I wanted to write a letter to my guys back out in the bush and tell them I was doing all right and doing fine.
- [Lucy] He wanted to write back to his outfit to be even more careful, to watch every leaf, every twig, and to stay alert.
Then he wanted to tell them they were the greatest outfit and that he was thinking of them.
- I am so truly honored, and I'm so proud to stand here in front of you today.
- [Jeff] Years later, Wilson's Third Herd Marines are still close.
- The guys I served with are here today, and their wives and families, so I just want to thank you again and God bless you all, and thank you, and Semper Fi.
(audience cheering) - [Jeff] They joined him when Wilson won the National Disabled Veteran of the Year Award back in 2009.
And here at home, more Vietnam memories.
(soft music) - Over here are some more pictures of some of my guys.
- [Jeff] But on this day, back where he belongs in Irondale County with his wife Linda at his side.
- I got my girl here.
- [Jeff] Wilson talks about his other girl, Lucy Caldwell, and their lifelong friendship that survived Vietnam, just like he did.
- What a lady there.
She meant a lot to all of us that knew her.
- [Lucy] Linda and Dale, and now Joshua and a tiny Stephanie are special to me as I know them so well, but there are thousands more who deserve a happy way of life.
- [Dale] She just loved her Marines and proud of them.
- I think that we never know where our influence ends, and I love the fact that we're sitting here talking about something that happened more than 50 years ago.
- [Lucy] To me, some of the obstacles looked enormous, but it never seemed to enter Dale's mind that some of his plans might have to be changed.
His spirits were always high and he made up his mind he was going to lick this thing.
- [Jeff] What's your last memory of Lucy?
- All the things that she done for the country and for the guys, you know?
- Seeing her coming down that hall, that was not what you were expecting.
- No, but Lucy, she was just down to earth, but she's seen a lot more than I did.
She pulled her time over there.
That was amazing.
But that was just something to admire.
You don't give up and you don't quit.
- Lucy Caldwell's determination and her dedication to all those wounded Vietnam Marines, plus all those Lucy letters that comforted so many Marine families back home, well they still inspire visitors here at Patriot's Point today, as they put pen to paper inside an old Vietnam mess hall, doing the same thing that Lucy Caldwell did more than 50 years ago.
- Hey, y'all come on in.
We're writing letters to the veterans.
♪ Lonely days are gone, I'm a-going home ♪ ♪ My baby just wrote me a letter ♪ - Some of these veterans now, they don't have family anymore, and just to be remembered for what they did I think is really important.
♪ Lonely days are gone, I'm a-going home ♪ ♪ My baby just wrote me a letter ♪ - [Deedie] Just to get a little piece of mail means a lot.
♪ Well she wrote me a letter ♪ Said she couldn't live without me no more ♪ - [Deedie] And it will mean a lot to them.
- [Jeff] Retired Navy Nurse Captain Deedee Harrington says these letters are all to Vietnam veterans from Vietnam veterans and from volunteers, medal winners to middle schoolers, all handwritten, then hand delivered to Charleston's VA Hospital.
- The stationary has got the seal of South Carolina on here.
♪ 'Cause my baby just wrote me a letter ♪ - Nice to meet you.
- Is there anything I can do?
- Did you write a letter?
- I will write a letter.
- That's all you need to do today.
- [Jeff] Tom Mundy isn't just any Vietnam letter writer.
He's one of Lucy's Boys, finally returning the favor of that letter Lucy Caldwell wrote for him.
- [Tom] Reminded me of my mom dressed up, but she just says right away, "I'm here to help you with anything.
My name is Lucy Caldwell."
- [Jeff] Now sharing his battlefield experience with another Vietnam veteran.
- [Tom] I was there about four months.
It was my 64th patrol.
I moved up 10 yards and I just remember looking, and all of a sudden, explosion went off.
- [Jeff] Tom writing down that same story he told Lucy from his hospital bed in Da Nang.
- I'll never forget the sound of the helicopter coming down, morphined up.
I was dozing off and I hear that thump, thump, thump, real loud, and I wake up and I just look to the right.
Soon as we landed, they were coming for me.
Brought me in, head top to the bottom with holes all over the place.
(helicopter whirring) So that was my introduction to Lucy Caldwell.
She says, "We think you should write a letter home to your family."
And I just said, "No, not now, not now," you know?
- When she heard you say not today that first day, she had to know come back, try again.
- She came back, whatever it was, an hour or two later, she waited for me and she talked me into writing a letter.
I didn't write it.
My hands were up, my legs were up.
So she wrote a letter using personal things that my family would know of, my brothers and sister's names, mom and dad, Harry, Margaret, which my parents said it was like the best thing that could happen.
What a lady.
You know, you're there for 10 days, constantly being anesthetized, seeing her almost every day.
- [Jeff] Those 10 days with Lucy Caldwell in Vietnam gave young Tom Mundy the encouragement he needed to make it home when others weren't so sure he'd ever leave that hospital alive.
- I'm Catholic.
A priest came in, introduced himself, talked to me a little bit.
Then he says, "Listen, I'm gonna say some prayers."
And I said to him, "Not last rights, Father.
Save that for somebody else.
I ain't going no place."
- [Jeff No place but back to New York, where Tom had a 30 year career with the New York City Fire Department after those dark days in Vietnam, but there was another dark day ahead.
- Called my brother.
We live on an island in the middle of Jamaica Bay by Kennedy Airport.
Where's your boat?
It's right here.
- [Jeff] On 9/11, Tom and his brother were part of the boat lift that brought firefighters into Manhattan and ferried survivors out.
- [Tom] The second tower had just fallen when we were rounding Coney Island.
We knew it was bad.
We knew it was bad from the beginning.
- [Man] Those people running on the left, on the left, on the left where the smoke is.
- I says, "We gotta get in there.
The roads are all blocked."
I'll help you, I'll help you.
So that's what we did.
My brother brought about five of us in.
That's when we came through all the buildings.
- [Jeff] That was Tom Mundy in 2001 talking about his 9/11 search and rescue team.
- [Tom] That was the first day.
I didn't see any other dogs on the site.
- [Jeff] Working with the famous civilian search dog known as Bear, finally finding the body of New York City Fire Chief Peter Ganci after hours of digging in the rubble.
- I called some guys over and took us a little while, but we got him out.
When I seen the traffic up.
- [Jeff] Tom lost friends on 9/11, fellow firefighters like his fellow Marines who were with him in that Vietnam ICU.
He says that's why Lucy Caldwell also came to mind in New York City that day.
- You talk about Lucy being put someplace, it was almost like I was put there to find Ganci.
- [Jeff] And now here among the heroes at Patriot's Point.
- You're talking about the Medal of Honor?
- [Jeff] Thoughts turn again to one of Vietnam's unsung heroes.
- When she walked on the ward and everybody looked, here comes Lucy.
Some guys say, "Oh, here comes Mrs. Caldwell," but she insisted that we call her Lucy.
- A Vietnam veteran.
- [Jeff] Now, Lucy's Boys are here to honor her.
- As a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, I want to personally say to you thank you for your service.
- [Tom] Well, knowing two guys who had Lucy stand next to them and write letters for them just like she did for me.
There's a, you talk about a connection.
Dale's here, Clebe's there.
Doesn't get any closer than that.
- You appreciate this country and our lives so much more if you just give a little bit of yours like Miss Lucy did to reach out to other folks.
- Lucy was undoubtedly what I call the angel of Da Nang's ICU.
- She was just such a special person there, and that's what we're here for tonight, to honor Lucy.
- [Jeff] Before their reunion, Lucy's Boys sailed out together to Charleston's Fort Sumter, reuniting with the memories of soldiers past and the history book stories of those who served before them.
They also had a chance to meet the original Lucy's boy, another Marine, Chuck Caldwell, who's the stepson of Lucy Caldwell.
- I got very curious about how to donate your life to helping others, and she taught me that.
I was lucky because I saw mostly the positive side of Lucy.
I didn't see the horrors that she had to go through.
Here they are practically dying in the hospital with legs blown off and losing their eyesight and accepting her as an angel.
- [Jeff] Today in the town of Galax, Virginia, if you hike up this unmarked grassy path, you'll find an old family cemetery up on the hill where Lucy McCarthy Caldwell is buried alongside her husband, Charlie Caldwell.
Lucy died in 1979.
She was 68 years old.
But for these old Marines known as Lucy's Boys, Lucy and her letters live on.
- If anybody on Earth ever gave what it take it's Lucy Caldwell.
- 'Cause she felt like we were her kids, you know?
- [Tom] It's like having Lucy here and Lucy there right next to the three of us.
- [Jeff] No other person quite like her?
- Not like Lucy Caldwell, no.
(soft music) - That reunion of Lucy's Boys on board the USS Yorktown also marks the 50th anniversary of the last US servicemen and women leaving Vietnam, but that doesn't mean leaving behind what happened in Vietnam, those stories of courage and comfort and finally coming together 50 years later.
From Patriots Pointe, Im Jeff Sonier for Carolina Impact.
(soft music) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.
Support for Carolina Impact comes from our viewers and Wells Fargo.
- [Narrator] Wells Fargo has donated $390 million.
- Honey, like I said, you get your own room.
- [Narrator] To support housing affordability solutions across America.
- You're never gonna get it!
- [Narrator] Doing gets it done.
Wells Fargo, the bank of doing.
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