The Gun

& Co., 1976), p. 158. Westmoreland’s recollections did not square with accounts of the M-16’s performance in the same battle as described by Harold G. Moore and Joseph Galloway in their book We Were Soldiers Once… And Young (New York: Random House, 1992). Moore commanded the battalion whose experience was cited.

35. Stevens and Ezell, The Black Rifle, pp. 196–97. The authors have excerpted from James B. Hall’s background paper, “Acquisition of the M16 Rifle,” 1975.

36. Ellsworth S. Grant, The Colt Armory: A History of Colt’s Manufacturing Company, Inc. (Lincoln, R.I.: Mowbray Publishing, 1995) p. 179.

37. “In Defense of the M-16,” Shooting Times, October 1966.

38. “M-16: Beauty or Beast?” Shooting Times, November 1966.

39. Letter from Paul A. Benke, president of Colt’s Firearms Division, to Earl J. Morgan, counsel to the Special Subcommittee on the M-16 Program, August 24, 1967, p. 13.

40. The percentages come from U.S. Army Technical Note 5-66, “Small Arms Use in Vietnam: Preliminary Results, by the Human Engineering Laboratories, Aberdeen Proving Ground,” August 1966.

41. Ibid.

42. Presley W. Kendall, “The M-16 in Vietnam,” American Rifleman, May 1967, pp. 24–25.

43. “Trip Report, Headquarters AWC, Rock Island, Illionois,” October 26, 1966, to Colt Inc., by Robert D. Fremont, Manager, Military Engineering, Colt’s Firearms, October 28, 1966.

44. Letter from Lieutenant Colonel Herbert P. Underwood, who led an Army Weapons Command survey team in Vietnam, to Colonel Yount, October 30, 1966.

45. Letter of Koni Ito, a Colt engineer, to Robert Fremont, Colt’s manager of military sales, October 30, 1966. On file at the National Archives.

46. Memorandum for the Record of Corrosion Control Meeting at Colt’s Firearms Division, December 1, 1966.

47. List of Rifles of Lot # FC 1821 that malfunctioned, October 21, 1966.

48. Colt’s Transcript of IBM tape received from David Behrendt, November 11, 1966, Tape #1.

49. Ibid., Tape #2.

50. Trip report to Colt’s officials from J. B. Hall, Vietnam, November 5–9, 1966.

51. Colonel Richard R. Hallock, “Memorandum For Record: Vietnam Malfunction Information,” November 15, 1966.

52. Stevens and Ezell, The Black Rifle, p. 210.

53. “Secret Memorandum For Deputy Chiefs of Staff, et al., from Department of the Army, Office of the Chief of Staff, November 7, 1966.” Declassified and on file at the National Archives.

54. Unsatisfactory Equipment Report MCSA # 6069, February 8, 1967.

55. Letter from Marine Corps Supply Activity, Philadelphia, to Commanding General, U.S. Army Weapons Command, March 16, 1967.

56. “Vietnam Arms Race,” Washington Daily News, unsigned editorial, March 26, 1967.

57. Appointment letter, on file at Western Historical Manuscript Collection–Columbia, at Ellis Library, University of Missouri. The collection is hereinafter referred to as WHMC-C, U. Mo.

58. Letter from Representative Ichord to Representative Charles Raper Jones, February 8, 1968. On file at WHMC-C, U. Mo.

59. Personal communication to author from Ray Madonna, who commanded Hotel Company, Second Battalion, Third Marines during spring 1967 in Vietnam.

60. Personal communication to author from Thomas R. Givvin, who commanded Third Platoon, Hotel Company, Second Battalion, Third Marines in 1967 and participated in the actions related here.

61. Letter of Lance Corporal Larry R. Sarvis to Representative Ichord, June 17, 1967. On file at WHMC-C, U. Mo.

62. Personal communication from Raymond C. Madonna.

63. From unpublished manuscript of Raymond C. Madonna, who has written his own memoir of the Hill Fights, incorporating his recollections and his interviews of many of the Marines formerly under his command. Ord Elliott, who commanded First Platoon during the attack in which the Marines fixed bayonets, also discussed the events of that day with the author.

64. Personal communication from Charles P. Chritton, a lieutenant in Foxtrot Company, who witnessed the scene at the landing zone. The description of pins near the trigger assembly working loose is from Ord Elliott, David Hiley and Cornelio Ybarra Jr.

65. The shortages pointed to supply failures and to pilferage. Logistics units had not pushed an adequate amount of cleaning equipment to the troops in the field. But the light hands of war were a factor, too. Colt’s included brass cleaning rods inside the cases of rifles shipped to Vietnam. One rod was shipped for every rifle. Colt’s field teams later found the rods were disappearing even before the rifles were handed out, apparently as local Vietnamese employees on American bases stole them to sell on the scrap-metal market. It was frustrating for Colt’s. This was a problem it could not fix. “They used them to make rice bowls or something,” said Paul Benke, Colt’s president at the time (personal communication to author).

66. “‘Causing Deaths’—Marine Hits Faulty Rifles,” Asbury Park Evening Press, May 20, 1967. After the letter was published, it was sent to Secretary McNamara by James J. Howard, a congressman from New Jersey, on May 22. Howard’s letter is on file at WHMC-C, U. Mo.

67. Memorandum to Honorable Richard H. Ichord, from Ralph Marshall, May 31, 1967. On file at WHMC-C, U. Mo.

68. Letter from a Marine to his family, May 17, 1967. On file at WHMC-C, U. Mo.

69. “Memo to Mr. Findley re M-16 Events on Friday While You Were Gone,” October 7, 1967. Mr. Findley is Paul Findley, then a Republic congressman from Illinois. The memo noted a call from Senator Dominick’s office describing the incident in Vietnam and noting the senator’s irritation. On file at WHMC-C, U. Mo.

70. The account of the night ambush was cited in a letter from Representative Dante B. Fascell to Representative Richard Ichord, August 2, 1967. The concerns of the navy lieutenant and army sergeant preparing to ship to Vietnam were sent directly to Representative Ichord. All three letters are on file at WHMC-C, U. Mo.

71. “M-16 or AK-47? The Right Rifle For the Right Job,” a six-page fact sheet, dated November 25, 1968, intended to show the M-16’s superiority to the AK-47. Circulated by Colt’s, and on file at the Ezell Collection in Shrivenham.

72. Interviews with veterans still provoke disgust. Many believe they were guinea pigs. Charles Woodard, a young officer in the battalion at the time, called Colt and the military leadership’s decisions “unconscionable.” Givvin (see note 60, above) said the military leadership of the time “had blood on their hands.” David Hiley, a platoon radio operator at the hill fights, said “They ought to give a million dollars to every Marine who had to carry one of those things.”

73. Combat After-Action Report of Battalion Landing Team 2/3, July 30, 1967. Declassified and on file at the Library of the Marine Corps, Marine Corps Base, Quantico.

74. Interviews of Michael Chervenak by the author; the physical description of Chervenak came from Marines he served with in Vietnam.

75. The Marine Corps had not shown interest in the AR-15 as Colt’s and its salesmen made the rounds with it in the 1950s and early 1960s. It wanted its rifle and machine gun to be of the same caliber, thereby simplifying logistics. Though the Soviet Union had taken this step in the 1950s—fielding both the AK-47 and the RPK, which used the same cartridge—the United States was only beginning to go down the road toward a lightweight assault rifle and had no companion machine gun, even in the research-and-design phase, to fire the same cartridge. This would come later, as the M-249, the Squad Automatic Weapon, known as the SAW.

76. “Marines Hail M-16 Rifle, Army Accepts it Fully,” UPI, published in the Hartford Times, May 11, 1967.

77. “House Ad Hoc Hearing for Vietnam Veterans Against the War,” April 23, 1971. From the transcript, Congressional Record vol. 117, part 10, which was introduced into the public record on May 3, 1971.