The medal was awarded to soldiers after completing 26 missions.

“I got that in the first month and a half,” he said Thursday during a Brown Bag Briefing at the Fort Dodge Public Library.

The unit was the first to utilize helicopters on a large scale to move troops into combat and evacuate them.

“It was the start of the war with the helicopters,” he said. “We came in with them, they took us out, then drop us in. Most of the time you didn’t see the enemy. You just shot into the bushes till the shooting stopped.”

-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
Larry Harklau, of Fort Dodge, shows off the 1st Cavalry Division patch that he had on his uniform stateside. Once in Vietnam, the soldiers switched to a green patch of the same design.

Harklau was buried alive and wounded during a rocket attack while he was trying to get into a bunker.

“That rocket hit hard,” he said. “It blew my friend all apart and killed him.”

His friend was right behind him. Harklau was partway into the sandbag bunker. It collapsed on top of him.

“I’m kind of loud,” he said. “I was able to yell with a mouth full of sand.”

Harklau had suffered several broken bones in his face.

“My head was the size of the biggest pumpkin you ever saw,” he said.

His unit did search and destroy missions, mostly looking for caves to destroy.

One thing that made it easier for Harklau and his unit to find the caves was a certain smell from a certain plant.

“They were smoking pot,” he said. “You could smell them for miles.”

He worked in several parts of the country. His unit spent most of its time in the jungle.

The jungle had a lot of life in it.

“There was any kind of bug you wanted,” he said. “Scorpions, snakes, spiders.”

During one action, he discovered just how big snakes can get in Southeast Asia.

After one battle, they were going through a pass where they found the enemy’s bunkers and supplies. They saw something moving in a tree and thought it was an enemy sniper.

It turned out to be something else.

“What was moving was a big snake,” he said. “The company that came through shot it and another one. They were 28 and 26 feet long.”

“I’ve seen every snake there is, cobras, vipers, bamboo vipers, you name it,” he said. “We had one guy get surprised by one, he took his bayonet to it, he cut that thing in about six pieces.”

Malaria was common and the troops were issued medication to prevent it.

“I never took them,” he said. “I kind of hoped I’d get malaria and get out of there.”

Water was another problem. Harklau refused to drink the heavily chlorinated water that occasionally made it up to his unit in the field.

“I’d rather drink the water out of the streams,” he said.

Food was less than gourmet.

“Most of the time we had World War II C rations,” he said.

Harklau is still grateful for a talk and a good luck cigarette lighter he got from his friend Jack Gadbury before he left. Gadbury was a World War II veteran.

“The cigarette lighter,” Harklau said. “I left it when I got blown up. Jack told me you’re going to see a lot of bad stuff but you’ll also have a lot of good times. I thank Jack for that.”

One of those good times was watching an officer who was trying to get a promotion go into a cave. He came running out, screaming, without his rifle.

“There was a leopard right behind him,” Harklau said.

Another was a new lieutenant, a graduate of the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.

“He was an idiot,” Harklau said. “You were supposed to yell a warning before you fired, he did that, there were seven of us sitting there then 700 of them moved out of the jungle.”

The lieutenant got wounded.

“He got shrapnel in his behind,” Harklau said. “He got a Purple Heart for an injury to his butt.”

After Harklau healed from his injuries, he came back stateside and trained troops until he was discharged in 1968.

He had advice for those going to Vietnam.

“You are going to get killed or wounded in your first 30 days because you’re young and stupid,” he said. “Then in the middle, you’ll do your job. In your last 30 days, you’ll get killed or wounded because you start doing stupid stuff.”

On his return stateside, he was seated on a commercial flight from Hawaii next to a couple returning from vacation. They told him they hoped he didn’t get sent to Vietnam.

“I hope I don’t either,” he replied.

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