Page 56 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2020- Online Magazine

Leigh Bratcher
"To Change Anything

Changes Everything"

by Rudy Bratcher

eptember 5, 1969 was a it when his friend told him how
day that changed Leigh difficult basic training was. Leigh
SBratcher’s life forever. found basic to be even tougher
That was the day he was than his friend had said, but
wounded for the second time joining the Marines turned out to
and started his journey home be the second-best thing he ever
from Vietnam. At 0530 that did.
morning, the Combined Action
Platoon (CAP) of 10 U.S. Marines Basic training was at the Marine
and 15 Vietnamese soldiers he Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego,
commanded was attacked by CA. It was followed by Infantry
Viet Cong “Sappers” (specially training at Camp Pendleton, CA.
trained soldiers) with satchel After Leigh’s boot camp leave
charges and rifle and machine- at home, he spent two years in
gun fire. When Leigh was Hawaii as a Military Policeman.
medivacked out by U.S Army When his Hawaii tour was
Dustoff helicopters, he spent completed, Leigh was assigned
the next three weeks traveling back to Camp Pendleton with the
through 11 medical facilities, 5th Marine Division, with duty as
finally arriving at Corpus Christi an instructor at the Marine Corps
Navy Hospital, where he stayed Machine Gun school. After being
for the next two months. promoted to Sergeant, Leigh
received orders for Vietnam.
Leigh was born in Roswell, NM,
the second of three boys, on In Vietnam, Leigh was assigned
July 29, 1947. Leigh’s father, Bill to the Combined Action Program
Bratcher, managed a gas station, which had several functions:
and his mother, Frances, worked train the Vietnamese Popular
in the post exchange at Walker Forces, protect the villages, and
Air Force Base. When Leigh act as a Guerilla and Counter-
was six, the family moved to Guerilla force to remove the Viet
Albuquerque, and, when he was Cong (VC) infrastructure. The
eight, the family moved on to CAP platoons did not have a base
Amarillo, where they settled. camp but, instead, lived 24-hours
a day, seven-days a week in
Leigh attended school at the villages to which they were
Highland Park until finishing the assigned. Everything they owned,
eighth grade, then transferring they carried on their back as they
to Travis Junior High for grade moved from position to position
nine, and on to Palo Duro High in the villages several times a day
for his last three years of public to keep the Viet Cong off-guard
school. In March of 1966, he as to their location. Most of the
dropped out of his senior year platoon’s work was done at night
of school and joined the Marines as that was when the VC were
-- essentially on a dare from a most active. The CAP program
friend who was already in the was one of the most successful
Marines. Leigh did not believe operations during the war. Fewer

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