Cletus Charles Foote, who goes by his middle name, Charles, is among a number of members of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation – Three Affiliated Tribes – on the Fort Berthold Reservation who served in Vietnam.

Foote served in Hotel Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines.

Foote said he chose to enlist in the Marines because others he knew, including Austin Gillette, a lifelong friend from White Shield, had been in the Marine Corps.

“I think it’s a good branch,” Foote said.

Eloise Ogden/MDN Charles Foote, a Vietnam veteran from Parshall, holds a book with a photo of him when he was serving in Vietnam.

Foote was in his early 20s when he enlisted in the Marines. He said he was one of the older Marines in his platoon in Vietnam. He said one fellow in the unit had finished college and was a teacher.

When Foote arrived in Vietnam the war had been going on for some time.

“It was right in the height when we got there. It was right after Hue City,” he said. He said Hue City was a battle in which Hotel Company gained its reputation when the company captured the city.

“There was like house-to-house fighting,” he said.

Foote said he and other members in his platoon saw plenty of action while they were in Vietnam.

Foote recalls an incident when he and fellow Marine, Rick Hahn, escaped losing their lives.

“We were out on patrol and we were fragging bunkers (dropping grenades in bunkers). I was right behind him and he threw a grenade into the bunker, and then he slipped and he fell into the bunker. I don’t know what made me but my reaction was I jumped on top of him. If that grenade would have gone off, we would have both been killed. But it didn’t go off. Guess it wasn’t our day. But he was always so grateful about it. He would always mention it until the time he left,” Foote said.

“We were at Camp LeJeune (in North Carolina) after we left Vietnam. That’s where I was discharged from,” Foote said. He said when they were at Camp LeJeune it was the last time he saw Hahn, who was from St. Louis, Missouri.

“I can just picture him but I have never been able to get ahold of him,” he said.”We were together all the way through and we were at training at Camp Pendleton (California) before we went over,” Foote added.

Foote recalled when he was in Vietnam serving with Hotel Company that Richard White Bear, who was from Fort Berthold and lived in California, was serving in Echo Company. He said occasionally they would see each other in Vietnam when they’d go back to their home base.

“It was just good to have somebody from home,” Foote said.

Foote and his wife, Ernestine, were not yet married when he went to Vietnam but they knew each other.

“I said he survived because I was praying for him all the time. I worked in Denver and I worked in Minneapolis and when I’d walk to work sometimes I’d pass the cathedral in Denver. I’d go in there and I’d light a candle for him. All that happened like five or six years. The same thing in Minneapolis,” she said. “But, of course, he said his mother was always praying for him too. He didn’t know we were praying and lighting candles for him all over,” Ernestine Foote said.

Foote, of Fort Berthold, went into the military with two residents of the Spirit Lake Reservation.

“One was Kenny Dunn. He is a Vietnam veteran,” Foote said. He said Dunn was not in his unit but served in Vietnam with Amtracs at the same time Foote was there.

He said the late Mark Lambert, also of Spirit Lake Reservation, went in at the same time.

“He was a grunt (infantry) like I was. We’re (grunts) the ones that tromp through the woods,” he said.

Foote’s unit in Vietnam had several commanders during his time there.

In spring 1969, both Foote and then commander of his U.S. Marine Corps infantry platoon, John McKay of Fair Oaks, California, were wounded in Vietnam by enemy fire. McKay was wounded in April 1969 and Foote in May 1969.

Foote said he never saw McKay again but years later they were reunited when Foote attended his first reunion of his unit.

“The first reunion I went to was in San Diego,” he said. He said he inquired about McKay and one of the people attending the reunion told him, “No, he made it through. He got out (of the Marine Corps) as a colonel.”

“That was totally, totally a surprise because that day we all thought – you know, having a head shot you probably don’t have a chance of making it,” Foote said. “I remember when they put him in the chopper. That was the last I saw of him just like a number of the other guys that I was with. You didn’t know if they made it or not. The chopper came and they were gone. You go on with what you have to do and try to stay alive,” he said.

Foote was wounded a month after McKay on May 11, 1969, while on an operation in the Arizona Territory when his company became engaged with the enemy.

“We were ordered to frag a bunker complex where we were receiving enemy fire and as I threw a grenade into a bunker a chicom (Vietnamese grenade) was thrown out. I hit the ground but still received a wound to my left shoulder and was later treated by our corpsman but remained in the field,” Foote said.

According to Foote’s DD214 discharge and separation document, he was a recipient of the Purple Heart and a number of other medals and awards.

When Foote’s family was planning to honor him for his military service at the Santee Lucky Mound Celebration at Parshall last June, Foote invited his former unit commander McKay and his wife, Margo, to attend.

Foote, McKay and Foote’s lifelong friend, Austin Gillette of White Shield, also a Vietnam veteran who served with another U.S. Marine Corps unit, Amtrac Platoon, all were honored at the powwow.

Foote has been featured in two books by Barry Broman, who was executive officer of the platoon and later in the CIA. In “Risk Taker, Spy Maker: Tales of a CIA Case Officer” Broman tells about Foote’s work in the field. In “Indochina Hand: Tales of a Cia Case Officer,” Broman tells the unit that he and Foote were in was a lucky Marine infantry company because it had Native Americans like Foote with hunting and scouting skills.

After one of Broman’s books came out with Foote included in it, Foote said his older grandchildren asked about Vietnam.

“I never really told anybody about what I did over there,” he said. “But it’s hard to tell them exactly. I tell them OK, I went on patrol by myself. I went out and did this and did that at night. Barry (Broman) said in the book I told him I wanted to go (alone) because the other guys make too much noise when we’re out there.”

Having attended the Hotel Company reunions, Ernestine Foote said, “Most of them never told their wives (about Vietnam). They didn’t know anything about what happened.”

Foote was discharged from the Marine Corps on Sept. 12, 1972, with the rank of sergeant, and returned to Fort Berthold.

He is a member of the Fort Berthold Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9061. He is the director of the Tribal Employment Rights Office (TERO) in New Town. The Footes have three daughters, Stephanie, Charlene and Kelly, and a son, Cletus, and 10 grandchildren.

Joining the military service is important to Native Americans, and men and women who are currently serving or have served are honored by tribes, the Footes said.

“We consider it an honor to serve our country,” Charles Foote said.