3 Viet Veterans, Each Believing the Others Dead, Are Reunited

They were three young soldiers who shared a foxhole in the humid jungles of Vietnam. They knew each other as simply Wes, Sarge and Doc--because, they said, they did not want to get emotionally attached in combat.

They’d been together for only a few months when a mortar hit their foxhole at 3:30 a.m. on May 13, 1969. The men were scattered by the blast and suffered serious injuries. Each believed the others had been killed.

Mark (Wes) Weston, now 37, was haunted by that incident, and has searched on and off for the last 17 years, hoping to discover the full names of his compatriots “just to say goodby to them.”

Traced by TV Producer

On Wednesday, Weston ended his search at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Instead of paying his respects to two names inscribed on the memorial, he was chatting with Doc and Sarge. They had been tracked down by a California television producer who wanted to help reunite them.

“They couldn’t believe it that I was alive, and I couldn’t believe it that they were alive,” said Weston, a hospitality coordinator for a winery who lives in Forestville, Calif.

Santa Rosa, Calif., television producer Cathy Gazzano became interested in the plight of the three veterans after she interviewed Weston for a story on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. When Weston said he was trying to discover the full names of his friends so he could pay his respects to them in Washington, she offered to help.

Disbelief and Shock

Five months later, Gazzano obtained the full names and discovered the men were still alive. When she called them, she said they reacted with a mixture of disbelief and shock. Don (Doc) Krieger, 38, now a building maintenance supervisor in Wauseon, Ohio, said he thought she was trying to sell him something.

Krieger wouldn’t believe the story until he spoke to Weston on the telephone and asked him a series of detailed questions about the episode, Gazzano said.

The third soldier, Anthony (Sarge) Branco, 41, collapsed when he got the phone call, and couldn’t speak about it immediately, said Gazzano.

Since those calls, the three have resurrected some of their Vietnam experiences, and, for once, found a happy ending to an incident they had been trying to forget.