Marine Vietnam Veteran earned a Silver Star in the Battle of Hill 22. Today he fights for his life

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Aubie Camp grew up in Apison, Tennessee, a small community outside of Chattanooga.

He told me he joined the Marine Corps, and at that time he just wanted to see some place other than Apison.

He graduated from high school in 1964.

"They had some recruiters come through one day with those Dress Blues on I thought I'd look good in them, ya know," Aubie Camp told me with a chuckle.

The next year he had been with the First Marines in California for about a year when one day he came back to the base after he had been on leave.

"Everything was packed up. MPs were all over the place. Nobody could go in our out. So next day we loaded on a transport and went to the USS Lenawee and went to Vietnam," Mr. Camp said.

That was the summer of '65. Mr. Camp was in the initial troop build up for the Vietnam War.

"That morning they issued live ammunition, live grenades and everything," Mr. Camp said. "We were going to war."

Mr. Camp told me when they landed things were calm, but they didn't stay that way.

"It was about 2:30 in the morning. Everybody was asleep and they hit us," Mr. Camp.

This was the Battle of Hill 22.
They were out numbered 75 to up to 400. He and the other Marines were hit with a grenade. Many were hurt badly. Some were killed.

He says he looked up, and as many as ten enemy combatants were charging him.

"One to two minutes, and we would have been dead. I ducked down and said 'God, please get me out of here.' Seven words. Probably took what 2 seconds? I got up to do what I'd been trained to do and they were pulling back," Mr. Camp said.

Mr. Camp stayed in the fight for the rest of that night.

"Next morning we had 20 dead, 45 wounded. We had I think 56 on the hill of them that were dead, and they said they carried at least a hundred of them off. The villagers did."

He received a Silver Star for his actions. That was 55 years ago.

Mr. Camp is now 74 and today he is in another fight. He has colon cancer. His doctor's have told him he only has a few months to live.

Last week his family and classmates from 1964 came to Apsion, and unveiled a permanent marker with Aubie Camp's name on it.

A reminder to Mr. Camp that his family, friends, and the Apison community are grateful for his sacrifice no matter what happens next in the fight of his life.

"I mean I'm good with it. I don't want to die. I don't want to leave my family, but I'm at peace. I'm not gonna go out kicking and screaming. You know, I think God's got a plan for everybody, and you need to be ready when you fit in that plan and that's the way I feel," Mr. Camp said.

He said when he enlisted in the Marines he couldn't wait to get out of Apison. When he got out he told me he couldn't wait to get back.

There are roughly 600,000 Vietnam veterans who served on the ground or in the air over Vietnam still living.