By Jay Moore

Four months after taking office in January 1969, President Nixon went on television to lay out a peace plan for ending the war in Vietnam. His proposal was broadcast on the night of May 14 and called for U.S. and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops to simultaneously pull out of South Vietnam over the coming twelve months. At that time, American troops were at their high-water mark with more than 540,000 serving in South Vietnam. Leaders in Hanoi rejected Nixon’s peace plan.

Earlier, that same day, NVA troops pressed a coordinated attack on scores of South Vietnamese villages and U.S. bases in one of the most wide-ranging assaults since the Tet Offensive of 1968. South Vietnamese and American troops all across South Vietnam fought back. One who was in the fight on May 14, 1969, was Dennis Holt of Abilene.

I met Dennis nine years later in 1978. I was a high school senior working for my dad who was in the homebuilding business and Dennis oversaw the construction efforts. We spent a fair amount of time together, driving from job to job and occasionally eating lunch together. I was 17, barely on the edge of adulthood. Dennis was 31 and, in my eyes, a grown man, and one who was awfully easy to like.

One of the first things you notice about Dennis is that he smiles a lot, and that he wears an eyepatch over his left eye. One day I decided to ask him how he lost his eye. And now, 40-plus years later, I vividly remember the moment. We were in a pickup heading south on Treadaway when Dennis told me what happened on May 14, 1969, near Nui Ba Den — the Black Virgin Mountain — northwest of Saigon, a perennial hot zone during the Vietnam War. I’ve admired him ever since.

Jay Moore and Dennis Holt

Dennis is a native Abilenian. He went to Ben Milam and Travis Elementary, then to Franklin Junior High. He was a Little League All-Star and attended North Park Baptist Church. He was a member of the Abilene High class of ‘65 where he was the student council vice-president and ran track as a sprinter. His senior year, he skillfully quarterbacked the Eagle football team. With two games left, he replaced the injured tailback, excelling in that position too. Following graduation, he enrolled at McMurry, going to class during the day and working at the Timex plant on North 2nd at night trying to earn enough to pay for school. During his junior year, he was out of money and then out of school. Then, the draft board came calling. Dennis entered the U.S. Army on May 15, 1968. By October, he had landed at Tan Son Nhut air base outside of Saigon as a GI in the 25th Division, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment — often referred to as Triple Deuce. Dennis was 21.

Three days before Nixon went on TV in May 1969, NVA troops unleashed their surprise rocket and mortar attacks, resulting in some of the most intense fighting of the war. (On May 12, another AHS student, James Harrison, age 22, was killed in a mortar attack near Tay Ninh, only a few miles from where Dennis was located.) In response to the attacks, four infantry companies were sent to recon an area dubbed “The Crescent,” where bombs from B-52s had just set the ground shaking for miles. Dennis’ squad was sent out on reconnaissance. Along with them was a photographer from the Associated Press. It was May 14, 1969. Dennis had been in the Army for 364 days.

Each platoon squad was supported by an APC — armored personnel carrier — with a top-mounted 50-caliber machine gun. Some squads named their APCs; Dennis’ was dubbed “The Phantom.” Troops routinely walked, rather than ride in or atop the APC. Very often it was only the driver and a gunner, who was partially protected by steel armor, who were riding. As Dennis’ squad moved through the dense jungle the APC hit a tree, causing a heavy branch to fall. It landed on the gunner, breaking his arm. Someone needed to step up to man the machine gun. Now, an unwritten rule in the Army is, “never volunteer for anything,” but Dennis volunteered and climbed into the gunner’s spot on The Phantom. The rest of the afternoon was tense but uneventful and word finally came that they were to head back to their fire support base. And, true to form, as they started in that direction, the NVA launched an up-close ambush.

Dennis Holt in Vietnam

The men of Dennis’ squad were caught; sandwiched between their trailing APC and the NVA, making it impossible for Dennis to fire his machine gun at the enemy without possibly hitting his own men; he began firing into the trees hoping to hit snipers. Dennis Holt — a kid from Abilene, Texas, who had never been farther from home than El Paso — now found himself on a Wednesday afternoon in May of 1969 halfway around the world, in a sweltering jungle, manning a machine gun in a full-fledged, honest-to-goodness, real-life war; in a firefight with real bullets, real artillery, real mortars, all fired by a very real enemy; both sides frantically trying to kill the other in order to keep themselves alive; all of it happening at a level of compressed intensity and violence most of us are never forced to experience. Dennis fired back in a storm of adrenaline. Then, his world went black.

To put it mildly, when he first told me this story back in 1978, I was astounded. I had assumed Dennis lost his eye in an accident, maybe out hunting or from some childhood mishap. I never dreamed he wore an eyepatch because he had been in a war. I was so surprised, I didn’t know what to say. At the time, even Dennis did not have all the details of that day. He would not fully learn what occurred on May 14, 1969, until he began attending Triple Deuce reunions in 2012. Dennis lost his eye — and came within a literal inch of losing his life — when another APC gunner, located some distance away, squeezed the trigger on his machine gun, firing in the direction of the enemy, and instead, one of the 50-caliber bullets — a half-inch wide piece of lead traveling at 3,000 feet per second — pierced an ammo box, went through the protective armor and hit Dennis on the left side of his head. It cost him his eye. It changed his life from that moment on.

Dennis Holt at Abilene High School

As he drifted in and out of consciousness, the medics quickly began bandaging his head to stop the blood loss. The AP photographer raised his camera and took a photo: two medics cradling Dennis’ head as he was lying on the ground in a Vietnamese jungle. He was strapped into a rescue basket attached to the outside of a helicopter and evacuated to the nearest field hospital where quick medical treatment kept him from bleeding to death. After being stabilized, he would leave Vietnam for more care in Okinawa, then to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

Within a few months of being discharged from Brooke, Dennis married Linda Wistl in 1970. They had been friends at Abilene High and she often wrote to him while he was in Vietnam. They moved to Irving but returned to Abilene in 1978. They bought a house near Cooper High School where they raised their two daughters. We met soon after.

Over the past 46 years, I have run into Dennis only a handful of times. But each year, when I taught about Vietnam to high school students, I thought of him. And although I no longer teach US history, I find that I still think of him. Recently, I got his number and texted to see if we might meet up for a cup of coffee. We did. We got caught up. And we talked about Vietnam and May 14, 1969. I learned he had been in other death-dealing firefights. On January 8, his platoon lieutenant, a sergeant and a medic were all killed. I can only imagine how utterly dumbfounding and emotionally staggering such moments must be; of course, Dennis doesn’t have to imagine.

I asked him if he thinks much about Vietnam these days. He smiled, “Every morning when I put this eyepatch on.” It struck me: for more than five decades, Dennis has lived with Vietnam. Yet he feels fortunate; fortunate that he came home, that he moved forward. It shows in his smile.

While he was in Vietnam, Dennis turned 22. Months later, after he was back in Texas, he was asked what he got for his 22nd birthday. He replied, “I got the chance to be 23.” Last Friday, November 1, Dennis turned 78. He is now Poppy to four granddaughters and one grandson. After 42 years of marriage, Linda passed away in 2012. He still lives in their home by Cooper. And he is still one of my heroes. Always will be.

Jay Moore is an Abilene historian and author. He produced the DVID series about Abilene history titled History in Plain Sight