Central figure in ‘Dispatches from Vietnam’ dies at 78
Col. Chuck Meadows, commander of a company of Marines in a major battle in 1968 in Hue City, Vietnam, died Thursday in Oregon.
He was 78. A cause of death was not available.
Last month, Col. Meadows led a group of veterans, several of them from his Golf Company 2nd battalion 5th Marines, back to Hue City on a tour.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on the tour in “Dispatches from Vietnam” online from Feb. 1-9 and in stories published Sunday in the newspaper.
Col. Meadows, who lived in Tigard, Ore., with his wife, Melissa, said he took pleasure in returning to Vietnam each year with veterans, hoping to help them relieve some of the burden they carried with them after the war.
George Haught, of Monaca, was one of those Golf Company members and made the trip to Vietnam last month.
Mr. Haught said he got word of Col. Meadows’ death Friday and reached out to other members of Golf Company.
“We’re all heartbroken and stunned. The last word I had from him was, ‘I’ll see you in Santa Fe’ [for the annual Golf Company reunion in October],” Mr. Haught said.
“I am so thankful now that I took that trip to spend those two weeks with him, not knowing they would be the last time I would see him. There was no sense that he was even slowing down,” Mr. Haught said.