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Captain Berry (right) receiving his Bronze Star at II Field Force.

Before he founded Berry Law Firm, John Berry Sr. served three tours in Vietnam, where he earned the Bronze Star.

During his service, John transferred from Infantry to the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps and worked as chief defense counsel for Vietnam’s largest general court martial jurisdiction.

John’s role took him throughout Vietnam, protecting the rights of GIs. His journeys included successfully defending members of the 5th Special Forces against murder charges.

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Emotion Beyond Description

By Herman Hughes

September 2 2021

Summary

I was almost overwhelmed seeing a boat filled with bodies of dead Marines.

Story

Emotion Beyond Description

I have many memories of my year in Vietnam. Yet, one sight still gives me chills to this day. As I was going upriver after the fighting died down in the Battle of Dai Do (May 1968), I saw a flat bottomed boat loaded with the bodies of dead Marines being removed from the battlefield. They were stacked up like so many logs, so many bodies that the boat seemed to be in danger of capsizing.

Although I had seen death in many forms before, that really hit me hard. Those Marines were just kids really. Most of them were not much older than the high school students I had taught before entering the Navy. They died while fighting to keep South Vietnam from falling to the onslaught of the North Vietnamese Army, a thankless and ultimately futile task, given the cowardly way the war ended.

Captain Herman W. Hughes, PhD, US Navy Retired