Both were wounded in Vietnam by enemy fire. McKay was wounded in April 1969 and Foote in May 1969. After McKay was wounded, Foote never saw him again but wondered what had happened to his former commander.

Years later, McKay and Foote reunited and have remained in contact. When Foote’s family was planning to honor him for his military service during the Santee Lucky Mound Celebration at Parshall June 20-23, Foote invited McKay and his wife, Margo, to attend. They accepted and attended the powwow.

Foote, of Parshall, was honored for his military service as well as McKay. Foote also honored his lifelong friend, Austin Gillette of White Shield, a Vietnam veteran who served with another U.S. Marine Corps unit, Amtrac Platoon, in Vietnam.

“I’m extremely honored,” said McKay, who was made an honorary member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9061 on Fort Berthold Reservation. He was presented with a jacket and a cap from the VFW Post and gifts from others.

Vietnam veterans and former U.S. Marine Corps members Austin Gillette, left, Charles Foote and retired Col. John McKay are shown at the Santee Lucky Mound Celebration at Parshall in June.

Gillette was honored by Foote, who presented him with the war bonnet Foote was wearing. The presentation was for Gillette’s service as a staff sergeant in the Marines.

McKay said he thinks very highly of Foote.

“I worked with him when he was under my command in Vietnam,” he said.

McKay and Foote were in Hotel Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines. They served together from 1968-69 until McKay was seriously injured.

“I was actually shot through the head. The bullet went in above my eye and came out below my right ear,” he said. Even though that wound was very extensive, McKay was returned to full duty as an infantry officer, serving as an infantry officer until he retired from the military.

Retired U.S. Marine Corps Col. John McKay, center, and his wife, Margo, are wrapped in quilts presented to them at the Santee Lucky Mound Celebration at Parshall in June. At left is Austin Gillette, a Vietnam veteran, wearing the war bonnet presented to him by Charles Foote.

When Foote was wounded, McKay was back in the states in a hospital.

McKay said their platoon in Vietnam was a very close-knit unit. They were in a very dangerous area in Vietnam.

“We were in an area that the number of casualties versus unit size was probably one of the highest in all of Vietnam,” he said.

He said an infantry platoon in the Marine Corps at that time usually had 49 men but because of the attrition rate, he said, “I don’t think I ever had more than 42.”

Foote said McKay had the rank of lieutenant when he was the platoon commander.

“He was with us for maybe four or five months,” Foote said.

He recalls the day when McKay was injured.

“There was one area that was right across (from) our back area where we’d go every other month to get out of the bush and get hot food there. Across the river was a place they called Arizona Territory and it was one of the worst areas in the whole Vietnam because the hard-core NVA (North Vietnamese Army) were headquartered there,” Foote said.

He said anytime they went across the river to Arizona Territory they knew they were in extremely dangerous territory.

“Our priests would give us last rights, ” he said. He said those in the unit worried about what they were getting themselves into.

“After Colonel McKay came onboard – I guess it was three months or four months after he was with us – we were on an operation and our platoon was out engaging to try to locate the enemy. We walked into an area where there were a bunch of bunkers. I was at the point I kind of knew I felt safer just because I had a good intuition of where the enemy might be and what was going on,” he said.

“That day we came to a stream and I put my squad out on either side in case we got ambushed. Colonel McKay – he was Lieutenant McKay at that time – was a couple squads behind me. They were trying to destroy some of the bunkers where enemy would hide. Then all heck broke loose. They opened up on us, I think, from the back and from the front. They must have been trying to ambush us because the bullets were coming through the bamboo and the bamboo splinters were coming right at my face. It was real intense fire that we were getting.

“Then all of a sudden one of the guys called, ‘Hey, the skipper got hit. He got a head shot.’ We called our platoon leader our skipper. And then they called a chopper in. In an hour or so they came in and they medevaced him out of the field,” Foote said.

Foote assumed McKay would not live because he had been shot in the head.

“Then I came home from Vietnam and after quite a few years I went to our first Hotel Company reunion in San Diego,” Foote said.

At the reunion he learned from other members of the platoon that McKay had survived and retired from the Marine Corps with the rank of colonel.

“Of course, I was astonished. There was no way that I thought he would still be alive,” Foote said.

Foote and McKay got in contact with each other and at the next year’s reunion in Tennessee they reunited.

“It was quite emotional just to see that he was still alive ” Foote said of their reunion. “We’ve been in contact since then.”

When Foote’s family was going to honor him at the powwow in Parshall in June, Foote said he felt it was fitting to invite McKay to attend his honoring “because I was there the day he got shot.”

McKay said their unit has reunions every year and his wife has been able to meet many of the men who served under him.

“We’re close, we stay close,” he said of those who were in the platoon.

McKay and Foote are both included in a book published in 2020, “Risk Taker, Spy Maker: Tales of a CIA Case Officer” by Barry Broman, who was executive officer of the platoon. McKay wrote the review for the book. The book includes the day McKay was wounded and Foote’s work in the field.

McKay and Foote know what they went through that day when McKay was wounded.

“(You are a) Band of Brothers forever when you’re in combat and in that intense situation,” Foote said.