Distinguished Military Unit: 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment
As of April 2023, TWS lists 1,974 members who have served with the 1 Bn, 9th Marine Regiment (1/9) among their Unit Assignments. Marines might say all units bearing the EGA are distinguished, and this one is no exception. The 1/9 was first activated in 1917 at Quantico and attached to the 3rd Provisional Brigade until 1919. In 1942 it was initially reactivated under the 2nd Marine Regiment of the 2nd and later the 3rd Marine Division until December 1945, having seen brutal battles at Bougainville, Northern Solomons, Guam, and Iwo Jima.
In March of 1965, the 1/9 infantry came ashore at Red Beach, South Vietnam, with the mission to defend Da Nang Air Base outside the wire, receiving its first organized hostile contact a month later. It was during Vietnam that the 1/9 added "The Walking Dead" history to its lineage, eventually having participated in actions from Da Nang to Phu Bai, the DMZ, Dong Ha, Camp Carroll, Con Thien, Khe Sanh, Cua Viet, A Shau Valley, and Cam Lo before reassignment to Camp Schwab, Okinawa with the 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade. It was part of the 7th Fleet landing force in 1966-67 and the 3rd Marine Division again at Da Nang from 1967-69, then back to Camp Schwab. The unit played a significant role in evacuations from the Southeast Asia theatre of operations in April 1975.
1/9 participated in the following chronology of named operations in Vietnam:
Blastout I
Golden Fleece
County Fair
Rice Straw
Independence
Ky Lam Campaign
Liberty
Macon
Suwannee
Deckhouse V
Prairie II
Chinook II
Operation Beacon Hill
Prairie III
Prairie IV
Operation Cimarron
Buffalo
Fremont (became Neosho)
Kentucky
Neosho
Scotland
Checkers
Ballistic Armor
Napoleon/Saline
Kentucky
Lancaster
Scotland II
Pegasus/LamSon
July Action
Dawson River
Dawson River South
Dawson River
Dewey Canyon
Apache Snow
Utah Mesa
Cameron Falls
Direct Combat Support
Heroic Action
Song Thanh
Song Thanh
Ready Op
LamSon
LamSon (II)
Frequent Wind
The Battalion was engaged in combat for forty-seven months and seven days. According to reasonably reliable sources, 2,892 Marines passed through the unit over those many months; seven hundred and forty-seven of their names are now on that black granite Wall in Washington DC, and two were missing in action at the end so far as was known.
From 1975 until deactivated in 1994, the 1/9 participated in garrison duty and operations such as "Fiery Vigil" in the Philippines and “Continue Hope” in Somalia. In 2007 it was reactivated at Camp Lejeune and assigned to the 8th Marines, 2nd Marine Division, from which it again saw service during “United Response” in Haiti and “Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan.
"Reanimated human beings, while not immortal, will not 'die' under typical conditions that would ordinarily cause the death of a living person. They do not appear to feel or respond to pain, can survive even the most brutal injuries… they do not need food, water, or sleep to function."
It has been said that Ho Chi Minh himself was the first responsible for calling 1/9 Marines by their famous name, which they then adopted after A Shau Valley. Origin of the phrase “the walking dead” is etymologically associated with the English word "zombie," first recorded in 1819, in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert Southey, in the form of "zombi." The Oxford English Dictionary gives the origin as West African and compares it to the Congo words "nzambi" (god) and "zumbi" (fetish). Partly from that stimulus, in 2003, a number of popular culture comic books, films, television programs, and memes began being titled with the name 1/9 was known by beforehand for quite different reasons. Today the Red Beach area is reportedly used for housing by the People’s Army of Vietnam.
"…the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines (1/9), endured more hell on Earth in the jungles of Vietnam in the late 1960s than any fiction writer could ever recount. ‘The Walking Dead’ Marines of One-Nine earned their nickname after suffering the highest casualty rate of any unit during the war… Operation Buffalo, Operation Big Horn II, Khe Sanh, Dewey Canyon, and a long list of other hard-fought battles by the 1/9 resulted in two Walking Dead Marines earning the Medal of Honor, eighteen more receiving the Navy Cross, and sixty earning Silver Stars." [Frank Patercity]
Two other 1/9 Marines had earned the MOH, one at Iwo Jima and one on Guam. The total number of valor awards for all Marines ever serving in this unit has yet to be compiled. The 1/9 itself carries thirteen commendations thus far, not counting OLC and other devices. Yet, having read dozens of TWS Reflections written by Marines from E-1 to Flag Officers, by far the most frequently singled out recognition mentioned is their EGA or a GCM.