Christy Sauro

Christy Sauro Jr., of Saint Paul, MN, served in the United States Marine Corps as an amphibious embarkation specialist and was stationed in South Vietnam from December of 1967 to January of 1969. A member of the Twins Platoon, a group of 150 USMC recruits who took their oath of service at a Minnesota Twins baseball game, Christy has written two books on the subject: The Twins Platoon and The Legacy of the Twins Platoon.

What is the Connection?

Christy didn’t live in Anoka County and still doesn’t. Why are we talking about him in this project?

One of the members of the Twins’ Platoon was named Bruce Sommer. He and his brother, Don, called Anoka County home. When you’re studying history, it’s important to look at the obvious information, but also to research the underlying ways we are all connected to the same story. Can you think of ways you’re connected to people or places that aren’t obvious?

Digging Deeper

Embarkation — the action or process of embarking the embarkation of troops; something (such as a body of troops) that is embarked

MOS — Military Occupational Specialty (your job)

Tet Offensive — The Tet Offensive was both a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. The North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (VC) launched a surprise attack on 30 and 31 January 1968 against the forces of the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the United States Armed Forces, and their allies.

NVA — North Vietnamese Army

Christy was born in Saint Paul and largely raised in Woodbury, MN, the middle of three children. Once he turned 18, he decided to join the Marine Corps. “At that time, it was kind of a given,” he later recalled, “that every young male fulfilled their military obligation. It was kind of like a duty. And also at that time, it was pretty well expected when a young guy turned 18, that they moved out of the house and on their own. 18 was the magic number. You turned 18 and the parents expected you to be out on your own.”

On June 28th, 1967, he was part of a group of 150 new Marine recruits (146 men and four women) who were brought onto the field at Metropolitan Stadium during a Minnesota Twins baseball game and sworn in together, hence their moniker, “Twins Platoon.” The recruits went directly from the stadium to Wold-Chamberlain Airport and were flown to boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, where they comprised Platoons 3011 and 3012. Christy belonged to the former platoon. He described basic training as an extremely physically and emotionally challenging experience, where the recruits were disciplined by their drill instructors with intense exercise sessions, belittlement, and even physical beatings. Basic training was eight weeks long, and after he graduated, his MOS was assigned as 0431, or amphibious embarkation specialist. He went to advanced training in Coronado, California, for another six weeks. Christy and most of his graduating class immediately received orders for Vietnam as soon as their training was complete.

On December 6th, 1967, Christy arrived in Da Nang, South Vietnam, under the jurisdiction of I Corps. “The thing that I remember the most is that after I got to my first unit and got checked in, and it was at night. I remember it was dark outside, and I looked up, and I could see the stars and I could hear gunfire in the distance. I mean you could actually hear the war going on. You could hear rifles shooting periodically, you could hear artillery going off, and it was just kind of eerie. And then I remember thinking, gee, I’m halfway around the world and it’s two or three weeks until Christmas and it was a 13-month tour of duty. And I realized, goodness, I’ll be here for two Christmases. Best case scenario, if I don’t get killed or wounded… for the first time in my life, you had that feeling where you didn’t know what tomorrow was going to bring.”

Christy was assigned to a helicopter squadron at Phu Bai Combat Base, just south of the Demilitarized Zone. He also participated in amphibious operations, in which he would board a naval ship and be relocated along the Vietnamese coasts. As an embarkation specialist, he was responsible for managing the transportation of Marine Corps personnel and supplies by ship and air. He was part of a three-person team, including one officer. “The embarkation officer that I worked for, he was actually the assistant embarkation officer that I worked closely with. He was killed in action over there. That was kind of traumatic, if you would. I mean, he was a really neat guy and I worked with him every day, and then just one day he was gone.”

He was in Phu Bai during the Tet Offensive of 1968, only about 10 miles from Hue City. He described how his base was repeatedly attacked by NVA artillery. “When the enemy would attack the bases, they would use a lot of artillery, mortars and rockets… and you would have no idea when it would happen. That was kind of dangerous. You had to take cover and go into the bunkers, and there'd be casualties.” Rocket attacks were constant and random, both to weaken base defenses and demoralize the troops stationed there. “You always had this kind of apprehension, knowing that at any minute, literally, you could have incoming rockets. They would just come out of the blue, day or night… we could never totally relax.”

Christy also recalled a rather harrowing observation: “The ARVN, the South Vietnamese Army–I remember one time they went flying overhead in one of the helicopters, and they had a guy hanging on the cable that comes down from the helicopter, and it was greased. The guy was kind of sliding down. I’m sure they were interrogating him. I don’t know what ever happened to him but I suspect he would either tell them what they needed to know or he would get to the end of the cable and fall to his death.”

In January of 1969, Christy rotated back to the United States and was stationed in California for the remainder of his enlistment. He was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in November, 1970. After his service, he received two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Minnesota and Northwest Missouri State University, respectively, and found a successful career as an insurance agent. In 2006, he wrote The Twins Platoon, a comprehensive history covering the wartime experiences of the 150 recruits, and followed it up in 2025 with The Legacy of the Twins Platoon, which won the Literary Titan Book Award. He and his wife JoAnn, have three children and three grandchildren, and live in North Branch, MN.