The reality of the Vietnam War hit Skip Funk three days after he arrived at Khe Sanh Combat Base in September 1967.

Funk — then a corporal with 1st Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division — was sent with about 10 other Marines to meet three helicopters carrying 11 casualties.

“If the Marine was deceased, they would place them face down on the stretcher — that way that would make it easier for the other corpsmen where they wouldn’t waste time trying to help a dead Marine,” he said by phone Wednesday from his home in Collierville, Tenn.

“I will tell you that all 11 of the Marines that we took off of those helicopters were face down. And I will never forget that as long as I live.”

Funk, now 81, is one of 12 veterans returning March 1-8 to tour key Vietnam battle sites in Hanoi, Da Nang, Hue and Ho Chi Minh City.

The Eagle Society and Forever Young Veterans, which take veterans to war memorial and battle sites, organized the event.

Funk will be joined by fellow Marine veteran Robert Kiyosaki, 79, of Arizona; Army veterans Rudy Dixon, 74, of New Albany, Miss.; Abel Garcia, 76, of Willis, Texas; Ken Thompson, 75, of Agawam, Mass.; Mike Kinniburgh, 76, of Green River, Wyo.; Jerry Melcher, 76, of Bartlett, Tenn.; Larry Dobesh, 78, of Hudson, Fla; Jerol Arguella, 76, of Thornton, Colo;, Jerry Vandyke, 78, of Texas; and Mike Bennett, 80, of New Albany; and Navy veteran Bill Hines, 77, of Sandy Springs, Ga.

All except Kiyosaki are returning to Vietnam for the first time since the war, Eagle Society founder Michael Davidson said by phone Tuesday.

Hines served as a boatswain’s mate aboard the harbor tugboat USS Mandan from 1969 to 1970, taking supplies to firebases. He was almost killed in an outhouse the night he arrived at the air base in Da Nang.

“I said, there’s no way I’m coming back from this alive,” he said by phone Wednesday.

On the day Hines left Vietnam, he and a Marine were caught in crossfire on the way to the air base.

“We looked like part of the jeep — we were out on the floorboard, and the jeep did not take a round,” he said. “It scared me to death.”

Funk served during the 77-day Siege of Khe Sanh that began on Jan. 20, 1968.

“I was just coming off a two-hour radio watch when … a Russian-made rocket hit about 3 feet from my bunker,” he said. “It put a crater in the ground about 3 feet deep and about 10 feet wide, and that was my introduction to the Siege of Khe Sanh.”

About 20,000 North Vietnamese soldiers launched a series of attacks against the base, according to the National Museum of the Marine Corps. The siege ended April 14 when U.S. soldiers and Marines seized the last of the commanding terrain north of the base.

Funk’s two closest friends, Cpl. Gary Thorpe and Sgt. Maj. Donald Bean, died during the fighting at Khe Sanh.

“I want them to know that I’m going in their honor,” he said.

Asked about the friends he lost in the war, Hines went silent. “I can’t do it,” he said.

He said he’s returning to “get rid of some of the bad memories and replace them with good — I hope.”