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Gerry (Gopher) Gamble. He carried an M-79 grenade launcher,
and before I arrived in country he killed a VC or NVA with it. He saw him across a clearing
and took a shot. The enemy soldier never saw it coming. Jerry had
been injured on July 2nd when the platoon had been attacked at about dawn. The platoon
leader, Lt. Edward Williamson, was killed, as was Sgt. Robert McGinnis. Also wounded that day
was Ronald Zimmerman. |
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This is PFC Robert Clements, who died
along with SP4 James McCarthy on 29 Nov 1969, due to friendly fire. LT called in
artillery well ahead of us but we were on the gun-target line. The first high explosive
round fell right on top of us. I think Bob died right away, and James died later that
day in the hospital. |
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Platoon Leader LT Jeffrey Rogers stayed in the
Army after Vietnam and rose to the rank of Colonel. He retired in 1994.
It took me a while to figure out that LT stood for lieutenant. On
the right was the Platoon Sergeant, Staff Sergeant James Grider. He was small and tough.
He could carry more cans of beer when we got resupplied than anyone else I knew. Vietnam is
where I learned to drink warm Coca Cola. |
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We called him "Hock", but his name is Robert T.
Hochadel, Jr. He was almost shot by one of us when he went out
beyond the perimeter one pitch-black night to answer nature's call. Luckily the rifle
blew up and the bullet never left the chamber. That night was so dark that we had to tie
string between the bunkers to move around. |
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Name unknown, but I seem to remember that he had
trouble with his feet, and might have volunteered later to be a door gunner on a helicopter.
Anyway, he talked about it a lot. |
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Names unknown, with the SSG Grider in the middle. Stopping
for the day, probably. |
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During the rainy season it rained
every day. We went to bed wet, dried out during the night, then got soaked again in the
morning. |
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Greg Gomez. I was told to watch him and to do
what he did, because he was "short time". Greg's nickname was "Chief" (which he probably didn't
appreciate), and I'm told that he was also called "Pancho". I assume that he was actually
Mexican-American and American Indian. I think I learned to set out trip-flares from him.
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Me. I didn't shave very often in the bush. And after
a couple of weeks we didn't notice how bad we smelled. |
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Name unknown and 50 calibre machine gun. Actually an
anti-aircraft gun, it was used on fire base perimeters, vehicles, etc. It was too
heavy to carry, at least we didn't. I saw one cut down a tree once. We would
fire for about 60 seconds every night at a different time, just to keep the
VC off guard. I never saw an enemy aircraft, nor an enemy tank for that matter. |
