I remember when my husband was serving our country over in Vietnam. I was 7 years old when he voluntarily enlisted in the army at the age of 18. His older brother was also serving in Vietnam. Their poor mother, I remember her fears and worries. Jerry is the handsome guy above in the army uniform. His brother served in the navy - he also volunteered to join.
Jerry graduated high school June of 1967, and by September of that year he was in bootcamp at Fort Ord, California. He trained to be a truck mechanic.
In January of 1968, he went to Yong Son, South Korea, which is a suburb of Seoul, in the 304th Signal Battalion. There he served as a truck driver. Every two weeks his company at Camp Coiner would go on a big campout --- called Field Training or Field Problems. Jerry pulled the mess hall trailer to the campsite with a truck. The mess people would unload the trailer and set up the mess kitchen and for the next two weeks Jerry sat there with an empty trailer and waited to pull it back to Camp Coiner when their maneuvers were finished. He said Korea was the coldest place he has ever been in.
Jerry had put in a request to serve in Vietnam when he first arrived in Korea. In May 1968 he received his orders to go to the combat zone of Vietnam.
When he arrived at the replacement company in Vietnam, he was picked up by a Lt. Colonel and a Major. The Lt. Colonel introduced himself as Jerry's new commanding officer and the major was his new Executive Officer. Jerry knew he had been assigned to a medic squad, so being a truck driver he was looking for an ambulance to drive up. As they were near a hospital, a helicopter with a red cross landed nearby and the Lt. Colonel told Jerry to put his gear on 'The Bird'. Jerry said "No Sir". The Lt. Colonel said "What do you mean 'No sir'?" To which Jerry replied "Them things don't fly". The Lt Colonel asked him "Aren't you a crew chief?" and Jerry said "Who's a crew chief? I'm a truck mechanic". Unbeknownest to him, a personnel clerk had changed his MOS from a truck mechanic to a crew chief. And that is how Jerry began serving with the 498th Air Ambulance (Dustoff) unit in South Vietnam.
As a member of the air crew on the Hewey helicopter (that is him above standing next to one like he flew in over in Vietnam, this picture was taken in 2007), Jerry saw ever imaginable wound to our service men. He was on call at all hours and the Dustoff units had to fly into pockets of fighting to air lift the wounded to evacuation hospitals. The Dustoff crews saw more fighting than the infantry did on the ground. They had to fly into some very intense combat zones. Being as they had a big red cross painted on the side of their helicopter, the rules of combat say they can not have mounted guns on their ship. The enemy knew this and they would use the ambulance helicopters for target practice. Many times Jerry would get back to base and find bullet holes in the aircraft, some right where he had been standing while loading patients into the helicopter. You know that God had angels watching over him. I know that his Mom had many people surrounding him with prayer.
The first time he ever took enemy fire was when they had landed in a bomb crater and the enemy tried to hit the helicopter with mortar rounds. Jerry said the helicopter sat down in that crater and the crater was deeper than the helicopter was tall.
One time his helicopter was shot at and the engine was hit causing the helicopter to quit flying. They crashed. That time they had to wait to be rescued themselves.
In June of 1969, Jerry was transferred to Ft. Hood, Texas, where he served the rest of his duty as a clerk maintaining the motor pool parts for his company. He was discharged from the army in June 1970.
As a small child, I remember his parents prayers and worries over both their sons serving in the military during a war. My family sheltered us kids from the horrors of the war that was shown on tv and in magazines. But I do remember feeling immense pride for Jerry being 'over there'.
Another hero of mine is my Dad. He was in the Korean War and served as an airplane mechanic during that conflict. I love to look at his picture albums of the planes and the sites from when he was stationed in Japan.
I am a very lucky lady to have had so many men and women fight for my freedom - and they don't even know me. I appreciate each of them immensely. War is not a wonderful sight, but unfortunately it is a necessary evil. Too many people in this country take their freedom for granted, some are even willing to throw it away without a thought, but oh how they will miss it if it should ever be taken away from us.
I am proud to have two important men in my life who gave up part of their lives so that I, and so many others, do not have to live in a country where the government controls our every move right down to how many children we have or where we work all day. These men and women who have served in the past, even during peace time, and are presently serving now are this country's true heros.
THANK YOU!
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