Second Stop – Cementerio Catolico de San Jose, Jourdanton, Texas – PFC Antonio Garza, Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment. Killed in Action on May 22nd, 1967
As Micah and I sped along Texas Route 173 towards Jourdanton, we noticed a gradual change in the topology and scenery. The scrubby forested hills in the Kerrville area gave way to more open rangeland. Not entirely devoid of hills, this land was broken into a series of large ranches, most of which proudly displayed an arched and branded gateway at each one’s entrance off the highway. The Flying A, Triple 7 and G4 Ranch let us know that this was cowboy country.
In Bandera, a natural history museum with a large outdoor dinosaur park was alluring enough to make us stop. Alas, it was closed on Tuesday, so we settled for a guerilla style picture of Micah in front of the Stegosaurus placed close to the gate, and headed for Plan B. The Frontier Times Museum lies at the corner of Pecan and 13th in Bandera, and its small L shaped building is packed with Texas hill country history. We spent about 30 minutes there, where Micah completed an 8-item scavenger hunt, which included a stuffed cougar, a replica covered wagon and of course, a rattlesnake. Much to my disappointment, when the museum staff handed him the prize box and told him to pick something out, he chose a rubber bouncy ball instead of the classic plastic sheriff star that had caught my eye.
A quick stop for cold drinks and driving snacks and then we were on the road again. We passed through the cowboy towns of Hondo and Devine and were soon pulling into Jourdanton. Of all my scheduled stops, this one gave me the most anxiety as it would be my first time meeting a Gold Star family and introducing them to a brother-in-arms of their loved one. Antonio Garza Jr, who served in Bravo Company and was killed-in-action on May 22nd, 1967 was buried in a small cemetery on the southwest part of town, but there was no plot location listed for his grave. In the lead up to the visit, I had posted a request for assistance in locating the gravesite location on a Facebook group run by the local VFW. In the post, I also asked if anyone knew any of his surviving family or friends. Within an hour of posting, I received a response from a man named Rockie Camacho “That’s my mom’s cousin. She said the closest kin are his two sisters who live in San Antonio….”
Mary and Bea
I quickly messaged Rockie and provided him with more information in order to assure him that I was legitimate, and not some scammer looking to take advantage of his family. I sent him my phone number and email address and waited.
On September 24th, I received an email from a woman named Mary Aguilar, the sister of Antonio Garza Jr. Her response was amazing, but not altogether shocking. In my research of the unit and its casualties, I had already helped many family members learn about the where, when and how of their loved one’s death in Vietnam. For many of them, it was like their loved one had shipped off to Vietnam and disappeared into a void. Vague military reports and death certificates listing far off places like Pleiku, Dak To, Kontum and Tuy Hoa brought the geographic location into focus a little bit, but for many families, those places might as well have been Mars and Venus.
Mary wrote “After 50 years, my sister Bea and I would like to have some closure regarding his service in Vietnam and his death. He was our only brother, him being the oldest, and as a result, no one else to carry the family name. My parents have recently passed, and his death caused them so much sadness and sorrow. Bea and I always think of him; we still get so emotional.”
Tony’s Story
In 1965, Antonio “Tony” Garza Jr, the oldest child of Antonio Garza Sr and Rosa Garza received his draft notice from the United States Army. Tony, who was born in Jourdanton in 1946 and had lived there his entire life, enjoyed the rustic life of a typical south Texas teenager. He was a member of Future Farmers of America, and his sisters remember how much he enjoyed raising a pig. Tony learned how to shoot a rifle at a young age, and as he grew older became a natural shooting instructor, passing on his knowledge to three young neighbor boys. After he died, Tony’s parents gave his rifle to the oldest of them, who still owns it today.
Tall, lanky, good with a gun and used to rough country living, Tony had many of the traits that make a good soldier. In December of 1965, he reported to Ft. Lewis, Washington and joined Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment. This would be his unit for the entirety of his military service. From the Texas heat to the snow and rain of the Pacific Northwest in winter, Tony and several other Hispanic draftees from the Southwest bonded together. In one picture Tony and five other soldiers huddle together in their winter weight field uniforms on what looks to be a brisk early spring day, M-14 rifles in hand. Martinez, two Ramirezes, Heurta, Nuncio and Garza all smile at the camera, knees wet and muddy from the damp ground beneath.
For Tony and the rest of Bravo Company, the spring and summer of 1966 were filled with Basic and Advanced Infantry training, and then supplemental unit training, where they learned to fight and maneuver as an infantry company. After a short leave period in August, it was time to deploy to Vietnam. Bravo Company was tasked to be the advanced party for the battalion, and on September 7th, 1966, they boarded US Air Force C-141 Starlifters, strapped themselves in and began the long journey across the Pacific Ocean. Their tour in Vietnam had begun.
Bravo Company and the rest of the ‘Braves’ of the 3/12 Infantry spent the first seven months of their Vietnam tour in Phu Yen Province, which lies along the central coast of South Vietnam. The town of Tuy Hoa housed an ever-expanding army base camp, an army helicopter base and eventually a massive air force base. The men in Bravo Company used helicopters and the occasional truck or armored personnel carrier to patrol the rice paddies, jungles, villages and hillsides throughout Phu Yen. Operation Adams, a major operation launched in late 1966 was designed to protect the rice harvest, while at the same time pinpointing and destroying local Viet Cong insurgent cells and camps.
In April of 1967, in support of the newly initiated Operation Francis Marion, the entire battalion would be shifted from the rice paddies and sandy shorelines near Tuy Hoa, to the massive jungled peaks of the Pleiku Province, far to the west. Instead of spending their time hunting for villagers moonlighting as insurgents, they would be sent out to curb the flow of North Vietnamese regular army units filtering in from Laos and Cambodia on the famed Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Bravo Company helped establish LZ Jackson Hole, the first major brigade firebase west of Camp Enari and then were quickly pushed into the field, tasked with finding and engaging NVA units in the mountains to the west. The mountains of Chu Ba, Chu Kram and Chu Goungot formed a natural barricade between Jackson Hole and the border area. The men of 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division were ordered to clear the mountains and the lowlands to their west of the enemy.
On May 18th, 1967, a massive battle erupted to the southwest of these lofty peaks. Elements of the NVA’s 66th Regiment had launched a crippling ambush on an infantry company from the 1st Battalion, 8th infantry. In the desperate fighting that ensued between the 18th and 20th of May, the battalion suffered over 100 casualties, including more than forty killed in action.
On the 20th, approximately eight kilometers north of the location of the fighting, Tony Garza and the rest of the men of Alpha & Bravo Companies, 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment had established a joint perimeter atop a small hill. The next morning, the two companies split and began moving south. At approximately 10:00 AM, the companies were ordered to move directly south to reinforce the badly depleted 1-8 Infantry.
Bravo Company, led by Marine Corps enlisted man turned Army officer Captain Mike Hamer, moved through a stretch of thick forest which had previously been the target of an American airstrike. Downed trees occasionally stretched across the trail, and the approximately 100 soldiers of the company were forced to make their way cautiously through this log strewn landscape, due to unexploded American cluster bomb units littering the forest floor.
Suddenly, a huge explosion ripped through the column of men. When the dust settled, at least four men were down and severely injured. SGT Thomas Modisette, a team leader from Irving, Texas, was the most grievously injured and did not survive his wounds. The other three men, including SGT Robert Ramirez were quickly treated by the medics and prepared for evacuation, which occurred by helicopter around noon. The company, although shaken by the freak nature of the incident and the loss of four men, including three non-commissioned officers, shouldered their rucksacks and moved on.
A quick run in with an NVA trail watcher and the discovery of bundles of communications wire laid carefully on the jungle floor let CPT Hamer, Tony Garza and the rest of Bravo Company knew that the enemy was nearby. Bravo continued their march south until CPT Hamer gave the order to stop and establish a two-company night defensive perimeter. Bravo began digging foxholes, and Alpha Company filtered into the perimeter as darkness fell. With a two-company perimeter now intact, the roughly 200 men settled into their normal evening routine. Listening posts were established and watch schedules set. Foxholes were finished up and c-rations were eaten. Another night in the jungle would bring them one day closer to going home.
Tony Garza settled into the foxhole he would share with SP4 Mike Horan and another soldier. Tony had written home often, and frequently received care packages from his mother and sisters that he no doubt shared with the men in Bravo Company. Mike remembers Tony as a quiet, soft spoken man who always performed his soldierly duty with honor and was well liked by everyone. He was just trying to do his best in the craziness that was the war in Vietnam.
The night passed uneventfully for the men of Alpha and Bravo Companies, but in the thickly jungled hillside to their west, a portion of the 66th Infantry Regiment of the North Vietnamese Army drew near and prepared to attack.
At 7:10 AM on the morning of the 22nd, the NVA launched their attack. Beginning with a light mortar barrage, the attack quickly intensified and the men occupying foxholes all along the shared Alpha/Bravo perimeter began to defend themselves.
Tony, Mike and the third soldier soon spotted NVA soldiers moving through the undergrowth to their front. Chicom grenades began landing nearby, and the NVA slowly inched closer. Picking out targets, the men began firing their weapons. The fight was on.
For over two hours, the men of Bravo and Alpha ferociously defended their positions against the determined NVA assault. Casualties began to mount on both sides, and Mike and Tony were soon confronted with a lightly wounded American looking for cover inside their foxhole. With no room to spare, Mike suggested that the man take up residence behind their small bunker and wait for the medic.
American airstrikes and artillery pounded the area outside the joint perimeter, but still the NVA kept up their assault. The foxhole occupied by Mike, Tony and the other soldier continued to be targeted by NVA grenades. Many were duds, and the well constructed bunker kept them safe from the ones that weren’t.
“That one hit the bunker” exclaimed Tony. As he began to crawl out of the firing aperture to inspect or discard whatever had hit their bunker, a massive explosion occurred. The bunker that had kept the three men safe all morning was suddenly reduced to a pile of smoking logs and sandbags. Mike Horan was seriously injured, suffering numerous gashes to his back and head from shell fragments and splinters, as well as a punctured lung. He managed to extricate himself from the destroyed bunker, and carefully laid down behind it. He didn’t see Tony or the other soldier anywhere, and besides a single grenade in his pants pocket, was unarmed and out of the fight.
Tony Garza, the son of Rosa and Antonio Garza Sr, was dead, killed instantly when struck in the chest by shell fragments and splinters from the massive explosion. The battle raged on, but eventually the stubborn defenders and relentless artillery and air support pushed the NVA back into the jungle. CPT Hamer, the overall commander of the two-company perimeter, was masterful in his command of air and artillery support, and the NVA withdrew, harried by American B-52 strikes as they crossed the border back into Cambodia. Besides Tony, nine more Americans lay dead and over 70 were wounded. The initial enemy body count was set at 61 NVA KIA, but that number would rise as the battlefield was policed over the next two days.
Mike Horan was eventually evacuated from the field, and most likely shared a helicopter ride back to the battalion aid station with his foxhole mate Tony’s body. For both men, the war was over. Mike would spend time recuperating in Japan before he was shipped back to the United States.
On Wednesday, May 24th, Army casualty affairs officers notified Mr. and Mrs. Garza that their son had been killed in Vietnam. On that same day in Vietnam, Bravo Company was once again engaged in a ferocious defensive battle less than a kilometer east of where they had been engaged on the 22nd.
In Vietnam on May 28th, Chaplain Paschal M. Jackson officiated over memorial services for Tony and the rest of the men lost in the recent fighting. On June 3rd, over 900 people attended services for Tony at St. Matthew’s Catholic Church in Jourdanton, Texas. He was then buried with full military rites at the Cementerio Catolico de San Jose. On June 7th, his father Antonio, a decorated World War II veteran himself, filled out the DD Form 1330 grave application, and submitted the request for a simple flat bronze marker for his only son. Back in Vietnam, Captain Hamer finally had enough time to perform the most unenviable of duties, and wrote a one page letter to Tony’s parents, informing them of the basic circumstances of their son’s death. On June 30th, Tony was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal for Heroism. This medal, along with the Purple Heart, Combat Infantry Badge, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal and Vietnam Campaign Medal, was presented to the Garza family on September 18th at a private ceremony held at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
The Garza family would never be the same. They had planned on moving to San Antonio as soon as Tony had completed his military service. Tony’s death only quickened those plans. The girls, who never returned to Jourdanton High School to complete their senior and junior years, tried their best to hold the family together.
Antonio Sr., who had survived intense fighting in the European theater of World War II, was broken. At one point during his military service, he had experienced an event much like the incident that would claim the life of his son in Vietnam over 20 years later. While hiding in a foxhole during a particularly vicious German artillery barrage, his position was hit, causing his rifle and canteen to explode. His foxhole collapsed around him, and men from his regiment were forced to dig him out under heavy fire. Although temporarily paralyzed from the waist down, he recovered from his wounds, regained his mobility and got back into the fight. Although most likely unaware of the uncanny similarity between his experience and his sons, his grief at having lost his only son in combat was intense and probably amplified by his own memories of combat. After the family moved to San Antonio, Antonio suffered a nervous breakdown, and spent months in the Veterans Affairs hospital in nearby Kerrville. Tony’s mother Rosa slowly started losing weight, eventually tipping the scales at just over 80 pounds. The first few years after Tony’s death were extremely tough, but eventually the family grew accustomed to their new normal, and life without him carried on. For Mary and Bea, Vietnam remained a mystery for the most part. It was simply, ‘the place where their brother had died’. Army records were still classified, the war was still raging, and the story of their brother was eventually mixed in with the rest of the more than 58,000 Americans that died in Vietnam. The specific details of the fighting on May 22, 1967 were stored away, either in classified reports, or in the minds of who had survived. These men had no desire to share their stories with an American population that, for the most part, had decided to blame and persecute its soldiers for the government’s poor management of the Vietnam conflict.
50 years later
Mary Aguilar and I eventually connected via phone. We chatted for over 40 minutes, and I could hear the emotion in her voice. She was astounded that after all these years, someone was interested in her brother’s story. More than that, she was astonished when I told her that Tony was mentioned at least five times in the book Nine Days in May by Warren K Wilkins. In Part II of his three part book, Warren details the events of May 22, 1967, doing a far better job than I have done here. Mary took the information from me, and thanks to online book sales, had a copy on the way immediately.
I also gave her the email address of Mike Horan. He and I had been communicating fairly regularly over the past weeks, and he was open to talking with Tony’s sisters if they so desired. He sent a wonderful email to them very soon after finding out that I had found them, and I hoped that this contact would give him some closure as well.
I told Mary my plan for visiting Texas, and asked for directions to Tony’s grave. To my delight, she insisted that she and Bea would meet me there. I was excited, this would be my first chance to sit down with the relative of one of the names on my list and fill them in as much as I could. Even better, Robert Ramirez, who served with Tony from basic training through May 21st, 1967, when Robert was horribly wounded, stated that he would drive down from Dallas and meet us as well. The last contact that the Garza family had had with the Army was when they were presented with his medals in San Antonio in September of 1967. Now, they would be able to sit down with someone who had served with him in Vietnam. From September 1966 to May 21st, 1967, Robert and Tony had always been near each other. They didn’t serve in the same platoon, but the company most often moved as a unit, and so they occasionally bumped into each other.
October 6, 2020
Micah and I arrived in Jourdanton around 2:00 PM on Tuesday, October 6th. We made our way through town, passed by the large Jourdanton High School complex and pulled into the first entrance to the Cementerio Catolico de San Jose. As we made our way through the cemetery, I immediately noticed how vibrant and colorful it was. Small American flags, bouquets of flowers and colored pinwheels decorated many of the gravesites, and even a few wind chimes hung from the trees scattered throughout the cemetery. The grass, although mostly dry and brown after a long hot summer, had been recently cut. The small cemetery had an intimate feel with a welcoming, clean and pleasant atmosphere.
I pulled onto the road dividing the cemetery in half, just in front of a white full size truck with Purple Heart license plates. I stepped out of our car, and introduced myself to a tall older man who I recognized to be Robert Ramirez. Our attention turned to Mary and Bea, who had pulled up while Robert and I greeted each other. With the COVID-19 pandemic in full force, we settled into a reasonable distance and began to chat. For 50 years, Mary and Bea had lived with unanswered questions about their brother Tony. Vietnam had claimed him, and they were left with such a basic understanding of the circumstances of his death that it was as if he had disappeared into a void. We began to peel back the layers, and after a few minutes chatting near the vehicles, moved a few feet into the cemetery to his gravesite. Micah, used to the rainy, temperate climate of Southeast Alaska, retreated to the car and its comfortable air conditioning. I grabbed one of the flags that Melvin Jones had purchased for us in Kerrville, and made my way to Tony’s headstone.
His flat bronze marker was installed on a small concrete base, resting at a 45 degree angle. Two concrete vases flank the nearly upright marker. Weathered by the years, the marker now is almost black in color. The inscription remains easily read though. A small Latin cross is centered at the top of the marker, followed by these words,
ANTONIO G GARZA JR
TEXAS
PFC CO B 12 INF 4 INF DIV
VIETNAM PH
JUNE 21 1946 MAY 22 1967
On the day the five of us visited Tony’s gravesite, the vases were filled with bright red, white and blue flowers. Five small American flags were stuck in the ground in front of the headstone, and a large bouquet of blue roses stood in stark contrast against the brown grass.
After a few minutes of conversation, the hot Texas sun chased us out of the cemetery. Mary and Bea suggested we go to Joe’s Place, an iconic Jourdanton burger joint. Originally opened in 1938, the family run restaurant persisted through the years, and even during the current COVID pandemic, continued to supply the citizens of Jourdanton with a steady supply of homestyle fries and the famous JoeBurger.
Mary, Bea, Robert, Micah and I made our way into the nearly empty restaurant. Most customers these days ordered their food to go, which worked perfectly in our favor. We occupied a large table in the center of the room, ordered a late lunch and began to visit. For the next four hours, Mary and Bea asked question after question. Robert and I were able to answer most.
At one point, Bea brought out a binder filled with documents that the family had kept for all these years. A newspaper clipping about their father’s experience in World War II shed light on his record of service. Copies of Tony’s award citations and Purple Heart orders. Photos of the family receiving Tony’s posthumous Bronze Star with Valor Device. These were treasured keepsakes, and contained most, if not all of the information about the circumstances of Tony’s death that the Garza family had possessed for over 50 years. Now Mary and Bea had so much more.
We ended parted reluctantly. I didn’t want this meeting to end, but Micah and I needed to get on the road east to Corpus Christi, our next stop. We said our goodbyes, promised to keep in touch (which we did), and left Jourdanton, and the Cementerio Catolico de San Jose behind.