History Blog Post #7 – March 1967 – Part 1 – the 101st Airborne at Hill 86, a prelude to March 9th, 1967
1967 – MARCH From September of 1966 to February of 1967, the Braves of the 3-12 had become acclimated to this new style of guerrilla warfare. Hard lessons had been learned. The M-113 incident in February caused a stand down at the 10th Cav, and all drivers and commanders received retraining on the proper use […]
History Blog Post #6 – 1967 – January & February – The Pond.
1967 – JANUARY & FEBRUARY 1967 started for the battalion much as 1966 had ended. Operation Adams continued, moving into the fifth and final phase of the operation, dubbed “Operation Rice Bowl”. The mission was simple, secure the rice paddies in the lowland coastal basin and let the civilian farmers harvest the crops free of […]
Gravesite Visit #42 – PFC Roy L Edelstein – Superior, Wisconsin
Minneapolis, Minnesota In October of 2022 I found myself in Minneapolis, Minnesota for work. On Monday the 17th I had visited the gravesites of three men who were serving in the 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment in Vietnam when they were killed in action. Once I finished up at the cemeteries, I picked up a […]
Gravesite Visit #41 – Private First Class Don R. Klein – Minneapolis, Minnesota
Ft Snelling National Cemetery After leaving the gravesite of SP4 Robert Larson in Section H, I headed northwest towards Section J, home to over two thousand more American veterans. Specifically, I’d be looking for the headstone of PFC Don Robert Klein, who served in Charlie Company, 3/12 Infantry. He was killed in action in northern […]
Gravesite Visit #40 – Specialist Fourth Class Robert J Larson – Minneapolis, Minnesota
After visiting the grave of SP4 John Lobsinger at Lakewood Cemetery, I headed southeast toward my next stop. Ft. Snelling National Cemetery, located on the south side of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, is a sprawling National Cemetery, filled with tens of thousands of military markers. There were two 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry soldiers to visit […]
Gravesite Visit #39 – Specialist Fourth Class John Forman Lobsinger – Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 17, 2022 In the fall of 2022, my employer gave me the opportunity to travel to Minneapolis-St. Paul for a planning session. After looking at the proposed schedule, I realized I could easily fit in a visit to a few gravesite visits located in and around the area. I compiled a list of […]
Gravesite Visit #5 – Private First Class Sanders Key Stroud II – Corpus Christi, Texas
On the morning of October 8th, 2020, my then nine-year old son Micah and I met Frank Morrison and his wife Tracy at a small diner in Corpus Christi, Texas. Micah and I were on day four of a ten-day trip, having spent the previous day playing tourist at the USS Lexington Museum ship. He […]
Gravesite Visit #4 – PFC Antonio Garza Jr. – Jourdanton, Texas
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 […]
Gravesite Visit #3 – Sergeant Duane Johnson – Kerrville, Texas
October 4th, 2020 My son Micah and I left Petersburg at 3:00 PM, headed south on Alaska Airlines flight #64 to Wrangell, Ketchikan and finally Seattle, Washington, where we would stay the night before catching our next flight to San Antonio, Texas. This trip was the much anticipated beginning of a mission I gave myself […]
History Blog Post #5 – Phu Yen Province – December 1966
The soldiers of the 3-12 Infantry were also encountering an enemy that was the master of the booby trap. Punji stake traps, filled with wooden stakes sharpened and smeared with human excrement were common, and landmines and explosive devices littered the battlefield. But for Bravo Company, 3-12, and one soldier in particular, a peculiar and […]