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 #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 #20 – Specialist Fourth Class James Robert Long – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Saturday April 10th, 2021- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania On Saturday, April 10th, 2021, my family and I left our Air BnB in Morgantown, West Virginia and drove north on Interstate 79 towards Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We had barely completed our move from Alaska to West Virginia, and had not yet closed on our home purchase. One of the […]
Gravesite Visit #8 – Sergeant Buddy E. Channon – Itasca, Texas
October 11th, 2020 On the morning of October 11th, 2020, my son Micah and I left our hotel in nearby Mesquite and drove just over 70 miles to the southwest. The Dallas skyline soon faded in the rear view mirror, and we followed Interstate 35E passed small towns, farms and cattle ranches. Our destination was […]
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 […]
History Blog Post #3 – Arrival to Vietnam – Tuy Hoa – September thru November 1966
ARRIVAL – TUY HOA – A SEASON OF FIRSTS As the Gordon pulled into port in Nha Trang on Wednesday, October 5th, the men aboard began to get their first glimpse of the lush green landscape that would be their battleground. Quickly moved off the ship, they experienced their first convoy of the war, and […]
History Blog Post #2 – U.S.N.S General W.H. Gordon – September 15th, 1966 to October 5th, 1966
The USS General W.H. Gordon was a 622’ General John Pope-class transport that had already made several trips across the Pacific, moving American men and material from the U.S. west coast to various ports in South Vietnam. At a top speed of just over 20 kts, it would take the fully laden vessel several weeks […]
Gravesite Visit #2 – Corporal Willie Danien Martinez – Santa Fe, New Mexico
Author’s note – I wrote this in September of 2019 while on a work trip to New Mexico. Keep that in mind as you read it, as I have not updated it to reflect current events. Imagine your country is at war. Which isn’t hard, since here in America we’ve been actively engaged in combat […]