USAF 483rd Security Police Squadron - I arrived in Vietnam on 4 January 1972. I was a know-little about the world nineteen year old. There were about 120,000 US It was all I could do to keep working that post. It hit me hard. The SP working the gate with me told me to sit down and he would handle the gate by himself. The day before we had been joking and cutting up. Now they were gone.
After that day whenever I worked the back gate (Aerial Port) I could not stand to check the Graves Registration duce and a half trucks. I finally got the nerve to search for the names of those guys killed in action, midnight of 9 April. They are: James Michael Barry, Daniel K. Kushner, Jerry D. Laws, and Joseph C. Szekely. I don't know what happened to the eighteen others that were wounded that night, but I haven't forgotten them either. What's hard for me to take is knowing that at the same time this happened, students at Michigan State University were protesting in the streets, blocking the roadways, and having meetings discussing war and peace and freedom and they didn't have nothing to do but party down and live! They might just as well spit in my face! That little piece of war changed my life. Those students didn't realize just who was making a real difference for freedom. I do. Now and forever. |
