Posted on 05/11/2008 3:51:07 PM PDT by stockpirate
I've known Bob since I was 14, I was best man at his wedding, he at mine.
Please excuse my typing if there are mistakes because as I write this my eyes are filled with tears.
Back in the day he enlisted in the Army and went to Viet-Nam. I tired to enlist but flat feet and high blood pressue kept me out.
Bob returned from the Nam as he referred to it, with the Bronze Star for Valor.
All these years every once and a while I'd ask him how he earned his Bronze Star, and all these years his reply has been the same, "I was the company cleark".
He would tell me the funny stories.
Until this morning when we were on the phone.
He told me about a time he had to crawl down a tunnel looking for VC and had to go through a water tube like a "P" trap on a sink. He said he could hear his heart pounding in his chest.
When he came up on the other side the room was full of VC and he did what he had to and got the hell out.
I could hear the struggle in my friends voice and he said he had to quit as he was crying.
God Bless our brave soldiers that keep us free.
Thanks.
He was a “tunnel rat?”
I read a couple of books on it - those guys had something special to do the things they did...
PS don’t type with tears in your eyes.
Those tunnel rats were men cut from a different cloth.
thanks
I just felt his story needed to be out I’m the world
The north Vietnamese won the war because of their extensive tunnels. At one point we were very close to destroying a key portion of their headquarters which could have been a major turning point, but didn't know it and missed. Going down in those tunnels had to be one of the worst jobs ever.
We actually won the war on the battlefield but people like Kerry gave the VC the will to hang.
He did mention that we were one trap door from finding the VC HQ for all of S. Viet-Nam.
Thanks for doing so. A long time ago, I read a book titled something more or less like "Tunnel Rat's of Chu Chi". It gave me cold shivers thinking about doing what those men did.
For over 35 years he has never told me anything other then he was the company clerk, with some stories about funny things they did in the bush. Never anything ike this.
Bump!
God bless your friend, SP.
Thanks
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.