thedrifter
01-14-04, 11:11 AM
Marine's Sacrifice in the Battle of Hue
With the 1996 commissioning of the guided-missile destroyer USS Alfredo Gonzalez, a Marine Medal of Honor recipient’s legacy lives on.
By John W. Flores
Twelve enemy soldiers, armed with B-40 rocket-propelled grenades, moved stealthily through the underbrush that lined the edge of the schoolyard of the Jeanne d'Arc High School and Church complex, located on the edge of Hue City. They took cover as a 38-man U.S. Marine force approached their position across an open field on the opposite side of the church. A violent and bloody showdown was imminent.
It was the morning of February 4, 1968, five days after the NVA and VC had overrun Hue, the old Imperial capital of Vietnam, at the beginning of their Tet Offensive. The Marines were from the 3rd Platoon, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment (1/1), commanded by Sergeant Alfredo "Freddy" Gonzalez, a 21-year-old Marine from Edinburg, Texas. He had taken charge several days earlier after the lieutenant who normally commanded the platoon had been wounded and evacuated.
Gonzalez had enlisted in the Marines three years earlier, in May 1965, just after graduating from high school. He had always wanted to be a Marine from the time he was a small boy, according to his mother, Dolia Gonzalez, who still lives in Edinburg. Often, while watching John Wayne war movies at the town theater on Saturday afternoons, he would nudge his mother, cup his hand to her ear and whisper, "Someday I'm going to be a Marine just like that."
After boot camp, Gonzalez served a one-year tour in Vietnam in 1966-67. "Freddy had just completed one tour of duty, and he'd made it back home," recalled J.J. Avila, a close friend of Gonzalez's who also served as a Marine in Vietnam. "He was on leave, and I remember he called me over to his house and said he had a serious dilemma. He had just gotten word that a platoon of men he had served with in Vietnam had been blown away in an ambush." Gonzalez told Avila he believed that he could have kept the men alive had he been at the scene. "And he had reason to be so confident," said Avila. "He saved many men through his coolness under fire, a calculating, rapid-fire courage, and a big-brother's concern for his men."
Avila continued: "I told Freddy, ‘Do not go back. You've done your duty.' He said he did not want to go back. He'd seen enough of the war, and he wanted to be close to home to take care of his mother. But the ambush really hit him hard. Finally, I knew it was no use. He'd made his mind up, and there was no changing it. I told him he'd already done his duty, but if he had to go back, just be careful. Just come back home."
When Gonzalez returned to Vietnam he was assigned to Alpha Company, 1/1. In January 1968 the men had just come off duty along the DMZ at Con Thien and had moved south to the provincial capital at Quang Tri. "I had no other officers with me," recalled retired Marine Colonel Gordon Batcheller, who—then a captain—had taken command of Alpha Company on Christmas Day 1967. "They were all gone. Sergeant Gonzalez was commander of the 3rd Platoon. We were ordered as part of a large-scale movement down to Phu Bai, outside of Hue, the night before the Tet Offensive started on January 30. We were alerted we would be a reaction force, then I got blown away with an automatic weapon of some kind going into Hue and was medevaced out."
Lieutenant (now Maj. Gen.) Ray Smith, who took command of Alpha Company after Batcheller was wounded, was impressed with platoon leader Gonzalez. "The thing that probably is most surprising and maybe says a lot about him is that I thought of Sergeant Gonzalez as an old veteran," said Smith. "At the time, I mean, I remember thinking of Sergeant Gonzalez as an old-timer, a guy who had been around a while. I was just 21, and as it turned out he was four or five months younger than me. I remember him as a real mature, grown-up sergeant type of a guy, as opposed to the 21-year-old that he was. He was a real quiet person, but he always had a smile on his face. He was a little restrained in his emotions, but that was probably because he was truly one of the ‘grown-ups' in our organization."
"I primarily knew him on a personal basis, because in November and December 1967 in Quang Tri we had an officer and staff NCO card game," continued Smith. "We would gather in the company commander's bunker and play penny ante poker. You had to be an officer or a staff NCO to be involved in that card game, but we made an exception for Gonzalez because he was to us a grown-up among those kids. Like a lot of people that you remember for their actions, my memory of him is as a big muscular guy, when in fact I know he wasn't a big muscular guy. He was actually fairly small. I'm 6-feet-2-inches tall and 218 pounds. Recently a friend sent me a photo of Sergeant Gonzalez and I standing beside each other. I couldn't believe I was that much bigger than him. It was just the opposite in my memory. He was the big one."
During the advance into Hue City, Gonzalez was wounded twice by machine-gun and mortar fire. At one point, when Gonzalez and other Marines became targets of sniper fire, they took cover behind an armored vehicle that was rolling along ahead of the platoon. One of the privates under Gonzalez's command was hit and went down on the road ahead. Gonzalez jumped from behind the tank and sprayed fire at a VC machine-gun bunker that was hidden amid the heavy foliage along the dirt road. While some members of his platoon were momentarily stunned by Gonzalez's bold move, others raked the machine-gun nest with automatic-weapons fire. Before the sergeant reached the badly wounded Marine 20 or 30 yards ahead, he made his way along a narrow ditch until he was near the bunker. He then lobbed two grenades inside, and the explosions killed the enemy soldiers in the bunker. Gonzalez then made his way back to the wounded private, heaved his 170-pound body over his shoulder and ran back toward the cover of the tank. Although hit by bullet fragments and mortar shrapnel from other enemy troops and bleeding badly, Gonzalez managed to reach the tank.
A Navy corpsman rushed to administer to Gonzalez and the dying Marine he had tried to save and ordered the sergeant to leave by medevac chopper. But Gonzalez would have none of it, according to Smith. These were his men, and he refused to leave them.
As Gonzalez's boss, Smith tried to get another sergeant to take command of the 3rd Platoon while the company continued its advance on Hue City. But nobody challenged Gonzalez's decision to fight on. According to Smith, "The gunnery sergeant said, ‘Lieutenant, I'll go and follow Sergeant Gonzalez around if you want me to, but he is in command of 3rd Platoon.' He said he was going to put him in for the Medal of Honor if we survived. Always seen as a good, solid, lead-by-example Marine, when we entered the fight in Hue City, Gonzalez became way more than that. For the next few days he became almost a one-man army. All of us who survived remain in awe of him."
continued.......
With the 1996 commissioning of the guided-missile destroyer USS Alfredo Gonzalez, a Marine Medal of Honor recipient’s legacy lives on.
By John W. Flores
Twelve enemy soldiers, armed with B-40 rocket-propelled grenades, moved stealthily through the underbrush that lined the edge of the schoolyard of the Jeanne d'Arc High School and Church complex, located on the edge of Hue City. They took cover as a 38-man U.S. Marine force approached their position across an open field on the opposite side of the church. A violent and bloody showdown was imminent.
It was the morning of February 4, 1968, five days after the NVA and VC had overrun Hue, the old Imperial capital of Vietnam, at the beginning of their Tet Offensive. The Marines were from the 3rd Platoon, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment (1/1), commanded by Sergeant Alfredo "Freddy" Gonzalez, a 21-year-old Marine from Edinburg, Texas. He had taken charge several days earlier after the lieutenant who normally commanded the platoon had been wounded and evacuated.
Gonzalez had enlisted in the Marines three years earlier, in May 1965, just after graduating from high school. He had always wanted to be a Marine from the time he was a small boy, according to his mother, Dolia Gonzalez, who still lives in Edinburg. Often, while watching John Wayne war movies at the town theater on Saturday afternoons, he would nudge his mother, cup his hand to her ear and whisper, "Someday I'm going to be a Marine just like that."
After boot camp, Gonzalez served a one-year tour in Vietnam in 1966-67. "Freddy had just completed one tour of duty, and he'd made it back home," recalled J.J. Avila, a close friend of Gonzalez's who also served as a Marine in Vietnam. "He was on leave, and I remember he called me over to his house and said he had a serious dilemma. He had just gotten word that a platoon of men he had served with in Vietnam had been blown away in an ambush." Gonzalez told Avila he believed that he could have kept the men alive had he been at the scene. "And he had reason to be so confident," said Avila. "He saved many men through his coolness under fire, a calculating, rapid-fire courage, and a big-brother's concern for his men."
Avila continued: "I told Freddy, ‘Do not go back. You've done your duty.' He said he did not want to go back. He'd seen enough of the war, and he wanted to be close to home to take care of his mother. But the ambush really hit him hard. Finally, I knew it was no use. He'd made his mind up, and there was no changing it. I told him he'd already done his duty, but if he had to go back, just be careful. Just come back home."
When Gonzalez returned to Vietnam he was assigned to Alpha Company, 1/1. In January 1968 the men had just come off duty along the DMZ at Con Thien and had moved south to the provincial capital at Quang Tri. "I had no other officers with me," recalled retired Marine Colonel Gordon Batcheller, who—then a captain—had taken command of Alpha Company on Christmas Day 1967. "They were all gone. Sergeant Gonzalez was commander of the 3rd Platoon. We were ordered as part of a large-scale movement down to Phu Bai, outside of Hue, the night before the Tet Offensive started on January 30. We were alerted we would be a reaction force, then I got blown away with an automatic weapon of some kind going into Hue and was medevaced out."
Lieutenant (now Maj. Gen.) Ray Smith, who took command of Alpha Company after Batcheller was wounded, was impressed with platoon leader Gonzalez. "The thing that probably is most surprising and maybe says a lot about him is that I thought of Sergeant Gonzalez as an old veteran," said Smith. "At the time, I mean, I remember thinking of Sergeant Gonzalez as an old-timer, a guy who had been around a while. I was just 21, and as it turned out he was four or five months younger than me. I remember him as a real mature, grown-up sergeant type of a guy, as opposed to the 21-year-old that he was. He was a real quiet person, but he always had a smile on his face. He was a little restrained in his emotions, but that was probably because he was truly one of the ‘grown-ups' in our organization."
"I primarily knew him on a personal basis, because in November and December 1967 in Quang Tri we had an officer and staff NCO card game," continued Smith. "We would gather in the company commander's bunker and play penny ante poker. You had to be an officer or a staff NCO to be involved in that card game, but we made an exception for Gonzalez because he was to us a grown-up among those kids. Like a lot of people that you remember for their actions, my memory of him is as a big muscular guy, when in fact I know he wasn't a big muscular guy. He was actually fairly small. I'm 6-feet-2-inches tall and 218 pounds. Recently a friend sent me a photo of Sergeant Gonzalez and I standing beside each other. I couldn't believe I was that much bigger than him. It was just the opposite in my memory. He was the big one."
During the advance into Hue City, Gonzalez was wounded twice by machine-gun and mortar fire. At one point, when Gonzalez and other Marines became targets of sniper fire, they took cover behind an armored vehicle that was rolling along ahead of the platoon. One of the privates under Gonzalez's command was hit and went down on the road ahead. Gonzalez jumped from behind the tank and sprayed fire at a VC machine-gun bunker that was hidden amid the heavy foliage along the dirt road. While some members of his platoon were momentarily stunned by Gonzalez's bold move, others raked the machine-gun nest with automatic-weapons fire. Before the sergeant reached the badly wounded Marine 20 or 30 yards ahead, he made his way along a narrow ditch until he was near the bunker. He then lobbed two grenades inside, and the explosions killed the enemy soldiers in the bunker. Gonzalez then made his way back to the wounded private, heaved his 170-pound body over his shoulder and ran back toward the cover of the tank. Although hit by bullet fragments and mortar shrapnel from other enemy troops and bleeding badly, Gonzalez managed to reach the tank.
A Navy corpsman rushed to administer to Gonzalez and the dying Marine he had tried to save and ordered the sergeant to leave by medevac chopper. But Gonzalez would have none of it, according to Smith. These were his men, and he refused to leave them.
As Gonzalez's boss, Smith tried to get another sergeant to take command of the 3rd Platoon while the company continued its advance on Hue City. But nobody challenged Gonzalez's decision to fight on. According to Smith, "The gunnery sergeant said, ‘Lieutenant, I'll go and follow Sergeant Gonzalez around if you want me to, but he is in command of 3rd Platoon.' He said he was going to put him in for the Medal of Honor if we survived. Always seen as a good, solid, lead-by-example Marine, when we entered the fight in Hue City, Gonzalez became way more than that. For the next few days he became almost a one-man army. All of us who survived remain in awe of him."
continued.......