Pfc. Dan Byrd is pictured with “Prince” his sentry guard dog in Vietnam in 1965. Photo provided by Dan Byrd
Dan Byrd lived an idyllic life growing up as a kid on Longboat Key off Sarasota, Fla. half a century ago. In those days, he hunted rabbits on the key with his .22-caliber rifle while his mom and dad ran the bait shop and hamburger stand on the south end of the New Pass Bridge connecting the key with City Island. Read the rest of this entry »
Skip Libby is pictured in his Marine Corp graduation picture taken in 1963 after surviving Parris Island, S.C. boot camp. He was among the first Marines to be sent to Vietnam in 1965. Photo provided
Two days after graduating from high school in 1963 Skip Libby of La Casa mobile home park in North Port, Fla. joined the Marines and went to Parris Island, S.C. for basic training. Two years later he was sent to Vietnam as a member of the 3rd Marine Division, the first division of Marines in country. Read the rest of this entry »
Capt. Tom Smith of Sarasota, Fla. served with the 1st Marine Division in Vietnam. He is pictured with an enemy AK-47 assault rifle while holding a skull. This picture was taken at Quang Tri, Vietnam, at the division's rear area. Photo provided
Capt. Tom Smith United States Marine Corps wrote this account of his tour in Vietnam:
“On July 1, 1968, while serving as platoon commander of 3rd Platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 27th Marines, I received orders for a mission. It was a four-day, three-night patrol to establish various platoon patrol bases and then conduct numerous small unit patrols out of them. Read the rest of this entry »
2nd Lt. Thelma Daida of Port Charlotte, Fla. is pictured in her fatigues while taking basic training at Shepard Air Force Base in Texas in 1965. She spent a year serving as a surgical nurse in the Air Force in Vietnam. Photo provided
1st Lt. Thelma Daida was a surgical nurse working in the only in-country U.S. Army Air Force Hospital in Vietnam in 1965 located on the giant airbase at Cam Rahn Bay. It was an exciting time to be a 20-year-old nurse serving in Southeast Asia. Read the rest of this entry »
Lt. Col. Abe Wolson was the pilot of Marine One during Lyndon Johnson's and Richard Nixon's administration. Here the chopper is flying the president to Andrews Air Force base outside Washington D.C. Photo provided
Former Lt. Col. Abe Wolson of Port Charlotte, Fla. served 20 years in the U.S. Marine Corps. He piloted Marine Corps 1, the presidential helicopter, during the administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. He served three tours in Vietnam in 1961, ’67 and ’72, flying helicopters in combat for Special Operations missions, among other things. Read the rest of this entry »
This is Warrant Officer II Charles Myers of Port Charlotte, Fla. when he became an officer in the U.S. Army in 1978. Photo provided
Charles Myers was born and grew up in the Panama Canal Zone in Central America in 1933. At 21 he enlisted in the U.S. Army on May 17, 1954 under agreement between the U.S. and Panama. Read the rest of this entry »
1st Lt. Bill McDermott in the foreground is all smiles because this was his last day in Vietnam, April 7, 1971. It was the first time in a year he had gotten a cold beer. Photo provided
Bill McDermott of Lake Suzy, east of Port Charlotte on the way
to Arcadia, Fla. wound up as a 1st lieutenant in the 11th Armored Cavalry
Division based in Three Corps in the northern jungle of Vietnam. He
was a graduate of DePaul University and a member of the school’s ROTC
program.
Cpl Joe Taylor, center, and two of his buddies in Vietnam with a bomb-sniffing police dog. Taylor served with Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division in the 1960s. Photo provided.
Joe Taylor was a black Marine who served three tours of duty in Vietnam. The death and devastation this grunt witnessed while serving in the Corps over there was almost too much for him to bear.
Doug Gilchrist holds a dress dagger he was given by a World War II Kamikaze pilot as a token of the Japanese's pilot's admiration for the U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel's understanding of his former foe's feelings. Sun photo by Don Moore
U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Doug Gilchrist was waiting at the airport terminal in Tokyo in 1967 for a flight that would take him to the war in Vietnam when a chance encounter with a Japanese couple changed his life.
Gilchrist is pictured as a young lieutenant learning to fly a trainer in Texas at the end of the Korean War in the 1950s. Photo provided
Lt. Col. Doug Gilchrist was flying a four-engine C-130 Hercules cargo plane, used as a command ship, from a base in Thailand over North Vietnam when he came as close to “buying the farm” as he did during any of his 102 combat missions over enemy territory during the Vietnam War.
Lt. Chuck Hofelich is about to climb into the cockpit of a T-38 jet trainer. He flew 79 combat missions over North Vietnam from 1964 to 1967. Photo provided
Lt. Chuck Hofelich was a “Thud” driver and proud of it. He flew an F-105 “Thunderchief” supersonic fighter-bomber, he and his jet jockey buddies called “Thuds” on 79 combat missions over North Vietnam.
This was Neil Kennedy in his 20s shortly after he took his first flight in a jet fighter in 1958. He was flying an F-80 Shooting Star.
Capt. Neil Kennedy flew a KC-135 jet tanker in Vietnam War and continued to pilot the same flying gas station for the Strategic Air Command after the Southeast Asian war. He retired in 1991 as a brigadier general after 32 years of service in the U.S. Air Force and the Air Force National Guard and moved to Calusa Lakes subdivision in Nokomis, Fla.
Beginning in February 1973 some 600 American aviators held in the Hanoi “Hilton” were released by their North Vietnamese captors. This is a picture of one of the POWs being reunited with his family. Photo provided by Russell Ogan
Second Lt. Russell Ogan was returning from a fighter sweep over the Battle of the Bulge flying low and slow because of the weather, in “Gloria May,” his P-47 “Thunderbolt,” when his fighter took a direct hit from enemy ground fire. Read the rest of this entry »
Maj. Robert Black received the Silver Star for valor in 1968 during the Vietnam War. It is this nation’s third highest award for heroism under fire. He first served in the Korean War as a member of the 8th Airborne Ranger company and in Vietnam as a military advisor in Long An Province. Photo provided.
A Ranger Born tells the story of a man of arms.
Col. Robert Black, a highly decorated Korean and Vietnam War soldier wrote a book about his military adventures. Read the rest of this entry »
Lt. Col. John Dyer stands in front of a “Gooney Bird,” a C47 transport plane, at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. These legendary transports first flew in the 1930s and saw service in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. They’re still being used in many countries around the world.
Lt. Col. John Dyer had no idea the planeload of .50-caliber machine-gun ammunition he flew to Tonsonnhute Airport in Saigon was part of a CIA plot to topple the Ngo Dinh Diem government in South Vietnam. Read the rest of this entry »
Maj. Jim Shelton, author of the book, “The Beast Was Out There” left, is pictured with Lt. Col. Terry Allen, commander of the “Black Lions,” center, and Sgt. Maj. Francis Dowling. Both Allen and Dowling were killed by the VC at Ong Thanh. Photo provided by Jim Shelton
The ”Black Lions” were looking for a fight. The battalion had been on a search-and-destroy mission for more than a week. Now the men of the 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment, 1st Infantry Division were exhausted from chasing the Viet Cong through the jungle 50 miles north of Saigon. Read the rest of this entry »
Randy Smith is pictured at 19, shortly after he completed boot camp. He thought he was a pretty gung-ho “Jarhead.” Photo provided by Randy Smith
Cpl. Randy Smith knew the war in South Vietnam was over when he was ordered to take down the American flag at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. Read the rest of this entry »
President Lyndon Johnson shakes Clyde Lassen’s hand after awarding him the Medal of Honor at the White House on Jan. 16, 1969. The Englewood, Fla. native was the first Navy aviator to receive the nation’s highest military decoration for valor during the Vietnam War. Photo provided
Lt.j.g. Clyde Lassen’s Medal of Honor commendation
On 19 June 1968 Lt. j.g. Clyde Everett Lassen, a member of Helicopter Support Squadron 7, Detachment 104, Republic of Vietnam was serving aboard USS Preble (DLG-15). Read the rest of this entry »
Gini Westfall of Port Charlotte, Fla. fingers her Gold Star Mother’s pin on her collar as she stares at her son’s name on “The Moving Wall” that came to Fort Myers, Fla. Her 21-year-old son, Bronson, was killed in Vietnam in June 1967. Photo by Chris Crook
She emerged slowly from the car with cane in hand and walked hunched over along a serpentine concrete path. At its end was The Wall. Read the rest of this entry »
