THE WALL OF FACES

Thank you for your service to our country so long ago sir. You were born one day before me and died at 21 years of age. I am now 73 and have lived a long and fulfilling life. It is tragic you never had that same opportunity. May you rest in eternal peace.

I listened today as your name was read online. R.I.P., our Lorain County (Ohio) hero.

You are remembered in the book, "Search and Destroy," by Keith W. Nolan.

HOOAH

On the remembrance of your 72nd birthday, your sacrifice is not forgotten.

HOOAH

SP4 Dale A. Gronsky was an infantryman serving with C Troop, 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry, Americal Division. C Troop 1/1st was a mechanized armor unit deployed to Vietnam in August 1967 to the I Corps Tactical Zone around the city of Chu Lai. They conducted search and clear operations in M113 armored personnel carriers accompanied by M551 Sheridan tanks. Their missions generally lasted from ten days to a month or more, setting up night laagers each evening, many times in dry rice paddies, while being resupplied in the field. On April 2, 1970, C Troop was operating in an area approximately seven miles west of Chu Lai Airfield. A couple of Army technicians had been flown to their location, and the troopers provided security while the two specialists replaced batteries on acoustic intrusion detectors placed in the area. Gronsky, curious about the work the two technicians were performing, was shadowing them when one of them snagged a tripwire on a booby-trapped Chicom grenade hanging in a tree. Gronsky was mortally wounded after he was hit in the head by metal fragments. A medic attended him and the two injured technicians; Gronsky reportedly died in flight to an Army evacuation hospital. Later that day, during a rare opportunity when the unit spent the night on a firebase, an impromptu memorial service was conducted in Gronsky’s honor. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org and information provided by Grant Coble (September 2020)]