THE WALL OF FACES

Private First Class Ronald Eugene Hesson, Served with Company B, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 196th Infantry Brigade, United States Army Vietnam. Montani Semper Liberi !

Never forgotten.

HOOAH

Remember to save for them a place inside of you, and save one backward glance when you are leaving, for the places they can no longer go...

Dear PFC Ronald Hesson, Thank you for your service as an Infantryman. Yesterday was Memorial Day when we honor you. I could not post because the system was overwhelmed. Please watch over the USA, it still needs your courage. Rest in peace with the angels.

Operation Attleboro was a search and destroy operation conducted northwest of Dau Tieng, Tay Ninh Province, RVN, during September 14 – November 24, 1966. While the initial fighting was light, in late October U.S. forces, consisting of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade and the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment (25th Infantry Division), encountered the 9th Viet Cong Division, resulting in a major three-day battle. It was a slugfest of small units set amid treacherous terrain of tangled forest, overgrown jungle, and booby-trapped elephant grass. On November 3, 1966, members of B Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry, 196th Infantry Brigade, were dropped off by trucks near the combat area and began a march to probe for trails. The moved mainly through elephant grass and across a few bone-dry rice paddies. Right after the noon hour when the temperature was around 104 degrees, the trail they followed sprouted many directions. The company split and one squad, led by 2LT Dale A. Perkins, continued along a trail that passed a tall mahogany tree. Its 18-inch base was heavily laced with vines and was circled with small shrubs, the trunk partly rotted away. The point man was 15 paces ahead of the squad when he passed the tree. Suddenly, a large blast was heard as a Viet Cong command-detonated claymore mine exploded from its well-camouflaged position among the roots of the tree. The lead man, PFC Ronald E. Hesson was killed outright, his body badly mangled. The second man, SP4 James M. Klink, was also killed, his shattered M-16 still clutched in his hands. 2LT Perkins went down also, his chest crushed in, and his RTO (radio telephone operator) lay next to him, badly wounded. Behind the RTO, on the left side of the trail, was SSGT Donald T. Cassidy, with wounds around the head and shoulders, from which he later died. Four others would die, including SP4 Robert L. Fowble Jr., PFC Joel Fuller, PFC John R. Johnson, and SP4 Thomas A. Lawless. Several more men, all wounded, though less grievously, were strung out over 20 meters of trail to the rear of SSGT Cassidy. Eighteen total were struck down by the blast. An LZ (landing zone) had to be cut away within the elephant grass just off the edge of the forest, and the dead and non-walking wounded had to be toted out in ponchos. The backbreaking labor caused even more casualties as several men passed out from the heat. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org, wikipedia.org, and the book “Ambush” by S.L.A. Marshall]