THE WALL OF FACES

Thank you for your service, I remember the last time I saw you was at the Linton, In. Park, in one of the shelters at our Hoffeditz Christmas Day Dinner, I was 5 years old, I remember you sitting at one of the tables by yourself and you looked so sad. I went over and sit by you and talked to you. I miss you. Ya know life was never the same for your parents, Samuel & Ruth, your 2 brothers Larry and Greg, and the rest of the Hoffeditz family. I have NEVER forgotten you. You are our hero, I will see you again someday and we will talk.
RIP Don,
your memory will live on.

On May 16, 1971, a New York Times article described heroin use by American troops in Vietnam had reached epidemic proportions. The piece reported that 10 to 15 percent of lower-ranking enlisted men were heroin users, and military officials working in drug‐suppression estimated that as much as a quarter of all enlisted personnel, more than 60,000 men, were hooked. They added that some field surveys reported units with more than 50 percent of the men on heroin. In Vietnam, the drug was plentiful, cheap, and 95 percent pure. Its effects could casually be achieved through smoking or snorting, as compared to the U.S., where the drug was impure, only about five percent heroin, and had to be main-lined or injected into the bloodstream to achieve a comparable high. The habit, which cost 100 dollars a day to maintain in the U.S., cost only five dollars a day in Vietnam. PFC Donald R. Hoffeditz was a draftee from Missouri who arrived in Vietnam in October 1969. He was trained as a truck driver and assigned to the 48th Transportation Group. The 48th provided motor transportation support for combat forces in III and IV Corps Tactical Zones. Drivers hauled more than a hundred thousand tons of cargo each month over tens of thousands of miles in short-haul and line-haul (convoys) operations. On April 12, 1970, Hoffeditz was found unresponsive in bed at his unit’s barracks at Long Binh Post. He was transported to the 24th Evacuation Hospital where medical staff pronounced him dead of a heroin overdose. Hoffeditz was twenty-one years old. His body was forwarded to the U.S. Army Mortuary at Tan Son Nhut Air Base where Graves Registration personnel prepared the remains for shipment back to his family in the United States. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org and “G.I. Heroin Addiction Epidemic in Vietnam.” New York Times (New York, NY), May 16, 1971; also, “Operational Report - Lessons Learned, Headquarters, 48th Transportation Group (Motor Transport), Period Ending 31 October 1968” at dtic.mil]

Thank you for your service to our country so long ago sir. The remembrance from Maureen Moore Fournie is moving and reflects her admiration and respect for you. As long as you are remembered you will always be with us….

Image courtesy of Redbird Research LLC, Saint Charles, MO.

Dear PFC Donald Hoffeditz, Thank you for your service as a Heavy Vehicle Driver. Happy Summer in heaven! Please watch over the USA, it still needs your strength. Rest in peace with the angels.