THE WALL OF FACES

Dear Private First Class Barbosa ~ You Are Not Forgotten!
This is the 3rd year, on the anniversary of your passing, that I ran a mile with you in my thoughts and prayers. Rest in Peace, Dear Brother.

Each year since September 2015, at the annual 5th Division Army reunion, members of the Society of the Fifth Division, U.S Army remember the 514 soldiers from the 1st Brigade, 5th Division, who were Killed in Action in Vietnam. You are among the soldiers remembered. You Are Not Forgotten!

Phil “LT Mike” Maniscalco
Society of the 5th Division, U.S. Army
Delta Company 1/11 Infantry
Vietnam Sept 1968- Sept 1969

PFC Alvaro Barbosa is buried in the Cementerio De Zarzal Valle in Municipio de Zarzal, Valle del Cauca, Colombia.

His parents resided in Colombia and PFC Barbosa lived in New Orleans, LA. He entered the Army on April 27, 1970.

Your sacrifice is not forgotten.

The 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division was dispatched to South Vietnam after the Tet Offensive (1968) to replace a U.S. Marine Corps unit. The brigade, consisting of one battalion each of infantry, mechanized infantry and armor, served from July 1968 until 1971 defending the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in northern Quang Tri Province. Combat units included the 1st Battalion, 61st Infantry (Mechanized). On the evening of December 12, 1970, a member of a patrol from A Company, 1/61st, was wounded, either by a booby trap or anti-personnel mine one kilometer south of Con Thien (Hill 158). The patrol, while evacuating the wounded man in the dark, inadvertently entered an old U.S. minefield detonating an undetermined number of anti-personnel mines. Six A/1-61st troopers were killed, and two others were wounded. The cruel, impersonal nature of the war did not discriminate in the incident: the lost personnel included two Latinos, two Blacks, and two whites, all PFC’s. They were PFC Alvaro Barbosa, PFC Barry E. Clark, PFC Luther Green Jr., PFC Carlos Rivera Jr., PFC David L. Norris, and PFC Michael K. Woodcock. The two survivors were evacuated to the 18th Surgical Hospital in Quang Tri city. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org]

Taken from The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA), December 23, 1970, courtesy of the State Library of Louisiana, Baton Rouge, LA.

Uncle, despite not having met you, I hope you are resting in peace along with the other relatives including your older sister Alicia Barbosa (who passed away in 2022). Your honorable story was told to me by my grandmother (who still remembers you). and I feel proud that you were one of the very few Colombian soldiers who participated in that historical point of the cold war,

your fight will never be forgotten...

ATT= JCR descendant of AL DE R