THE WALL OF FACES

“Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Dear PO3C Jerry Williams, Thank you for your service as a Radioman 3rd Class. Saying thank you isn't enough, but it is from the heart. It is MLK Day. Please watch over America, it stills needs your strength, courage, guidance, and faithfulness, especially now. Rest in peace with the angels.

I was one of the surviving crewmen on A-11-1 on 5/26/68. Jerry saved my life sometime before when I almost drowned. I cared deeply for Jerry and have never stopped thinking about him.

Never forgotten.

Semper Fortis

At 0715 hours on May 26, 1968, U.S. Navy river patrol boat Alpha 111-1 was one of the lead units in a column of gun boats proceeding to land elements of the 3/47th Infantry Brigade along the Ong Huong River eight miles southeast of Ben Tre when they were attacked from both banks of the river by Viet Cong rocketeers. Alpha 111-1 was struck with two RPG-2 rockets (B-40) and two 75mm recoilless-rifle rounds. Two of the rounds hit the 20mm cannon, disabling it, another hit the mast, and the fourth tore into the coxwain’s flat, killing instantly the boat’s captain, BM2 Ronald W. Durbin, and radioman RM3 Jerry L. Williams. Two other crewmen were wounded in the attack. [Taken from U.S. Naval Forces Vietnam Monthly Historical Supplement May 1968, p 66]