THE WALL OF FACES

Thank you for your service to our country so long ago sir. As long as you are remembered you will remain in our hearts forever.

Dear SSgt Charles Williamson, Thank you for your service as a Dial/Manual Central Office Repairer. Saying thank you isn't enough, but it is from the heart. You are remembered. Please watch over America, it stills needs your strength, courage and faithfulness, especially now. Rest in peace with the angels.

Staff Sergeant Charles Alton Williamson, Served at the Phu Lam Signal Facility, United States Army Strategic Command Vietnam, United States Army Support Command Vietnam, Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV). Montani Semper Liberi !

Never forgotten.

HOOAH

On June 25, 1965, two powerful terrorists’ bombs exploded in quick succession besides a crowded floating restaurant on the Saigon River, killing at least 38 and wounding about 75. Eight of the dead and 10 of the wounded were Americans. The terrorist strike, about 500 yards from the United States Embassy, was the bloodiest of its kind up to that point in the Vietnam War. The blasts from shore slashed across the luxuriously appointed decks of the restaurant, the My Canh, at about 8:15 PM. The blast broke windows as far as two blocks away. American investigators said one of the bombs was a powerful shaped charge—possibly an American Claymore electric mine—planted into the bank of the river near the restaurant’s awning-covered gangplank. The other was a bicycle bomb. The eight American killed in the blast were military personnel. They included MSGT Douglas H. D'Orsay, A1C Robert J. Smith, A1C Michael E. Widener, PO1C German P. Acosta, SFC Alfred Combs Jr., PFC Michael J. Ihnat, PFC James T. Brown Jr., and SSGT Charles A. Williamson. [“Saigon Bomb Kills 38 in Floating Restaurant.” Chicago Tribune, June 26, 1965]