05 Nov 2003 I was on patrol on the 82 boat when I got a letter from my mom telling me that Michael had been killed in Vietnam. We didn't know each other well, you couldn't even call us friends. I even had a hard time remembering his face after reading his name. He was a year younger than me and we didn't run with the same people. When we got back to An Thoi I went through some old pictures and there he was standing in the background in front of the new high school. Looking at that picture of Michael and re-reading my mom's letter I saw the pain my mother must have had to write it. When I got back to Temple I went to Michael's grave and a few others and I found that our small town had eight young men taken from us by the war. I had changed, the town had changed, and my friends had changed. Not one of my friends had enlisted or got drafted. As I visit Temple from time to time I go by each grave site and say "thank you". I can not answer the question that has nagged me for more than thirty years, I don't know why I came back and they didn't. I do know you can love someone you have never met, and a friendship can grow even it the other person is gone. Michael and I are good friends now and I still have his picture and I am honored to have known them all. Walter Weddell EN3 US Navy PCF 82 Boat www143@earthlink.net

 

A Note from The Virtual Wall On 06 March 1968 a C-123 from the 311th ACS crashed after being hit by enemy fire while making a troop lift into the Khe Sanh combat base. PFC Michael D. Gray was one of the men aboard the aircraft. A description of the incident and the names of those who died in the crash can be found on The Virtual Wall's C-123 Down Memorial

Contact Us

© Copyright 1997-2019 www.VirtualWall.org, Ltd ®(TM)

Last update 08/15/2019.