THE REASON TO GO TO UNIT REUNIONS
by Jerry Williamson
While walking down a hallway in the hotel,
someone called my name and I looked up to see four guys coming toward me, one of
whom I didn’t recognize as guys from the past couple of days. One of them gave
me a funny look and pointed to the guy I didn’t recognize and told me the man
had a question for me.
With a somber look he asked me,
“Where did you and Murdock go that day when you left me in the tank?” Since I
didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, he explained that during a
particularly nasty firefight, Murdock and I had left him alone in the tank’s
driver’s compartment for a while and then came back at the end of the shooting.
I started to laugh as it all hit
me. This was Ron Atwell, and when I quit laughing, I explained to one seriously
angry man what had happened almost thirty years ago.
Our job was lead either armored personnel
carriers or straight-leg infantry in to investigate suspected enemy base camps
with our 51-ton M-48 tanks. We did this by “busting jungle”, which is basically
crashing through trees and brush and excruciatingly slow speed to our
objective. Our approach noise gave the enemy sufficient time to either run,
hide, or set up an ambush. On this particular day, our three-man crew consisted
of Ron, who had been recently assigned as my loader, Mac Murdock as driver, and
I was the tank commander. As we approached the suspected enemy base camp in
heavy foliage, the tank on my left took a glancing blow from a Rocket Propelled
Grenade, which exploded without noticeable damage to the tank.
As we engaged the enemy, I saw
the tank commander on my left flank roll out of his hatch and disappear. The
tempo of fire increased as Ron kept the guns loaded and Murdock watched though
his front periscopes and relayed information into his helmet radio about targets
for me to shoot. Outside the tank was an ugly shit storm of enemy fire from the
front and infantry fire from the rear. I’m not sure which group scored more
hits on the tank.
Finally, we ran out of ammo for the 90mm canon
and were very low on machinegun rounds with no way to re-supply. Enemy fire was
still heavy and things weren’t looking good for the home team. Over the
intercom, I told Murdock that I was going to run to the left-flank tank to make
use of that tank’s untapped ammo supply. He argued that he should go with me
to load the guns if the loader there was out of commission. Since Ron was new,
and Murdock and I could read each other’s minds by that time, I decided to put
Ron in the driver's seat and take Murdock with me. Through the horrendous noise
I told Ron to get into the driver’s seat and if he saw any unfriendlies
approaching, “back up and don’t stop until you get to San Francisco”. It never
occurred to me that, as loader, he didn’t have a commo helmet, and hadn’t heard
my conversation with Murdock.
We ran through the storm and
fought with that tank until the firefight was over and then returned to our own
tank and Ron. The situation was never discussed even as Doc French pulled a
piece of metal out of my leg. We just went about our usual business.
(Over the next few months, Ron turned out to be
so good, that now I wonder why I didn’t send him and Murdock and stay put
myself.)
To this day, I can’t imagine the thoughts
going through Ron’s mind as he sat very alone in the confines of the
driver’s compartment with the impact of rounds ricocheting off the tank’s hull
and turret.
When I explained it to him
after all these years, we laughed like crazy people until tears ran. The next
year we hooked up with Murdock and John (Red) Reel and laughed even harder.
We lost a good man on 3 June 2002, when Ron
died of pancreatic cancer. Ron won the Soldier’s Medal for saving another
soldier from certain death in a non-combat situation, the Distinguished Flying
Cross for heroism as a helicopter door gunner, and the Purple Heart, twice.
I thank God I went to that reunion.