The boxes were probably used to ship artillary shells. We'd fill them with dirt and presto-chango you got yourself a protective wall.
The Marine on the left might be John "Powerhouse" Mills who was shot in the leg August 23rd. Second from the left is Bobby Lee Roberts who was killed in August.
I seem to remember the Marine on the far right as Pfc. Ron Rudolph. He was in my rocket section and was shot August 29th. He had been part of a group acting as flank security when were ambushed just after dark, there were three or four of them I seem to remember. The flank section were pretty much pinned down in some open ground. Sgt. Tom Ferguson crawled over to where I was. He wanted them to come in by themselves if they could so he yelled out to them. "Its getting dark, and when its dark they'll be coming for you. You better get over here." He looked at me and giggled and said, "That outta get them moving." Sure enough Rudolph came hobbling in (he'd been shot in the foot as I remember it) a few seconds later. Sgt. Ferguson went out with a Marine nicknamed Rat to bring in the rest. Ferguson was badly wounded a little later trying to retreive the other wounded men.
November 2, 2000. I just talked to Ron Rudolph. He lives in Winfield, Texas. He and Bobby had been great friends. Ron named his two daughters after Bobby: Bobby Kay and Angela Lee Rudolph.
Jane Fonda in a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi. The story following story goes well with this picture.
The first part of this story is from an F-4E pilot, Jerry Driscoll. By the early 1970's he had spent several years in the "Hanoi Hilton". Dragged from a stinking, cesspool of a cell he was cleaned, fed, and dressed in clean PJ's he was ordered he was ordered to describe to an American "Peace Activist" the "lenient and humane treatment" he had received. He spat at Fonda. He was clubbed and dragged away.
During the subsequent beating he fell forward on the camp commandant's feet, which sent the officer beserk. In 1978 the Air Force Colonel, still suffering from double vision (which permantly ended his flying days) from the Vietnamese Colonel's frenzied application of a wodden baton.
Col. Larry Carrigon spent 6 years in the Hilton - the first 3 of which he was listed as "missing in action". His wife lived on faith that he was alive. His group too got the clean, fed, clothed routine in preperation for a "peace deligation" visit.
They, however, had time to devise a plan to get word to the world that they still survived. Each man secreted a tiny piece of paper, with his SSN on it, in the palm of his hand. When paraded before Fonda and a camerman she shook each man's hand and passed out such bits of encouragement as, "Aren't you sorry now that you bombed babys" and "Are you grateful for the humane treatment of you benevolent captors?" Beleiving this had to be an act they each passed on the pieces of paper.
Fonda took them all withoug missing a beat. At the end of the line, once the camer's stopped rolling, to the shocked disbelief of the POW's she turned to the officer in charge and handed him the little pile of papers. Three men died in the subsequent beatings. Col. Corrigan was almost a fourth.
I was a civilian economic development advisor in Vietnam and was captured by the North Vietnamese in 1968 and held for over 5 years. I spent 27 months in solitary confinement, one year in a cage in Cambodia, and one year in a "black box" in Hanoi. My North Vietnamese captors delibertly poisoned and murdered a female missionary who was a nurse in a leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot, South Vietnam, whom I buried in the jungle near Cambodia.
At one time I was weighing approximatelly 90 pounds (from a normal weight of 170 lbs.). We were Jane Fonda's war criminals.
When Fonda was in Hanoi I was asked by the camp political officer if I would be willing to met with Fonda. I said yes, for I wanted to tell her about the real treatment we POWs received, much different from the treatment porported by the North Vietnamese, and parroted by Fonda as "humane and lenient." Because of this I spent three days on a rocky floor on my knees with outstreatched arms and beaten with a bamboo cane.
I had the opportunity to met with Fonda for a few hours after I was released. I asked her if she would be willing to debate me on TV, she refused to answer.