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.