Vietnam Memorial Wall Rubbings

Leslie H. Sabo Jr.

One of eight men of the "B"/ 3 / 506, 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) 

who were killed on May 10th, 1970 during Operation Binh Tay 1.

Rubbings courtesy of Dan Arant

Christmas at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

For Vietnam veterans, The Wall in Washington, D.C. still elicits vivid memories. National Park Service volunteer, Dan Arant, recently took these photos (edited by Donna Prince) on Christmas Day and on December 12th when the Christmas Tree Ceremony was held. Dan is also a volunteer at the National World War II Memorial.  National Park Service Volunteers wear yellow hats and shirts while “on duty” at our nation’s memorials in Washington.  We all benefit from their volunteer service and are grateful for their commitment to public service at these important sites.

Rolly Kidder

2015 Veteran's Day Ceremony at the National World War II Memorial

For the past several years, I been honored to serve on the Board of Friends of the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C . This organization is a partner with the National Park Service in sponsoring 5 days of national commemoration at the Memorial, including Veterans Day.

The attached photographs were taken before the ceremony began and then immediately after it concluded. One reveals the centrality of this time in our nation's history... the podium situated right on the east-west centerline of the National Mall. The other photo shows the crowd gathered around the wreaths in front of freedom wall at the end of the event, a visible reminder of the sacrifice made by over 400,000 of our fellow Americans who perished during the war.

A video of the Veteran's Day ceremony can be found on the Friends' website at Friends of the National WWII Memorial.  Also, on the website is a video of our third annual Haydn Williams' Legacy Lecture given this year by Tom Brokaw. It is an incredible 1 hour talk (without notes) of his experience growing up in the post-war years, and of his reasons for writing the book which is now a part of the World War II lexicon... "The Greatest Generation."

Rolland Kidder

A Veteran's Day Tradition in Jamestown, NY

As far as I know, this ceremony has been going on since the end of the First World War at the corner of 3rd & Main.  Kudos for the Jamestown High School band.

Rolly Kidder

The Dedication of Eldon W. Tozer Square

It was an honor for me recently to participate in the last dedication ceremony for Natick, Mass. residents who were killed in the Vietnam War. In a noon-time ceremony, the name of Eldon W. Tozer became a part of the “Natick 11” who gave their lives serving in Vietnam. A sign was unveiled at the corner of Marion St. and Lincoln Place, now called “Eldon W. Tozer Memorial Square.” 

Though he is buried in Cullen’s Brook, Quebec and was a Canadian, Eldon joined the U.S. Navy while living with his sister and working in Natick. In a sense, he is an “adopted son” of the Natick community. It was moving and powerful for them to honor him in this way.

Jim Tucceri unveils the sign designating “Eldon W. Tozer Square.”

Jim Tucceri, Eldon’s nephew, participated in the ceremony by unveiling the sign designating the new Eldon W. Tozer Square. The home where Jim grew up and where Eldon lived is just four houses down the street from where the sign is located. Resolutions passed by both the House and the State Senate of Massachusetts were presented to Jim (representing the Tozer family,) as was a letter from the Province of Quebec. Special thanks go to Paul Carew (Veterans Agent of Natick), Maureen Sullivan, (Co-coordinator of Natick Veterans Oral History Project), and Josh Ostroff (Natick Board of Selectman) for their leadership in organizing the event.

I read into the record a statement with a strong personal touch which was sent to me by the sister of Eldon Tozer, Frances Tozer Gregoire:

“I was nine years old when he was born. I thought he was sent from Heaven. He was born at home at night, and I heard his first cry. 

I helped take care of him because I was the oldest girl. He was always quiet and very interested in nature. When he was young, he enjoyed watching bugs and spiders. He loved the little things in life. 

During his late teen years, he lived with me, my husband and our children. 

I don’t remember how old he was when he moved to Natick to be with my sister Mona. He worked in a baseball factory there before he joined the Navy. He never gave up his Canadian citizenship. I looked forward to his visits back home.”

It was cold and overcast the day of the ceremony, but I am sure that everyone present was warmed by the beauty and simplicity of the occasion. Local and state representatives were there, a Sargent-Major from a U.S. Army base was present, and an honor guard of veterans with a firing squad provided military honors. Eldon Tozer would have been pleased that he was being remembered by a caring community which has never forgotten him or the sacrifice that he made while serving with the Armed Forces of the United States of America.

Rolland Kidder

Jim Tucceri, Eldon’s Nephew, and author.

Jim Tucceri standing in front the house he grew up in, and where 
Eldon Tozer lived before he joined the U.S. Navy in 1957.

Official letter from the Quebec Consul - read at the dedication by
Josh Ostroff, Natick Board of Selectmen

Navy River Divisions 515 / 535 are reunited at Hampton, Virginia event

Butch Jarvinen and Rolly Kidder of River Division 535 share some stories

Butch Jarvinen and I served together in River Division 535, from 1969-'70 in the Mekong Delta. Jarvinen lives in rural Virginia and he joined myself and other Navy veterans at an Army Sea Tigers Reunion in Hampton, Virginia.  The Sea Tigers also operated PBR's during the Vietnam War.  The two PBR's present at the reunion were restored by Dennis Ambruso and David Pizzoferrato. Ralph Richason, River Division 515, helped coordinate the event for Navy veterans.  Ralph Fries, a PBR Vietnam veteran who has documented all of the Navy PBR men killed in action, presented his documentary work as a part of the reunion event.  Following are pictures and a writeup on the reunion event.

Rolly Kidder 

Vietnam era PBRs (Patrol Boat, River) on display for returning veterans in Hampton marina

PBR's with current Navy boats called RIB's (rigid-inflatable boats)

A US Navy Officer addresses veterans in front of Dennis Ambruso (leaning on the .50 cal Machine gun).
Dennis restored the PBR boat on display this weekend. 

Recent Appearance / Book Signing : NYC

NAVAL ORDER OF THE UNITED STATES NEW YORK COMMANDERY

June 8th, 2015, 11:30am  / Racquet & Tennis Club /  370 Park Avenue, New York City

Rolland “Rolly” Kidder 

“The Brown Water Navy in Vietnam” 

From 1994 to 2001, Rolland Kidder served as a Presidential-appointed Commissioner of the American Battle Monuments (ABMC) and was a member of its World War II Memorial Committee, which was responsible for finding a site and selecting a design for the National World War II Memorial. He was again appointed to serve on the ABMC by President Obama in 2010. In addition, he is a director of Friends of the National World War II Memorial, a Washington-based non-profit organization. Mr. Kidder is also author of the book, A Hometown Went to War, an oral history of 37 veterans describing their experiences during World War II. He is a Navy Vietnam War veteran, having served as a Patrol Officer with River Division 535 in the Mekong Delta in 1969 and 1970. He returned to Vietnam in 2010 and reflects on the War and his impressions of the country in a new book (2014), Backtracking in Brown Water. 

Mr. Kidder served in the New York State Assembly from 1975-1982, and operated his own Appalachian-based natural gas drilling company from 1984-1994. Subsequent to that, he worked in an investment advisory firm for ten years and, most recently, was the Executive Director of the Robert H. Jackson Center in Jamestown, NY – the hometown of Supreme Court Justice and Chief Nuremberg Prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson. Mr. Kidder is a graduate of Houghton College, Evangelical Theological Seminary, and the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School; and served as a Director of National Fuel Gas Company for ten years. He and his wife, Jane, are the parents of four children and eleven grandchildren. They live on Lake Chautauqua in upstate New York.

Memorial Day Brings Poignant Memories For Veterans

Editorial from the Jamestown Post-Journal, May 24 2015

The Florence American Cemetery is pictured in the background. Pictured above, clockwise from left, Mike Lamancuso, foreground, with three friends in Italy in 1944; LaMancuso, a World War II combat infantryman, at his home; the gravesite of a soldier from the 361st Regiment, 91st Infantry Division, Elson Behnke, who was killed on Oct. 9, 1944.

by ROLLAND E. KIDDER

editorial@post-journal.com

There can be poignant memories for military veterans when it comes to Memorial Day. Their remembrances are often specific, filled with names of those they knew who didn’t come home. So it is for Mike LaMancuso, a World War II combat infantryman. It is a day he remembers his buddies who didn’t come back from the fighting in Italy.

Mike was wounded on Friday, Oct. 13, 1944, hit in the leg by a bullet from a German sniper. Four days earlier, on Oct. 9, another soldier from the 361st Regiment, 91st Infantry Division, Elson Behnke, wasn’t as “lucky.” He was killed in the same area. Two young American soldiers, far from home, one wounded, one killed, linked together by an American Army Division fighting to liberate another country. Mike made it home. Elson Behnke is buried at the Florence American Cemetery, near the battlefield where he fell. Though they hadn’t personally met, it is men like Elson Behnke that Mike LaMancuso thinks about on Memorial Day.

Mike has been back to Livergnano, Italy, where he was hit on a Friday the 13th that he will never forget. At the time, Mike’s outfit had been in ferocious combat with the Germans along what was called the “Gothic Line,” Germany’s last major defensive line in the mountains north of Florence. It was the same general area from which two future U.S. Senators, Bob Dole and Dan Inouye, would be medevac’d because of their wounds.

The way Mike describes it: “I could speak Italian, but most of the GI’s couldn’t, so they called the place I was wounded ‘Liver and Onions.’ We had gotten ahead of our lines and were pretty much surrounded by the Germans. We had taken cover behind a house, but were still exposed to enemy fire, and a German sniper shot me in the leg, breaking it in two places. Our unit had to wait until dark before they could get me back to a battalion aid station for treatment.”

Today, over 70 years later, it is hard to believe that the beautiful, pristine countryside near Florence could have been a killing field. But the cemetery reminds you — 4,398 headstones and 1,409 names on the Wall of the Missing, mark the struggle and are a testament to the sacrifice and bravery of American soldiers during the Second World War.

Most Americans who travel to Italy want to visit Florence to see the incredible art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance. While there, they should also take the 20-minute trip southwest toward Siena to experience the silence and awe of the Florence American Cemetery. It makes you proud and humbled to be an American. It is an especially powerful visit on Memorial Day, when there are American and Italian flags flying at each grave marker on this sacred ground.

Another way to remember Memorial Day, if you are celebrating it here at home, would be to stop and thank Mike LaMancuso and those like him who 70 years ago were fighting for values Americans deeply believe in, in far off places like Livergnano (“Liver and Onions”), Italy.

Rolland Kidder is a commissioner of the American Battle Monuments Commission, which is responsible for the care and maintenance of 25 overseas American military cemeteries.

A Great Year for Golf!

One of the passions I have acquired later in life, is a love and respect for the game of golf. It is not because I am a good player though, in the summer, I usually Tee-it-up at least once a week. It is a game which requires discipline and no excuses… it is you against the golf course. Everyone is measured by the same opponent—the golf course. It is also a game with a rich history, including what I believe is the “tournament of the year,” held every year at the same course, Augusta National.

I am not a big one for “bucket list” items but this year I was able to see one to fruition—getting my sons and son-in-law to Augusta to view a practice round at The Masters. If you have never been, you should try to go. It is like walking in a Garden of Eden as you move along with the players around this course. It also gives you a chance to appreciate the magic of Bobby Jones in supervising the construction of this magnificent course—the way it ebbs and flows from the high ground around the clubhouse down to the bottom land around Amen Corner and Rae’s Creek.

Here we all are in front of the Leader Board at Augusta last week and quite an event it was for golf. A new generation of golfers announced their arrival on the scene with the magnificent play of 21 year-old Jordan Spieth highlighting the tournament.  It couldn’t have been better.  It was a spectacular year to be at the Masters!

Rolly

In front of the famed Leaderboard

Rolly channeling the great Bobby Jones 

We spent the afternoon overlooking the Hogan Bridge at Amen Corner 

Bubba heading to the 17th tee

A final toast to Tradition on the way home

Quoting my wife Jane: "Didn't we all know it would end up like this"

Red's Sugar Shack

We've had a long, cold winter here in western New York.  One event we look forward to is maple syrup season.  Here, members of the Dawson/Kidder family have just finished a delicious breakfast of sausage, pancakes and maple syrup at Red's Sugar Shack in Sherman, NY.  It is a definite sign that spring is on the way and summer is not far behind!

       - Rolly

Live Audio from an OV-10 Bronco "Black Pony" air strike

Excerpted from Backtracking in Brown Water, by Rolland E. Kidder

A U.S. Navy Rockwell OV-10A Bronco of light attack squadron VAL-4 Black Ponies attacking a 

target with a 12.7 cm (5 in) "Zuni" rocket in the Mekong Delta, South Vietnam, ca. 1969/70. 

00:15  /  The first part of this tape is a re-recording of an OV-10 Bronco air strike on the Vinh Te Canal.  I am listening to and recording the events of a previous night when a PBR boat captain had recorded the sounds of this air strike.   He and I are laughing and commenting on what occurred.   At one point, a siren goes off, the signal to stop firing.  Then a Vietnamese sailor yells at a local outpost for them to cease firing.  The outpost had been firing mortars into an area where these Navy strike aircraft (with the call sign “Black Pony”) were flying.   From the tape, you can hear metal falling on the deck of the PBR as the machine guns are fired.   Tracers from PBR machine guns were often used to support air strikes by marking the location of enemy positions.  The sound of the twin engine OV-10’s can be heard as they fly low over the boat on their strafing runs toward the target.

04:15 / On October 26, 1969, I tape-recorded the radio traffic during an enemy attack against our heavy River Assault Group boats.  The position of our PBR was about a mile from the encounter.  We could see the firefight in the distance.  The call sign for the RAG boat commander was “Brass Rail”, and individual boats under attack are designated by various letters of the phonetic alphabet.  U.S. Navy Seawolf helicopters and fixed wing Black Pony attack aircraft can also be heard calling in.  A RAG boat radio sometimes remains keyed in the “on” position and you can hear yelling and firing in the background. The tape accurately describes the chaos, anxiety and fear experienced in a firefight.  


AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Since publishing Backtracking in Brown Water, I continue to receive inquiries about this firefight audio link found on page 130.  The QR code provides readers with a direct link to audio files I submitted to the Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library dedicated to preserving artifacts of culture & heritage.

The recording itself came from a tape recorder that I had taken on one of the multi-day patrols on the Vinh Te Canal. (It was one of those small, cassette tape recorders that I had purchased in a Navy PX someplace.) While in Vietnam, I periodically sent tapes home to friends and family instead of writing a letter. On this occasion, I used it to actually record some of the "goings on" on the Vinh Te Canal. The first vignette includes some background discussion between myself and a boat captain of an airstrike he had recorded a prior night. The second occurs on another night when I turned the recorder on during a firefight between the enemy and the RAG boats.  

Fortunately, when I got back to the YRBM 20 after this patrol, I made some copies of the tape. One of them got to an Admiral who queried Mike Connolly about it (see page 125). 

Oil by Pipeline or by Rail?

Unless you are ready to give up driving, you should probably be thinking of how oil can best be transported across the country so that it can be converted into gasoline and ultimately fuel your car. (These days, you might be able to shift your choice of automobile fuel to electricity, but that doesn’t change the issue much since oil and other fossil fuels are also the major source of making electricity in the United States.)

The Congressional Research Office recently published a very informative research paper on the matter and, as with most issues, there are “pros and cons.” What was clear though is that transportation of oil and oil products by truck is the riskiest way to move it. There are more chances for spills and the track record for trucks isn’t nearly as safe as for pipelines or railroads. That interested me because here, at the local level, all of our gasoline and oil products are transported to the customer by truck.

Though we hear a lot of noise about shutting down pipelines and oil tanker railcars, no interest group or elected official has, to my knowledge, advocated shutting down gasoline stations where tanker trucks regularly pull in to deliver needed fuel for our automobiles. I expect that polls have shown that voters, no matter what their political persuasion, would not react kindly to empty gas tanks with no fuel to operate their cars. So we are stuck with truck transportation of petroleum products at the retail/local level.

But, what about the transportation of oil and oil products across the country, let’s say from North Dakota to New York, or Texas to New Jersey? If we did it by truck, we would have to put a million more trucks on the road. Nobody is for that and it would be outrageously expensive. Thus, the choice comes down to pipelines or rail.

In terms of the amount of oil spilled, since most oil has (until recently) been transported by pipeline, most spills were related to pipeline failures. However, things are rapidly changing. Because of the growth in domestic production and since it has become difficult to receive government approval for pipelines, more oil is now moving by rail. In 2013, there was more oil spilled from railcars than during the previous 37 years. Why? Because much more of it is now moving to market by rail.

If you measure safety by human tragedy, there has been no recent history as tragic as the oil train derailment in Quebec two years ago where 47 people died. Though without the comparison in loss of life, we were reminded again recently of the risks of using rail when 26 oil tank cars derailed and caught fire in West Virginia.

So that brings us back again to pipelines. Pipelines have historically moved about 99.99% of the oil they ship to market without major incident. Their construction and safety standards are heavily regulated (as they should be) by the federal government. Those who want to live in a completely risk-free universe will probably continue to oppose them. But, for most of us, who want gasoline in our tanks, pipelines would seem to be the logical and preferred way to move oil and petroleum products across the country.

We live in a great country and are fortunate that, in recent years, we have become less dependent on Mideast oil. Now, we just have to figure out how best to move our domestic oil production to market.

Rolland Kidder
Ashville, NY

Mr. Kidder was a Democratic member of the New York State Assembly from 1975-1982 and a member of its Environmental Conservation Committee. He is former owner and founder of a Western New York natural gas exploration company.

Contact Info:
716-789-4620
rolland.kidder@gmail.com

Compelling History from a Vietnamese American

After reading Backtracking in Brown Water, a friend now serving in the military suggested that I read the book A Thousand Tears Falling by Yung Krall. It is a book I should have read many years ago. If you served in the Mekong Delta during the War, you will find it hard to put down.

Yung Krall, A Thousand Tears Falling

Krall grew up in the Mekong Delta where her father was a leader in the Viet Minh which ultimately became the Viet Cong. Some of her earliest memories were of ducking for cover when her village was being strafed by French aircraft. Her village was described as a “liberated zone” which meant that the French no longer controlled it.

When she was a small girl, her father left to represent the South with the Viet Minh in the North. She didn’t see him for 18 years. Ultimately, Hanoi’s fight shifted from the French to the Americans. Krall and her sisters were raised by their mother. A brother followed his father north to Hanoi. It is a classic story of how families get ripped apart in a civil war. A hundred and fifty years ago, had she lived in a border state like Kentucky, the same kind of thing was happening in this country.

To make a long story short, she couldn’t support the communist approach to governing and the dictatorial way they approached those who lived in the Delta. She eventually moved to Saigon, worked for the Americans, married an American and eventually moved to the United States. Though she loved her father, she couldn’t accept his political decision to leave the family and move to the North. She met him finally in Paris after the war was over, where he was serving as a diplomat for the new Vietnamese government.

When we think about Vietnam and the sacrifices made by those who served there in the U.S. military, we sometimes forget about what happened to the Vietnamese who supported our efforts. This is a good book about that. It was written in 1995 and can be purchased “used” online. I found it to be a compelling and powerful narrative, and would recommend it to Vietnam veterans. It helps “fill in the gaps” of what our own experience was all about.

Rolland Kidder

A Navy Man Reconnects / USS Surfbird ADG-383

"Though we only spent a relatively short time together in the Navy, that common experience continues to be the catalyst for maintaining long term friendships."

In writing the book, I referred primarily to my Navy experience on PBR’s in Vietnam. However, prior to going to Vietnam, I had served as Operations Officer on a ship, USS Surfbird ADG-383, which was home-ported in Japan. 

In writing about my R & R trip back to Japan, I mentioned this ship (p. 172) and this week, out-of-the blue, got an email from an old, fellow sailor, Bruce Stevens. To be honest, I can’t remember a lot of the names of men I served with on that ship. However, he had signed his email: “BM 3, 67-70.” That meant he had been Boatswains Mate 3rd class in 1967-1970.

When I responded to his email, I asked him if we had served together, and he sent me a wonderful letter naming various people we had both served with on that ship. He has maintained his friendship with them over many years. Bruce said that he had read the book and “enjoyed it very much.” But, of course, our correspondence dealt primarily with our old comradeship on the USS Surfbird.

One of the benefits of writing a book comes when it helps resurrect old friends and old memories. This reconnecting also is indicative of Navy men. Though we only spent a relatively short time together in the Navy, that common experience continues to be the catalyst for maintaining long term friendships. I am sure the same thing goes on today for those who serve on ships in the Navy.

Rolly Kidder

>> See the real Surfbird: Calidris Virgata