WCN&V contributor Randy Patrick had a long and distinguished career as a professional journalist, including two stints at the Winchester Sun. Two years ago, when he wrote this story, he was working for the Kentucky Standard in Bardstown. [Ed.]
Before I came to Bardstown seven years ago, I had read about those “gallant soldiers” of the Kentucky National Guard’s Battery C, 2nd Battalion, 138th Field Artillery, or “Charlie Battery.” I knew they were a major reason Bardstown had the grave distinction of having sacrificed more of its sons to the war in Vietnam than almost any small town in America. Several of those who died were from the same artillery unit based here in Nelson County, uprooted and sent to fight 14,000 miles from home.
Of the 117 enlisted men in the Guard unit, almost all were from Nelson County.
On June 19, 1969, under the cover of darkness and torrential rain, North Vietnamese soldiers attacked Charlie Battery’s Fire Base Tomahawk, killing 14 Americans, including David Collins, Jim Moore, and Ronnie Simpson, all of Nelson County, Ronnie McIlvoy from neighboring Washington County, and Luther Chappell from Carrollton. Two other local boys who had been in the unit, both from nearby Mount Washington, Harold Brown and Jim Wray, also died within days of the battle on Tomahawk Hill, one shortly before, the other right after.
When the survivors returned home four months later, they were given a heroes’ welcome. Since then, their story has been told in books and newspaper and magazine articles, in movies and on television.
When I met some of them almost as soon as I arrived that summer of 2012, I found them to be down-to-earth, regular guys who had been through hell, fought like hell, and lived to tell about it.
That first week, I met Don Parrish and his wife, Judy, at their bookstore, and they connected me to Joe and Jenny Buckman, who had an apartment for rent in the Historic District. A month later, after a classic car show at Parkway Baptist Church to benefit Wounded Warriors, I met Kent Bischoff, Jodie Haydon, and Jerry Janes at Pat Settles’ record shop, where they presented veterans advocate Gordon Ewell copies of Jim Wilson’s book about themselves, “The Sons of Bardstown” and Lt. Gen. Hal Moore’s book, “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young,” the basis for Mel Gibson’s film in which he played the Bardstown native and hero of Ia Drang.
Last year, I met Tom Raisor and Bischoff for a story on the summer they went to Vietnam.
This spring, during a ceremony at the Kentucky Capitol to honor the men of Charlie Battery, Brig. Gen. Raymond Ice of Bardstown, who wasn’t part of the Guard unit, but was “in country” at the same time, read from a speech by another general who called their artillery unit one of the best and called its men “gallant soldiers.”
In October, I was honored to join members of Charlie Battery and other veterans on a 50th anniversary Honor Flight to Washington, D.C., to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, take part in a ceremony honoring the dead with the shrapnel-riddled flag that flew over Fire Base Tomahawk, and witness the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
It had been a beautiful fall week — except that day. Rain poured from a leaden sky, but one of the men told me it seemed appropriate for the occasion.
I met other veterans from the Guard unit that day — “Smiley” Hibbs, Sam Filiatreau, “Bucky” Ice, Don Puckett, Dan Cunningham, and Wayne Collins, to name a few.
At “the Wall,” Collins leaned forward in his wheelchair to place a bouquet of flowers beneath the place where his brother David’s name was carved into the hard black granite and then felt it with his hand.
“Both of us didn’t have to go, but we said that if one of us went, the other one was going too, because we didn’t want to be separated,” Collins said.
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But they were separated, for 50 years and counting.
When we returned to Louisville, I expected a crowd at the airport, but nothing like what we encountered. There were hundreds, including families and friends and others from home, Coast Guard members in crisp uniforms, Patriot Guard bikers in leather, Scouts, D.A.R. ladies, people with flags and hand-made signs, cheering and grasping hands. On the way to the National Guard Armory, our bus passed more crowds and passed under a giant U.S. flag suspended from two fire truck ladders.
It was all I could do to hold back tears. It was an amazing show of support. And these men deserved it. Every bit of it.
This Veterans Day, I’ll honor all veterans for their service and sacrifice. But my thoughts will be mostly with the men of Charlie Battery and their families.
It has been the greatest honor of my time in Bardstown to have known several of them and to consider a few friends.
