View From the Front Porch

Vietnam relived 47 years after jungle ambush By Larry Cothren When Jimmy Morrison served in combat during the Vietnam War, the many letters he wrote to his family in Concord covered 335 pages. He made a point, however, to never let his mother know of the despair and ravages of war he faced on a daily basis. One letter, dated August 6, 1970, particularly stands out. As he wrote home that day, he kidded his younger brother about a Corvette the brother had just bought, and his general tone was upbeat. The day before had been especially brutal for the 21-year-old Morrison. On August 5, while leading his platoon through a jungle thicket near Laos and the infamous Ho Chi Minh trail, he encountered a Vietnamese soldier who looked no more than 12 years old. The youngster had popped up from among the thick, tangled jungle bush. In that frozen instant—one that Morrison still recalls vividly more than 47 years later—his eyes locked with those of the child soldier just 10 feet in front of him. Neither one fired his weapon. Morrison says to this day that he regrets not firing. Pinky, as his wartime buddies called him, instead told the others that they all needed to leave the area. Shortly thereafter, a call came to check out one of the primitive huts in the area as they made their way across a nearby mountain. The soldiers called the hut a “hooch,” and this one was filled with pumpkins, a fact that meant nothing to Morrison in that tense moment. Before the soldiers could evaluate the scene, sniper shots rang out. As Morrison hit the ground and returned fire, a nearby tree threw splinters from a hail of bullets. One of his close friends, a machine gunner from California named Manual Dick, took three shots to his chest and died on the spot, just 15 feet from Morrison. Another machine gunner, 20 years old and in the field for three months, died in a helicopter while being evacuated. Under heavy fire from the enemy, other wounded soldiers were airlifted out. It was deemed too risky, however, for the recovery of Manual Dick’s body. As the company of soldiers moved a few hundred feet toward safer ground, a bullet hit near an armpit of Gary Winter, a radio operator from Grand Rapids, Ohio. He, too, died on the spot. The next day as Morrison wrote home to his family, with the presence of mind to talk about his brother’s Corvette, the bodies of his two close friends, Manuel Dick and Gary Winter, were close by. Those are not details that a mother halfway across the planet needs to read about. Forty-seven years later, Morrison was visited by one of his fellow soldiers from the chaos along the Ho Chi Minh trail that day. The last time Morrison and Tom Brown, of Manhattan Beach, California, saw each other was that day in the jungle, until Brown spent two days visiting Morrison during the third week of October. Brown had taken a bullet to the stomach and one to the arm when he and Morrison last spoke on August 5, 1970. Morrison remarked on how calm Brown had been that day. “By then,” Brown told him, “I realized I wasn’t going to die.” Such were the horrors of the Vietnam War. Despite corresponding over the years. Brown and Morrison had a lot to talk about when they met in October. Both men, in fact, have spent a significant amount of time researching old friends, those living as well as those lost to the war, in the years since returning home. Morrison has researched and reached out to the families of five fallen soldiers, including the family of Manuel Dick, who were told that he had been shot in the face as a way to explain the closed casket they were presented. On the day Brown arrived, Morrison met him at an area hotel and the two had supper at a local steakhouse, staying together until nearly midnight. They discussed fallen friends and listened to audio tapes that Brown made during the war. Brown recovered from his war wounds and returned home to California. Morrison, a 1967 graduate of Central Cabarrus High School, returned to Concord and the trade he knew best, paint and body work on automobiles. He began restoring and selling vintage cars, eventually growing that one-man operation into a thriving high-end used car business. He recalls a well-to-do customer needling him about working too cheap in those early post-war days. “I didn’t know anything about pricing,” Morrison recalled recently. “All I knew was work.” That spirit helped Morrison find success in his hometown. It also gave him the means to honor the history and hard truths of the Vietnam War. A museum he owns near Charlotte Motor Speedway has a mannequin display of a Vietnam era soldier, complete with an actual tin cracker box from the war. His mother discovered that a loaf of bread could be shipped in the cracker tin and kept relatively fresh by removing air from the bread’s wrapper. The Spam sandwiches with mustard that the seemingly fresh bread produced are still etched in Morrison’s mind. Over the years, his wartime experiences have had an obvious impact on Morrison. He said he has made an effort to ensure that younger generations understand and appreciate history. He has tried to instill that appreciation in his own three children and his eight grandchildren. He said recently that perhaps the single most impactful event he has experienced over the last 47 years has come at Patriots Stem Elementary. That’s where a local teacher, Jill Spencer, has for several years organized a Veterans Day ceremony where young students honor our military veterans. Tracey Walker, a fifth-grade teacher at Patriots, said that many of the school’s teachers work hard to make the event a success. Morrison and other veterans attended the ceremony on Thursday, two days before Veterans Day. Despite the turmoil around us, despite those who disrespect our flag and the freedoms and sacrifice it represents, at least one group of teachers understand what Veterans Day is about. Their efforts help maintain the legacy of sacrifice that several generations of soldiers have given. Therein lies one of the most significant things about this story. Forty-seven years after a deadly ambush deep in the jungles of Vietnam, one dedicated school teacher has a level of appreciation and awareness that compels her and others to honor soldiers like Jimmy Morrison.