Photo courtesy of Dan Kellum
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1LT - O2 - Army - Reserve
Length of service 2 years His tour began on Feb 25, 1968 Casualty was on May 2, 1968 In HUA NGHIA, SOUTH VIETNAM HOSTILE, GROUND CASUALTY ARTILLERY, ROCKET, or MORTAR Body was recovered Panel 54E - Line 12 More information on May 2, 1968 |
Small story on Jimmy Molpus. He was a senior and we were expected to win the football district championship that year as we were the most complete team...offense and defense. This was going to be our year. I was a junior. Our junior quarterback would go on to win the National Championship for the Texas Longhorns as their quarterback in 1969. Well, we lost a very close game at our house that would've given us a good start for district play....it started a slide of closely lost games in district. On the way back to the field house our coaches yelled at us to shut up and there would be hell to pay for letting that one get away. I was upset right along with everyone else and cursing my play...even though my football uniform was pristine and I hadn't see a second of play at 132 lbs. and considered too small to play in 4A football which was the largest classification in Texas football at the time.
Jimmy Molpus, a muddied, bleeding and bruised starter, was watching me as I berated myself and finally leaned over from across the aisle and asked why I was upset seeing as how I didn't play a down. I told him I was upset because I could've pushed the starters harder at practice...I wasn't giving 100 percent to make them better and I felt the loss as acutely as those who started or played. He stared at me a moment then slammed both fists down on my shoulder pads (the most contact I had all night there on the bus). Jimmy told me with that attitude I should be starting the next year and gave me a little pep talk about not giving up. I will always remember Jimmy for those words of encouragement. The next year I was allowed to be on the Special Teams running down on kickoffs and nothing else. I think the coaches measured football players by height and weight and not their heart.
One good thing came out of playing football. Both my coaches were former Staff NCOs in the Marine Corps so our practices were kind of harder than most I would guess. They kept at me to quit the team as I was holding down a spot as an undersized senior the next year...but I kept thinking I would let Jimmy down if I quit. I didn't quit and took my minor position on the team in stride and even suffered a comment from a gal who asked me at the local hangout on a Friday afternoon if I was going to the football game that night. I said I was as I was on the frickin' team. She asked me what position I played and I told her mainly the bench. Oh, yeah, the good thing that came out after all was that the defensive coach/ex-SNCO Marine came up to me at the end of track season and congratulated me for sucking it up and almost winning the district meet's mile run...came in second and qualified for the Regional Meet in Fort Worth at TCU. He wanted to know where the guts to do that came from. I looked him right in the eye and told him in front of my track/football teammates, "Coach, I've always had those guts. You just never gave me a chance." He stammered and walked away as my guys slapped me on the back for talking back to him and putting him down. The last good thing is that at Marine enlisted Boot Camp I was selected for the Enlisted Commissioning Program and became an officer in the Marine Corps...outranking my two hard-nosed SNCO coaches back in Longview. That kind of warms the cockles of your heart.
So you see Jimmy Molpus put me on a path to accomplish all that by those simple words of encouragement. Don't ever underestimate the power of a few encouraging or discouraging words. And that's how I remember Jimmy Molpus.
Dan Kellum 1stLt., USMCR, Echo Co., 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, Vietnam 1970
Jimmy Molpus, a muddied, bleeding and bruised starter, was watching me as I berated myself and finally leaned over from across the aisle and asked why I was upset seeing as how I didn't play a down. I told him I was upset because I could've pushed the starters harder at practice...I wasn't giving 100 percent to make them better and I felt the loss as acutely as those who started or played. He stared at me a moment then slammed both fists down on my shoulder pads (the most contact I had all night there on the bus). Jimmy told me with that attitude I should be starting the next year and gave me a little pep talk about not giving up. I will always remember Jimmy for those words of encouragement. The next year I was allowed to be on the Special Teams running down on kickoffs and nothing else. I think the coaches measured football players by height and weight and not their heart.
One good thing came out of playing football. Both my coaches were former Staff NCOs in the Marine Corps so our practices were kind of harder than most I would guess. They kept at me to quit the team as I was holding down a spot as an undersized senior the next year...but I kept thinking I would let Jimmy down if I quit. I didn't quit and took my minor position on the team in stride and even suffered a comment from a gal who asked me at the local hangout on a Friday afternoon if I was going to the football game that night. I said I was as I was on the frickin' team. She asked me what position I played and I told her mainly the bench. Oh, yeah, the good thing that came out after all was that the defensive coach/ex-SNCO Marine came up to me at the end of track season and congratulated me for sucking it up and almost winning the district meet's mile run...came in second and qualified for the Regional Meet in Fort Worth at TCU. He wanted to know where the guts to do that came from. I looked him right in the eye and told him in front of my track/football teammates, "Coach, I've always had those guts. You just never gave me a chance." He stammered and walked away as my guys slapped me on the back for talking back to him and putting him down. The last good thing is that at Marine enlisted Boot Camp I was selected for the Enlisted Commissioning Program and became an officer in the Marine Corps...outranking my two hard-nosed SNCO coaches back in Longview. That kind of warms the cockles of your heart.
So you see Jimmy Molpus put me on a path to accomplish all that by those simple words of encouragement. Don't ever underestimate the power of a few encouraging or discouraging words. And that's how I remember Jimmy Molpus.
Dan Kellum 1stLt., USMCR, Echo Co., 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, Vietnam 1970
