Photo Courtesy of Ronnie Foster
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SP4 - E4 - Army - Selective Service
25 year old Single, Caucasian, Male Born on Jan 17, 1943 From WYLIE, TEXAS His tour of duty began on Mar 07, 1968 Casualty was on Aug 21, 1968 in TAY NINH, SOUTH VIETNAM HOSTILE, GROUND CASUALTY GUN, SMALL ARMS FIRE Body was recovered Religion BAPTIST Panel 47W - - Line 16 More information on August 21, 1968 |
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Paul Moir and Lloyd Combest September 2004
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(Above) Appeared in the Wylie Newspaper 1968
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(Above) 35th Wylie, Texas High School reunion dedicated to Jerry and his best friend Lanny Hale who was killed near Da Nang six months earlier. |
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.”General George S. Patton Jr.
JERRY WAYNE COMBEST
Jerry Wayne Combest was born January 17, 1943 in Sherman, the son of Alton Jesse and Lorna Lee Rich Combest, and lived in McKinney as a kid. He was the same age as my oldest brother, Johnny, and they were friends. Jerry’s dad and my dad, Paul Foster, worked together at Intercontinental Manufacturing Company, twenty-five miles away in Garland, and rode in a car pool of five McKinney men who worked there. Intercontinental Manufacturing was a company that manufactured casings for bombs and missiles. Business was good during the decade of the sixties. One morning on the way to work, a dump truck loaded with gravel ran a stop sign and hit the car in which they were riding. Two men of the car pool died in the wreck. My dad was injured but not as seriously as the others. Mr. Combest had a broken neck and received several stitches in his head. I remember seeing the car a couple of days later and how smashed up it was. It was a miracle that anyone survived.
A few years later the Combests moved fifteen miles southeast of McKinney, to the other side of Lake Lavon, to 316 Hilltop Lane in Wylie, just down the street from where Lanny Hale’s family lived. Jerry would become best friends with Lanny and would become basketball teammates at the forward position at Wylie High School. He played football his freshmen and sophomore years and lettered in basketball all four years.
Percy Simmons: “A couple of tidbits I remember about Jerry; Once when we were in a basketball game, Coach Dodd thought he wasn’t playing too well, so he said to me, ‘Watch this.’ He said something to Jerry that really made him mad and boy here Jerry went. Coach Dodd really got a kick out of doing that. We won the district championship that year by beating Farmersville. Also I remember sometimes he would go home after school with me, and that boy could eat a whole jar of the hottest peppers that you have ever seen, all by himself.”
Jerry, along with his buddy Lanny, was in the Junior Class Play, a member of the English Club, and was selected Best All Around Boy by his fellow classmates. According to the ’61 Annual, his nickname was ‘Monster.’ He graduated from high school in 1961, among a class of thirty, and went on to attend North Texas State College in Denton, about forty-five miles away. His first job out of high school was at the Craddock Pickle Company in Garland, a smelly job, but it helped pay for college. He didn’t work there long and was hired at Texas Instruments in North Dallas, and was still employed there when he was drafted.
Billy Combest, Jerry’s uncle, US Navy Air Wing veteran of the Korean War and twenty-six years with the Dallas Police Department, who had been one of the men accompanying Lee Harvey Oswald that fateful day when the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy a was shot and killed by Jack Ruby: “Jerry was such a nice kid, and he was good at working with his hands. He not only was a good craftsman but a very talented artist as well. He once painted a pastel portrait of my daughter and it was very good. We still have it. A lot of people advised him against dropping his student deferment but I don’t think he minded getting drafted at all. He came from a family that had a lot of military tradition and once he was inducted, he gave it his best just like he did everything.”
In 1967, Jerry, still a single man, received his induction notice from the Collin County Draft Board. On the designated day, he reported to the county seat of McKinney where he and a group of other young men boarded a chartered Greyhound Bus that took them to the induction center in downtown Dallas. He easily passed the physical and mental exams and was now Private Combest, service number 54442445. Also on the bus was another Wylie boy, Denny Burnside. Together they went through a hard eight weeks of basic training at Ft. Polk, Louisiana. Denny was also friends with Lanny Hale and Russell Steindam from Plano, who were also casualties of the war.
Denny Burnside: “Of course I knew Jerry in high school, he was a little older than me, but we became very close friends in boot camp, along with Robert Castle, from Bonham. We were like the Three Musketeers from North Texas, and were the ‘old men’ of our platoon as most of the guys were eighteen and nineteen years old. Jerry was one of the most positive people I had ever met. It didn’t matter how tired and worn out we were after a hard day in the field, he would still be smiling, up-beat, and ready for the next day. He was very intelligent also. He went to college but I don’t think he got his degree. If I remember the way he told me, he ran out of money just before his senior semester, and took a year off to work full time and make enough to get him through that last year of school. It wasn't long though that he got his draft notice.
“We had to take all these tests in boot camp, written achievement tests. Jerry had taken psychology at North Texas State and told me there was a secret to passing those things. He told me to think ‘masculine and military’ on every question, and that’s what I did. He and I had the highest scores in the platoon, and were offered a chance to go to Officers Candidate School, which neither of us did at that time. After boot camp and AIT, Jerry was sent to what was called ‘Tiger Land’ Training Center at Ft. Polk, where they trained grunts for duty in Vietnam. Myself and a few other guys lucked out and were assigned to Ft. Lewis, Washington, where I became a Ground Surveillance Radar Operator, and spent most of my tour in Germany doing secret work in the Cold War.
“The last time I saw Jerry was Christmas 1967. We were given leave time after finishing our infantry training at Fort Polk. Shortly after that I went to Germany and the next I heard he had been sent to Vietnam.”
It was only a few weeks after Christmas that Jerry was home again. This time it was not a happy occasion. It was for the funeral of his best friend, Lanny Hale, who had been killed February 8. It was a very tough time for Lanny’s mother.
Sandra, (Jerry’s sister): “Mrs. Hale took it really hard. Jerry went over to their house and cleaned out Lanny’s room, putting all his things in boxes, so she wouldn’t have to do it. It was hard on him, too, but he was one who always accepted his responsibilities.”
Betty Combest Weeks (sister): “He knew he was going to Vietnam when he left here after Lanny’s funeral, so before he did he put all of his personal stuff away because he didn’t want to put mother through the same thing. In a way I felt like he knew he wasn’t coming back either.”
Less than a month after attending the funeral of his best friend, Jerry arrived in South Vietnam on March 7, 1968, at Long Binh, the huge American base near Saigon, and was assigned to the 5th Infantry Regiment, attached to the 25th Infantry Division, with headquarters at Cu Chi. Cu Chi was the heart of the rubber plantation area and would become famous for the Viet Cong’s underground system of tunnel complexes, spider holes, trenches, and heavy fortifications that were unrivaled anywhere else in Vietnam.
His new outfit, the 5th Infantry Regiment was one of the oldest in the US Army. In the War of 1812, the regiment whipped the British at the Battle of Lundy’s Lane, which was a pivotal battle in the beginning of that war. After the war, the 5th was sent out to the frontier where they suffered in extreme conditions, from the cold hard winters on Lake Superior in Michigan, to the intense heat of the Texas prairies and Mexican deserts. The 5th was an infantry regiment which meant they were grunts, they walked everywhere they went. That must have been a long walk from Michigan to Mexico. Ten years after the battle of the Alamo, the 5th joined up with Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott to drive the Mexican Army out of the Texas Territory and went on down into Mexico where they put an end to any and all of Santa Anna’s claims to Texas. During the Civil War years the Indians saw an opportunity to reclaim some of the land that they had given up to the settlers from America, and the 5th Infantry spent those years and many more after, fighting Indians on the plains. They were the ones who captured the great war chiefs, Crazy Horse, Lame Deer, and Chief Joseph.
In World War II, the 5th started fighting in France and worked their way into Germany. They were the first Allied troops to cross the Danube River and the first to invade Austria. In Korea they were one of the first combat units to engage the North Korean Army and the Chinese Communists. By the time the war in Vietnam was ready for the 5th Infantry, January of 1966, it had become a mechanized unit, which meant it combined infantry with armored vehicles. Operating in the jungle posed considerable problem for a mechanized unit, but they adapted quickly and wrote the rules for armor units fighting jungle warfare.
Jerry was trained as an 11B, rifle specialist, a gunfighter from Texas packing an M16 and a supply of hand grenades. Specialist Fourth Class Combest was assigned to Charlie Company, 1st Platoon, 1st Mechanized Battalion, known as the ‘Bobcats.’ The grunts were sometimes called the hatchet squad for the armored and heavily armed units of track vehicles. They basically would ride in the bellies or on top of the APCs (Armored Personnel Carries) which took them to wherever they were going, then get out and
walk in front, or out on the flanks, and see what kind of trouble they could scare up for the big guns rolling behind them to take care of. Mechanized units in Vietnam would usually spend many weeks at a time in the field, searching for the enemy by day, and defending against them at night.
According to Jerry’s sisters Betty and Sandra, Jerry loved children and before he went into the service when he would come home from college he usually spent more time outside playing with the kids than in the house talking with the adults. In a letter sent to his niece, he played down the danger to which he was exposed and told her a little about his life in Vietnam. In the letter he included drawings of the people and things he saw there.
27 May, 1968
Dear Christie,
Well hello, you beautiful, wonderful, intelligent, stupendous thing. How are you doing, Christie Lou? I don’t worry about you much, you’re just a nut (with a drawing of a walnut here) that’ll always be all right, A-Okay with me.
June ’68
I’ll draw you a picture of what I look like after a typical day over here and I smell bad too, but that’s not unusual. It’s not so bad, because if you stink real bad, you can’t smell anyone else. Ha! Ha! (a drawing of himself with a beard)
Well, Christie, lately we haven’t been doing anything except road security and I’m getting fat and sloppy, no, just fat, I’ve always been sloppy. Well, Christie Lou, I’ll write later but I guess I have to fill up the rest of the page. (drawings of a water buffalo, tree, a Vietnamese boy wearing a conical hat, and a soldier)
Well, I guess that’s full enough.
Love, Jerry Wayne
Randy Kethcart, from the website "The Bobcats 5th Infantry" a Bobcat veteran, described a typical defensive position in the field, called a laager: “This is a typical setup at a company-size laager. We would circle up, each track facing out, with RPG screen (chain link fencing) in front. Each squad would also be responsible for digging a firing position halfway to the next track, string a section of coiled-up concertina wire and set up trip flares & Claymore mines. But first, somebody would dig a latrine, and last but not least, make some shade. After a few days, we'd pack up and travel on. At each site ambush patrols would be sent out in the evening, as well as daily operations.”
Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, was base camped just north of the small Vietnamese town of Dau Tieng between the Michelin and Ben Cui Rubber Plantations. At precisely six-forty in the morning on August 21, 1968, Jerry Combest climbed aboard one of the three APCs from 1st Platoon and departed the Dau Tieng compound in a rolling armored convoy with the other ‘Bobcats.’ Charlie Company was conducting another ‘reconnaissance in force’ operation that morning through the Ben Cui Rubber Plantation. To be such a beautiful place nestled on the banks of the meandering Saigon River, the plantation area was a very dangerous place to be. It was a favorite staging area for enemy troops to form up and move on the city of Saigon and the surrounding military installations.
Jerry and the other guys of Charlie Company knew the Ben Cui well having spent a lot of time there. The area had been a source of heavy contact for the past few days, and the current mission was to sweep through the southern part of the plantation for any sign of enemy activity. Intelligence reports had indicated a large enemy force, the 4th Battalion of the Phu Loc Regiment, to be building to the east in the Michelin Rubber Company Plantation. Another unknown size force, possibly the 533rd Regiment, was reported to be in the Ben Cui Plantation.
First Lieutenant John Snodgrass, Charlie Company Commander: “We had lost some guys in the Ben Cui during some heavy fighting on the eighteenth and nineteenth of August, and knew there were a big gathering of VC in there. I was on a five-day R&R in Hawaii at the time and missed those two fights. The battalion was short on officers, so the decision to go back in there was held up until I got back on the twentieth, since I was the most experienced having been there for over nine months.”
The dirt road they followed was known as the Ben Cui Freeway, which went all the way to Tay Ninh City, but it was always referred to as ‘Ambush Alley.’ It crossed the Dau Tieng Bridge over the Saigon River just south of town, and went through the thick dark forest called the Ben Cui. The convoy made its way south down the main road and turned to the west on a smaller one that led deeper into the woods. Once they arrived at the objective, the grunts got out and did what grunts do. They dismounted, fanned out, and walked the ground out in front of the line of tracked vehicles. Not long after, at 8:31 AM, the point unit, walking about twenty-five yards ahead, which contained three scout dogs and their handlers, reported that the dogs had alerted to a large group of people to the southwest somewhere in the trees.
Lt. Snodgrass: “I was walking along with the point element, something I frequently did, and moved between the two platoons. When the dogs alerted to something in the trees, I went back to my track to call for an overhead reconnaissance flight.”
A visual reconnaissance was made while the company held up their advance, but the low flying helicopter could see nothing unusual, and assumed that the dogs were barking because of a small village in that direction.
Lt. Snodgrass: “I then had mortar squad fire a few 81 mm rounds into the trees, but we received no positive response.”
At 9:06 AM, two enemy soldiers were spotted about 120 yards distance and disappeared into the trees. At 9:14, the grunts discovered a land mine and it was destroyed in place. A few minutes later the company came upon a trail that led from a clearing and into the trees. They turned to follow it with the scout dog and point element still about twenty to thirty yards in front. First Platoon was to the right of the trail and 3rd was on the left. Second Platoon served as rear guard. At 10:12 AM, a red star cluster was seen as it was shot into the air in the vicinity of the before mentioned village. A signal by the enemy? No one knew at the time.
At 11:10 AM, as SP4 Jerry Combest walked on line with the other grunts in front of the APCs about thirty yards west of a small foot trail, Charlie Company began to receive sniper fire. As any well-trained sniper knows, you go for the leaders first. They are easy to pick out as they usually are yelling out orders and giving signals for the others, and are nearly always near the guy with the radio antennae. The platoon leader for Jerry’s platoon, Staff Sergeant Mainor D. Lang, from Savannah, Georgia was shot in the head and fell dead. The radioman was wounded and went down. Almost immediately, from the southwest, the company came under machine gun and heavy RPG fire from what they estimated to be a North Vietnamese Regiment. Second Platoon was called to move up on the right flank but the fire coming from out of the trees was overwhelming and soon pulled back to set up a perimeter with 4th Platoon, which was now providing rear security.
At 11:49 AM, the Recon Patrol, not far away on Highway 239, reported that hundreds of enemy soldiers were moving south toward the ongoing battle that C Company was involved in, and engaged and killed many of them. The trees were so thick in the plantation that it was hard for the helicopters to identify who was who down there and was unable to provide close air support. Artillery was held up after Lt. Ranney, the FO (Forward Artillery Officer) was hit and knocked out of action along with practically everyone in the headquarters group, including the Company Commander, 1st Lt. John Snodgrass. Several minutes went by before artillery support was resumed. By noon, Charlie Company, now under the command of 1st Lt. Arthur B. Cook, had reported that their situation was critical and they were pulling back. In less than an hour of very heavy fighting, the company had a total of six APC’s destroyed by rockets and RPG’s, and a still unknown number of men killed in action.
Esuvio Alvarado, from Michigan, was a young medic with the recon platoon: “There had been a lot of contact in the days leading up to the twenty-first. We had discovered all these tunnels and had found large caches of rice, RPGs, mines, and all kinds of ammunition. It was their backyard we were in. We had taken numerous casualties in the rubber plantations, and our units were getting ambushed almost every night. On one of those outings I had stepped on a ‘Bouncing Betty’ land mine and it didn’t go off. It’s funny because years later Chuck Weatherford was telling to me about it and I didn’t even remember. So many things happened that I guess I just shut it out of my mind.
“On that day the NVA hit us hard with machine guns, AK47s, and rocket propelled grenades. The rubber trees were planted in rows but the undergrowth was very thick and heavy. I could hear their voices, and then the sounds of whistles and horns, and here they came. I had never seen so many enemy soldiers at one time. An RPG hit one of the tanks and stopped it in its tracks. We were firing at them with everything we had and they just kept coming. There were so many that you couldn’t miss, and still they kept coming. The track on which I was riding hit a land mine and knocked me off of it. I didn’t know what had happened and remembered thinking, ‘What am I doing on the ground?’ I remember later washing the blood off of the tracks with buckets of water. It was pretty unbelievable.”
The heavily outnumbered foot soldiers of 1st Platoon were under fire from hidden reinforced positions on three sides. They were the targets of hundreds of AK47s and were showered with a heavy downpour of RPGs. The barrage of incoming fire was so suppressing that people could hardly move. Jerry and his fellow grunts of 1st Platoon were in a difficult position. They were on the ground out in front of the burning and exploding armored vehicles and were being assaulted by an overwhelming wave of soldiers wearing green and camouflaged uniforms. They weren’t rag tag Viet Cong the Bobcats were facing, but heavily armed and well trained regulars from the North. The radio had been knocked out and the grunts had no way of knowing that the rest of the company had pulled back.
Sergeant Marvin Rex Young, another Texan, took charge of his embattled grunts. Rex Young was from Odessa, out in the oil fields of West Texas, and had been an athlete at Permian High School, which was legendary for it’s tough football teams. With only two months left before he was to go home he had already received two Purple Heart Medals. He was one tough sergeant. When he got word that the company had pulled back, and 1st Platoon was out there on their on, he ordered his men to pull back also, but held his position as he provided covering fire. He moved back and fourth in the midst of heavy incoming fire as he tried to cover his retreating grunts. He saw six men who were still fighting on the right flank who couldn’t get out. With total disregard for his own safety he ran to their location under extremely heavy fire. On the way he was shot in the head and lost an eye but kept on going. When he got close to their position he dropped and began to lay down a base of covering fire while he ordered them to withdraw. As they hurriedly moved back he fell behind because of his severe injury. One of the men noticed and ran back to help him. He picked the Sergeant up just as a group of North Vietnamese came out of the trees firing their weapons. Sgt. Young was hit in the arm and knocked to the ground. Another blast from an AK47 hit him in the legs, and wounded the other soldier as well. He knew they were about to be overran and ordered the lower ranking soldier to leave. The soldier protested and stayed a few minutes more. The sergeant finally talked him into leaving, saying that he had done all that he could and could do no more, that he wasn’t going to make it anyway, and there was no reason for both of them to die. Moments later, Rex Young was totally engulfed by the human wave and died valiantly.
As Jerry and the small group of men on the ground moved backwards, they fought for their lives, firing their M16s, throwing grenades, while in the thralls of hand to hand combat. They were being attacked by wave after wave of hard charging NVA soldiers, yelling, blowing bugles and whistles, coming from out of the sea of trees. One soldier reported he had seen Jerry get hit twice, get back up both times, and was hit again. He didn’t get up that time.
As the rest of the company pulled back, the hail of fire from the front had not let up, and the armored tracks were getting hit from both flanks, mostly from the right. More and more Charlie Company soldiers were going down, and most of the leaders were either dead or wounded. The remaining men were ordered to climb aboard what vehicles were still running and they continued to move back to where 2nd Platoon and Mortar Platoon were standing by. They were able to pick up the wounded but had to leave the dead. Sixteen young Americans and one ARVN scout were left behind on the battlefield that day. The seven dead soldiers from 3rd Platoon were lying in a close group on the south side of the road, while the body of Jerry Combest and eight of his fellow 1st Platoon grunts, were also lying in a tight defensive position on the other side of the road. They had been overran and had fought to the last man. According to estimates, 1st Platoon had killed eighty-seven enemy soldiers and lost nine.
What was left of C Company moved back into the rubber plantation to a clearing where they met with two more platoons and set up an LZ to evacuate the wounded, the last of who was on his way to the hospital before one o’clock in the afternoon. Company Commander 1st Lt. John Snodgrass was among those wounded who were medevaced that afternoon and was soon on his way out of Vietnam. The unit then returned to base camp to regroup with plans to return to the battlefield that day. At 1:45 PM, however, the base camp at Dau Tieng began receiving mortar fire. Between having to defend their camp as well as provide security for the nearby Saigon River Bridge, they were unable to go back for their 1st and 3rd Platoon comrades who were still lying where they had fallen on the battlefield.
The next day involved heavy fighting and it wasn’t until the day after that, on the afternoon of August 23, that Charlie Company was able to return to the scene and report that they had located and secured all seventeen bodies. Over the following weeks and months many more soldiers of both armies would bleed and die in the rubber plantations of Tay Ninh Province.
Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Andrew H. Anderson, the ‘Bobcats’ were awarded its third Presidential Unit Citation, which reads: The 1st Battalion (Mechanized), 5th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division and its attached units distinguished themselves by extraordinary heroism in combat operations against numerically superior enemy forces in the Republic of Vietnam from 18 August to September 20 1968. During this period the 1st Battalion Task Force, through reconnaissance in force, ambush, counter-ambush, and reaction missions, effectively destroyed a regimental size enemy force and prevented the enemy from seizing the initiative in it’s ‘Third Offensive.’ The officers and men of the task force displayed outstanding bravery, a high morale, and exemplary esprit de corps in fierce hand-to-hand combat and counter offensive action against well disciplined, heavily armed, and entrenched enemy forces. An example of the outstanding bravery and aggressiveness occurred on 21 August during a reconnaissance in force mission. The lead elements of Company C, 1st Battalion came under heavy mortar, rocket propelled grade, machine gun, and automatic weapons fire. The company deployed against the enemy forces while the scout platoon protected the company flank and prevented reinforcement by a battalion sized enemy unit. Through skillful use of close supporting fire from artillery, helicopter gunships and tactical air, the officers and the men of the task force repulsed human wave counterattacks and defeated a numerically superior enemy force, which left one hundred eighty-two dead on the battle field. The individual act of gallantry, the teamwork and the aggressiveness of the officers and men of the 1st Battalion Task Force continued throughout the period of prolonged combat operations, resulting in the resounding defeat of enemy forces in their operational area. The heroic efforts, extraordinary bravery and professional competence displayed by the men of the 1st battalion, 5th Infantry and attached units are in the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon themselves, their units, and the Armed Forces of the United States.
A couple of weeks later twenty-eight M16s were lined up in neat and orderly military fashion in the shape of a cross, and with bayonets affixed were stuck into the ground. A green camouflage helmet was placed on the butt of each one. It was early September at the Dau Tieng Base Camp and the men of the ‘Bobcats’ stood in formation at attention, in jungle fatigues and rain hats, as the names of all those killed in the plantation battles were read off one by one. August 21, 1968 would turn out to be the heaviest single-day loss suffered by 1st Battalion, 5th Mech during the entire Vietnam War.
The nine Bobcats from 1st Platoon were: Jerry Wayne Combest from Wylie, Texas; David W. Ledbetter, Alabama; Bruce E. Bartlett, from Florida; James Lee Bowden of North Carolina; Jose Ramon Colon from Cayey, Puerto Rico; Hubert W. Martin, Alabama; James E. Rush, Missouri; Jesus Rivera, New York City; and Edward Vincent Coffey from Richmond Hill, New York.
Staff Sergeant Marvin Rex Young, at 21 years old, was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The award was presented to his parents by President Richard Nixon at the White House in Washington DC.
A few years later the Combests moved fifteen miles southeast of McKinney, to the other side of Lake Lavon, to 316 Hilltop Lane in Wylie, just down the street from where Lanny Hale’s family lived. Jerry would become best friends with Lanny and would become basketball teammates at the forward position at Wylie High School. He played football his freshmen and sophomore years and lettered in basketball all four years.
Percy Simmons: “A couple of tidbits I remember about Jerry; Once when we were in a basketball game, Coach Dodd thought he wasn’t playing too well, so he said to me, ‘Watch this.’ He said something to Jerry that really made him mad and boy here Jerry went. Coach Dodd really got a kick out of doing that. We won the district championship that year by beating Farmersville. Also I remember sometimes he would go home after school with me, and that boy could eat a whole jar of the hottest peppers that you have ever seen, all by himself.”
Jerry, along with his buddy Lanny, was in the Junior Class Play, a member of the English Club, and was selected Best All Around Boy by his fellow classmates. According to the ’61 Annual, his nickname was ‘Monster.’ He graduated from high school in 1961, among a class of thirty, and went on to attend North Texas State College in Denton, about forty-five miles away. His first job out of high school was at the Craddock Pickle Company in Garland, a smelly job, but it helped pay for college. He didn’t work there long and was hired at Texas Instruments in North Dallas, and was still employed there when he was drafted.
Billy Combest, Jerry’s uncle, US Navy Air Wing veteran of the Korean War and twenty-six years with the Dallas Police Department, who had been one of the men accompanying Lee Harvey Oswald that fateful day when the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy a was shot and killed by Jack Ruby: “Jerry was such a nice kid, and he was good at working with his hands. He not only was a good craftsman but a very talented artist as well. He once painted a pastel portrait of my daughter and it was very good. We still have it. A lot of people advised him against dropping his student deferment but I don’t think he minded getting drafted at all. He came from a family that had a lot of military tradition and once he was inducted, he gave it his best just like he did everything.”
In 1967, Jerry, still a single man, received his induction notice from the Collin County Draft Board. On the designated day, he reported to the county seat of McKinney where he and a group of other young men boarded a chartered Greyhound Bus that took them to the induction center in downtown Dallas. He easily passed the physical and mental exams and was now Private Combest, service number 54442445. Also on the bus was another Wylie boy, Denny Burnside. Together they went through a hard eight weeks of basic training at Ft. Polk, Louisiana. Denny was also friends with Lanny Hale and Russell Steindam from Plano, who were also casualties of the war.
Denny Burnside: “Of course I knew Jerry in high school, he was a little older than me, but we became very close friends in boot camp, along with Robert Castle, from Bonham. We were like the Three Musketeers from North Texas, and were the ‘old men’ of our platoon as most of the guys were eighteen and nineteen years old. Jerry was one of the most positive people I had ever met. It didn’t matter how tired and worn out we were after a hard day in the field, he would still be smiling, up-beat, and ready for the next day. He was very intelligent also. He went to college but I don’t think he got his degree. If I remember the way he told me, he ran out of money just before his senior semester, and took a year off to work full time and make enough to get him through that last year of school. It wasn't long though that he got his draft notice.
“We had to take all these tests in boot camp, written achievement tests. Jerry had taken psychology at North Texas State and told me there was a secret to passing those things. He told me to think ‘masculine and military’ on every question, and that’s what I did. He and I had the highest scores in the platoon, and were offered a chance to go to Officers Candidate School, which neither of us did at that time. After boot camp and AIT, Jerry was sent to what was called ‘Tiger Land’ Training Center at Ft. Polk, where they trained grunts for duty in Vietnam. Myself and a few other guys lucked out and were assigned to Ft. Lewis, Washington, where I became a Ground Surveillance Radar Operator, and spent most of my tour in Germany doing secret work in the Cold War.
“The last time I saw Jerry was Christmas 1967. We were given leave time after finishing our infantry training at Fort Polk. Shortly after that I went to Germany and the next I heard he had been sent to Vietnam.”
It was only a few weeks after Christmas that Jerry was home again. This time it was not a happy occasion. It was for the funeral of his best friend, Lanny Hale, who had been killed February 8. It was a very tough time for Lanny’s mother.
Sandra, (Jerry’s sister): “Mrs. Hale took it really hard. Jerry went over to their house and cleaned out Lanny’s room, putting all his things in boxes, so she wouldn’t have to do it. It was hard on him, too, but he was one who always accepted his responsibilities.”
Betty Combest Weeks (sister): “He knew he was going to Vietnam when he left here after Lanny’s funeral, so before he did he put all of his personal stuff away because he didn’t want to put mother through the same thing. In a way I felt like he knew he wasn’t coming back either.”
Less than a month after attending the funeral of his best friend, Jerry arrived in South Vietnam on March 7, 1968, at Long Binh, the huge American base near Saigon, and was assigned to the 5th Infantry Regiment, attached to the 25th Infantry Division, with headquarters at Cu Chi. Cu Chi was the heart of the rubber plantation area and would become famous for the Viet Cong’s underground system of tunnel complexes, spider holes, trenches, and heavy fortifications that were unrivaled anywhere else in Vietnam.
His new outfit, the 5th Infantry Regiment was one of the oldest in the US Army. In the War of 1812, the regiment whipped the British at the Battle of Lundy’s Lane, which was a pivotal battle in the beginning of that war. After the war, the 5th was sent out to the frontier where they suffered in extreme conditions, from the cold hard winters on Lake Superior in Michigan, to the intense heat of the Texas prairies and Mexican deserts. The 5th was an infantry regiment which meant they were grunts, they walked everywhere they went. That must have been a long walk from Michigan to Mexico. Ten years after the battle of the Alamo, the 5th joined up with Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott to drive the Mexican Army out of the Texas Territory and went on down into Mexico where they put an end to any and all of Santa Anna’s claims to Texas. During the Civil War years the Indians saw an opportunity to reclaim some of the land that they had given up to the settlers from America, and the 5th Infantry spent those years and many more after, fighting Indians on the plains. They were the ones who captured the great war chiefs, Crazy Horse, Lame Deer, and Chief Joseph.
In World War II, the 5th started fighting in France and worked their way into Germany. They were the first Allied troops to cross the Danube River and the first to invade Austria. In Korea they were one of the first combat units to engage the North Korean Army and the Chinese Communists. By the time the war in Vietnam was ready for the 5th Infantry, January of 1966, it had become a mechanized unit, which meant it combined infantry with armored vehicles. Operating in the jungle posed considerable problem for a mechanized unit, but they adapted quickly and wrote the rules for armor units fighting jungle warfare.
Jerry was trained as an 11B, rifle specialist, a gunfighter from Texas packing an M16 and a supply of hand grenades. Specialist Fourth Class Combest was assigned to Charlie Company, 1st Platoon, 1st Mechanized Battalion, known as the ‘Bobcats.’ The grunts were sometimes called the hatchet squad for the armored and heavily armed units of track vehicles. They basically would ride in the bellies or on top of the APCs (Armored Personnel Carries) which took them to wherever they were going, then get out and
walk in front, or out on the flanks, and see what kind of trouble they could scare up for the big guns rolling behind them to take care of. Mechanized units in Vietnam would usually spend many weeks at a time in the field, searching for the enemy by day, and defending against them at night.
According to Jerry’s sisters Betty and Sandra, Jerry loved children and before he went into the service when he would come home from college he usually spent more time outside playing with the kids than in the house talking with the adults. In a letter sent to his niece, he played down the danger to which he was exposed and told her a little about his life in Vietnam. In the letter he included drawings of the people and things he saw there.
27 May, 1968
Dear Christie,
Well hello, you beautiful, wonderful, intelligent, stupendous thing. How are you doing, Christie Lou? I don’t worry about you much, you’re just a nut (with a drawing of a walnut here) that’ll always be all right, A-Okay with me.
June ’68
I’ll draw you a picture of what I look like after a typical day over here and I smell bad too, but that’s not unusual. It’s not so bad, because if you stink real bad, you can’t smell anyone else. Ha! Ha! (a drawing of himself with a beard)
Well, Christie, lately we haven’t been doing anything except road security and I’m getting fat and sloppy, no, just fat, I’ve always been sloppy. Well, Christie Lou, I’ll write later but I guess I have to fill up the rest of the page. (drawings of a water buffalo, tree, a Vietnamese boy wearing a conical hat, and a soldier)
Well, I guess that’s full enough.
Love, Jerry Wayne
Randy Kethcart, from the website "The Bobcats 5th Infantry" a Bobcat veteran, described a typical defensive position in the field, called a laager: “This is a typical setup at a company-size laager. We would circle up, each track facing out, with RPG screen (chain link fencing) in front. Each squad would also be responsible for digging a firing position halfway to the next track, string a section of coiled-up concertina wire and set up trip flares & Claymore mines. But first, somebody would dig a latrine, and last but not least, make some shade. After a few days, we'd pack up and travel on. At each site ambush patrols would be sent out in the evening, as well as daily operations.”
Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, was base camped just north of the small Vietnamese town of Dau Tieng between the Michelin and Ben Cui Rubber Plantations. At precisely six-forty in the morning on August 21, 1968, Jerry Combest climbed aboard one of the three APCs from 1st Platoon and departed the Dau Tieng compound in a rolling armored convoy with the other ‘Bobcats.’ Charlie Company was conducting another ‘reconnaissance in force’ operation that morning through the Ben Cui Rubber Plantation. To be such a beautiful place nestled on the banks of the meandering Saigon River, the plantation area was a very dangerous place to be. It was a favorite staging area for enemy troops to form up and move on the city of Saigon and the surrounding military installations.
Jerry and the other guys of Charlie Company knew the Ben Cui well having spent a lot of time there. The area had been a source of heavy contact for the past few days, and the current mission was to sweep through the southern part of the plantation for any sign of enemy activity. Intelligence reports had indicated a large enemy force, the 4th Battalion of the Phu Loc Regiment, to be building to the east in the Michelin Rubber Company Plantation. Another unknown size force, possibly the 533rd Regiment, was reported to be in the Ben Cui Plantation.
First Lieutenant John Snodgrass, Charlie Company Commander: “We had lost some guys in the Ben Cui during some heavy fighting on the eighteenth and nineteenth of August, and knew there were a big gathering of VC in there. I was on a five-day R&R in Hawaii at the time and missed those two fights. The battalion was short on officers, so the decision to go back in there was held up until I got back on the twentieth, since I was the most experienced having been there for over nine months.”
The dirt road they followed was known as the Ben Cui Freeway, which went all the way to Tay Ninh City, but it was always referred to as ‘Ambush Alley.’ It crossed the Dau Tieng Bridge over the Saigon River just south of town, and went through the thick dark forest called the Ben Cui. The convoy made its way south down the main road and turned to the west on a smaller one that led deeper into the woods. Once they arrived at the objective, the grunts got out and did what grunts do. They dismounted, fanned out, and walked the ground out in front of the line of tracked vehicles. Not long after, at 8:31 AM, the point unit, walking about twenty-five yards ahead, which contained three scout dogs and their handlers, reported that the dogs had alerted to a large group of people to the southwest somewhere in the trees.
Lt. Snodgrass: “I was walking along with the point element, something I frequently did, and moved between the two platoons. When the dogs alerted to something in the trees, I went back to my track to call for an overhead reconnaissance flight.”
A visual reconnaissance was made while the company held up their advance, but the low flying helicopter could see nothing unusual, and assumed that the dogs were barking because of a small village in that direction.
Lt. Snodgrass: “I then had mortar squad fire a few 81 mm rounds into the trees, but we received no positive response.”
At 9:06 AM, two enemy soldiers were spotted about 120 yards distance and disappeared into the trees. At 9:14, the grunts discovered a land mine and it was destroyed in place. A few minutes later the company came upon a trail that led from a clearing and into the trees. They turned to follow it with the scout dog and point element still about twenty to thirty yards in front. First Platoon was to the right of the trail and 3rd was on the left. Second Platoon served as rear guard. At 10:12 AM, a red star cluster was seen as it was shot into the air in the vicinity of the before mentioned village. A signal by the enemy? No one knew at the time.
At 11:10 AM, as SP4 Jerry Combest walked on line with the other grunts in front of the APCs about thirty yards west of a small foot trail, Charlie Company began to receive sniper fire. As any well-trained sniper knows, you go for the leaders first. They are easy to pick out as they usually are yelling out orders and giving signals for the others, and are nearly always near the guy with the radio antennae. The platoon leader for Jerry’s platoon, Staff Sergeant Mainor D. Lang, from Savannah, Georgia was shot in the head and fell dead. The radioman was wounded and went down. Almost immediately, from the southwest, the company came under machine gun and heavy RPG fire from what they estimated to be a North Vietnamese Regiment. Second Platoon was called to move up on the right flank but the fire coming from out of the trees was overwhelming and soon pulled back to set up a perimeter with 4th Platoon, which was now providing rear security.
At 11:49 AM, the Recon Patrol, not far away on Highway 239, reported that hundreds of enemy soldiers were moving south toward the ongoing battle that C Company was involved in, and engaged and killed many of them. The trees were so thick in the plantation that it was hard for the helicopters to identify who was who down there and was unable to provide close air support. Artillery was held up after Lt. Ranney, the FO (Forward Artillery Officer) was hit and knocked out of action along with practically everyone in the headquarters group, including the Company Commander, 1st Lt. John Snodgrass. Several minutes went by before artillery support was resumed. By noon, Charlie Company, now under the command of 1st Lt. Arthur B. Cook, had reported that their situation was critical and they were pulling back. In less than an hour of very heavy fighting, the company had a total of six APC’s destroyed by rockets and RPG’s, and a still unknown number of men killed in action.
Esuvio Alvarado, from Michigan, was a young medic with the recon platoon: “There had been a lot of contact in the days leading up to the twenty-first. We had discovered all these tunnels and had found large caches of rice, RPGs, mines, and all kinds of ammunition. It was their backyard we were in. We had taken numerous casualties in the rubber plantations, and our units were getting ambushed almost every night. On one of those outings I had stepped on a ‘Bouncing Betty’ land mine and it didn’t go off. It’s funny because years later Chuck Weatherford was telling to me about it and I didn’t even remember. So many things happened that I guess I just shut it out of my mind.
“On that day the NVA hit us hard with machine guns, AK47s, and rocket propelled grenades. The rubber trees were planted in rows but the undergrowth was very thick and heavy. I could hear their voices, and then the sounds of whistles and horns, and here they came. I had never seen so many enemy soldiers at one time. An RPG hit one of the tanks and stopped it in its tracks. We were firing at them with everything we had and they just kept coming. There were so many that you couldn’t miss, and still they kept coming. The track on which I was riding hit a land mine and knocked me off of it. I didn’t know what had happened and remembered thinking, ‘What am I doing on the ground?’ I remember later washing the blood off of the tracks with buckets of water. It was pretty unbelievable.”
The heavily outnumbered foot soldiers of 1st Platoon were under fire from hidden reinforced positions on three sides. They were the targets of hundreds of AK47s and were showered with a heavy downpour of RPGs. The barrage of incoming fire was so suppressing that people could hardly move. Jerry and his fellow grunts of 1st Platoon were in a difficult position. They were on the ground out in front of the burning and exploding armored vehicles and were being assaulted by an overwhelming wave of soldiers wearing green and camouflaged uniforms. They weren’t rag tag Viet Cong the Bobcats were facing, but heavily armed and well trained regulars from the North. The radio had been knocked out and the grunts had no way of knowing that the rest of the company had pulled back.
Sergeant Marvin Rex Young, another Texan, took charge of his embattled grunts. Rex Young was from Odessa, out in the oil fields of West Texas, and had been an athlete at Permian High School, which was legendary for it’s tough football teams. With only two months left before he was to go home he had already received two Purple Heart Medals. He was one tough sergeant. When he got word that the company had pulled back, and 1st Platoon was out there on their on, he ordered his men to pull back also, but held his position as he provided covering fire. He moved back and fourth in the midst of heavy incoming fire as he tried to cover his retreating grunts. He saw six men who were still fighting on the right flank who couldn’t get out. With total disregard for his own safety he ran to their location under extremely heavy fire. On the way he was shot in the head and lost an eye but kept on going. When he got close to their position he dropped and began to lay down a base of covering fire while he ordered them to withdraw. As they hurriedly moved back he fell behind because of his severe injury. One of the men noticed and ran back to help him. He picked the Sergeant up just as a group of North Vietnamese came out of the trees firing their weapons. Sgt. Young was hit in the arm and knocked to the ground. Another blast from an AK47 hit him in the legs, and wounded the other soldier as well. He knew they were about to be overran and ordered the lower ranking soldier to leave. The soldier protested and stayed a few minutes more. The sergeant finally talked him into leaving, saying that he had done all that he could and could do no more, that he wasn’t going to make it anyway, and there was no reason for both of them to die. Moments later, Rex Young was totally engulfed by the human wave and died valiantly.
As Jerry and the small group of men on the ground moved backwards, they fought for their lives, firing their M16s, throwing grenades, while in the thralls of hand to hand combat. They were being attacked by wave after wave of hard charging NVA soldiers, yelling, blowing bugles and whistles, coming from out of the sea of trees. One soldier reported he had seen Jerry get hit twice, get back up both times, and was hit again. He didn’t get up that time.
As the rest of the company pulled back, the hail of fire from the front had not let up, and the armored tracks were getting hit from both flanks, mostly from the right. More and more Charlie Company soldiers were going down, and most of the leaders were either dead or wounded. The remaining men were ordered to climb aboard what vehicles were still running and they continued to move back to where 2nd Platoon and Mortar Platoon were standing by. They were able to pick up the wounded but had to leave the dead. Sixteen young Americans and one ARVN scout were left behind on the battlefield that day. The seven dead soldiers from 3rd Platoon were lying in a close group on the south side of the road, while the body of Jerry Combest and eight of his fellow 1st Platoon grunts, were also lying in a tight defensive position on the other side of the road. They had been overran and had fought to the last man. According to estimates, 1st Platoon had killed eighty-seven enemy soldiers and lost nine.
What was left of C Company moved back into the rubber plantation to a clearing where they met with two more platoons and set up an LZ to evacuate the wounded, the last of who was on his way to the hospital before one o’clock in the afternoon. Company Commander 1st Lt. John Snodgrass was among those wounded who were medevaced that afternoon and was soon on his way out of Vietnam. The unit then returned to base camp to regroup with plans to return to the battlefield that day. At 1:45 PM, however, the base camp at Dau Tieng began receiving mortar fire. Between having to defend their camp as well as provide security for the nearby Saigon River Bridge, they were unable to go back for their 1st and 3rd Platoon comrades who were still lying where they had fallen on the battlefield.
The next day involved heavy fighting and it wasn’t until the day after that, on the afternoon of August 23, that Charlie Company was able to return to the scene and report that they had located and secured all seventeen bodies. Over the following weeks and months many more soldiers of both armies would bleed and die in the rubber plantations of Tay Ninh Province.
Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Andrew H. Anderson, the ‘Bobcats’ were awarded its third Presidential Unit Citation, which reads: The 1st Battalion (Mechanized), 5th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division and its attached units distinguished themselves by extraordinary heroism in combat operations against numerically superior enemy forces in the Republic of Vietnam from 18 August to September 20 1968. During this period the 1st Battalion Task Force, through reconnaissance in force, ambush, counter-ambush, and reaction missions, effectively destroyed a regimental size enemy force and prevented the enemy from seizing the initiative in it’s ‘Third Offensive.’ The officers and men of the task force displayed outstanding bravery, a high morale, and exemplary esprit de corps in fierce hand-to-hand combat and counter offensive action against well disciplined, heavily armed, and entrenched enemy forces. An example of the outstanding bravery and aggressiveness occurred on 21 August during a reconnaissance in force mission. The lead elements of Company C, 1st Battalion came under heavy mortar, rocket propelled grade, machine gun, and automatic weapons fire. The company deployed against the enemy forces while the scout platoon protected the company flank and prevented reinforcement by a battalion sized enemy unit. Through skillful use of close supporting fire from artillery, helicopter gunships and tactical air, the officers and the men of the task force repulsed human wave counterattacks and defeated a numerically superior enemy force, which left one hundred eighty-two dead on the battle field. The individual act of gallantry, the teamwork and the aggressiveness of the officers and men of the 1st Battalion Task Force continued throughout the period of prolonged combat operations, resulting in the resounding defeat of enemy forces in their operational area. The heroic efforts, extraordinary bravery and professional competence displayed by the men of the 1st battalion, 5th Infantry and attached units are in the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon themselves, their units, and the Armed Forces of the United States.
A couple of weeks later twenty-eight M16s were lined up in neat and orderly military fashion in the shape of a cross, and with bayonets affixed were stuck into the ground. A green camouflage helmet was placed on the butt of each one. It was early September at the Dau Tieng Base Camp and the men of the ‘Bobcats’ stood in formation at attention, in jungle fatigues and rain hats, as the names of all those killed in the plantation battles were read off one by one. August 21, 1968 would turn out to be the heaviest single-day loss suffered by 1st Battalion, 5th Mech during the entire Vietnam War.
The nine Bobcats from 1st Platoon were: Jerry Wayne Combest from Wylie, Texas; David W. Ledbetter, Alabama; Bruce E. Bartlett, from Florida; James Lee Bowden of North Carolina; Jose Ramon Colon from Cayey, Puerto Rico; Hubert W. Martin, Alabama; James E. Rush, Missouri; Jesus Rivera, New York City; and Edward Vincent Coffey from Richmond Hill, New York.
Staff Sergeant Marvin Rex Young, at 21 years old, was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The award was presented to his parents by President Richard Nixon at the White House in Washington DC.
A letter to the Combest family:
Sgt. Elwood Merring
US52987006
1st /5th Inf. 25th Div.
A.P.O. S. F. 96268 15 Oct. 68
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Combest,
I’ve read the letter which the C.O. received. I was Jerry’s squad leader but we were more like real good friends. I liked Jerry because he was both intelligent and had good common sense. I never thought that anything could ever happen to him because he had been through quite a lot of action and was always on alert. On August 21st we were ambushed by a force too big for us to handle. When we started pulling back Jerry was helping me get everybody out of the area. He wouldn’t leave without everyone in the platoon that was possible to get out. The enemy then overran us and there wasn’t anything that could be done. I am very sorry it had to happen. Jerry was liked by everybody in the platoon and company. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Combest, I don’t know really how to explain anything more except I’m really sorry. If there is anything that you would like to know that I might know about I will be glad to tell you.
Sincerely yours,
Sgt. Elwood Merring
US52987006
1st /5th Inf. 25th Div.
A.P.O. S. F. 96268 15 Oct. 68
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Combest,
I’ve read the letter which the C.O. received. I was Jerry’s squad leader but we were more like real good friends. I liked Jerry because he was both intelligent and had good common sense. I never thought that anything could ever happen to him because he had been through quite a lot of action and was always on alert. On August 21st we were ambushed by a force too big for us to handle. When we started pulling back Jerry was helping me get everybody out of the area. He wouldn’t leave without everyone in the platoon that was possible to get out. The enemy then overran us and there wasn’t anything that could be done. I am very sorry it had to happen. Jerry was liked by everybody in the platoon and company. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Combest, I don’t know really how to explain anything more except I’m really sorry. If there is anything that you would like to know that I might know about I will be glad to tell you.
Sincerely yours,
Sgt. Elwood Merring
The medals awarded to Jerry included, Vietnam Service, Vietnam Campaign, National Defense, Combat Infantryman’s badge, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and from the Government of the Republic of Vietnam; Gallantry Cross with Palm and the Military Merit Medal.
Citation:
By Direction of the President
The Bronze Star Medal
Presented Posthumously to
Specialist Four Jerry W. Combest
For distinguishing himself by outstanding meritorious service in connection with ground operations against hostile forces in the Republic of Vietnam during the period of March 19, 1968 thru 21 August 1968.
Through his untiring efforts and professional ability, he consistently obtained outstanding results. He was quick to grasp the implications of new problems with which he was faced as a result of the ever changing situations and to find ways and means to solve those problems. The energetic application of his extensive knowledge has materially contributed to the efforts of the United States mission to the Republic of Vietnam to assist that country in ridding itself of the communist threat to its freedom.
His initiative, zeal, sound judgment, and devotion to duty have been in the highest tradition of the United States Army and reflect great credit on him and on the military service.
J. R. Brownlee
Colonel, CE
Acting Chief of Staff
Citation:
By Direction of the President
The Bronze Star Medal
Presented Posthumously to
Specialist Four Jerry W. Combest
For distinguishing himself by outstanding meritorious service in connection with ground operations against hostile forces in the Republic of Vietnam during the period of March 19, 1968 thru 21 August 1968.
Through his untiring efforts and professional ability, he consistently obtained outstanding results. He was quick to grasp the implications of new problems with which he was faced as a result of the ever changing situations and to find ways and means to solve those problems. The energetic application of his extensive knowledge has materially contributed to the efforts of the United States mission to the Republic of Vietnam to assist that country in ridding itself of the communist threat to its freedom.
His initiative, zeal, sound judgment, and devotion to duty have been in the highest tradition of the United States Army and reflect great credit on him and on the military service.
J. R. Brownlee
Colonel, CE
Acting Chief of Staff
Government of the Republic of Vietnam
Military Merit Award
Awarded to the servicemen of the US Army whose names appear below:
(Jerry W. Combest)
Servicemen of rare courage and rare self-sacrifice who displayed at all times the most tactful cooperation while aiding the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam to repel the Red wave undermining South Vietnam and Southeast Asia.
With a ready zeal and commendable response, they fought on to the end in every mission and set a brilliant example for their fellow soldiers. They died in performance of duty. Behind them they leave the abiding grief of their former comrades-in-arms, Vietnamese as well as American.
First Lieutenant John Snodgrass: “The wounds I received on 21 August 1968, did not end my military career; almost but not quite. I was offered 40% disability when I was released from Walter Reed but turned it down. I spent almost a year in the hospitals in Japan and Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington DC. It took about two years to be able to fully use my right arm. When I turned down the disability, I was assigned to Germany, to a ‘do nothing job’ to continue my rehab. I branch transferred to the Military Police Corps in 1970, while I was in Germany and retired as an MP officer in January 1981.”
It was about thirty-five years later before John Snodgrass would learn any of the details as to what had happened after he left that day: “The part that hurt the most was finding out that the bodies of some of my men had to be left on the battlefield for forty-eight hours.”
Jerry Combest was twenty-five years old. His rifle and helmet were among the others stuck in the ground at that ceremony of blood brothers. His body was sent back to Collin County where his funeral service was held at Moore Funeral Home in Wylie. Both of his parents, along with his two brothers, Don and Lloyd and two sisters, Betty and Sandra were there. His dad Alton, died just over a year later. The city of Wylie has scheduled a street to be named in his honor, although at the time of this writing, June 2004, it has yet to be done. The name of Jerry W. Combest is listed on the Wall at Panel 47W, Row 16.
Tom Frame: “I remember Jerry. He was a good man and willing to do what ever asked. It has been almost thirty-six years and I still can’t get that day our of my head. I guess I’m not supposed to. I have a copy of the After Action Report and read it often. I also have a report by Art Cook who took over for John Snodgrass after he was wounded. There were also seven others we lost that day and an interpreter named Sgt. Mau who was a good guy. The others were: Sgt. First Class Minor Lang, Jim Harbottle, and a kid named Stogsdill from my squad (1st), Richie Damschen, RTO, Dobbins, Dunn, and Mike Mangan (2nd Squad) who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. I hope all is well and this Memorial Day we remember those who made the supreme sacrifice. They are the reason I’m here. Take care and God bless.”
Tribute by: Ronnie Foster
Military Merit Award
Awarded to the servicemen of the US Army whose names appear below:
(Jerry W. Combest)
Servicemen of rare courage and rare self-sacrifice who displayed at all times the most tactful cooperation while aiding the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam to repel the Red wave undermining South Vietnam and Southeast Asia.
With a ready zeal and commendable response, they fought on to the end in every mission and set a brilliant example for their fellow soldiers. They died in performance of duty. Behind them they leave the abiding grief of their former comrades-in-arms, Vietnamese as well as American.
First Lieutenant John Snodgrass: “The wounds I received on 21 August 1968, did not end my military career; almost but not quite. I was offered 40% disability when I was released from Walter Reed but turned it down. I spent almost a year in the hospitals in Japan and Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington DC. It took about two years to be able to fully use my right arm. When I turned down the disability, I was assigned to Germany, to a ‘do nothing job’ to continue my rehab. I branch transferred to the Military Police Corps in 1970, while I was in Germany and retired as an MP officer in January 1981.”
It was about thirty-five years later before John Snodgrass would learn any of the details as to what had happened after he left that day: “The part that hurt the most was finding out that the bodies of some of my men had to be left on the battlefield for forty-eight hours.”
Jerry Combest was twenty-five years old. His rifle and helmet were among the others stuck in the ground at that ceremony of blood brothers. His body was sent back to Collin County where his funeral service was held at Moore Funeral Home in Wylie. Both of his parents, along with his two brothers, Don and Lloyd and two sisters, Betty and Sandra were there. His dad Alton, died just over a year later. The city of Wylie has scheduled a street to be named in his honor, although at the time of this writing, June 2004, it has yet to be done. The name of Jerry W. Combest is listed on the Wall at Panel 47W, Row 16.
Tom Frame: “I remember Jerry. He was a good man and willing to do what ever asked. It has been almost thirty-six years and I still can’t get that day our of my head. I guess I’m not supposed to. I have a copy of the After Action Report and read it often. I also have a report by Art Cook who took over for John Snodgrass after he was wounded. There were also seven others we lost that day and an interpreter named Sgt. Mau who was a good guy. The others were: Sgt. First Class Minor Lang, Jim Harbottle, and a kid named Stogsdill from my squad (1st), Richie Damschen, RTO, Dobbins, Dunn, and Mike Mangan (2nd Squad) who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. I hope all is well and this Memorial Day we remember those who made the supreme sacrifice. They are the reason I’m here. Take care and God bless.”
Tribute by: Ronnie Foster
