Cedric flew Cobras, shot down while supporting Marines, including Lance Corporal Thomas Travis Walker, leading his small unit in the jungle. The year was 1969. Tom had just turned 19. Warrant Officer Cedric Ellison Turner was 21, when he crashed after its single engine was penetrated by ground fire. He made his “going down” call and crashed through the trees.Tom received the call to go gettem, set forth to do so, converging on the broken helicopter from one side, as were Viet Cong soldiers from the other.
Cedric, “a little busted up,” had a .Smith and Wesson .38 caliber revolver and the M-16 rifle he took from his dead Marine gunner, shot in the face. Another Marine, busted up like Cedric, had his M-16 and Colt .45. The last Marine had been expelled in the Huey’s descent and had his skull crushed by a tree limb, his body hanging in a crook where his boot had stuck.
Tom led his four-man unit with a sawed-off shotgun, M-16, bayonet attached, Colt. 45 and KA-BAR knife.
The Archies’ “Sugar, Sugar” was Billboard Number One stateside. Gil was Air Cav elsewhere In-Country.
John was early into his freshman at Indiana U, a Political Science major.
More of the story is told by Cedric to Hunter and Gil - surprised, stirred, something Tom. ever told him - in Gil’s boat on a lake.
The EPILOGUE.
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