25 year old Married, Caucasian, Male
Born on Sep. 07, 1942
From WALNUT CREEK, CALIFORNIA
Length of service 8 years.
His tour of duty began on Feb. 23, 1968
Casualty was on Apr. 13, 1968
In THUA THIEN, SOUTH VIETNAM
HOSTILE, GROUND CASUALTY
GUN, SMALL ARMS FIRE
Body was recovered
Religion
PROTESTANT
Panel 49E--Line 42
Capt. John Bouldin USMC Ret.
schoolhouse as "Young Blood" explains, or on our way back to a tree line to
evacuate the WIA's. It came over the radio that Hayes was KIA. These kinds
of things are hard to write because they can become maudlin very fast and I
just wanted to inject the human side of Sgt. Hayes. He was a "spunky" guy;
full of the devil, and always up to something, usually good-natured. What is
not known is that in the beginning I almost had him busted? I came within a
hair of doing so, which makes the fact that he lead the effort for the Platoon to chip in and buy the Sword all the more important to me! This was
all at Pendleton, in Recon Bn. prior to us joining 1/27 in Hawaii. We do
what we have to do when in a leadership position. I'm glad I had the good
sense to not have him busted and finally figured out how to deal with his
"spunk".
Hayes was testing me, seeing if I could match wits, apparently I did, and
once he saw I was able to, he did what he did. Hayes and I were the only
ones pulled into 1/27 as the others went to Division Recon. Several of those
men were KIA during that tour while on Recon missions. I don't think Hayes
was too happy about leaving Recon and joining the Bn. After all, his friends
went to Recon and he had never before served in an infantry Bn. pr se. His
first tour was with Recon, it was Recon upon his return, and then pulled
into 1/27, while his friends went back to what he knew better than anything
else. I was not that pleased either. (At the time)
Hayes was a fairly big man and did not give the impression that he was a
physical stud. He moved rather slowly, but on runs and other activities he
was like an NFL lineman. He could get cracking!
Semper Fi, John
.