Ago Dr.King was assinated. Like a lot of us on this forum I was in Vietnam. Rest in Peace Dr. King.

I was still stateside but it was a frightening thing to think that well meaning and inspirational men such as Martin Luther King could be assasinated in this country.

It may be the price that is paid for having a free and open society.

John R...

I was just about drafted and reporting for duty.

Yet I remember it well, just another sad day in the chapter of the USA.

"only the good die young"

I was in NCOC at Ft Benning when Martin Luther King was assassinated. Being that we were all graduates of AIT Infantry our company was put on three hours alert for possible riot duty in Atlanta. Then it was changed to one-hour alert.
We were sitting around waiting to go into an American city where we might have had to use deadly force against other Americans.

None of us, white or black was excited about the prospect. Some of the black soldiers were talking about refusing to go and most of us white soldiers understood completely-the thought that our first combat experience might be in the USA was scary and very sad.
Fortunately things cooled off enough that we were taken off alert status and afterward I never heard anyone sound disappointed about it.
It was a very sad chapter in our history-another case of one demented, hate-filled man with a gun changing the history of an entire country.

~bob

Hey Bob, I was at Benning at that time, too. It was a tense and unpleasant time.

Not to change the subject of the thread, but at the time that you were going through NCOC, I was an instructor with the Patrolling Committee of the Ranger Department of the Infantry School. We took you guys out for 72 hours of field training in patrolling, ambush, etc. It was actually one of my more enjoyable Army assignments.

The day of DR. Kings murder .I was in Berlin, My neigbors. Bill and Daisy Cochoran. A wonderful White couple from Selma AL. Sat whith My wife and I and we all cried over the death of Dr. King. I learnedthat night that there were wonderful people from Alabama Bill would always take my son to DeMolay meetings with his Son and later that year on 26 July while I was training in West Germany, Bill and Daisy rushed my wife to the hospital for the birth of my son Bobby. I still Have and always will have love in my heart for Bill, Daisy and their wonderful family.

My company was on the 3rd day of assaulting up hill 1062 northwest of polei kleng in Kontum Province. We had already lost 4 guys from 1st plt and April 5 was my platoons turn to go up. we took casualties and pulled back. I think we didnt find out about MLK until we had palace guard 4 days later.

Bumping to get beyond the spam.

I noticed that to Joy.