24 May 2002 From the Reader's Digest, May, 2002, page 150,"A Soldier's Story": "His first major fight came on December 28, 1966. ... in the village of Gia Duc when Viet Cong opened fire. ... what pricks his memory. It's Skip Baumann, a 20 year old private. He kept getting up to see them.... And ... he got hit. I got him and was holding him. The reason I remember him so well is his last question. 'Am I a good soldier?'.... ..'You're a great soldier, you're the top. You're airborne.' And, of course, he passed away." Sergeant Joe Musial A memorial initiated by a reader. E-mail address is not available.

 

15 May 2006 I just dug out a copy of my induction orders from 1965 to find this soldier's name near mine. We may have sat together on that first bus ride to the Fort Dix Reception Station... I don't know, but I found it eerie that we ended up in entirely different units... but very near to one another in Vietnam later in our military careers. "Skip" died about 20 kilometers from a spot where I very nearly lost my life... ironically with the same Division - the 1st Cav. Our serial numbers were nearly identical, differing by only 6 numbers, and we are both "Jersey" boys. God rest his soul. Jim Sheppard 1st Battalion 50th (Mechanized) Infantry Association Historian. kiss-ac@juno.com

 

A Note from The Virtual Wall Operation THAYER II in the Suoi Ca Valley began on 16 December 1966. Two days after Christmas, Companies B and C of the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry, established contact with one NVA battalion and Delta 1/8 fought another, inflicting heavy casualties on the two NVA units at a cost of 15 men killed in action: B Company: 1LT Lamont W. Finch, Birmingham, AL 1LT Daniel A. Hennessy, Newtown, PA (Dist Svc Cross) PSGT Lonnie Barber, Fayetteville, NC SP4 Eric A. Brannfors, Portland, OR CPL Douglas D. Houg, McGregor, IA SP4 Erineo M. Mendez, Poteet, TX SP4 Carl S. Mercer, Belcross, NC SP4 Dennis M. Spahn, Altoona, PA PFC Richard C. Jacobs, Kahului, HI PFC James W. Pawlak, Detroit, MI C Company: PFC Ronald Giroux, Deerfield, MA D Company: 1SG Joseph M. Moore, Elba, AL SP4 Stephen Finney, Lynchburg, VA PFC Otto W. Baumann, Spotswood, NJ PFC Daniel M. Mobley, Toledo, OH

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