28 May 2005 I regret I didn't get to know LeRoy Martinez very well. My memory of PFC Martinez is that of a fresh-faced kid who I first met after coming in from flying all day. He was sitting on his Army cot and he looked up at me when I entered our "hootch" doorway. I figured there was plenty of time to get to know this young soldier but I was wrong.

 

A Note from The Virtual Wall On 13 May 1970 a UH-1H (tail number 66-17132) of A Company, 123rd Aviation Battalion, was engaged with other aircraft in moving an ARVN unit from a pick-up zone to a nearby landing zone. At about 1515 hours 66-17132 returned to the PZ for its eleventh run. As the aircraft lifted off from the PZ with 4 crewmen and 9 ARVN troops aboard, it lost engine RPM and fell out of the sky, impacting in a nose-high, right bank attitude. The Huey continued in forward motion until it hit an embankment and rolled. The crew chief was thrown clear during the roll, but the other 12 men remained in the aircraft until it came to a halt some 15 meters further on. The Huey caught fire during the crash sequence and burned. Six of the 13 men aboard survived the crash; Warrant Officer Richard White, the copilot, was among the dead. Two other crewmen, pilot 1Lt Claude H. Cargile and gunner PFC LeRoy F. Martinez, later died of injuries received in the crash - both on 25 May 1970.

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