My journey took me this week to Black History Month. May I share with you a special memory from my days of combat in Vietnam?
I met Sergeant Luster, who had deployed to Vietnam with the 25th Infantry Division from Hawaii in January 1966, as he was the squad leader of the infantry platoon I was assigned to lead.
One day, I received an urgent message that the battalion commander was en route by chopper to our field location to meet with Luster, a very unusual situation. On arrival, the battalion commander stated that Luster’s mother in Chicago had received an erroneous notification of his death in combat (KIA) brought to her by an SAO (Survivor Assistance Officer). With scant details, it appeared that another Chicago serviceman who had the exact same name and rank with only a onedigit difference in service number had been the actual casualty. To repair the mistake, Sergeant Luster was offered an immediate 30-day free leave back to the US to console his mother.
