(Photo identification: Ruckers demolished barracks. The person with the M-16 in the above picture is that of an acquaintance of mine named Joe. He worked in Hue, South Vietnam, as a secure voice telephone operator with whom I had almost daily contact from the Da Nang secure voice telephone site in the base communications center.)The time was about 3 a.m. on 27 January 1973, several hours before the imminent ceasefire that would end hostilities between U.S. and North Vietnamese forces. As had happened on 49 previous occasions since my arrival at Da Nang Air Base on Easter Sunday 1972, the wailing attack siren awoke the sleeping inhabitants of Gunfighter Village about 15 seconds before several 122mm, Soviet-made rockets slammed into the base. Instantly aroused from my light slumber, I pulled away the mosquito netting surrounding my bed and instinctively donned my pre-positioned flak vest and helmet. With the exception of a rocket that scored a direct hit on my barracks the previous August and earned me a Purple Heart, I lessened the likelihood of injury by using a special protective procedure. During a rocket attack, I would dive for cover onto a mattress that I positioned nightly onto the floor in front of a metal storage cabinet opposite the direction of usual attack. This afforded some degree of protection and prevented skinned knees as I dove onto the floor. As a result, the procedure had become second nature to me as this attack – my 50th – began.As the muffled sound of exploding rockets grew closer and stronger, the ground shook with each indiscriminate impact. Suddenly, there was a huge explosion which I concluded must certainly have struck a nearby building. Following the attack and the all-clear signal, I rushed out into the darkness and joined several other people at a barracks two buildings from mine that had sustained a direct hit. Sifting through the rubble, we located the lifeless body of what turned out to be U.S. Air Force Sgt. John O’Neal Rucker of Linden, Texas. Because his flak vest and combat helmet were not on his body, we concluded that he must have died instantly while still asleep. The sudden impact destroyed the entire eastern end of his wooden barracks, but fortunately no fire ensued and this helped preserve the remains.After detecting no signs of life in the 21-year-old non-commissioned officer, three of us lifted Rucker’s body from the rubble, placed it on a portable gurney and inserted it in the back of a waiting military ambulance less than 100 feet away. As the ambulance drove the deceased NCO’s body to the Air Force medical dispensary about 1,000 feet away, we reflected briefly on the inhumanity of war and how close Rucker had come to surviving it.We would later learn that Rucker was at Da Nang on temporary duty from his permanent base in Thailand working as an AC-119K Stinger gunship crew chief. The Stinger provided vital aerial security around Da Nang Air Base. Its red tracer rounds were highly visible at night, along with the unmistakable sound of its rapid-fire barrage. The weapon system was very much feared by enemy ground forces.Because of the imminent ceasefire, the North Vietnamese attempted to maximize allied casualties during the mid-morning hours by unleashing what seemed to be every weapon in their arsenal. After the ceasefire took effect and the shooting stopped, I photographed Rucker’s demolished barracks, not only because I had helped remove his body earlier in the night but because I considered the possibility that he might be the last American killed in the Vietnam War and it might turn out to be historically significant. As it turned out, a lieutenant colonel was the last American killed in the active phase of the Vietnam War. However, Rucker was the last American killed at Da Nang and the last American enlisted man to die in the Vietnam War prior to the ceasefire. A marble monument was later erected at Da Nang in his honor. Unfortunately, invading North Vietnamese forces destroyed the monument in April 1974 following the U.S. withdrawal and as South Vietnam fell.Because one of my jobs was that of working in the base communications center sending and receiving messages, I, by sheer coincidence, had the dubious honor of typing and transmitting the notification message of Rucker’s death to the Air Force Casualty Assistance Center at Randolph Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas. Because of my personal involvement earlier that day, I jotted down Rucker’s hometown address and stored it in my wallet, where it stayed during my consecutive overseas tour to Thailand and my return to the United States a year later.Rucker’s death was ever-present in my mind as I was assigned to a radar unit at Patrick AFB near Cocoa Beach, Florida. Out of respect for Rucker’s grieving family, I had not immediately contacted his parents. However, while at my Florida base, I concluded that it was the appropriate time to offer Rucker’s parents copies of my photographs and an explanation of the circumstances of their son’s death. Not knowing their first names, I simply addressed a letter to “The Parents of John O. Rucker,” along with the previously recorded Linden, Texas, address. Rucker’s mother, Mae, contacted me by telephone as soon as she received my letter and enthusiastically accepted my offer. I promptly mailed her my original photographs which she reproduced. Soon thereafter, Mrs. Rucker drove all the way from Texas to Florida to meet me and offer her appreciation. During that visit, she shared with me how she had often worn her son’s personal effects during her frequent travels in hopes someone would recognize them and offer information about her son’s death. Although she had received a letter of condolence from Colonel William W. Hoover, commander of the Da Nang-based 366th Fighter Wing (see his current biography at www7.nationalacademies.org/aseb/BillHooversBio.html and his Air Force biography at af.mil/bios/bio_print.asp?bioID=5850&page=1), the letter did not detail the circumstances surrounding Rucker’s death, other than the fact that he died during a rocket attack. Mrs. Rucker said she had often prayed that such information would come forward, and she felt that my information was the answer to her prayers.This contact led to reciprocal visits to Mae’s home in Texas, where I met her husband, John, who owned a private plane and occasionally assisted law enforcement with various aerial searches. Mae and John showed me pictures of their son, including some of his Christmas visit home a month earlier. Because of the darkness, I had been unable to get a good look at Rucker’s facial features during the Vietnam incident. Using one of these Christmas pictures showing Rucker in his Air Force uniform, I commissioned a close friend of mine, well-known Korean artist Don Key, to paint a canvas portrait of Rucker. The painting was very lifelike, and proudly adorns the Rucker home.Although time and aging have slowed our visits, my thoughts of the Ruckers are ever-present, and my appreciation for their son’s ultimate sacrifice continues unabated. - See more at: vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/44761/JOHN-O-RUCKER#sthash.WKV2OK6Q.dpuf
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 07:19:48 +0000
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