They Were Ours
Gloucester County's Loss in Vietnam
Fred
wanted to be a Marine from the time he knew what a Marine was. A photo of
him, when he was fourteen, shows him in full uniform with relics of the family's
military spread out on his bed. He read every history book about war he
could find, and watched every war movie on television. He played all the
war games and studied military tradition. Fred entered the Marine corps
two weeks after he graduated from Woodbury High School in 1967.
On September 11, 1968, Fred's platoon was ordered on a night ambush of a suspected enemy river crossing. As they moved closer to their initial position, they themselves were ambushed and in the firefight that ensued, Fred was wounded severely by automatic weapons fire. A corpsman did everything he could, but Fred never regained consciousness and died on the battlefield. Six other Marines in the platoon were killed and nine more wounded.
( Of Fred C. Spina, LCPL, USMC.)
He absolutely felt this was a fight of good versus evil. he loved his country very much and never spoke ill of the war protesters in this country, but thought they were misguided. They couldn't carry my brother's sneakers.
( Richard DiCavalucci, of brother 2LT. USA, Victor DiCavalucci)
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