Both died in combat a few months apart, and both are buried a few yards apart in Lakeside Memorial Park, north of downtown Winter Haven.ĭespite sad memories Lakeland Green Beret Kenneth Conklin 'would do it all again' Neither Richard nor Johnny came marching home again. Military Academy at West Point, and following further training after graduation, each was deployed to Vietnam. Each was student council president at Winter Haven High, member of the Honor Society, selected for Boys State – personalities equally serious and gregarious.īut what soon set them markedly apart from their classmates was that each was appointed to the U.S. Both were kind and solicitous of others, attributes not always associated with school-age boys. Johnny and Richard were sons most parents would proudly claim – responsible and respectful, amiable and studious, admired by peers and teachers alike. While the death of any member of the armed services is uniquely tragic and equally noteworthy, on the occasion of Memorial Day I wish to honor the pair I knew best, holding them out as representative of all that was given – and all that was lost. Two were my childhood friends – Richard Hood and Johnny Hays. The majority were in their 20s, their lives barely lived, their futures vaporized. A quarter of those killed were still teenagers. They ranged in age and rank from an Army private who was 18 to an Air Force colonel who was 46, and represented all service branches. His ammunition gone, Hood had fought to the end with trip flares.įrom The Long Gray Line: The American Journey of West Point’s Class of 1966, by Rick Atkinson ***īetween 19, 80 men from Polk County lost their lives in Vietnam, all but a few from combat. Some of the dead had hollow cavity wounds, brains literally blown from their heads…And here was Rich Hood, a small hole behind one ear, as though he had been executed point blank. One soldier had remained motionless as the enemy shot him three times in the back another did the same while his finger was severed with a trench knife.

Others were mutilated, their eyes gouged out or their ring fingers chopped off. Eighteen lay piled on top of one another in a small circle, site of a desperate last stand. Seventy-eight American bodies lay sprawled for a hundred yards or so along the trail, framed by the encroaching jungle.

The day of battle rick atkinson