Page 78 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2021- Online Magazine
P. 78
David Edwards Supporting the Red,
White and Blue
by Cheryl Goforth
enlisted in the Navy
the following month.
Upon completing
boot camp and
radio training in
San Diego, he went
to New London,
Connecticut for
a year, then to
Brooklyn Naval
Shipyard.
David had served
three years in the
Navy when, one
night while on
liberty, the shore and even though they did not
patrol started actively engage the enemy, they
rounding everyone saw the results of combat. David
up, sending them said, “Our ship never got fired
back to their ship. on, but we did see people coming
He recalls, “As we out of there that were all shot up.
were going in the We hid a couple of them behind
gate of the shipyard, our ship so that the enemy
orn a sharecropper’s son, some civilians couldn’t get them.”
David was raised in Ralls standing there asked us how we
Bas one of nine children – were going to like Vietnam. They One memorable incident taught
seven boys and two girls. At the heard about it before we did.” David a lifelong lesson. It was a
start of WWI, his father was too Word had leaked out, but the quiet day, and he and a buddy
young for the service, and by the reality was, they were going to were on deck sunning. They
time WWII was underway, he Nam. were commenting on how much
had too many kids. Even though trash was in the bay, wondering
his father never was in the “We left from Norfolk, Virginia what kind of people would do
military, every one of the seven and went through the port of such a thing. He said, “I didn’t
boys served, with two of them in entry and then through the know it right then but the old
combat zones – Cambodia and Suez Canal and came out on man, the captain of the ship, was
Vietnam – at the same time. the backside and straight in to right behind us. He said, ‘Don’t
Olongapo in the Philippines, ever underestimate the enemy.’ I
After graduating from high then from the Philippines over to looked at him like, ‘Well, there’s
school in May 1962, David Vietnam.” Their ship was all that trash out there just
a floating communications floating around.’ He said, ‘I’m
station with the sole going to teach you a lesson right
purpose of relaying now.’ He pulled out his .45, shot
messages back and forth the pile of trash, and it blew up.
between ground forces There were enough explosives
and Honolulu. out there to sink a ship!”
The station was Most of the time, the crew heard
David with his parents and eight siblings positioned in Tonkin Bay, about the protests on the radio,
78 Lubbock Senior Link
