Foreword to Incoming Rounds

by Donald Robinson

This journal is based on day-to-day experiences in Vietnam in the years 1967 to 1968. It was written by a young soldier, Hamel Morris. Hamel and I arrived in Vietnam in June of 1967. We were infantry men in “C” Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division. Hamel was born on the island of Barbados and moved to New York City when he was thirteen. I think that his formidable childhood on the island gave him his forthright and honest character, and I liked him right away. We would have been ordinary soldiers but fate placed us in the First Air Cavalry.

The First Cavalry division returned from Korea on July 1965 to Fort Benning, GA, and became the first airmobile division in the military. It was a new concept. The division consisted of nine battalions of air mobile infantry and one air reconnaissance unit. These were the combat elements of the division. The First Cavalry Division was the first army division deployed in Vietnam on September 11,

1965. It was the only division to have fought in all four tactical zones in Vietnam.

The First Cavalry Division was the only army division awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. Among individual awards, troopers of the division won 25 medals of honor, 120 distinguished service crosses, 2,766 silver stars, 2,697 distinguished flying crosses, 8,408 bronze stars for valor, 2,910 air medals for valor and 5,328 army commendation medals for valor. During the fighting in Vietnam the division suffered 30,000 soldiers killed or wounded in action, almost half as many as the 40,055 casualties in WWII and 16,498 casualties in Korea combined.

This journal is a day-to-day account of a sky trooper.

Copyright © 2007