John Knight was my squad leader. He died in front of me in November 1968 as we walked into an ambush. SGT John Wallace Knight was in front of me - he was third man back, I was fourth, as I was the grenadier (M79). He had told me, about 20 seconds before the ambush, to pass the word to spread out more as we were seeing too much stuff on the ground. When the ambush started, John was hit at least 4 times by a very close burst of AK fire, and his last words to me were "I think I'm paralyzed". I was "pinned" by a lot of fire but was able to get off about 6 rounds of HE 40mm. For a time I was horrified to think that perhaps one of my grenade rounds had not armed or had been bush-rebounded on him. The point man, Burke, was hit in the hips, the "slack-man" (number 2 in line) was untouched, Knight was dying and dead within minutes, and I was trying to find blades of grass to hide behind. The folks behind me maneuvered to the right to hit the "bad guys". We "won", they lost. Our commanding officer, a Captain at the time, ended his career as a 3-star - Lieutenant General John Miller - he was a great CO. Just a short message to say that Knight was a good guy, and that I remember him well. And, in the tradition of our time, "All the way, Sir!"

 

A memorial from schmidt@unhcr.ch  28 Jan 2001

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