SP4 Gary Preston Neiman, York, PA on www.VirtualWall.org The Virtual Wall® Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall

Gary Preston Neiman was a city kid, the youngest of Charles and Ardella Neiman's six children.

He grew up on Locust Street, the 300 block. His father worked at York Narrow Fabric, and his mother toiled in several sewing factories in town, a working class, blue-collar family.

Gary did all the usual city kid things, his sister, Dot Rohrbaugh, said: joined the Boy Scouts, broke his arm. Just a typical kid, always doing something, always into something.

He enlisted in the Army the day he turned 18, Jan. 8, 1969. He had never finished high school, so the Army seemed like an option. And besides, it was just something you did, serving in the military. His brothers served, one in the Air Force and the other in the Army. Other members of the extended family served in the Army, the Navy and the Merchant Marines.

He didn't talk about his decision much. His family didn't know about his desire to join the Army. He just did it.

His family wasn't crazy about his decision, knowing that there was a good chance that he would be shipped out to Vietnam. Nobody really wanted him to go, his sister said, but that's what he wanted. He wanted to serve.

He left for basic training in January, and by March he had his orders to ship out to Southeast Asia.

Before he left, he came home on leave. He spent some time with family and friends. The night before he boarded the bus to return to his base, he met up with some friends and went bowling. Some people harassed him about going to Vietnam. They thought he shouldn't go, that it was a lost cause. But it wasn't as if Gary had a choice in the matter. He was a soldier, and he had to do what he had to do.

He knew when he enlisted that he would wind up going to Vietnam. There was no doubt in his mind, his sister said. He never expressed any regrets about his decision.

He arrived in Vietnam on April 6, flying into the air base at Cam Rahn Bay.

Eight days later, he wrote home.

"How is everybody?" he wrote. "I am OK, just hot. Yesterday it was 102 and today it's 99. It's hot.

"As soon as I get to my unit, [TVW: For most incoming soldiers, it took up to 10 days or more to process into country, receive jungle orientation, travel to his final unit of assignment at a rear base camp, and then forward to his company in the field, he was in the field for less than a week when he was killed as evidenced by comments of company commander below.] I'll send you some souvenirs if I can. I'm in the 101st Airborne, 501st Infantry and they're sending me to the worst part of Vietnam."

He wrote about his trip, and missing Easter because he crossed the International Date Line, going from Saturday to Monday, skipping over Sunday altogether. He wrote about a brief stop in Guam and that it was 113 degrees when he was there. He wrote about flying in Cam Rahn in a DC-9 airliner, with stewardesses and everything. He wrote about having to change his money when he landed and that $100 in American cash was worth $180 on the black market.

"I have a maid and everything," he wrote. "When I get up in the morning, she makes my bed and she washes my clothes and shines my boots and when I come in from the jungle she gives me a massage and it only costs 3 dollars a week."

He promised to send photos as soon as he got a camera.

"See ya in about 355 days," he signed off.

On April 26, a cab driver who, coincidentally, was a friend of Gary's father, pulled up to the Neiman's house and delivered a Western Union telegram from Major Gen. Kenneth Wickham, the adjutant general of the Army.

"The Secretary of the Army has asked me to express his deep regret that your son, Specialist Four Gary P. Neiman, was killed in action in Vietnam on 23 April 1969 by small arms fire from a hostile force while on a combat operation," it read. "Please accept my deepest sympathy."

His sister still recalls every detail of the day she learned of Gary's death. She was living in Mount Wolf then and had just returned home from playing tennis at the park. She showered, put on a blue dress and was waiting for her son to get home from school to make a trip to the grocery store when the phone rang and her mother told they had received a telegram from the Army.

In May, his parents received a letter from Capt. Pierce Graney, Gary's commanding officer. He told them that Gary had been shot in the chest in combat in the A Shau Valley, southwest of the city of Hue. "Every effort was made to save his life," Graney wrote, "but he died immediately after receiving his wounds without regaining consciousness. It may afford you some comfort to know that his time of suffering was short and that he did not experience pain from his wounds."

He continued, "Your son's death was a great shock to all of us, even though we had known him only a few days. In that period of time he proved himself to be an exemplary soldier, one who was willing to accept any job no matter how difficult and one who wanted to carry out his assigned tasks to the best of his ability.

"I think that Gary was willing to make this sacrifice in the highest tradition of service for the country he loved. This is of small comfort to you now, but perhaps when the pain of his loss eases with time you will be able to look with pride, as we do, on this life that was so honorably given."

The Army held a memorial service for Gary at the battalion base north of Hue, attended by every member of the command.

His body was shipped home. He was buried in Mount Rose Cemetery. He was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart and a Good Conduct Medal.

The pain of his loss, as his commanding officer put it, never really eased. His dad had a nervous breakdown. His mother, who had recently had back surgery, stood for the entire service. For a week after, she couldn't move.

Gary was survived by his parents, Ardella Frances (Jacobs) Neiman (1917-2006), Charles Frederick Neiman (1916-1997), two sisters, Ardella L. and Dorothy J., and three brothers, Edgar J., William G. (1941-2016 ), and Charles F. Neiman. Gary Preston Neiman is buried, along with his parents, in Mount Rose Cemetery, York, York County, Pennsylvania. His brother William also served in Vietnam.

Found in a Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind (Ceased Operations 2014), April 2012 Poetry Issue (Archived), Ed Neiman (Gary's brother) - Meditation on the Memorial Wall: