Hero G.I. Gilled in Viet Grenade Attack

May 12, 1965 - Sgt. Horace E. Young (pictured) was lying wounded in the mess hall at 3 a.m. yesterday when a grenade rolled through the door. 

He had been struck in the leg an hour earlier by fragments from the mortar rounds the Viet Cong had used before overrunning Songbe, a provincial capital in South Vietnam with a population of 15,000.

Sgt. Young could hardly move. But, as the incident was related later, he tried to shove the grenade outside with the barrel of his empty rifle. The grenade exploded and ripped into his arm.

In the darkness, Sgt. Young, in excruciating pain, grabbed at a silhouette. “It’s a friend,” whispered Specialist 4th Gige E. Kelso of Alton, Ill.

“Let’s try to get us a weapon,” Sgt. Young said.

Kelso wiped the sergeant’s blood off his face and neck.

Sgt. Young pulled out a short knife and dragged himself through the mess hall, which had become a temporary aid station. 

In the storeroom, he struggled weakly with a youthful Viet Cong who had broken into the small mess building.

Then Sergeant Young, 34 years old, of Moline, Ill., collapsed amid cans of tomato juice and bled to death.

His body was shipped to Saigon with the knife in his hand. No one had been able to pry it loose.

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