Letters by veteran who died in Vietnam read during Memorial Day event
WALNUT CREEK, Calif. (KGO) -- People gathered in Walnut Creek on Monday to hear the words of a veteran who lost his life while serving in Vietnam. They were delivered via the letters Marine Lance Corporal Kenneth Hirst wrote to his family here in the Bay Area in the months before he died.
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It was a way of putting the attendees back in time, in the shoes of a young Marine as he went into battle.
"I do know that having fought for my life has made it seem a lot more valuable," Hirst wrote.
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They are the words of a young Marine stationed in Vietnam taken from letters he wrote to his family just months before he was killed in combat in 1967.
"Believe me, I was scared stiff the first time some live rounds whistled over my head," he wrote. "But like most things, you can learn to live with it."
Hirst was a prolific letter-writer. Though his sister, Kathy Davison, says her brother was a quiet man in person. She made his writings available so that others could learn.
"I think it's a way of putting life in perspective," she said. "We shouldn't forget what these people did, you know, in any war."
"Don't worry if the letters aren't too numerous for a while," he wrote.
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Many of Hirst's writings seem meant to reassure his parents and family at home that he was okay. But there is also a hint of the danger he and others lived with every day.
"While we are killing many more enemy than ever before, we are also losing our share of men," he wrote. "I would be a liar to proclaim that going into this sort of combat did not frighten me."
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Hirst was killed during an enemy ambush on May 13, 1967. He died alongside 87 other men in his squad. Only 12 survived.
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