Gilroy
– Every day for the past 38 years, the memory of a soldier burns
an image in Joe V. Gonzales’ mind.
Gonzales, 58, was a machine gunner with the 5th Battalion, 7th
Cavalry in 1966-67 during the Vietnam War. His good friend and
fellow soldier, Xavier Fernandez, was killed Dec. 1, 1966, during a
North Vietnamese company ambush.
Gilroy – Every day for the past 38 years, the memory of a soldier burns an image in Joe V. Gonzales’ mind.
Gonzales, 58, was a machine gunner with the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry in 1966-67 during the Vietnam War. His good friend and fellow soldier, Xavier Fernandez, was killed Dec. 1, 1966, during a North Vietnamese company ambush.
“It’s a thing you keep saying, you keep asking yourself: ‘Why are they not here, and I am?’ ” Gonzales said. “But like the old saying says, we were left here to do something. I’ve struggled with this all these years. You’ll live with denial for the rest of your life, but you gotta continue. You gotta live.”
Immediately after Fernandez was shot, Gonzales pleaded with his commander to bring his friend’s body in to try to save him. The commander told Gonzales it was pointless.
“There was just no way,” Gonzales said. “There was no point trying to save anyone out there. We would have lost more men trying to save the ones who were killed in the ambush.”
On Tuesday, Gonzales was busy setting up for the annual Veterans Affairs Thanksgiving dinner. That task is just one of many Gonzales takes on, eager to fill his time so he won’t be left with blocks of boredom.
“If you sit and think, your mind plays too many tricks on you,” he said.
Gonzales’ focus wandered as he spoke of his friend and their experience in the war, something Gonzales said he has never felt comfortable talking about.
The two men trained together from the beginning at a military base in Fort Carson, Colo., and they quickly became friends. The unit was in Vietnam for five years and lost more than 545 members, Gonzales said.
Before he was killed, Fernandez and his friend made a pact: If one man was killed first, the other would immediately contact the parents of the deceased so they could hear it from a friend.
But even after 38 years, Gonzales has yet to contact Fernandez’s family.
“It’s just too hard,” he said. “I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it. I don’t know where they’re living or if they’re even alive. The last I know they were in Redondo Beach,” where Fernandez was from, Gonzales said.
After his friend was killed, Gonzales said he began withdrawing more and more from personal relationships.
“You learn not to get close because you fear you’ll just end up losing them,” he said.
Another question that looms in Gonzales’ mind is where Fernandez is buried. Even that remains just a thought.
“I’d like to give him my final respects,” Gonzales said. “His picture, his face, is constantly in my mind. I can see it. I can always see it.”
