Mario Gabrielli was born in Italy and raised in New Jersey.  I kidded the other guys that I would be able to translate anything he said because I was born in South Philly, a heavily Italian section of Philadelphia.  He was less than average height, but he towered over the Bird, our shortest guy.  He had light brown hair and the same hint of plumpness that I had.  His first day in the field was the one that ended with our dismounts assaulting into Saberville as darkness fell.  We came under fire and had several grenades tossed our way and we soon pulled back to the tracks.  I never realized that it was Mario's first day in the field and his first time in combat.

 

     Mario was one of those guys that always seemed to be in the right place at the right time.  He seemed to pop up next to me whenever I needed him.  It didn't matter if we were chasing after some suspicious looking young men in black pajamas, tracking down FNGs that always seemed to get lost, or laying down covering fire when we were on the ground fighting, Mario was always right there.  Once, when we were fighting in an alley in Saigon, he darted behind a wall to pick up an AK-47 and damned near got killed when an automatic weapon opened up on him, but he never got a scratch.  He wasn't frightened, he was actually pissed off that he was shot at.  It was the only time that I can remember laughing during a fire fight.

 

     He lost his green card one day when we were beating the bush around the edges of the Ho Bo woods.  I had no idea of what a green card was and Mario had to explain its purpose over and over again.  I kept thinking that losing it couldn't be bad if it got you deported.  Especially if deportation would get me out Viet Nam.  Mario was stubborn and insisted that we had to help him find it, so we did.  He found it later that same day, it was the oddest memory that I brought back.

 

     He didn't come back unscarred by the war.  Sometime in the spring of '68, when I was off on a three day in-country R&R, Mario Gabrielle became a casualty of war.

 

     The Lieutenant called for dismounts and then he got down with the rest of the dismounts to lead them.  Mario grabbed the radio, probably figuring that he would be there to point the Lieutenant in the right direction if something happened.  They patrolled into some heavy jungle for most of the morning and broke for a rest and water break back at the tracks.  Mario ditched the radio and got some water.  When the Lieutenant called to resume, Mario found the newest member of the platoon with the radio on his back.  It was the first time that the kid was out in the boonies, it was his first mission.  He was a big, strapping young man and likable as hell.  The kid wouldn't let Mario have the radio, insisted that he get a chance to learn.  Mario reluctantly allowed the kid to have the radio and not too long after that all hell broke loose.

 

     The young man who took the radio from Mario was killed by a head wound with the first burst of fire.  The Lieutenant was cut off by himself for awhile, everyone else had pulled back in the confusion around the first seconds of the ambush.  It was pretty hairy for Two Zero but the rest of the platoon finally realized they were missing two men.  The Lieutenant was okay, the kids body was recovered and Mario has borne the heavy weight of survivors guilt ever since.  That's the worst kind of wound.  The kind that rips across your soul and never seems to leave.  Every one of life's pleasures, accomplishments, and milestones are diminished by it.  It lurks just beneath your sub-conscience; it hides there for months on end but never leaves.  Over time it grows to the point where you even blame yourself for not tracking down someone's next of kin to try to explain what happened.

 

     They don't give you a Purple Heart for the wound that Mario has.  There's no official record about the guys who were fighting alongside the guy who got killed.  There never is.  There's only the guilt.  The secret shame attacks the self image we erect as young men; it lurks in every mirror.  If we're lucky, really really lucky, we can talk it over with our loved ones, get some help bearing our burdens from our wives and children.

 

     It's a little bit different today.  The psychological damage that warfare inflicts on soldiers is broadly recognized and treated.  Present day soldiers and marines are far more schooled about PTSD then we were, despite the ongoing complaints that not enough is being done today, it's like night and day for guys to open up about things almost fifty years in the past.  Hard to pull something to the surface of our thoughts when we have spent so much time trying to bury it.  Trying to avoid the scars we imagine we deserve.

     Mario, along with Whitey and the Bird, was one of the soldiers that I relied on to get me home.  He was a rock of courage and strength.  He wears one Purple Heart, he deserves another one, and a lot more.

     John G. Jerdon
     Earleville, Maryland.

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