Dying Veteran Emotional Last Request

Dying Veteran’s Emotional Last Request And the VA Team that made it happen By Steve Goetsch, Public Affairs Specialist, South Texas Veterans Health Care System, San Antonio Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Like many other young men in the late 1960s, Roberto Gonzalez answered when Uncle Sam called. He was drafted by the Army for service in June of 1969, a week after finishing school. Gonzalez, from South Texas, found himself going to Army basic training instead of working on the family ranch and going to summer graduation parties. Gonzalez was a member of the 25th Infantry, and on one mission, was selected to be on point during a patrol. What he didn’t know was they were walking into an ambush of North Vietnamese soldiers lying in wait. They sprung up from a trench, firing on the 14-man squad. With Gonzalez on point, he took the brunt of fire, being hit three times: through both lungs, a bullet hitting and shattering his leg below the knee, and the last striking his abdomen, fragmenting and hitting his spine, creating the shrapnel that led to his paralysis. - See more at: http://www.va.gov/HEALTH/NewsFeatures/2016/July/Dying_Veteran_Emotional_Last_Request.asp#sthash.HWH4ZnCk.dpuf