A salute to Sergeant Jerome D. Vice

“I’m different. How, you ask?

Unless you have been in the midst of lost limbs, shattered heads, teenaged kids immobilized with pain, maimed men screaming for their mothers, instantaneous death, the sickeningly sweet, acrid odor of seared flesh, cordite, and fresh rain, together with the threat of all of it, you cannot know how I’m different.

The person who knows has been there too.”

—Dr. Larry Schwab, 7th Battalion, 11th Field Artillery Surgeon

War is never pretty. It is a horrible, God-forsaken thing that men and women must endure, and have since the beginning of civilization. For those who have lived through war, they are never the same as they were when they left home. What they see, hear and sometimes have to do to survive changes them in ways someone who has never been can ever understand.

Jerome Douglas Vice was raised in the rural Fleming County community of Concord, the son of Clyde and Ruby Vice. At the onset of the U.S. troop buildups in Vietnam, Jerome was eighteen years old and far away from the jungles and impending conflict. That changed in December, 1967 when he was drafted into military service in the U.S. Army Reserves. After receiving his basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, Jerome was sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for field artillery training. Once his training was complete, orders were issued that sent him to Vietnam.

Jerome Vice was assigned to C Battery, 7th Battalion, 11th Artillery, which supported the Army’s 24th Infantry Division, headquartered in the Tay Ninh Province of South Vietnam. The 11th Artillery was a mobile unit that traveled to fire support bases and provided artillery support for troops in the area. Jerome was a crew member of a 105 millimeter Howitzer, essentially a modern day cannon. His unit had already seen some fierce combat when he arrived May 12, 1968. Fire Support Base Maury was recovering from a siege that lasted three days, killing 10 and wounding 60 men. Charlie Battery, as the artillery unit was called, had participated in several campaigns by the time Jerome and others reported to duty. Life on a fire support base was dirty, smelly and uncertain as the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces were always nearby.

Wayne Ragsdale, a fellow soldier who was with Jerome in Vietnam, shed some details on their service together. Ragsdale said that the guys were “constantly on the move from one base to another.”

Charlie Company came under fire at a location called Fire Support Base Mitchell early one morning in fall, 1968. Before dawn, a group of sappers-soldiers who used sabotage techniques to damage and destroy equipment and facilities with explosives-started to infiltrate the perimeter of the base. Keen perimeter guards raised the alert and a firefight began. Soon, the entire area was alight with gunfire, tracer rounds and explosions as the battle ensued. Enemy mortar rounds began hitting their marks and causing damage to vehicles and artillery pieces. Through the chaos of battle, Jerome was injured when a mortar blast impacted nearby, impaling him with shrapnel. Not long after, according to Ragsdale, it seemed a portion of the perimeter was about to be overrun by the attackers. Jerome and a few other soldiers quickly re-positioned their Howitzer and fired at almost ground level, eliminating the impending threat.

After the battle, Jerome was treated for his wounds and returned to duty.

In the October 21, 1968 issue of Tropic Lightning, the 24th Infantry’s newsletter, Private First Class Jerome D. Vice was noted as being awarded the Bronze Star Award with Valor for his actions at Firebase Mitchell.

As the year passed, Jerome was involved in three other battles, earning an Army Commendation Medal with Valor and several other awards, including a Purple Heart, another Bronze Star and additional Commendation Medal. Charlie Battery, 7th Battalion, 11th Artillery received the Republic of South Vietnam Civil Actions Medal, a U.S. Presidential Citation, the U.S. Army Valorous Unit Citation, the U.S. Army Meritorious Unit Citation and the Republic of South Vietnam Presidential Citation.

Jerome Vice left Vietnam in May 1969 as a corporal. He returned to Kentucky and finished out his Army Reserve enlistment, being honorably discharged December 1, 1973 as a sergeant. He married Ruth Williams and relocated to Owingsville, working for Randolph Richardson. Two sons were born into the family, Jason and Matthew, and the family settled off Goodpaster Avenue.

Eventually, Jerome was hired by the Bath County Board of Education and ran a successful second business as an electrician. He also was a key member of the Owingsville Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7497.

Jerome rarely spoke of his service in Vietnam. My dad recalls a time when they talked briefly about some of the scenes that were still in Jerome’s head. One day when Jason and I were kids, we stumbled upon Jerome’s Purple Heart and inquired about what it was.

“Boys, put that back, I don’t want to ever see that again,” he told us quite tersely. We never asked questions about it after that day. When the popular television show Tour of Duty aired in the mid 1980s, we couldn’t watch it on the TV upstairs if Jerome was home because it featured the actions of a platoon in Vietnam.

Jerome fell ill with cancer, which was later determined to be attributed to Agent Orange use during his tour of duty in Vietnam. He passed away October 20, 2003, at the age of 56. It wasn’t until Jason and I started working on a display case for Jerome’s medals and awards that we found out some of the things he had seen and been through in Vietnam.

Two displays were made; one for Jason and one for Matthew, so they can always see that their dad was a decorated veteran of one of the United States’ most grueling wars. For the thousands of men and women who came home from Vietnam, all of them are affected in ways everyday people cannot fathom. Each one of them have stories, but very few will talk about their experiences.

Most people think Memorial Day is to salute all veterans, but that is incorrect. It is to honor those who have fallen during conflict, or as a result of conflict.

Sergeant Jerome D. Vice is one such veteran, and should be honored among those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.