Page 23 - Images: We were...We are

Frank A. Russo

Drafted in September 1970, Frank served in the U.S. Army 1970-1972. His Basic Training
took place at Ft. Dix New Jersey followed by Advanced Infantry Training (AIT) at Ft. Bliss
Texas. He remembers being told that he was being attached to a” Duster” and “Quad” unit.
All elated he thought the “Duster was some kind of sweeper or cleaner. Lo and behold the
Duster was a tank with two 40mm guns on top. The Quad was a 5 ton cargo truck with four
50 caliber machine guns mounted on a turret. At that time he was told that no one from Ft.
Bliss was going to Vietnam except for those with MOS 16F. He was now holding the
winning MOS and was now slated for Vietnam.

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He landed at Bien Hoa airbase in Vietnam on his 20 birthday. Having attained the
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moniker of “Rudy Bags” and serving with the 5 Bn, 2 Arty Bde and D71 Artillery units, he
moved from one Fire Support Base (FSB) to another, escorted convoys, and provided
perimeter security for the artillery units on the bases. He recalls the time when he was on
guard duty in a bunker at FSB Michele when a Vietnamese man pulled up in a lambretta (3-
wheeled vehicle). It was the middle of the night. Yelling in Vietnamese the man kept
motioning to the back of his vehicle. With the M-60 machine gun trained on the man “Rudy
Bags” ordered the man to “Dung Lai” (Halt). Rudy Bags could see that there was a
woman on the bed of his small truck. It was discovered that the woman on the truck was
pregnant and hemorrhaging. After an IV was started an LZ was established and
MEDEVAC chopper successfully evacuated the woman. The woman’s life, along with that
of the baby, was saved. This memory became a permanent vision for it had the irony of
having saved a life instead of having taken one.

Frank Russo’s tour in Vietnam came to an end on December 22, 1971.

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