LTC HERMAN MCLAWHORN, US ARMY (RETIRED) KOREAN VETERANS
Sergeant Gerald Lee Smith was born in Kinston North Carolina in 1932. He joined the North Carolina National Guard. He was called to active duty during the Korean War and assigned to Battery C, 15th Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. Sergeant Smith, while serving as a forward observer, was Killed in Action during the fighting on Heart Break Ridge hill 867 in North Korea on October 7, 1951. He interred in Westveiw Cemetery, Kinston, North Carolina. The poem pictured below was written by Sergeant Smith. Any one of us who served in combat can relate to poem. It reads.
IN MEMORY OF BUDDY, “NO FAME I CRAVE BEFORE MY GOD, A SIMPLE GOAL I KEEP, I HOPE JUST ONCE BEFORE I DIE, TO GET SUFFICIENT SLEEP.” BY GERALD L. SMITH.
