The Midvale Buddies
Midvale, Utah, still remembers a heartbreaking 16-day stretch in 1967 when three families lost their sons in the Vietnam War. Frank “LeRoy” Tafoya, John “Jimmy” Martinez and Tom Gonzales lived near each other on successive streets in the small city outside Salt Lake City.
They grew up together. They went to school together. They played sports together.
And in their families’ darkest hour, their community came together.
Mourners overflowed the local Catholic parish for funerals for Jimmy and Tom. At LeRoy’s funeral, Latter-day Saints followers packed a wardhouse.
“Everyone was in mourning,” says Martinez’s sister, Bea. “It was one after another after another. It was a tough thing. Everybody remembers it.”
Amadeo “Eloy” Romero attended the funerals of all three men. He was Jimmy’s cousin and a close friend of LeRoy.
“Inside my feelings were tougher at LeRoy’s funeral,” says Romero, who grew up in nearby Lark, a town of 500. “Those three deaths were really emotional for the communities of Midvale, Bingham and Lark. It was very emotional for everyone, whether they were close to them or not.”
Each of the men was 20 or younger. All died in combat.
LeRoy was killed on Nov. 22, 1967. The next day – Thanksgiving – Jimmy was killed. On Dec. 7, Tom was killed.
‘‘ALWAYS SMILING’ Motivated and angered by the deaths, Romero joined the Marines in January 1968. “It was an obligation,” he says, adding that he was sent to Quang Tri province, where his cousin was killed. “Maybe I had a grudge or something, but I knew I had to go in.”
Romero and LeRoy attended school, worked at the Welch Planing Mill, played sports and drank beer together. “I loved LeRoy,” says Romero, a member of American Legion Post 132 in Taylorsville, Utah. “He was a nice guy, easygoing, always smiling.”
LeRoy took on the role of protector at an early age. His stepdad abused the entire family, Romero learned recently. “I didn’t know any of what he went through (when we were growing up),” says Romero, who traveled to the Vietnam Wall in the late ’80s and returned with etchings of his friend’s name that he still has today. “LeRoy often took the whipping instead of his siblings or mom.”
LeRoy died protecting others.
When enemy fire pinned down his platoon in a rice paddy field, he “exposed himself to the enemy fire as he moved forward to provide security for his platoon’s right flank,” his posthumous Silver Star citation reads. “Despite his wound, (he) remained exposed to enemy fire as he provided covering fire for a helicopter which was trying to land. While providing this suppressive fire (he) was mortally wounded.”
REMEMBERING JIMMY His siblings remember Jimmy’s trademark smile, “a smirk.” Today they tell stories of his love of family and country. “He was all about our freedom,” Bea says. “He was so young when he joined. It was something he wanted to do for his country and his family.
“He left a big impression on a lot of people.”
The day after LeRoy died, Jimmy set out on a pre-dawn patrol. He was among three Marines killed instantly when an enemy booby trap set off a fragmentation grenade.
Hours later back in Utah, the Martinez home was abuzz with preparations for the Thanksgiving meal. Bea, age 9, was in the front room when she saw soldiers approach. “I was so young but I remember it vividly, like it was yesterday,” she says.
Tony Martinez, who was 16, answered the door and told Bea to get their mother some water. Another relative left to track down their father.
“When Dad returned home, he said, ‘It can’t be,’” Tony recalls. “Everybody takes it differently. My dad just couldn’t breathe. We took him into the other room, and when he came back he said, ‘I think you got the wrong person.’”
The reality devastated the large family. Jimmy was the fifth oldest of 12 siblings.
Their mother, Maria, had a hard time with Thanksgiving for the next 50 years. “We’d celebrate it, but there was something missing,” Bea says.
One thing that helped the Martinez family heal was Jimmy’s presence in their front room. For nearly 50 years, a glass-and-wood case displayed his Marine dress blues, photos of the three Midvale friends, a small Virgin Mary statue and other memorabilia.
The family contacted Bill Miller, director of the Midvale City Museum, who agreed to exhibit the uniform. He helped collect it at the Martinez home.
“You walked in the front room and saw the uniform just hanging there in the display case,” he says. “I’m not going to say he was there but everyone who was there felt something, a spiritual feeling that they were watching over us. It was just so serene.”
At the museum, the uniform is prominently displayed. “I love that uniform,” Miller says. “It’s kind of emotional to stand here and look at it. It’s one of the greatest things we have in here.”
BROTHERLY LOVE Tom Gonzales was “really athletic, lettered in track,” says his younger brother, Gene. “(He) was really outgoing, connected with people and made friends easily.”
Tom was the 11th of 14 Gonzales children. Gene is the youngest. Another brother, Louie, was a year younger than Tom, who took Gene and Louie under his wing. “He protected me, kept us out of trouble,” Gene says. “He took us everywhere, like a big brother does.”
Like LeRoy, Tom made the ultimate sacrifice while protecting his comrades.
On Dec. 7, he was leading his platoon on a mission to help another American unit in a village in Binh Dinh province. As gunfire scattered his troops, he charged forward and prepared to throw his grenade. A sniper shot Tom, who fell on his grenade.
The Gonzales family was expecting Tom to return home shortly on leave.
“I was at school, and when they called me to come to the office, they told me to go home,” Gene recalls. “When I got home, I thought he would be there. The streets were packed with cars. I went in and it was pretty sad. I was in a daze for two or three months.”
Later, Gene was drafted into the Army, but he was not sent to Vietnam.
“I visit him three or four times a week,” says Gene, noting that Tom is buried in Midvale Cemetery, a half-mile from where he lives. “I think about him pretty often.”
PRESERVING MEMORIES At the cemetery, a Vietnam War memorial lists the three friends’ names among 22 from Midvale who died in the war. Their close-knit community will never forget their sacrifice. Even today, longtime friends offer condolences to the family members.
“The memories are there,” Bea says, admiring a black-and-white photo of Jimmy in his uniform. “They’re never going away.”
Henry Howard is deputy director of The American Legion’s Media and Communications Division.