OPERATION SMILE
In Honor of Bob Perkins
President of the VFW Auxiliary Post 3160, Mary Butts, has chosen Operation Smile this year as her project in honor of Robert "Bob" Perkins.
Sadly Bob recently passed away on July 21, 2017 at the age of 68. He was born on June 28, 1949 in New York City. He was an extremely popular member of VFW Post 3160 and a regular visitor as a VFW Rider and we were very honored to have him. Bob was injured during his service in the United States Marine Corps in Vietnam as a young man and was a recipient of the Purple Heart. He volunteered for Operation Smile for many years.
Every 3 minutes a child is born with a cleft lip or cleft palate or a cleft palate and many suffer from hunger and thirst and difficulty with speech as well as the social stigma.
In honor of Bob we are accepting donations to a cause he loved so much. To donate please click the link below which goes directly to the Operation Smile Donation page.
We have also chosen to donate all the proceeds from our Cake and Sweets Raffles once a month during our Auxiliary Dinner. Please see the Calendar for more details. We accept donations for Sweets and then raffle them off after dinner; it is a fun event so please get involved if you can.
Thank you for your kindness.
Sadly Bob recently passed away on July 21, 2017 at the age of 68. He was born on June 28, 1949 in New York City. He was an extremely popular member of VFW Post 3160 and a regular visitor as a VFW Rider and we were very honored to have him. Bob was injured during his service in the United States Marine Corps in Vietnam as a young man and was a recipient of the Purple Heart. He volunteered for Operation Smile for many years.
Every 3 minutes a child is born with a cleft lip or cleft palate or a cleft palate and many suffer from hunger and thirst and difficulty with speech as well as the social stigma.
In honor of Bob we are accepting donations to a cause he loved so much. To donate please click the link below which goes directly to the Operation Smile Donation page.
We have also chosen to donate all the proceeds from our Cake and Sweets Raffles once a month during our Auxiliary Dinner. Please see the Calendar for more details. We accept donations for Sweets and then raffle them off after dinner; it is a fun event so please get involved if you can.
Thank you for your kindness.
Bob's Story
Bob Perkins had barely cleared the chopper’s blades when he was scrambled into action: “We were told to grab equipment and gear from piles – ammo clips, canteens – stuff we figured belonged to guys who’d been killed.”Perkins, an 18-year-old Marine, had just landed at Khe Sanh, a combat base near the “demilitarized zone” – or DMZ, as the line drawn between North and South Vietnam was called.
It was Jan. 19, 1968, just days before the start of the Tet Offensive and some of the worst fighting of the war. The North Vietnamese army had Khe Sanh in its cross hairs, softening it up with mortar shells before the communists’ first all-out campaign to take the country.
Perkins didn’t make it 36 hours before a bullet made one thing clear: The enemy wasn’t the only danger.
His first day on base was a long one – most of it spent digging foxholes. Intelligence was sketchy, but Khe Sanh was bracing for a major assault. “We knew they were coming,” Perkins said.
Exhausted, he headed for a tent, where he bedded down on the floor: “There weren’t enough cots, and I was the new guy. But it was OK. I remember going to sleep, listening to 'The Lone Ranger' on the Armed Forces radio station and thinking, ‘This isn’t so bad. In a tent, with a bunch of guys.’ It was really pretty cool.”
He was jolted awake by a hail of mortar fire exploding nearby. “I watched a bunch of feet jump over my head,” Perkins said, “and when I thought the last pair had gone by, I sat up. But there was a fellow on a cot behind me. When he jumped up, he had his rifle across his chest.”
It fired. The bullet drove into the back of Perkin’s head – low and to the left – then came out the front, taking much of his lower jaw with it.
“I got up off the ground, turned around and looked at him. Nobody else was around. Neither of us said anything. I think we were both in shock. I wasn’t even sure what had happened.”He came to on the Repose, a hospital ship that had done duty in Korea. In Vietnam, its staff would treat 9,000 battle casualties, earning the ship its nickname: Angel of the Orient.
Medicine makes big advancements during war. Wounds like Perkins’ provide an extreme form of practice. He was facing a string of surgeries and bone grafts and a 16-month stay at the naval hospital in Portsmouth. He’d have to learn to eat and talk again. Come to grips with the fake beard and moustache provided by the Marine Corps. Ultimately shed them as he accepted the scars. The stares.
He still felt lucky: “I felt that way almost immediately. I’d made it out alive.”
As for the Marine who shot him, Perkins was told he had turned himself in, certain he’d killed somebody.
“I heard they sent him to the naval hospital in Philadelphia,” Perkins said, “to the psych ward.”
It was Jan. 19, 1968, just days before the start of the Tet Offensive and some of the worst fighting of the war. The North Vietnamese army had Khe Sanh in its cross hairs, softening it up with mortar shells before the communists’ first all-out campaign to take the country.
Perkins didn’t make it 36 hours before a bullet made one thing clear: The enemy wasn’t the only danger.
His first day on base was a long one – most of it spent digging foxholes. Intelligence was sketchy, but Khe Sanh was bracing for a major assault. “We knew they were coming,” Perkins said.
Exhausted, he headed for a tent, where he bedded down on the floor: “There weren’t enough cots, and I was the new guy. But it was OK. I remember going to sleep, listening to 'The Lone Ranger' on the Armed Forces radio station and thinking, ‘This isn’t so bad. In a tent, with a bunch of guys.’ It was really pretty cool.”
He was jolted awake by a hail of mortar fire exploding nearby. “I watched a bunch of feet jump over my head,” Perkins said, “and when I thought the last pair had gone by, I sat up. But there was a fellow on a cot behind me. When he jumped up, he had his rifle across his chest.”
It fired. The bullet drove into the back of Perkin’s head – low and to the left – then came out the front, taking much of his lower jaw with it.
“I got up off the ground, turned around and looked at him. Nobody else was around. Neither of us said anything. I think we were both in shock. I wasn’t even sure what had happened.”He came to on the Repose, a hospital ship that had done duty in Korea. In Vietnam, its staff would treat 9,000 battle casualties, earning the ship its nickname: Angel of the Orient.
Medicine makes big advancements during war. Wounds like Perkins’ provide an extreme form of practice. He was facing a string of surgeries and bone grafts and a 16-month stay at the naval hospital in Portsmouth. He’d have to learn to eat and talk again. Come to grips with the fake beard and moustache provided by the Marine Corps. Ultimately shed them as he accepted the scars. The stares.
He still felt lucky: “I felt that way almost immediately. I’d made it out alive.”
As for the Marine who shot him, Perkins was told he had turned himself in, certain he’d killed somebody.
“I heard they sent him to the naval hospital in Philadelphia,” Perkins said, “to the psych ward.”