story by Ned Londo
You read a lot about reunions on this page. This a very special story about a very special reunion told by Ned Londo, NIRA Champion Saddle Bronc Rider and member of the Alumni Board of Directors. Ned Londo. Ned served in an artillery unit in Vietnam.
The three guys, Bill Barner, Roy Rodriguez and Doug Leach, had been “in country” about six months when I arrived. They were in Fire Direction Control. They take the radio calls from the forward observers and figure the coordinates to fire the M155 howitzers. They send this information to us in the Howitzers and we shoot whatever rounds and powder charges they tell us to. These guys were very very accurate. We were firing in between friendly forces and were putting the rounds on the enemy, most of the time right in front of our troops.
Anyway, it was around May or June. I had come “in country” at the last part of March, right after the TET offensive. We had been in an area called the Iron Triangle, supporting the 1st Infantry Division (Red One) and had been uncovering lots of tunnels and underground bunkers.
Roy Rodriguez and I hit it off right away, mainly because we both were cowboys. He roped calves and steers and I rode the rough stock. We found a coil of rope in one of the tunnel complexes, so we cut us off two lasso ropes and made a dummy to rope during the off times. We were near a village and the kids would come by with water buffaloes and Brahma cows and heifers that they would work in the rice paddies.
We were roping our dummy and they came by. Now I don’t know which one of us presented the challenge, may even have been one of our guys watching us rope. Anyway, whether it was “Hey, if you can rope one, I’ll ride it” or “I’ll rope one if you will ride it” so Roy roped a Brahma and I put a rope and a flank on her and rode her. She didn’t buck much but we had fun and the children were really enjoying the show.
It didn’t take much to entertain us and take our minds off things for awhile.
The Village Elders didn’t appreciate our rodeo as much as the kids and our CO spent most of the night in the village smoothing things out!
The three guys from Fire Direction Control left shortly after that and I hadn’t seen nor heard from any of them until about 47 years later.
One day I got an email asking me if I was “the guy who rode the cow” back in 1968. We got back in touch and they all decided to come to the Pendleton Round-Up for a reunion. We had a great time. They came to my home for a barbecue, got to meet my family and we got to meet their wives, and we went over a lot of times in ‘Nam and what we had done with our lives since then.
One of things I told them about was my involvement with college rodeo and; that as a former saddle bronc rider, I was raising funds for the college rookie bronc rider. All three men reached in their wallets and handed me a $100 bill!
Bill Barner and his wife Sandra live in Texas. Bill, who was wounded in Vietnam, works with veterans. He rehabs computers to give to vets. Doug Leach and his wife Doris live in Oregon. Roy Rodriguez lives in Michigan. He still ropes-he has roped in the PRCA- and he and his wife Sharon have a son who is a bullfighter at midwestern rodeos
