Haughton man saw action in Vietnam at infamous Battle of Hamburger Hill

By BILL LUNN

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    HAUGHTON, Louisiana (KTBS) — Edward Franks Jr. spent 26 years in the Army, two years of that in combat in Vietnam. His tour of Vietnam saw action in two of the biggest battle of the war.

Franks joined the Army as a teenager in 1965, right as the Vietnam war was ramping up.

“I was 17 years old when I joined,” Franks said. “My dad was a 30-year Marine. He was still in the Marine Corps when I joined the Army. He didn’t like it because he wanted me to join the Marines.”

Franks was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division known as “The Screaming Eagles.” By 1967, he found himself in the middle of that war. In November of that year he fought in the Battle of Dak To, a series of engagements that lasted weeks.

“I flew in on a helicopter, and when we landed it was fighting from the get go,” Franks said. “We had hand-to-hand combat.”

Eighteen months later in May 1969, Franks was there at the Battle of Hamburger Hill.

“I was wounded on Hamburger Hill,” Franks said. “It was a fight, a 10-day battle. It was a hard battle,”

The death and destruction he saw was personal, even if it was the enemy.

“This one man that I killed, I went and looked at the pictures he had,” Franks said. “He had a wife and kids. He was a Vietnamese, but he had a family. And I was the one that took him away from that.”

Soon after that encounter Franks was dealing with his own mortality.

“I got a bayonet in my back, and it came out my belly, Franks said. “I thought I was going to die.”

He remembers that he was bleeding badly.

He sat on a stump and smoked what he thought would be his last cigarette. That’s when Don Hemphill of the 1st Cavalry Division came along and found him.

“He grabbed me, and he says, ‘You are not going die here, Sarge.’ And he threw me over his back,” Franks said.

Franks was hospitalized in Okinawa, Japan where he recovered. He was then sent home. He — like many Vietnam vets — was surprised by the chilly reception when they returned from war.

“There was no parade, nothing. I thought there’d be a parade. My mother picked me up at the airport,” Franks said, adding she was the only one there to greet him.

Like many vets he struggled with the gruesome memories of combat.

“After we came back, I had a really tough time trying to get over what I did,” Franks said. “I had to get over it. I still have guilt about that.”

Franks served a total of 26 years in the Army, retiring in 1991 as a sergeant first class. Franks was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

Franks is the nephew of Shreveport music legend Tillman Franks. He is also a musician who’s written and performed his own songs.

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