Firefight in Gia Dinh

He was a New Yorker through and through — a city kid with the energy and grit of the streets, suddenly wearing jungle boots instead of sneakers, carrying an M-16 instead of a messenger bag. Born July 12, 1947, Charles Albert Moyer grew up in a world that pulsed with ambition, skyscrapers, and jazz, never imagining that one day the rhythm of his life would be replaced by the staccato burst of gunfire and the deep, distant thud of artillery.

When his generation was called, he went. Drafted through the Selective Service System, Moyer became one of the many ordinary Americans swept up in an extraordinary conflict. He entered the United States Army and trained as a Light Weapons Infantryman, joining a brotherhood defined by exhaustion, loyalty, and courage.

The Redcatchers

By the spring of 1967, Moyer was assigned to B Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, part of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade — a unit known as the “Redcatchers.” Their emblem, a red circle pierced by an arrow, symbolized their mission: to hunt and root out communist insurgents who moved like ghosts through the jungles and rice paddies surrounding Saigon.

The 199th was a relatively new formation, created for counterinsurgency warfare. Its troops operated in the Gia Dinh Province, a volatile region wrapped around the capital city. Gia Dinh was both a front line and a rear area — where the war’s shadow constantly shifted. Villages could seem peaceful by day and hostile by night. Every patrol was a test of nerve.

The Redcatchers learned to travel light, move fast, and fight up close. Their operations often meant small-unit patrols, ambushes, and search-and-destroy missions designed to keep enemy forces off balance. In this kind of warfare, there were no fixed lines — only uncertainty.

Life in the Jungle

Infantry life in Vietnam was an unending trial of endurance. The heat was suffocating; the rain came in torrents; leeches, insects, and exhaustion were constant companions.

Moyer and his squad would rise before dawn, gulp down lukewarm coffee or C-rations, then move into the green world beyond the wire. They navigated the narrow trails and thick vegetation, eyes scanning for tripwires, booby traps, or a glint of movement that didn’t belong.

Each man carried about sixty pounds of gear — rifle, ammunition, grenades, poncho, water, and faith in the man beside him. The jungle could turn from silence to chaos in seconds. A firefight might last a few minutes, but those minutes could feel like an eternity.

As part of Bravo Company, Moyer’s platoon often worked in the shadows of the Mekong’s tributaries, where the enemy used tunnels and hidden bunkers to strike and disappear. The Redcatchers lived by the same principle that had defined infantrymen since time immemorial: keep moving, keep alert, stay alive.

Firefight in Gia Dinh

On October 28, 1967, Charles Moyer’s path met the full fury of war. His unit came under sudden attack during an operation in Gia Dinh Province, not far from the sprawl of Saigon. Details of that engagement are brief in the official record — “multiple fragmentation wounds” — yet those few words conceal a storm of violence.

In Vietnam, fragmentation wounds were usually caused by enemy grenades, booby traps, or mortars — weapons designed not only to kill but to scatter terror. When the explosion came, there was no warning. One moment the patrol was moving through dense foliage; the next, the air erupted in fire, dust, and metal.

Specialist Moyer was hit and mortally wounded. He was twenty years old.

The fight likely raged on around him — medics working under fire, friends calling his name, the chaos and confusion that every combat veteran remembers but few can describe. For those who survived that day, the memory would never fade. For those back home, the telegram would arrive quietly, delivered by a uniformed officer who could never explain enough.

The Meaning of Courage

To die in combat is often described in clean, official terms: hostile action, fragmentation wounds, killed in action. Yet the reality of courage in such moments is raw and human.

Moyer’s courage wasn’t a single heroic act caught by cameras — it was the daily decision to walk point down jungle trails where death could come from any direction. It was the willingness to move forward when instinct screamed to stop. It was the quiet strength of a young man doing his duty far from home, believing that somehow it mattered.

He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, a small medal bearing the likeness of George Washington, representing a nation’s gratitude and the blood price paid for its ideals.

New York to Nam

Every soldier carries two landscapes — the one he comes from, and the one he fights in. For Moyer, those worlds could not have been more different.

He came from New York City, a place of noise and motion, where the scent of street food mixed with the diesel of buses and the hum of endless ambition. In Vietnam, the sounds were different: the low murmur of insects, the crack of rifles, the distant thump of mortars. Yet both worlds shared the same heartbeat — people trying to live one day at a time, pushing through uncertainty toward something better.

Many of the young men in the 199th were city kids like Moyer — from Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, or other crowded corners of America. They brought humor, toughness, and a sense of camaraderie to a war that often felt senseless. They watched out for one another, and in those bonds, they found purpose.

Brothers in Arms

The Redcatchers suffered heavy casualties in 1967. The fighting around Saigon was relentless; ambushes, mines, and firefights claimed lives almost daily. Yet the unit developed a fierce reputation for professionalism and heart.

Within the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry, men like Moyer became the glue that held the platoons together — dependable, steady, quick to laugh even after days without sleep.

Survivors of the 199th often recall that the hardest part wasn’t combat itself, but what followed — the empty spaces after each loss, the roll call with one name missing, the quiet moment when a friend’s gear was packed up and sent home.

Those who knew Moyer remember him as the kind of soldier who did his job without complaint. He wasn’t looking for medals or headlines. He wanted to get his buddies home alive.

A Name on the Wall

Today, Specialist Four Charles Albert Moyer is remembered on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, Panel 28E, Line 63 (confirm via VVMF record). His name rests among thousands of others, each one representing a full life interrupted.

Visitors to the Wall sometimes bring mementos — photographs, dog tags, handwritten notes. They trace the engraved letters and whisper names like prayers. For many, that’s the closest they will ever come to understanding the true cost of war.

For Moyer’s family, the Wall ensures that he is never forgotten. His story remains etched in stone, not as a statistic, but as a reminder that freedom often depends on the quiet bravery of young people who go where they are sent, do what must be done, and give everything in the process.

Legacy

Moyer’s sacrifice came during a critical year in the Vietnam War. 1967 was a year of escalating violence and growing uncertainty. Yet soldiers like him never wavered. They carried out their missions with professionalism and courage, even as the war’s purpose grew clouded back home.

For the Ghosts of the Battlefield Museum, his story stands as a human portrait of the ground war — the kind of close-quarters fight that defined Vietnam long before Tet and long after. His legacy lives not only in his name on a memorial, but in every veteran who still remembers what it meant to walk through that green hell and come out changed.

He was part of a generation that bore its duty quietly, with pride. His life reminds us that heroism isn’t always grand; sometimes it’s a young man doing his job, one patrol at a time, until fate calls his name.

Final Honors

Specialist Four Charles Albert Moyer
United States Army
B Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment
199th Light Infantry Brigade – “The Redcatchers”

• Born: 12 July 1947 – New York, New York

• Died: 28 October 1967 – Gia Dinh Province, South Vietnam

• Entered Service: 17 April 1967 (Selective Service)

• Cause: Hostile – Multiple Fragmentation Wounds

• Decorations: ★ Purple Heart

He walked point in the jungles of Vietnam — and his name now walks among heroes.