White Shield Vietnam veteran says farewell to fellow Marine after 51 years
Submitted Photo Members of the Joseph Young Hawk-Elmer Bear American Legion Post of White Shield – Vince Malnourie, Post commander Robin Fox, Austin Gillette, Gary Dickens and Glenn Brunsell – recently visited the Marycrest Cemetery in New Jersey, where Cpl. Steven Joel Foster is buried. After 51 years, Gillette said farewell to Foster, a fellow Marine, who died while they were serving together in Vietnam.
MAHWAH, N.J. – Fifty-one years ago, Austin Gillette of White Shield and Steven Joel Foster of Midland Park, N.J., were serving with the U.S. Marine Corps’ Amtrac Platoon in Vietnam.
On July 30, 1968, only 19 days before Foster was scheduled to come home, he was performing his duties in Quang Tri Province, near the Cua Viet River, as a radio technician for a Marine Headquarters and Supply Company near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) when he was wounded when hit with shrapnel, according to N.J. Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Foundation information. Foster was hospitalized and died on Aug. 24, 1968. He was laid to rest in Marycrest Cemetery in Mahwah, N.J.
Fifty-one years later, Gillette was able to say farewell to his fellow Marine.
Prior to a trip to New Jersey with the White Shield American Legion Post and Auxiliary for the Basilone Parade on Sept. 22, Gillette located information about where Foster, known to fellow Marines as “Joe the Tech,” was buried in New Jersey
The day after the parade in Raritan, Gillette and four members of the Legion Post visited Foster’s grave before returning to North Dakota. Gillette placed tobacco at the grave as an offering to the departed spirit and also placed a quarter and a Vietnam Feather Pin on Foster’s marker. The quarter tells a family that a person was with the military member when they were killed.
Submitted Photo This is the marker of U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Steven Joel Foster in the Marycrest Cemetery in Mahwah, N.J. He died in Vietnam in August 1968.
Songs were also sung – Welcome Home and Vietnam songs and a Farewell song.
“This is the Marine who wanted to come home with me after I told him about the Welcome Home Ceremony we have,” said Gillette, an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes on the Fort Berthold Reservation. The Welcome Home and Vietnam songs would have been sung at a Welcome Home Ceremony if Foster had been able to visit Gillette in his home area.
Gillette, Foster and other Marines were in quarters when they were attacked in Vietnam. Gillette and another Marine, Gene Gwinn of Oklahoma, took the injured Foster on a stretcher in a Jeep to an underground hospital near their location. Foster died later at a hospital in Japan. He was 20 years old.
Amtrac Platoon existed in 1967-69, then was reassigned and sent to other units in the Marine Corps. They were first attached to the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines and later assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines and the 2nd Battalion, 26th Marines.
The unit may have been one of the most decorated noninfantry units in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, Amtrac Platoon members hauled supplies or just about anything. They also transported wounded.
In summer 2008, members of Amtrac Platoon met for a reunion at 4 Bears Casino & Lodge, west of New Town.
“Our platoons took part in over 30 operations and were awarded three Presidential Unit Citations, three Navy Unit Citations, Meritorious Unit Citation, Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, Combat Action Ribbon, Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation and National Defense Medal awards,” Gillette said in a Minot Daily News interview at the 2008 reunion.