Sergeant Joe “Rock” Musial of “D” Company, 1/8th Cavalry looks behind him at a severely wounded GI, as he crawls towards the corpse of a fallen GI, Bon Song Plain, 14 February 1967. By the account of photographer Robert Hodierne, he'd calmly grab the M79 grenade launcher off his dead comrades and give his North Vietnamese ambushers a taste of their own medicine.
Perhaps most surprising to us as we looked into this poignant photo was the fact this was “Rock” Musial’s first firefight. Despite having served 12 years in the army prior to his first tour in Vietnam, his career was fraught with disciplinary infractions and heavy drinking. He arrived in Vietnam as a mess hall cook and Specialist 4, with some draftees with less than a year of service outranking him.
He might not have been a good soldier, but Joe “Rock” Musial was a damn good warrior. During that first tour in 1966, Musial’s peacetime buddy Sergeant Roger McDonald, recognized him in a mess hall and asked if the alcoholic scrapper like to join his recon unit. Joe Musial took off his apron and went straight to with “D” Company’s recon platoon into battle. He earned his nickname through is fighting reputation and returned to Vietnam for 2 more combat tours.
On the night of 21 March 1969 at LZ/FSB White, Sergeant Rock had sensed that North Vietnamese sappers were infiltrating the perimeter during a night assault. He crudely asked the Lieutenant Colonel at the Battalion HQ bunker for illumination but his request was flatly scoffed at and denied. Rock immediately left the bunker with a 44 Magnum revolver in hand and started to inspect the perimeter. He quickly spotted a lone enemy sapper and stalked him to within 10 feet before he shot the would-be infiltrator. He quickly grabbed the “good communist” over his shoulder, and threw the corpse down the stairs of the HQ bunker.
He remarked “Sir, I told you there were g**ks inside the wire”. Without missing a beat, he went back into the fight armed only with his 44 Magnum. He’d manage to gun down two more North Vietnamese sappers with his revolver while attending to wounded comrades. A third sapper managed to throw an explosive charge at Sergeant Rock as he continued to help the wounded. As shrapnel ripped and burned into his flesh, Sergeant Rock gunned down the last sapper.
Joe “Rock” Musial would survive his wounds and awarded the Silver Star for his actions on 21 March 1968. By the time he left the army in 1974, the peacetime screwup had amassed 2 Silver Stars, 3 Bronze Stars, and 3 Purple Hearts in combat. However, Musial considered his greatest honour to have had LZ Rock named after him by the Air Cavalry, the only one named after a living man.
Musial’s story was publicized in 2001 when he was identified in the 1967 Valentine’s Day ambush photo reconnected with Hodierne who had photographed him that day. Musial had lost a leg to an industrial accident, and was by then dying from an aggressive cancer. Between his army pension and injury settlement, his final days be in his own house on a 35-acre property in rural Michigan. It was a place where the old warrior found peace. Sergeant Rock passed away peacefully on November 11, 2001 – he fought on to live a few days longer than doctors had anticipated for a final Veteran’s Day.
"In Vietnam, Rock was doing what he was designed by God to do, be a warrior. I always said he should have been frozen and put under glass with a sign that said, 'In case of war, break.' – Sergeant Bret Barham, 1st Cavalry Division.
