Marine Sergeant Freddy Gonzalez, Vietnam War Hero

At the age of 21, Marine Sergeant Freddy Gonzalez was killed during the Tet Offensive in Hue City, Vietnam. For his actions defending his platoon that day, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Later, in 1996, in honor of his actions a U.S. Navy warship, the USS Gonzalez, was named after him. This biography, an outgrowth of the author's 2006 book, When the River Dreams, covers Gonzalez's birth in 1946 to a 16-year-old single mother; his youth, when he worked with his mother as a water boy to the farm workers in the vast fields of South Texas; his high school years when he played football as an all-district 160-pound lineman; and his enlistment, deployment and death in Vietnam. Utilizing many interviews with his family, friends and fellow Marines, this biography thoroughly chronicles the life of a hero.