Woonsocket Vietnam Vet Remembers Friends as Memorial Day Nears

When Americans honor those who died in service On Memorial Day Monday, Vietnam Veteran Ernest Boisvert will recite some of their names, including a few friends.

Boisvert served with the 4th Infantry Division from Sept. 1966 to Sept. 1967 as an Infantryman during the Vietnam war, earning the rank of E5 (Specialist 5th class). 

Boisvert said he befriended all of the men he served with as they shared an intense eight months of training. "I have no brothers and the guys I was with I called my siblings, so to speak," Boisvert said.

One of those guys, Jim Blanchard, was from Pascoag, RI. He liked to play cards, and he was a typical 19-year-old. "Like all of us back then, we really didn't have a care in the world," Boisvert said.

The two shared their home state, and the knowledge that they were headed to war, but they didn't speak much about their families or home lives. "We  were trying to bond with each other, because we all knew where we were going," Boisvert said.

At the end of their training in September of 1966, they packed up everything: tents, supplies, trucks, weapons and gear. "We brought the 4th Infantry down to Vietnam," Boisvert said.

On March 19, 1967, Blanchard was out on patrol, and Boisvert was back at their camp for that day, serving as radio operator. "We were sitting on top of a hill, looking down at a valley," Boisvert said. "We happened to hear some gunfire. I took the call that Jim has been hit by a sniper," Boisvert said. The men out with Blanchard said he just dropped, Boisvert said. 

Later, on May 22 that year, Boisvert's unit lost more men. "It's an anniversary day for me," Boisvert said Wednesday.

The unit had set up a perimeter, late at night, unknowingly in the path of the enemy's advance. The position wound up giving them an advantage, Boisvert said, because it left their bunkers well positioned to shield them from mortar fire.   

Boisvert was inside the perimeter in a bunker with his Lieutenant during the attack. "I watched an RPG (rocket propelled grenade). I watched it float in and hit the corner of our bunker," he said. The Lieutenant, about three feet away from Boisvert, was caught in the explosion. "He was killed instantly," Boisvert said.

Boisvert said he recently attended a reunion with 19 of his friends from the 4th Infantry in North Carolina's Outer Banks. "The guys that I served with, we were all drafted together. We all went through training together," Boisvert said. They know Memorial Day is about honoring their friends who didn't return, though they don't save that for just once a year. 

While serving in Vietnam, Boisvert earned the Vietnam Service Medal & Bronze Star Attachment (double), Republic of Vietnam campaign Ribbon w/Device (1960), National Defense Service Medal and Combat Infantryman badge 1st Award. 

Boisvert serves as the Vice-President of the United Veterans Council of Woonsocket and as the alternate on the Woonsocket War Memorial Committee. He is also the City's Veterans Advisor and maintains office hours at the Woonsocket Senior Center on Social Street. You can find him there every other week on Wednesday and Thursday, 9 to 11 a.m.

Monday's Memorial Day parade will kick off promptly at 10 a.m. from the corner of Cumberland & Clinton Streets and end at Market Square, where speeches from Mayor Leo Fontaine and Boisvert, the grand marshal for the parade this year, will be delivered. Boisvert said he'll recite the names of all the Rhode Island men who died serving in Vietnam, Blanchard's among them.