LOUIS W. GORDON Fulfilling his sense of duty was mission

SALEM -- Louis W. Gordon, formerly of Salem, signed up for a second tour in Vietnam because he said too many young soldiers were getting killed because of stupid mistakes or just ignorance.
Louis, or Bill, as he was known as a youth in Salem, was a career Army man who had been in the service for a number of years when he came home from his first tour in Vietnam, said his sister, Elma Jean Krauss, who still lives here.
"He stood out here in my backyard and told me he had volunteered to go back to Vietnam. I'll never forget him writing and saying that some of his guys went on a picnic behind the motor pool and got killed. He was so upset about that. You didn't know whether it would be a child that was going to blow you up," Krauss said.
'He had it made'
"I was so upset with him because we had already worried ourselves sick once. He was stationed in Germany. He had it made, the little bugger," Krauss said.
It wasn't injuries in combat that killed Gordon, who was a mechanic in the motor pool. However, it was the Vietnam War that killed him just the same.
Gordon died Jan. 10, 1997, at the age of 59, from cancer caused by Agent Orange, the defoliant used by U.S. forces to clear the jungle.
Gordon's wife, Brigitte, of Killeen, Texas, said her husband told her, "We just stood under it [when Agent Orange was sprayed]. We knew it was supposed to kill the underbrush, but no one told us it would hurt us."
Gordon was in Vietnam twice, in 1965-66 and again in 1967-68. He retired in 1975 as a staff sergeant after 21 years in the Army. His last duty station was Fort Hood, Texas, near Killeen, where the couple stayed.
Fell ill with cancer
Gordon became sick in 1995 with lung cancer. He had surgery for that, but eight months later, early in 1996, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. They couldn't do anything for the cancer, Brigitte said.
"I took care of him at home, and then he was in hospice care for four weeks. He was in such pain that even the morphine would not take care of it," she said.
Brigitte said she learned about the In Memory Day ceremony from her daughter, Theresa L. Quezada of Georgetown, Texas, who read about it in the newspaper and suggested nominating her father.
Brigitte said she did not receive final notification until March 31 about the 2006 ceremony, and does not have the money to attend on such short notice. However, she said she plans to visit the memorial next year.
Brigitte, originally from Germany, and Louis also have a son, Gary Louis Gordon of Austin, Texas, and a granddaughter, Meredith Gordon, now 13.
Brigitte said they met in 1957 in Kaiserlautern, Germany, near Ramstein Air Base, when she was 22 and he was 21. Gordon, who enlisted in 1956, was stationed in Kaiserlautern, where Brigitte worked at the base post exchange.
"I spoke very little English and he didn't know much German. But, he and my dad got along very well and my grandmother just loved my husband," Brigitte said.
When Gordon was in Vietnam, Brigitte came to Salem and lived with Elma, who said they got along great. Brigitte said she worked in housekeeping at Salem Community Hospital during those times.
After the Army
After Gordon retired from the Army, he worked for short periods of time at a lumberyard in Killeen; at Central Texas Junior College as a groundskeeper; and was a state prison guard for 15 years.
Brigitte was a housekeeper at a private home for 20 years. She retired the same year her husband died.
While Gordon was in Vietnam, Brigitte said he wrote to her a lot, telling her was going on.
"We visited the Vietnam Memorial Wall a couple of months after it opened. He showed me the names of couple of buddies who had died. He had a hard time dealing with it," Brigitte said.
Gordon's sister, Elma, said there were six Gordon siblings, two boys and four girls, including Louis' twin, Lois, who died shortly after birth. Only Elma and her older sister, Doris Yokley of Salem, are still living.
Elma said Louis was a "great guy." As a youth, he was always quiet and not real outgoing. He always thought of other people, she said.
He quit school as a sophomore and ran away to Chicago, where two older sisters lived, and joined the Army there, Elma said.
"I always thought that maybe if he hadn't gone [to Vietnam] the second time, he wouldn't have gotten cancer," she said