Lloyd L. Gooding

October 28, 1945 – September 23, 1966

Albuquerque Soldier Dies in Action. A telegram arrives . . . But No Letter from Lloyd, by Hal Simmons. PFC Lloyd L. Gooding, 20, left here little more than a week ago. He phoned his father last Sunday from San Francisco and said they were shipping out. Last night a knock sounded on the door of the Floyd Gooding home at 1001 Woodland NW. Officers from Kirtland Air Force Base were calling. Today the telegram confirmed that tragic message. “The Secretary of the Army ask me to express his deep regret . . .” “I never even got a letter,” Mr. Gooding said. “I didn’t even know what his address was.” “. . . that your son, Private First Class Lloyd L. Gooding died in Vietnam on 23 Sept 1966 . . .” “He wasn’t even old enough to vote,” Gooding said. “they just threw them into it.” “ . . . As a result of gunshot rooms received on combat operations against a hostile force . . . : “We were watching TV the other night and the newscaster was reporting on a Marine attempt to take a certain ridge, and they couldn’t take it.” The father said. And later he said U.S. forces had been able to take it. I’m not sure which force it was. We don’t really know.” “. . . This confirms notification made by a representative of the Secretary of the Army. Signed, Kenneth G. Wickham, Maj. Gen, USA, Adjutant General.” It happened incredibly fast as if the war were in the backyard of every Albuquerque home. Tragedy was compressed that much tighter. PFC Gooding graduated from Valley High School in 1962, then spent two years at the University of New Mexico. He took a year’s leave of absence to earn enough money to go back. He worked at Graybar Electric company until . . . the paperwork at the Draft Board caught up with him, and his student deferment was withdrawn. The next week he got his draft notice. That was March. Basic training followed at Fort Bliss, Texas; then on to Fort Gordon, Georgia for infantry training. His port of debarkation was San Francisco. He stopped in Albuquerque to be with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Gooding and his two sisters and young brother. Mr. Gooding is a welder for Rio Grande Steel. Then the soldier pushed on. Last Sunday, the last Sunday of his life, he called from San Francisco. He was now a member of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. What happened between last Sunday and yesterday, is not known here. It is customary in addition to formal notification of death of a member of the armed forces, for a letter to come from a member of the soldier’s unit, often a member the soldier’s wife, telling exactly what happened. Has not yet been received. It happened only yesterday, the blackest day in the history of the Floyd Gooding family. They didn’t even have time to learn his new address.

The family of PFC Lloyd L. Gooding, who was killed September 23 in Vietnam, received the customary letter from an officer of the soldier’s unit telling what happened almost a month later. Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd E. Gooding, 1001 Woodland NW, received the letter dated October 15, last week from Capt. Lloyd T. Asbury, infantry commander. The letter said that on the afternoon of September 23 near the village of Bongson, his platoon encountered a “large Vietnam force entrenched in covered bunkers.” The letter explained that in the process of maneuvering into a superior position after being fired upon by the Vietnam force, Gooding was “mortally wounded. Death came quickly and he was not subjected to any suffering.” The 20-year-old Albuquerque man was killed in less than a week after he left San Francisco to fight in the war. His family never heard from him after he called from San Francisco telling them of his departure.