![]() They brought flowers and food until the living room was filled with floral tributes and the kitchen was crammed with the food. Little Duck was home.Īll afternoon and all night they came, some walking, some driving up the dusty road in cars and trucks. The sounds of anguish swelled and rolled along the hollow. The parents and other relatives waited in a darkened, silent home.Īs the coffin was lifted upon the front porch and through the door into the front living room, the silence was broken by cries of grief. Nora Amburgey, the postmistress, lowered the flag in front of the tiny fourth-class post office to half-mast and said, "We all thought a lot of Little Duck."Īt the point where Flax Patch Creek empties into Irishman Creek, the hearse turned, crossed a small wooden bridge and drove the final mile up Flax Patch Creek to the Gibson home. It was a long, slow trip-over a high ridge to the south, along Irishman Creek and past the small community of Amburgey.Īt Amburgey, the people stood in the sun, women wept and men removed their hats as the hearse went past. Lyle Haldeman, a survival assistance officer, sent, like Sgt. Sweltering heat choked the hills and valleys as Little Duck was placed back in the hearse and taken home. Later in the morning, they took Little Duck home. Gibson had been ill for months and the family did not let her take the trip to Hindman. Norman Gibson, waited at home, a neat white house up the hollow which shelters Flax Patch Creek, several miles away. They stood over the glass-shielded body and let their tears fall upon the glass and people spoke softly in the filling station next door and on the street outside. During the morning the family came: his older brother, Herschel, whom they call Big Duck his sister, Betty Jo and his wife, Carolyn. Most of his life he had been called Little Duck for so long that many people who knew him well had to pause and reflect to recall his full name.īy Thursday morning there were few people who did not know that Little Duck was home-or almost home. One funeral home employee whispered to another: Ritter, who wore a black mourning band on his arm, snapped a salute. The body was picked up in Cincinnati by John Everage, a partner in the local funeral home, and from that point on it was in the care of people who had known the 24-year-old soldier all his life.Īt Hindman, the coffin was lifted out while Sgt. Private Gibson's body had been flown from Oakland, Calif., to Cincinnati and was accompanied by Army Staff Sgt. In the distance down the town's main street the red sign on the Square Deal Motor Co. ![]() The fat raindrops glistened on the polished hearse and steamed on the street. But as the gray hearse arrived bearing the gray Army coffin, a summer rain began to fall. I t was late on a Wednesday night and most of the people were asleep in Hindman, the county seat of Knott County, when the body of Private First Class James Thurman (Little Duck) Gibson came home from Vietnam. The Gibson family agreed to let Magazine writer-photographer John Fetterman be present when Private Gibson's body came home in the hope that it would help show that behind each statistic of death there is deep personal grief and shock which affects an entire family, and an entire neighborhood or community. ![]() Norman Gibson of Knott County, and husband of the former Carolyn Ward of Vicco. One of the recent statistics was Private First Class James Thurman (Little Duck) Gibson, a son of Mr. ![]() ![]() Almost daily since early 1961 the headlines have told of a few deaths-or of many deaths-until the figures threaten to lose meaning. More than 25,000 Americans have died in the Vietnam War. ![]()
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