The 20-Year Man

"Lo. one who loved true honour more than fame," read the inscription under the picture of Robert Gardner in the Nashua, N.H. high school yearbook of 1941. Gardner became a professional soldier, fought under General George Patton in World War II, served in a combat unit in Korea. This spring Staff Sergeant Gardner was sent to South Viet Nam as a military "adviser." It was to be the last overseas assignment of his 20-year hitch; next year he planned to retire and enroll in a Florida umpires' school in hopes of becoming a major-league baseball umpire.

From South Viet Nam, Gardner wrote Nashua High School classmates: "This is a lonely, hot, dirty, and filthy war over here. It is a life-and-death struggle against Communism, poverty and lack of education, but the South Vietnamese will win it, as we will give our lives if we have to for the struggle." Last week Sergeant Gardner, 39, gave his life when he ran into a Viet Cong mortar attack in the jungle 360 miles north of Saigon. Three days later, two U.S. Army officers were killed in a Viet Cong ambush. They brought to six the number of U.S. servicemen killed by the Viet Cong since December.

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