Nov. 3, 1962 - A U.S. Army sergeant, feeding ammunition to a machine gun aboard an escort helicopter, was fatally wounded today as the South Vietnamese Government scored one of its biggest successes in months against the Viet Cong. The dead sergeant was identified as Johnnie G. Lee of Gholson, Miss. Another escort helicopter pilot had a narrow escape — a bullet pierced his armored vest just over the heart. He suffered only a bruise but turned the controls over to the co-pilot, saying: “It felt like I was hit by the back edge of an ax.” The death of the sergeant, who had a wife in the U.S. and a child he had never seen, brought to 34 killed and 85 wounded the number of U.S. casualties in Vietnam since December 1961. That was when the U.S. build-up began.
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