http://www.oralhistory.ws/tpl/norton_audio.php?file=d244a73a83b4341736a539035c1ca2586f5ddb88.mp3

Ben Melton, a native of Muskogee, Oklahoma who now resides in Bossier City, served as an artillery captain in Vietnam, commanding a battery of guns. He also worked closely with the infantry as a forward air observer from aircraft as well as forward observer on the groundoften between the enemy and friendly forces. Most of the time he subsisted on C rations, Yet one of his memories of the war remains as a sweet, culinary surpriseice cream, literally out of the blue: Near the end of his tour in Vietnam Captain Melton was wounded severely by shrapnel when Viet Cong sappers attacked his base.