June 29, 2004

By VINCE STATEN
Kingsport Times-News

Charlie Aesque was only 8, but he knew that what he was seeing portended greatness.

It was 33 years ago this weekend, the Fourth of July 1961, and Charlie and his buddies on Greenfield Avenue were watching some of the big kids in the neighborhood celebrate the holiday.

Among the participants was 14-year-old Robert Price.

"Robert and his buddy, Harper Smith, had a pack of big firecrackers, and they were tying them to pine cones. They would light the firecrackers and toss them high in the air. Sort of like a poor man's hand grenade, the pine cone would explode sending fragments out like shrapnel."

The loud bangs were a siren call for Charlie and the little kids.

"As soon as we heard the first firecracker, we all gathered to watch. They were having too much fun."

Then it happened.

"Robert lit one of his loaded pine cones and threw it very high in the air, but the wind caught it and sent the cone across the street, landing right next to a little kid on a tricycle. We yelled for the kid to run, but instead he started to pick it up!"

Charlie says that in his mind that moment is frozen in time.

"In the corner of my eye I saw Robert sprint like a rocket toward the kid. He was on him in an instant, and he grabbed the kid up and carried him like a football. Within seconds the cone exploded, and pieces shot out in every direction."

Robert's quick thinking and quick feet had averted a calamity.

"We were stunned, not believing what we just saw," recalls Charlie. "The kid was laughing when Robert set him down. He was ready for another one!"

The kids gathered around Robert, patting him on the back and cheering his actions.

"But he shrugged it all off. It was no big deal to him. He knew what he had to do, and he wasn't afraid to do it."

Seven years later, 2nd Lt. Robert Price would face a similar situation in Vietnam. Only this time it wasn't a pine cone, it was a fragmentation bomb. And the outcome wasn't as fortunate.

On May 4, 1968, Robert Price became the eighth Kingsport soldier to die in the Vietnam War. Before the war ended, the Kingsport toll would reach 23. Charlie Aesque has never forgotten Robert Price and that long-ago Fourth of July.

"Robert was one of the few people I've known who really made a difference."

Note: This article was sent by Sherry Price, wife of SSG Bob Price of 2/278th HOW BTRY. Bob is a HWZTR section chief. Robert Price was Bob's dad. I'm sure Bob is very proud of the legacy his father left behind. Bob seems to have traveled in his father's footsteps in many ways from what I hear. Patriotism seems to be an inherited trait. I overheard a two-way conversation at Troop G one day that went something like this - "I guess we have red, white and blue blood running through our veins." The other answered, "Yes I guess we do. And with a camouflage heart."

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