The Things That Get You
Phil Hubbard doesn't show his office to many visitors, but the manager of an Internet cafe and coffee shop at FOB Kalsu has had some close calls. Looking at the 20 jagged shrapnel holes in his office wall, he gestures to the point of impact a few yards behind his trailer. "The guy who was working in here at the time just missed being turned into Swiss cheese," he says. Shrapnel tore through the wall, punching several holes into the faux leather chair at his desk, then through another wall on the opposite side of the room. Several soldiers were injured in the attack, one of the largest mortar attacks against FOB Kalsu.
Incidentally, the camp itself was named for the only recently active professional football player killed in the Vietnam War. Robert Kalsu was a lineman from the University of Oklahoma who was voted the Buffalo Bills team rookie of the year in 1968, his first and only season with the team. He was killed two years later in the A Shau Valley in Vietnam during a mortar attack.
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