MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) —There’s a good chance that you know him as a businessman, a restaurateur, and a top-notch barbecue chef, but you may not know that he was a Marine veteran who fought bravely in the most heated time of the Vietnam War.
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Elbert Wingfield was a senior in 1967 and ready to go to college to play football when Marine recruiters came to Mobile’s Central High School.
“When I saw those dress blues, I said, ‘I’m not going to college, I’m going into the Marine Corps,’” Wingfield said.
Within a year, Wingfield would be in arguably the hottest spot, at the hottest time, of the entire Vietnam War — outside Danang, during the Tet Offensive of 1968. He went out on patrol on his first night “in country.”…