A little more about the little known Bert Waldron, pieced together from different sources:
The 9th Division started training snipers in December of 1968. The division started to withdraw from Vietnam in the summer of 1969. That means Waldron made his 109 confirmed kills in about six months. Michael Lee Lanning says in "Inside the Crosshairs" that Waldron made 92 confirmed kills in the first five months of 9th Division sniper employment.
Waldron made 9 of his kills in one night from the same hide site. He was shooting a suppressed M-14 with a starlight scope at ranges averaging 400 meters, according to a 9th Divison after action report quoted in "Stalk and Kill" by Adrian Gilbert.
Some sources credit Waldron with 113 confirmed kills. This appears to stem from an offhand quote from the sometimes famous, more often infamous, late Colonel Mitchell WerBell. Waldron was Werbell's marksmanship instructor at the SIONICS mercenary training camp in Georgia in the 1970s. The story goes that WerBell knew that Waldron had something over 100 confirmed kills but not the exact number. Werbell pulled 113 off the top of his head to sound good during an interview and that number is still quoted in some sources. 109 is the number seen in 9th Infantry Divison after action reports.
There was a barracks rumor floating around Ft. Bragg in the 1980s that said Waldron was doing some time on a Federal firearms charge. If he was, one has to wonder if it had something to do with his employment with WerBell, who was frequently being investigated for one thng or another. Unconfirmed rumor, but given Waldron's association with WerBell it doesn't sound improbable. If true, this may explain why he never became well known or wrote a book.
I got an email from one source that knew a little about Waldron. The source said Waldron was pretty much estranged from most people when he died. Perhaps bitterness from the way things turned out? Again, unconfirmed, but not improbable if the prison time is true.
Adelbert F. Waldron III is buried in the Riverside Cemetery in Riverside, California. The listed dates are: B. March 14, 1933 - D. October 18, 1995. That means Waldron was 36 years old during the peak of his combat effectiveness in early 1969.
He was a superb rifleman correctly employed in a target rich environment.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks