Faces Bio

Joseph F. Biber was born on June 29, 1946.  His home of record is Wayne, NJ. 

He enlisted in the US Marine Corps and attained the rank of Sergeant (SGT).

Biber was killed in action on September 19, 1968.

Most of his life he lived with me in California and we had the best father/son relationship that I've ever seen.  And I was one lucky father to have had him as a son.  The last time I saw him was at Camp Pendelton prior to his taking off for his second tour in Vietnam.  Before boarding he said he was glad that he had had me for a Dad, strict but fair and said he loved me, we kissed and I watched him, alive, for the last time as he boarded the plane.  Six months later I flew in a General's helicopter over the rugged mountain spot where he was killed.  Then I understood why he had liked Vietnam and had learned the language.

Joe was born in St. Joseph's Hospital on Saturday, June 29, 1946, went to Paterson grade school on Union Ave, near West Broadway.  His mother, Ann, and I separated in February 1957, and I went to California.  He was just 11 when he landed at San Francisco Airport coming off the plane with a fishing rod over his shoulder!  He started grade school in Santa Clara, CA.

He was very athletic as he started gymnastics at the age of 5 and went horseback riding and hunting with me.  When he was 8 and 9 he wanted to play football when he found out that the local boys played at Hinchman Stadium on Saturdays.  They were 14/15 year olds, and to prevent him from getting hurt, I insisted that he wear a helmet with a nose guard and shoulder pads.  After playing several weeks, he came home with a broken nose.  He had removed the nose guard so he could see well.

There was a bully in school that terrorized all the boys.  Joe told him to" leave me alone", the next day he pushed Joe around, punching and slapping.  Joe hauled off and decked the boy and went to class.  The next day, as I was by my car, here comes a strange black boy whom I had never seen before, asking for Joe, who came out of our trailer and they greeted each other like lost old friends, which they became.  This is just an insight to what he was and why he got killed.

There was a 30" high wall next to the cellar door that he liked to jump over and then roll down the door.  Well one day he did just that and unfortunately the bottom half of a broken glass milk bottle was there which he rolled over.  He came into the house and said "Dad, I cut myself on my leg". He turned around and all I saw was the hipbone and flesh.  The doctor put in 17 stitches and he never let out a peep or cry.  Later he said, "I think one more stitch I would have cried.

I realize that this is lengthy, but you're getting what you wanted.  He attended Buscher High in Santa Clara, CA.  Delivered the daily morning paper, mowed lawns on Saturdays, sometimes Sundays too, which I didn't like.  As a freshman he was going to go out for the chess team as he was a good player, better than I.  When he saw the track team, he came home and asked if it would be alright to go out for track.  He lettered 8 times in Track and Field, on the way he ran the third fastest mile in the nation and held the 10,000 meter record until there was a dispute about the last 100 meters and all times disallowed.  As a sophomore, he ran the 2nd fastest mile for high school sophomores.  Besides his paper delivery and lawn mowing, he would practice running track every day and then on weekends he would run 7 miles to a reservoir and back.  He ran against the world's fastest runners at Stanford College Open Meets and along the way collected 159 plus medals and ribbons.  He won a Gold Medal at the Oakland Junior Olympics held in Oakland, CA.

I was working 12 hours a day, 7 days and I couldn't leave him alone unsupervised.  We had done a lot of fishing and horseback riding so I found a ranch in Trinity County, CA that would take him for the summer, if he liked it.  We took the 10-hour drive and stayed over the 4th of July weekend.  He loved it.  He stayed all summer, herding, branding, haying and checking out the cattle on their summer grazing 40 miles away, mostly by horseback.  He shot a bear that had killed two steers, and had the hide made into a bear rug.  He returned every summer until he went to Idaho State, on one of 15 scholarships offered.  His Senior year he trained Freshman in Track and Field and when I was transferred to Vandenberg Missile Base his High School coach and wife insisted that he stay with them and their 3 daughters till graduation, which he did.

Prior to college, he had been invited to the first San Francisco Invitational at the Cow Palace, an indoor track meet on boards, which he had never run on before.  His long stride coach told him not to go to the inside lane.  Well, he was leading 9 laps of the 11 laps, well ahead, when he went into the inside lane and promptly tripped, rolled over, got up and finished second to the roar of 7500 spectators.

He drove cross-country in a car that he bought and paid insurance on.  When he got to Missouri the transmission went.  He sold it to a junkyard and with that money took a bus to NJ, where he bought a Ducati motorcycle and drove it back to California where he promptly got a ticket for not having two side view mirrors on the handle bar.

While at Idaho State he received his draft notice.  At Thanksgiving, he enlisted into the Marine Corps because they had the best training.  From Camp Pendleton he went to Vietnam, then to Okinawa for Parachute School and Mountain Climbing, back to Vietnam and then to the Philippines for Underwater Demolition Training and back to Vietnam where he joined Force Recon, an elite unit of the Marines (Black Berets).  He fought up at Da Nang, Hill 880, which he and others had to go up 3 times before taking it with numerous casualties.  He was then sent down to the Delta, returned to Da Nang, then to Quang Tri, where he fought at Dak To and Khe Sanh.

A fantastic poker player, he sent enough money home on his first tour to buy a new car when he came home.  On his 2nd tour after playing a while and winning he couldn't get anyone to play other than nickel and dime games.

He finished his first tour and was stationed at Concord Naval Base.  In November 1967 he volunteered to go back.  We only lived 70 miles away and when he came home for the weekend and told me, I asked him why, as he had served his time there and should let others go.  His answer was that it was like the Trinity Mountains and the Marines were calling for all Marines with his specialty to come back, which he did.  He went to Quang Tri, Camp Vandergrift, LZ Stud, and reconned along the Ho Chi Minh trail with 5 or 8 man patrols and along the DMZ.

On his last five-man patrol he had some new men who he had trained prior to taking them out.  They were helicoptered to an area that he had been in previously and prior to reaching the landing zone, saw a group of North Vietnamese and notified his commanding officer.  They were told to proceed as directed.  After landing and walking one kilometer on mountain tops and one kilometer south of the DMZ, the point man followed a trail for easier walking (a no, no), when he was shot at and immediately dropped behind a fallen log.  Standing rule if you're not hit you keep on yelling back and forth, he ceased yelling as he was taking fire from one flank, Joe thought that he had been hit and ran to his aid, taking a bullet in his left groin, severing the femur artery.  The NVA left two dead.  Joe died due to the fact that there was no medic and its most probable that even if one had been there he wouldn't have been able to stop the bleeding.  The men wanted to call for a Medivac helicopter, but Joe gave a Zulu call (means enemy contact) to base.

He was engaged in the following military actions: Hastings, Prairie, Deck House 5, Napoleon/Saline, Scotland 2, Operation Rice, Operation Lancaster, Operation Kentucky, Operation Scotland 2, plus numerous 5 and 8 man patrols as Platoon Leader.  I'm still attempting to get information on his Vietnam service through the Freedom of Information Act.  He was with the Marine Force Recon for 6 months (most of this information is still classified).

He received the Silver Star and two of the South Vietnamese government's highest awards plus other awards in duplicate from our government.  His body was brought back to base and a black Marine wanted to know who it was and when he heard that it was Joe, he just sat down in the street and cried.  He had nothing but high proficiency reports from his officers. The 3rd Recon Colonel said he was the best scout and map man that he ever had.  Irony...the name of the Captain conducting the funeral services at Quang Tri was named Fountain.  The same name as the people that owned the ranch he stayed on all those summers!!

I had his body brought back to New Jersey to be closer to his mother, sisters and younger brother.  He had more mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers than anyone that I have known.  He loved to teach all that he knew to youngsters and was always willing to learn himself.  He also won several blue ribbons for the ranch, horseback riding at the Trinity county fair.  He didn't fare that well in the greased pig contest.

Written by Frank Biber, Father
May 19, 2002

Information provided by Frank Biber (father) and NJVVMF.