Terry's Journey in Retirement
Chapter 626
8/23/2022
Cliff Eaton
Virgil casualty of war
Our little home town of Virgil only had 2 fatalities during the Vietnam War, that I know of. Cliff was in eighth grade when I was a senior so I coached him during that year fulfilling my physical educatyion requirement. The only thing I recall is dropping him off on the bus route on the way home. I thought he was directly on the East Virgil road but the family did have a home on the Woodchuck Hill Road, a fitting name for our backwoods community.
Just seems like there should be some small memorial in town for a hero.
When they went to Cortland High their senior year Cliff indicated he aspired to be a Marine in the yearbook.
It looks like a nice place near Khe Sahn, northern part of South Vietnem near the border with Laos. But as the U.S. Marines Company C 1st Battalion 4th Regiment Third Division , tried to establish a landing zone LZ LOON to create a fire base they were met by the dreaded NVA enemies.
Best summary to get a feel for what happened is this video.
These records are from the Texas Tech depository of monthly reports for June 1968. Cliff was awarded the Bronze Star with Valor for putting himself in harms way while assisting medical evacuation of fellow soldiers.
Had I not gone to SU for that second BS degree I would have entered the service in 1967 as well and been in Vietnam in 1968.
This video list 15 bases that were overrun by the enemy in Vietnam. LZ Loon is one of them where overwhelming enemy forces overtook the American troops - to the point where Broken Arrow was declared to bring artillery right on top of our soldiers.
Long story short: Marines occupied hill top less than two days. Met by enemy regular armed forces, after 8 hour battle withdrew leaving 47 U.S. fatalities along with 160 enemy fatalities. U.S. returned in a week to recover bodies but neither side came back to claim the hilltop during the rest of the war. What did we learn? ? ? Just the way of the world.