THE WALL OF FACES

I had just gotten in country about a month before he was killed, but I will remember the night it happened always. He was well liked and his death caused great sadness in the whole company.

Thank you for your service to our country so long ago sir. The remembrance from your friend Jane Dornsife is poignant. As long as you are remembered you will remain in our hearts forever....

PFC Francis Baldino was a rifleman assigned to 2nd Platoon, D Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines. On November 14, 1968, 2nd Platoon was conducting a patrol out of LZ Alpine in an area nine miles northwest of Khe Sanh Combat Base near the Laotian border in Quang Tri Province, RVN. At the end of daylight, the Platoon Commander, with Baldino as his radio operator, took a squad and prepared an ambush next to a stream. The Platoon Sergeant and remaining personnel set up on a nearby hilltop. Right after the 9:45 PM radio check, Baldino was attacked and carried off by an Indochinese tiger. A single, low muffled scream was heard from the hilltop, prompting a radio call to the ambush team to which the Platoon Leader replied, “Something just took my radio operator.” The platoon came together and searched several hours for Baldino under artillery illumination fired from several firebases, but no trace of him was found. Early the next morning, a squad returned to the ambush site where they discovered large pawprints and a trail about four-feet high and two-foot-wide running through the heavy triple-canopy vegetation. Crawling along the path, they found a Marine Corps-issue pullover rain jacket and a radio code book. Continuing forward, the trail opened up and Baldino’s remains were located. They were placed in a poncho liner and evacuated. Other patrols were sent into the area and saw two tigers but were unable to get a shot at them. The 3rd Marine Division commander ordered an organized hunt with an experienced big game hunter to find the killer. A Vietnamese national, experienced in tiger hunting, accompanied five Marine snipers in the search for the predator. The team located tracks suggesting as many as four tigers inhabited the remote valley where Baldino was killed, but none were taken. Six weeks later, a six-man Marine reconnaissance team killed a 400lb. tiger in the same area after it attacked one of its members. Believed to be the same animal that killed Baldino, the team and the tiger were transported to the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion headquarters where it was strung up for examination by the 3rd Marine Division leadership. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org and “Viet Tiger Drags Off, Kills Marine.” Pacific Stars & Stripes, December 5, 1968; also, information provided by Bruce Hazlewood and Roy Berryman (September 2020); and “Growl No More” (1968), Northern Marine Magazine]

Frank.......Honoring you on your birthday.....Never forgotten....God Bless

Private First Class Francis J. Baldino, Served with Company D, 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, Third Marine Amphibious Force.