THE WALL OF FACES

Never forgotten.

HOOAH

Thank you for your service to our country so long ago sir. The remembrances from your father and sister are especially poignant. As long as you are remembered you will remain in our hearts forever...

As your 75th birthday approaches, your sacrifice is not forgotten.

HOOAH

I am a Boy Scout from Troop 7 in Springboro, OH. Our Troop installs the flags at the Springboro Cemetery. Thank you for your service to our Nation and I will remember the ultimate sacrifice you made. Our Troop will do our best to recognize you every Memorial Day for years to come.
David Huss, Troop 7

In the first half of 1969, three companies of the 299th Combat Engineer Battalion and the 15th Light Equipment Company defended the big American base and air strip at Dak To, RVN, against the North Vietnamese Army’s 66th Infantry Regiment and 40th Artillery Regiment. From January through July of 1969, some six hundred bulldozer drivers, crane and front-end loader operators, mechanics, medics, cooks, clerks, truck drivers, and other non-infantry men defended the rugged, jungle-covered mountain in the Central Highlands northwest of Kontum near the Laos and Cambodian borders. From May 9 until the second week of July, the NVA shelled the mountain virtually every day with 122mm rockets, 81mm mortar rounds, recoilless rifles, and B-40 rockets. The deadliest single attack took place on May 28, 1969, when a 122mm NVA rocket came screaming directly into the 15th Light Equipment’s headquarters bunker. The heavily sandbagged bunker, sunk some twenty feet in the ground, was crowded with engineers, including a thirty-man reaction force. Nine men, including Company Commander 1LT Franklin L. Koch, were killed. The other lost Americans comprised FSGT Dudley J. Benefiel Jr., SP4 Floyd E. Barber, SP5 James S. Colombero, SP4 Valentine M. Dwornik, SP4 Edward T. Kiezkowski, SP4 David R. Mann, SP4 Dennis R. Meetze, and SFC Luther R. Perkins (who died of his wounds on June 9, 1969). Another nineteen were wounded. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org and digitaledition.qwinc.com]