THE WALL OF FACES

Thank you for your service to our country so long ago sir. As long as you are remembered you will always be with us….

Dear PFC Ronald Ward, Thank you for your service as an Infantryman. Saying thank you isn't enough, but it is from the heart . Today we honor those who have passed. We remember you. Please watch over America, it still needs your strength, courage, guidance and faithfulness, especially now. Rest in peace with the angels.

The “Friends of Rocky Versace” remember one of the 68 men whose name is chiseled into stone beneath a Gold Star at the Captain Rocky Versace Plaza and Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Private First Class Ronald Wayne Ward, U.S. Army, on what would’ve been his 75th birthday – 9 June 2022.

The “Friends of Rocky Versace” remember one of the 68 * men whose name is chiseled into stone beneath a Gold Star at the Captain Rocky Versace Plaza and Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Private First Class Ronald Wayne Ward, U.S. Army, on what would’ve been his 74th birthday – 9 June 2021.

* 68th name, for MIA 1LT Lawrence E. Lilly, added on 15 November 2018.

On May 22, 1967, A Company, 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division, was conducting search and destroy operations near Duc Pho in in Quang Ngai Province, RVN. At 6:00 AM, as the company entered the small village of Dien Troung (4), an outbreak of automatic weapons occurred. First and Second Platoons became heavily engaged in open rice paddies on the north side of the hamlet. Third Platoon and the company command group moved across Highway QL-1 and entered the northwest corner of the village but were stopped by intense enemy fire. The entire company was now pinned down with the command group suppressed in a peanut patch. Thirty-two hours later, and after the liberal use of gunships, airstrikes, some 2000 artillery shells, and three more rifle companies, A Company was finally able to break contact and withdraw. Artillery and air power was then placed on the village. On the 23rd, B Company, 1/35, entered the village at noon and became heavily engaged. At 2 PM, Company C moved into a blocking position nearby. Company A now occupied a position west of QL-1, with three platoons on line. At 4 PM, B Company, 2/35th was assaulted onto a hill southwest of Dien Truong where it also moved into blocking positions. The enemy continued to fight throughout the night as artillery pounded their position and gunships and flareships screened the open ground to the north. The next morning, following three airstrikes and behind a smokescreen, Companies A and B assaulted the village. They met only minor contact, and by 3 PM the village complex was occupied. A total of eighty-seven North Vietnamese Army soldiers were killed, one captured, and forty-nine weapons discovered. Ten Americans died in the engagement. They included (from B/1/35) PFC Kenneth G. Worman, SP4 Leonard A. Morgan, SP4 Moses L. Poindexter, and PFC Ronald W. Ward; (from A/1/35) PFC Harry J. McGuire III and SP4 Robert L. Murphy; and (from HHC1/35) PFC Merlin F. Caldwell. SSG Pedro A. Cruz, from the 19th Psychological Operations Company, was killed while doing broadcasting over loudspeakers when village was attacked. And PFC John A. Mietus and PFC Russell D. Needham, from A Troop, 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry, 101st Airborne Division, were lost as their unit responded to the battle. Morgan, Ward, and McGuire were each posthumously awarded the Bronze Star medal for bravery. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org]