THE WALL OF FACES

Private First Class Calvin Franklin Butterfield, Served with Reconnaissance Team Rio Grande, 2nd Platoon, Company E, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, Third Marine Amphibious Force.

Thank you for your service and your sacrifice. America will NOT FORGET. Thank you.

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

Another year passes and I continue to honor your memory and your sacrifice. Calvin & I were born the same day in the same hospital in Pekin & were in classes together in HS. His was my fencing partner when they offered it in HS. Our mothers met in the maternity ward. Calvin was a good guy and I will always honor his memory until my last day. Ave Atque Vale my brother.

On May 14, 1968, a reconnaissance team from 2nd Platoon, E Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, call sign Rio Grande, departed the helicopter pad at LZ Finch at Camp Reasoner near Da Nang in Quang Nam Province, RVN, for a planned nine-day operation. The team was composed of thirteen Marines and one Navy corpsman. Their mission was to conduct reconnaissance and surveillance to detect possible Viet Cong (VC) troop movement in the Antenna Valley and the high ground to the southwest. During each of the first four days of the patrol, the team observed enemy movement at night and requested artillery fire missions resulting in numerous probable kills. At 11:10 PM on the 18th, the team’s position was attacked from three sides by an estimated thirty-five VC tossing grenades and CS (tear gas) and firing rifles and M79 rounds. The Americans returned fire and called in three fire missions, plus received support from a USAF AC-47 Spooky gunship. Two Marines were wounded in the action and required medical evacuation. Twenty of the black pajama-clad VC were confirmed killed and another fifteen were possible kills. One of the injured Marines, PFC Calvin F. Butterfield, was transferred to the U.S. Air Force Hospital at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines where he succumbed to fragmentation wounds to his body on May 31, 1968. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org and Command Chronology, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, May 1968, at ttu.edu]