THE WALL OF FACES

Petty Officer Second Class Manolito Wisco Castillo, Served with Headquarters, United States Naval Support Activity (Saigon), Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV).

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

SK2 Manolito Wisco Castillo is buried in Libingang Katoliko (Catholic Cemetery) in Pulilan, Bulacan, Philippines.

Your sacrifice is not forgotten.

SEMPER FI

BOMB KILLS 13 AT U.S. EMBASSY
SAIGON — A Viet Cong terrorist bomb exploded outside the U.S. embassy today [March 30],1965, killing 13 persons, including two Americans, and injuring more than 180 others. One American, a 21- year-old woman secretary, died when a car driven up to the embassy by a terrorist exploded. A second American, a U.S. Navy petty officer, later died of injuries. A list released by U.S. and Vietnamese officials said 13 Americans were in hospitals, seven of them seriously injured. — New York Herald Tribune, European Edition, March 31, 1965.

Stevens Point Daily Journal - April 1, 1965, Stevens Point, Wisconsin

Police in Saigon announced the arrest of another Viet Cong terrorist involved in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy. One of the bombers was arrested at the scene and a companion was killed in the blast. Police said the terrorist was arrested at a hospital where he was trying to get the names of all the casualties. They said he admitted under questioning that he was a Viet Cong and had been trying to learn whether the driver of the bomb car actually had been killed in the explosion.

Memorial services were held today in the American Chapel at the Saigon Military Airfield for the American secretary and U.S. Navy enlisted man killed in the bombing Tuesday. Other American secretaries wounded in the blast wept openly during the service. Vietnamese government officials pinned a medal on the casket of Barbara Robbins, 21, of Denver, Colorado, and two medals on the casket of Storekeeper 2C Manolito Castillo, a Filipino serving in the U.S. Navy.

Miss Robbins was on the second floor of the five-story concrete embassy building when the powerful bomb went off. Castillo was believed to have been entering the building, or was in its consulate section when the blast occurred. The consulate section was destroyed.

After the service, the coffins were taken to a waiting U.S. Air plane to be flown home. The explosion injured 52 Americans, seven of them seriously. No motive was established. The Vietnamese government announced today that its final count of the tragedy's toll was 122 dead or wounded. The other dead were 13 Vietnamese and one person whose nationality not yet been determined.

SK2 Manolito Wisco Castillo was the husband of Marcelia V. Castillo, of Pulilan, Bulacan, in the Philippines.