5 served in Vietnam, 1 came home: Vero Beach High School survivor remembers '66 classmates
The Vietnam War took a heavy toll on the students and families of Vero Beach High School’s Class of 1966. As our involvement in the war deepened, and especially after North Vietnam launched its deadly Tet Offensive, the news of our classmates serving in the Army and killed in action began arriving home one by one:
Spc.4 James Ellis Loudermilk, Dec. 27,1967; Pfc. Franklin Clovis, Feb. 8, 1968; Sgt. Stephan Max Wiggins, March 30, 1968, and, 1st Lt. Mark Jackson, Oct. 28,1969.
For the sleepy little town of Vero Beach, and especially the Class of ’66, the Vietnam War was no longer some distant, emotionless event viewed only on the evening news with Walter Cronkite.
These were our classmates. They were our friends. Their lives held as much promise as any of ours. But they answered their nation’s call to arms fighting for their country in Vietnam.
About the author: Vero Beach dropout reflects on IRSC career, having had life 'scared into him' in Vietnam
The following accounts of our VBHS classmates' respective fates were confirmed by interviewing eyewitnesses, conducting internet searches that produced podcasts, military documents, and written accounts posted on their Army units' websites, the YouTube channel, True Stories of the Vietnam War and several books with detailed accounts of the specific battles where they lost their lives.
On this Memorial Day, I’m honored to share the stories of their fate and final moments of life with their hometown community.
As the saying goes, “The fallen will only be forgotten if we fail to tell their stories!”
Pfc. Franklin Clovis
Franklin arrived in Vietnam on Jan 15, 1968, and was assigned to the 2nd platoon of Alpha Company, 198th Light Infantry Brigade. On Thursday morning Feb. 8, Franklin’s 2nd platoon anchored the left flank of the company’s horizontal skirmish line when they encountered a dike the villagers used to traverse the muddy rice paddy. Hoping to provoke the enemy into revealing their relative strength and armaments, they were ordered to empty a magazine of ammunition into the tree line, disguising the village.
The battle-hardened North Vietnamese soldiers (NVA) complied by immediately launching human-wave assaults, supported by overwhelming gunfire from their arsenal of weapons. But it was a protrusion in the S-shaped section of the tree line directly in front of Franklin’s 2nd platoon that created the perilous and inescapable death trap for them.
By placing the enemy 50 yards closer to the dike than the rest of the forward units, the NVA in the protruding section of the tree line had low-crawled the remaining distance to the dike, where they remained concealed until the 2nd platoon had finished emptying their magazine of ammunition.
Now the NVA unleashed their savage ambush on Franklin’s 2nd platoon. They swarmed out of the trench line from their concealed positions on the other side of the dike, making the feared hand-to-hand combat unavoidable. The NVA was so close that many of the men didn’t even have time to insert another clip of ammunition before the enemy was on top of them.
The 2nd platoon had walked straight into the vortex of the deadly ambush and was quickly being outflanked, encircled and overrun by the numerically superior force.
Eyewitnesses have Franklin’s 2nd platoon fighting with everything and anything they had ― rifle butts, handguns, bayonets, helmets, hand-to-hand — it was a ferocious and terrifying fight to the death. To make matters worse, 2nd platoon and the NVA were so intermingled and engaged in such close-quarter fighting that none of the other platoons could fire in support for fear of risking casualties from friendly fire.
Not wanting to risk losing the entire company, the order was given to withdraw. But it was too late for Franklin’s 2nd platoon. By enveloping their position, the NVA had cut off their escape route and ended any chance of them surviving the ambush.
Cut off, Franklin remained at the dike to help provide the cover fire that allowed Alpha Company to gather its wounded and withdraw to safety. After supporting the withdrawal, Franklin rejoined a defensive position at the dike, where he fought valiantly and killed numerous NVA soldiers until he, too, fell mortally wounded.
Franklin was 20 years old. His headstone is in Section G, Block 2, Lot 021, Space B of Crestlawn Cemetery in Vero Beach.
1st Lt. Mark Jackson
Article from Nov 6, 1969 Press Journal (Vero Beach, Florida)
Mark arrived in Vietnam July 13, 1969, and was assigned to D Troop, 3rd Squadron, 4th Calvary, 25th Infantry Division. On Tuesday, Oct. 28, Mark was flying a visual reconnaissance mission in his Hughes OH-6 Cayuse light observation helicopter supported by a Bell AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter.
The helicopter tactics developed for Vietnam partnered an observation helicopter (scout) with a heavily armed gunship (Cobra), to create hunter-killer teams. The hunter (scout) would track the enemy by deploying its state-of-the-art human-tracking technology, the people sniffer.
The bloodhound-analogous technology allowed the scout pilots to track their foe by following the scent trails created from food prep or lingering odors from such human excrements as urine, feces and sweat. Once the scout’s people-sniffer had pinpointed the enemy’s position, the heavily armed Cobra would swoop in and expend its inventory of rocket and machine gun ordnance to decimate the enemy force.
At approximately 10 on Tuesday morning Oct. 28, Mark dropped his scout down and started following a prominent enemy trail that ended in a wall of trees that stood some 75 to 100 feet tall. And when Mark reached the tree line, the enemy unleashed a hail of automatic weapons fire, knocking his scout out of the sky.
Circling above in their Cobra gunship, the aircraft commander, Lt. Sam Dooling, and pilot-gunner CW2 Jack Craig, observed Mark’s helicopter nosedive and crash into the dense tree line below.
Following the green-and-yellow tracer trail from the enemy’s gunfire to pinpoint their position, they expended the Cobra’s inventory of rocket and machine gun ammunition directly into the area.
Once the gunfire was suppressed, they landed the Cobra gunship and attempted to rescue Mark, his crew chief and forward observer. After Jack and Sam pulled the two crew members to safety, Jack crawled on top of the mangled scout and squirmed through an almost impenetrable wall of thick jungle vegetation to reach the pilot’s bubble. But unfortunately, he found Mark had sustained a fatal head wound and had been killed instantly.
Mark was 21. His headstone is in Section A, Block 1, Lot 092, Space A of Crestlawn Cemetery.
Spc. 4 James Ellis Loudermilk
James arrived in Vietnam on April 24, 1967, and was assigned to Charlie Company, 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 199th Light Infantry Brigade. James was the radio operator for the first platoon and was attached at the hip with his platoon leader, 1st Lt. Richard Solczyk.
At 8:15 Wednesday morning, Dec. 27, Charlie Company boarded helicopters to pursue an elusive enemy force in the Bien Hoa region. The company was on the ground by 8:30 a.m. and moved out in pursuit of the combined North Vietnamese Army and Vietcong force that had remained concealed and undetected by the jungle’s triple-layered canopy.
Around 9:25 a.m., the company came across two Vietcong bodies lying near an abandoned bunker complex. After finding a blood trail, the battalion was contacted to have a combat-tracker team flown in to find the elusive enemy. Once the dogs and handlers arrived, the four platoons were collapsed into a column of twos to quicken the pace and minimize the noise from a large body of men trekking through the dense jungle foliage.
At approximately 2 p.m., the trackers spotted three Vietcong setting up a huge (36 inches in diameter), Claymore-type mine directly in the path of the approaching company. The handlers paused to send directions back to the column to go around the mine and avoid the deadly blast radius. Once passed, they could cut the wires and disable the explosive device.
As the lead column approached the mine’s location, Solzcyk and James went left with the 1st squad, while the 2nd squad went right to avoid the deadly blast area. But for some inexplicable reason, Solzcyk discarded the scout team’s warning and left the safety of the line. With his radiotelephone operator in tow, he moved toward the mine for a closer look. And when Solzcyk and James entered the kill zone, one of the three previously observed Vietcong detonated the mine from his concealed position.
A lightly wounded Spc. 4 Tim Szelagowski rushed forward to see if he could offer assistance to his platoon leader and radiotelephone operator, but unfortunately, he found that Solczyk had been killed instantly and James was mortally wounded. James spent his last few seconds of life in Szelagowski’s arms, where he took his final breath.
James was 20 years old. His headstone is in Section G, Block 2, Lot 032, Space A of Crestlawn Cemetery.
Sgt. Stephan Max Wiggins
Steve arrived in Vietnam on July 28, 1967, and was assigned to C-Troop, 3rd Squadron, 5th Calvary, 9th Infantry Division.
As track commander of the 16-track (1st platoon, #6 armored vehicle), Steve occupied the cupola seat on top of the track and manned the 50-caliber machine gun. Each track was also equipped with two M-60 machine guns to bolster firepower.
On Saturday March 30, 1968, C-Troop was conducting a search-and-destroy mission in an area where they had received intelligence reports of enemy activity. Around 1:30 p.m., C-Troop's six armored vehicles were in an online (horizontal) assault position with the tracks spaced 20-25 yards apart, when they encountered a hedge-row-type obstacle that the tracks had paused to negotiate.
Except for Steve's 16-track.
Unlike the other armored vehicles, there was a break in the berm directly in front of Steve’s vehicle, allowing it to continue moving forward unimpeded. After advancing some 20-25 yards ahead of the others, Steve’s 16-track entered the kill zone of an awaiting NVA ambush.
Out front, Steve’s vehicle functioned like a huge metal magnet as the enemy concentrated its barrage of rocket, machine gun and automatic weapons fire in an attempt to destroy the intruder that had encroached on their entrenched position.
According to Steve’s best friend and eyewitness, Sgt. Ed Kosmalski, multiple rocket-propelled grenades scored direct hits on the front, sides and rear of Steve’s vehicle, while automatic weapons and machine gun fire simultaneously riddled the lightly armored track. The intense hailstorm of rocket explosions and other pyrotechnics set the 16-track on fire and blew Steve out of the track commander’s position, toppling him to the ground.
With the battle still raging, C-Troop’s medic, Spc. 4 Earnest Garcia, rushed forward to aid Steve, but found him mortally wounded from the numerous rocket fragmentations and bullet wounds he had sustained during the initial torrent of enemy fire.
Steve was 20 years old. His headstone is in Section G, Block 2, Lot 045, Space B of Crestlawn Cemetery.
Harvey Arnold, 76, of Tallahassee, was classmates of the aforementioned men before dropping out of school and joining the Army in January 1965. He served a year in Vietnam before returning home, getting his education, including a Ph.D. in economics, and serving as a professor and administrator at Indian River State College for 44 years, including 17 as provost/president of the Ken Pruitt Campus in Port St. Lucie.Email: Polychrome1809@gmail.com
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Memorial Day: Remembering the fallen from Vero Beach High Class of '66
