Ripples from Vietnam are still felt

[thedrifter]

o long gone, so long...Unforgotten

By:Mark Lomasney
Special to the News-Herald
07/09/2003

Ripples from Vietnam War are still felt

"And I wonder who that kid was standing brave & trim,

And I hear myself breathe and I know that I was him.


Defender of the poor and those who cannot speak,


I thought I'd be standing by the dam trying to stop the leak.


Stand & be counted, stand on the truth,


Stand on your honor, stand & be counted."


- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young





In the Sudan during the Franco-Prussian War in the 19th century, the young French Cavalry attacked the new-age artillery of the Germans in wave after wave of senseless charges.


Viewing the carnage, the king of Prussia lowered his spyglass and murmured to his aide, "Haah! ... Les brave gens."


The United States, too, sent its "brave young men" against the guns of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese army during the 1960s and '70s in an attempt to stop the spread of communism in southeast Asia.


From nation to state to county to community, the United States called upon its native sons to take up arms to defend democracy and liberate the oppressed.


In this case, it was a Third World country thousands of miles away in a place few Americans had ever heard of - South Vietnam.


This is a series about the families of 15 young men from the nurserylands of Mentor, who undertook their country's call to arms. They all fought and died in Vietnam.





"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;


For he today that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother."


- William Shakespeare,


Henry V, Act IV, Scene 3





The first to make the ultimate sacrifice for his country was Marine Lance Cpl. Paul "Mike" Mitchell, on Oct. 5, 1966.


Mitchell "was a Marine before he joined the Marines," said Gene Branem, his neighbor and best friend.


"Mike was one tough kid who could be the best friend you ever had or your worst enemy, but if he was your friend, his loyalty was unquestioned," he said.


An accomplished American Legion baseball player, Mitchell was being scouted by the Cleveland Indians. He was bored in school, however, and found his niche after joining the Marines in 1966 and becoming a military policeman in Portsmouth, N.H.


Mitchell would later volunteer for combat duty so a fellow Marine with a wife and children would not have to serve.


Little more than a month after his arrival in Vietnam, he was killed with a bullet wound to the chest. He was awarded the Silver Star for carrying his commanding officer out of the line of fire.


His memory has been kept alive at Mentor High School each spring with the Paul "Mike" Mitchell Most Valuable Player award for baseball.


* * *


The second from Mentor was Marine Pfc. Jack Logan, who died at a place called the Rockpile in the Quang Tri Province in South Vietnam.


Logan, 23, was among 16 Marines killed in December 1966 near the Cambodian border when a plane dropped several 500-pound bombs on a Rockpile hillside, where they ricocheted off shale and fell upon his reconnaissance patrol in the jungle below.


"He was a live wire: handsome, athletic, full of spirit," recalled Jon Coatoam, a high school classmate, best friend and college roommate.


"Jack was a top-notch wrestler at 135 pounds, but could bench-press almost 190. He was co-captain of the wrestling team his senior year in 1961, and Jack also played football, baseball and track."


He married high school sweetheart Alisa Dice in 1962 and attended Ohio University, intending to major in chemistry. He later left school and worked as a lab technician.


Then in February 1966, he joined the Marines, where he was assigned as a scout in S-2 intelligence.


The day before he was killed, Logan rescued Cpl. Ken Garthee, a Marine wounded in the chest during an ambush on a place called Razorback Ridge. He dragged Garthee to safety while returning fire with his M-16.


Logan wrapped Garthee in a poncho and transported him down the hills and ridges in darkness. When a chopper eventually arrived, Logan loaded Garthee inside.


The next day, Logan was killed accidentally by "friendly fire."


"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."


- George Orwell





On May 26, 1967, Marine Cpl. James Menart, 19, who left Mentor Schools in 1965, was next to die, followed by Army Spc. 4 Lloyd Sellers, 21, a Euclid High School graduate, who was killed in May 1967 by machine gun crossfire in the Mekong Delta.


Sellers was married to the former Sandra Clark and had a 4-month-old son, Denny Lloyd, living in Mentor.


The next month, Army Spc. 4th Class Howard Mucha, 22, who had attended Mentor Schools in his youth, died as a result of mortar fire at Lai Khe, South Vietnam, while preparing a defense perimeter for a landing zone during a firefight.


The sixth and seventh casualties of the war with Mentor ties both died in April 1968.


Lt. j.g. Stuart McLellan, 25, piloting an Orion PC3 reconnaissance plane, was shot down over the Gulf of Thailand on April 1. Army Sgt. Lloyd E. Stroisch, 22, succumbed April 12 to wounds he had received near the Cambodian border as a door gunner on a Huey helicopter.


* * *


With the Tet Offensive in full swing, two more popular native sons - Dean Nicholas and Timothy Stickle, ages 21 and 19, respectively - died in southeast Asia.


Dean Edward Nicholas was particularly well-known because then-News-Herald Staff Writer David W. Jones had written a four-part story following him through Marine boot camp.


continued

[thedrifter]

President of his freshman and senior classes, a varsity letterman in three sports and a two-time state qualifier in wrestling, he was, according to high school best friend Paul Ruez, "One of the best-known and well-liked kids in Mentor, a friend like no other."


Glenna Peck Alland, Nicholas' fiancee, remembered, "When you met Dean, you knew you had met someone special. He was the perfect All-American kid: kind and gentle, very religious, faithful, yet strong and brave."


Larry Disbro, a high school friend and now assistant superintendent personnel/community relations for the Mentor School District, recalls Nicholas as "a guy who could not be denied success in any aspect of his life. He had the heart of a locomotive."


It was not a surprise that Nicholas almost "aced" his boot-camp qualification test and graduated at the top of his class as a lance corporal, a rare achievement during wartime training.


Serving in Kilo Company, 3rd Marine Regiment, 9th Marine Division in Quang Tri Province just south of the 17th Parallel, Nicholas was the "blooper man" who carried an M-79 grenade launcher.


During a morning-to-afternoon firefight on an obscure ridge near the Rockpile, "Dean expended his ammunition, keeping the North Vietnamese army out of our positions, and after pulling a dying Marine off the ridge into a shell hole, Lance Cpl. Dean Nicholas was hit in the head by small arms fire and was killed instantly," according to his platoon commander.


Nicholas, Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient, is remembered each year at Mentor High School with the selection of the Most Valuable Wrestler award.





"Go tell the Spartans thou, who passest by,


that here, obedient to their laws, we lie."


- Simonides Epitaph at Thermopylae, from "The Classical Greek"





Dennis Hammond, Timothy Stickle's half-brother, recalls a young, bull-necked halfback on the football team, an "avid hunter, expert marksman and mechanic who worked on planes at Casement Airport. He was a perfect fit for the Marine Corps."


Only "in country" for six months, Stickle was serving as fire team leader with Bravo Company, First Battalion, 1st Marine Division, Quang Nam Province, when he was killed by automatic weapon fire while walking point for his platoon.


"Just like him to take the lead," Hammond said. "He was never one to shy from responsibility, only this one time, it cost him his life."


What Stickle did not know was that his heroism in saving a fellow Marine from a gunfire-swept battlefield in early December, had won him the Bronze Star with a "V" for valor, and a promotion to lance corporal.


* * *


Three more Mentor men would die during the first two months of 1969.


As the war continued, the next Mentor casualty was Cpl. David W. Reimer, who stepped on a land mine while on patrol and was killed instantly on Jan. 25, 1969, at age 21.


After an agonizing week of not knowing the fate of Warrant Officer George E. Hayward, his parents were informed he died of burns related to the crash of his Huey helicopter on Feb. 5, 1969, at age 19. As a member of the Helicopter 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, Hayward was awarded the prestigious Distinguished Flying Cross for Gallantry in Action, as well as a Bronze Star. His memory is honored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars post that bears his name.


Serving with the 3rd Medical Battalion, 3rd Marine Division out of Dong Ha, South Vietnam, 19-year-old Michael Ness, who had been working in a children's hospital, was killed by an errant round from an M-16.


"You are a credit to the Marine Corps for your commendable duty during security patrol at a children's hospital in Vietnam," his citation read.


Ness, who enjoyed tinkering on cars, is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Painesville.


The 13th young man from Mentor was Marine Pfc. William R. Dickey, killed in Quang Tri Province by hostile gunfire on Aug. 10, 1969, at age 20. Dickey, who lived in Mentor-on-the-Lake, had left Mentor High School his sophomore year.


Spc. 4th Class Norman Paley, who had lived in Mentor for almost two years before entering the Army, was a crew chief/door gunner on a helicopter when he was severely wounded by hostile ground fire on a mission near the Laotian border. He died from his wounds on May 2, 1970, at age 21, and is buried in All Souls Cemetery in Chardon Township.


Warrant Officer Dale Pearce, 20, became Mentor's only MIA.


A helicopter pilot with Company C, 158th Aviation Battalion/Assault, 101st Airborne (Screaming Eagles) Division, he was shot down northwest of Hue City on May 17, 1971. Attempting to rescue a reconnaissance patrol team in a heavily forested mountainous area, his helicopter took a direct hit from a rocket-propelled grenade.


After the copter crashed, at least one pilot was seen running from the downed aircraft. Rescue, however, was impossible.


Throughout the night and into the morning, an emergency pilot beeper was heard by rescue aircraft. When assault troops finally reached the crash site, two gunners were found still alive, but the pilots, including Pearce, were never found.


Pearce, who was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart, had flown more than 300 missions in less than three months. He was declared MIA/ Killed in Action. He was the 15th and final native son of Mentor to die in the Vietnam War.


In summary, one Mentor soldier was killed by friendly fire; another was missing in action. One was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross; one earned the Silver Star. Five were Bronze Star recipients, and several died trying to save the life of a comrade. In total, they won 23 Purple Hearts.


These young men from the heartland of America had all given their lives for duty, honor and country.


©The News-Herald 2003

http://www.news-herald.com/site/news...id=21849&rfi=6



Ken Blaze/News-Herald
Flags fly over the Vietnam memorial obelisk at Mentor Memorial Cemetery.



Sempers,

Roger

[Graceful Citize]

"WHAT IS AMERICA TO ME?"

BY: MICHAEL THOMAS GRACE


The town I live in
The street, the house, the room
The pavement of the city
Or a garden all in bloom
The church the school the clubhouse
The millions lights I see
Especially the people
That's America to me

The House I live In
Frank Sinatra

The young men from Mentor, so far from home, so very far from America.
It was just past noon, 45 years ago today. It was a day best described as hot, humid, and miserable, but they were the United States Marine Corps, our countries best and brightest. It was their Marine duty. They were fighting on the ROCKPILE, far from the town they lived in, outside Cleveland in northeastern Ohio.

The day was 5 October 1966; it was the second day of fierce and hard-core battle against a deeply embedded and large numbered force of NVA soldiers. It was on that day, the 4th Marines, 3rd Battalions automatic rifleman from the second platoon, Lance Corporal Paul H. "Mike” Mitchell, a loved son, brother, friend and schoolmate perished in the battle of OPERATION PRAIRIE FIRE III. Already painfully wounded from enemy gunfire to his hand early that morning, the 20-year-old Lance Corporal Mitchell boldly rescued while under intense direct enemy small arms fire, a badly wounded fellow Marine, his commanding officer and successfully saved him before passing.

HE DIED SERVING AMERICA, SAVING A BROTHER AND HELPING A NATION OF PEOPLE IN NEED.
HE WAS MY UNCLE MIKE.

On Veterans Day, 11 November 1970, almost exactly 4 years after Lance Corporal Mitchell's passing, I was born and graciously named after my late Uncle Mike his big brother my Uncle Tom, and my hero father. I am honored to carry such a proud and noble name, but then again, I feel I am a blessed man. A proud husband and four-time father, blessed to have come from a wonderful family, and having had an unwavering upbringing based on truth, faith, compassion and integrity. I am a combat veteran and former street I cop and feel blessed to be alive. Fortunate and blessed to have had the opportunity to have served my nation, to having traveled to every continent on this great planet, to know and have, great friends alive and dead. I am blessed to hail from Ohio-America, the greatest nation under God.

The above title reads, “What is America to me?” It is a portion of a songs lyrics from “THE HOUSE I LIVE IN” a song written about our nation, its history, its glory, and those who served us by answering the calls to duty.

So, what is America to you?