Vietnam: the six — Walkerton's whole share of the county's fifty-four

1966 – 1975 · claimed from the county allocation, told man by man

The allocation: St. Joseph County's Vietnam dead stand at 54 on the Virtual Wall's home-of-record lists, a figure the South Bend pass verified three ways — against the Defense Department's casualty file extract and the Wall's two renderings — and the allocation is exact: thirty-one for South Bend, sixteen for Mishawaka, six for Walkerton, and one for Osceola. The six are claimed here from that banking and identified from the primary records themselves — the Virtual Wall's Indiana home-of-record page and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund's Wall of Faces, both read first-hand, joined with the federal casualty file's Indiana rendering and the county veterans index. The Wall's page prints the six under WALKERTON in one block, and there are no others: SGT Donald Ray Coldeberg; CPL Donnie Ray Harley; SSGT Samuel Eugene Hewitt; SGT Louis Joseph Maher Jr; LCPL David Lee Skinner; CPL Lynn Leroy Smith.

Sergeant Donald Ray Coldeberg — U.S. Army. Born 29 April 1945; died 3 March 1967, aged twenty-one. The federal casualty file's category: hostile, died in action of wounds. His name stands on the Wall at Panel 16E, Line 8. His unit did not surface in any source — the browser's text rendering of the Wall's state page does not carry its memorial-page links out, and the unit hunts run for him (the Wall's title patterns, the honor-roll sites, the Coffelt class) returned nothing that could be read first-hand — and the county veterans index's C page, where his row would stand, is the page that refused the fetch. His unit and his index row are therefore carried as named gaps together, with one settler for both: his full profile in the Coffelt Database and on the Virtual Wall, and the index's C page on a later pass. Everything else the file prints of him is at record strength, and it is enough to hold his place in the six.

Corporal Donnie Ray Harley — U.S. Army. Born 28 June 1948; died 27 May 1969, aged twenty. The federal file's category: hostile, killed in action. The county veterans index, which carries his row under a Walkerton attribution, adds what the federal file does not print: killed in Thua Thien Province. His name stands at Panel 23W, Line 1. His unit stands where Coldeberg's does — unretrieved, a named gap with the same settlers.

Samuel Eugene Hewitt — U.S. Marine Corps, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines — the six's hardest record, printed whole in all its conflicts. The Wall and the Wall of Faces give him as a staff sergeant (SSGT); the federal casualty file and the county veterans index give him as a sergeant (SGT, E-5); both ranks stand, unmerged. He was born 26 February 1948. On 22 March 1966, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency's account runs, he left a secured encampment near the village of Viem Dong, in Quang Nam Province, after returning from a combat patrol, and did not come back; he was declared missing on 23 March 1966. The Wall's casualty date is that declaration date, 23 March 1966, and his name stands at Panel 6E, Line 41; the federal file's death date is 1 December 1975, the presumptive finding that closed his case on paper nine years later — hostile, died in action while missing. Both dates are printed; they are different instruments measuring different things, and this section does not choose between them. The Agency's 2010 news release (18 November 2010) completes what the county could not have known for forty-four years: joint teams interviewed in Quang Nam Province from 1992 to 2010; a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command excavation in June 2010 located his remains; he was identified with extensive use of dental records; and he was buried on 19 November 2010 at Western Reserve National Cemetery, Rittman, Ohio, with full military honors. One smaller conflict rides in the same release: it calls him nineteen; his birth date in the Wall of Faces, 26 February 1948, makes him eighteen that March. Printed whole; his service record and the Coffelt entry are the settlers. Of the six, he is the one the war kept longest — and the one whose coming home is a matter of dated federal record.

Sergeant Louis Joseph Maher Jr — U.S. Army. Born 4 February 1949; died 24 March 1968, aged nineteen. The federal file's category: hostile, killed in action. The county index's row — "Maher, Louis Joseph, Jr. | Vietnam | Army | Sgt – E5 | Killed in Long An | Walkerton" — supplies the province, Long An, and the attribution in the index's own form. His name stands at Panel 46E, Line 8. His unit is the third of the four named gaps, with the same settlers.

Lance Corporal David Lee Skinner — U.S. Marine Corps. Born 13 December 1946; died 17 October 1966, aged nineteen. The county index's row: "Skinner, David Lee | Vietnam | Marines | Lcpl – E3 | Killed in Quang Nam | Walkerton." His name stands at Panel 11E, Line 84. His federal-file row was not retrieved — the Indiana rendering of the casualty file reached here caps at a thousand of the state's 1,544 rows and cuts off in the middle of the M surnames — so his casualty category stands unretrieved beside his unit in the gaps, with this section's own full row as settler; the fact and place of his death are carried at Wall and index strength, which agree.

Corporal Lynn Leroy Smith — U.S. Marine Corps, M Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, III Marine Amphibious Force — the one complete unit line among the Army-and-Marine six that the Wall's own memorial header carries. Born 25 January 1944, the oldest of the six; died 17 April 1966, aged twenty-two — the first of the six to die, three weeks after Hewitt was declared missing, in the same province's war. The county index's row gives the province as Quang Tin. His name stands at Panel 6E, Line 120.

The six together: four of them died in 1966–67, in the war's first full years; the town's losses run from March 1966 to May 1969 and then stop — no Walkerton name stands on the Wall after Harley's, though the war and the county's roll ran to 1975. Five of the six stand in the county veterans index under Walkerton attributions, with their provinces; Coldeberg's row is the one the refused page holds. None of the six carries a documented decoration in any source read, which is stated in the heroes article at its proper strength. What the town has done with the six names since — whether they are lettered anywhere in Walkerton — is the memorials article's question, and its answer there is a database negative with an in-person settler, printed as such.

Sources:

1. The banking: the South Bend build's county allocation (54 = 31 + 16 + 6 + 1), verified three ways there, claimed here as the county order directed.
2. The Virtual Wall — Indiana home-of-record page (the WALKERTON block, read) and the Lynn Leroy Smith memorial-page header (unit line).
3. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Wall of Faces — the six under home city Walkerton, read (names, ranks, birth and casualty dates, panel and line).
4. Combat Area Casualties Current File rendering (NARA), via the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center's Indiana list — the Coldeberg, Harley, Hewitt and Maher rows; the rendering's 1,000-row cap as stated.
5. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency — news release, 18 November 2010 (Hewitt identification and burial), read.
6. St. Joseph County veterans index — the Harley, Hewitt, Maher, Skinner and Smith rows, letters H, M and S read whole; the C page refused.