A Memorial
09 May 1944 – 07 November 1967
By Jerome Pearson
26 May 2019
As we approach another Memorial Day, I will again write a tribute to my Uncle Jesse James Pearson who lost his life in Vietnam in November 1967. In the past I have written so much about him that I often fear that I can only repeat myself by writing about him again. Even as I have begun this tribute, I have no idea what direction I will take. What more can I say that I haven’t already said? But as the great writer Earnest Hemingway once said regarding writer’s block, “just write one true sentence!” One true sentence (unlike a false sentence), seems to be the spark that often lights our fire.
And one thing I do know is that I can always write a “true sentence”. As a matter of fact, I can write many true sentences. But I will begin with one: My Uncle Jesse left for Vietnam in September 1967 and his family never saw him again!
This sentence is true in all its aspects because we indeed never saw him again, neither dead nor alive. I say neither dead nor alive because, although the US Army sent our family a casket, it was sealed and there was no confirmation that his remains were even inside. As a former military Officer, I do know why the Military would do that and I have no issue with that practice. As a matter of fact, it has never been important to me to see any person once deceased. I know people consider the “viewing” a matter of “paying respects”, but to me paying respect is being kind to them while they are living and honoring them once they are no longer with us. I don’t need to view their remains to honor them!
My Uncle’s tour began on September 3, 1967 and I think he was killed exactly two months later. Now, I know that the Army lists his official death as occurring on Friday, November 7, 1967 but I am almost certain that is happened several days earlier, and November 7 is only the day they made it official. The Army had even sent two Military Personnel to our home on Wednesday November 5, 1967 to inform us that he was “missing in action”. Therefore, at the very least he was likely already killed by the time they tracked down his next of kin to them know that he was missing.
I have written in the past that when I was a student in college, I started reading old newspapers that were stored on micro-film. This was many years before the internet, so even though such technology may seem archaic today, it seemed advanced back then. Therefore, I would sit in SOPERS Library at Morgan State University and begin reading old newspapers. I was not reading them for class, neither was I reading them just to be reading. I had a mission! My mission was to find out more about my Uncle’s Death and exactly where he was killed in in Vietnam. My search was not guided by any instructor or any class I was taking. It was only guided by my heart!
At the time, I did not even know what unit my uncle was assigned to and what mission they had! However, based on my reading of those Newspapers, I determined back then (without any official confirmation), that my Uncle was killed on November 3, 1967 in a place called “DAK TO”. Years later with the Internet I was able to trace him to: D CO, 3RD BN, 8TH INFANTRY DIVISION. It was a unit whose members called themselves the “Ivy Dragoons”! I was also able to confirm that I was correct in the location of his death, and that he was killed in what was called The Battle for Dak TO!
In October 1967, US intelligence agencies received information that North Vietnam was preparing for a large-scale attack against US forces. Reacting to the intelligence, the US Army began reinforcing the area with multiple units for a counterattack to maintain its current position and not be overrun. My uncle had arrived in Vietnam shorty before this escalation.
“DAK To lies on a flat valley floor, surrounded by waves of ridgelines that rise into peaks (some as high as 4,000-foot that stretch westward and southwestward towards the tri-border region where South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia meet. The Province is covered by double- and triple-canopy rainforests, and the only open areas were filled in by bamboo groves whose stalks sometimes reached eight inches in diameter. Landing zones large enough for helicopters were few and far between, which meant that most troop movements could only be carried out on foot. Temperatures in the highlands could reach 95° Fahrenheit during the day and could drop to as low as 55° Fahrenheit in the evening”. In addition to being on foot, most infantryman carried backpacks and other resources that weighed a much as 100 pounds. Can you imagine running through a muggy, muddy, jungle filled with mosquitoes and snakes heading towards an enemy who might be hidden anywhere to include underground tunnels? This is the mission my 23-year old Uncle was faced with within a couple of months of arriving in Vietnam.
Search and destroy missions were conducted by rifle companies under a canopy of artillery cover and other supporting elements. However, many units were under resourced. Delta company was a small provisional company that had only two infantry platoons instead of four. Total strength was three officers and eight-five men. October 28, 1967, A and D company of the 3/8 Infantry were first troops to arrive at the Dak TO airstrip. D Company made a combat assault west and behind the advancing enemy. Contact was made with well-entered and well equipped North Vietnamese Arm (NVA) troops. The 3/8th infantry (called Ivy Dragoons) was hit. They started taking casualties before they reached the hill. They had walked into an NVA ambush and were outnumbered 10-1.”
The period between November 3 and November 22, 1967 represents one of the deadliest periods in Vietnam. In 19 days of action US Paratroopers lost 135 men, 30 of whom died as a result accidental US Air Strike on US Army positions. In total during this period, US lost 285 soldiers with 985 wounded, and 18 missing. Sadly, on one day in November of that year, approximately 80 US soldiers were killed in a single day. The Vietnamese losses during that period was worse and estimated at about 1,500. My uncle was one of those 285 US soldiers lost during that 19-day period!
I have always been curious about the phrase “missing in action” because if you truly found everyone, would any of them still be labeled as “missing”? For many years, I would see my Uncle listed as “killed missing!”, while other victims would be listed as “killed in action!”
What does that mean if indeed he was ever found? I had secretly wished that during one of my many travels I would be walking down a street in Vietnam and run into my Uncle Jesse. I don’t think that will likely happen since relationship between the US and Vietnam has improved significantly. Even my wife, Cecelia, has since visited Vietnam in recent years.
But I often think about my uncle and what his thoughts might have been after arriving in Vietnam! Afterall, he was coming from a segregated town in the State of South Carolina and was now a part of an integrated Army. Therefore, he would have a close bond with people 10,000 miles away that he would not likely have had one mile away in his own community. The military offers a kind a brotherhood that is not necessarily found outside of the military. I also wonder what he would have thought of his purpose in Vietnam. Why were we over there in the first place, and why did we have to travel so far to fight them? What did they do to us that would cause us to go so far and sacrifice so many lives?
I cannot reflect on my Uncle’s service to our country without also reflecting on what was happening in our country at that time. If I am to truly do justice to his memory, I must place in context how his dedication might be contrasted with that of some of his other brothers in arms. This is by no means to minimize the dedication they all have made in one way or another.
I think that as I remember my uncle, I must also be reminded that my uncle was willing to put his life on the line at a time when there were no assurances that his own country fully respected his rights as a full citizen.
My uncle is from the state of South Carolina. And although the year of my uncle’s death was more than 13 years after the landmark Supreme Court Case (Brown) which supposedly ended segregation in public schools, the high school he graduated from and that I would eventually graduate from was still segregated and the Brown Law was not even enforced until 3 years after my Uncle’s death. He would not live long enough learn that the state of South Carolina, despite the 1954 ruling, would later have to force integration of public schools in 1970. And even then, with the help of many Religious Institutions in our community, private schools would be created to prevent integration of public schools.
My uncle would never have known that the prominent Civil Rights Leader of that time, would himself be killed in Memphis, TN less than six months after he was killed in Vietnam.
Therefore, my uncle died without ever having the opportunity to share his thoughts, and I as his nephew can only imagine what some of them might have been!
But he might be pleased that his nephew would become educated in that same community and become a military officer.
He might also be pleased that his nephew would always remember, research, and tell his story in such a convincing manner that his legacy will never be forgotten and, thus, his service to his country would not have been in in vain!
Jerome Pearson
(Former) US ARMY Captain
(Nephew)