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| HM3 Roderick J. Pierce states, This photo has stirred a lot of memories for me. The individual to my right looks like HM3 Robert L. "Bob" Wickliffe, India Company Senior Corpsman, who was a casualty of a mortar round at the main LZ (in the vicinity of the 106 recoilless rifles) on 22 January 1968. Because of the sand bags I see in this photo, we are, in all likelihood, back on Hill 881 S after the costly engagement between 881 S and 881 N (21 Jan), and now the actual siege has begun. To remember Doc Wickliffe's bravery with a recollection permanently etched in my memory, on 22 January he was first at the scene on the LZ, after a mortar round landed in the middle of a working party of Marines, who were retrieving supplies from a helicopter drop. Bob's bunker was immediately east of the LZ and he responded quickly to the attack, just as a second mortar round hit the LZ, and which mortally wounded Bob. I was in a bunker just south and below the LZ, and was a few seconds behind Bob to arrive at the scene. |
ROBERT LOGAN WICKLIFFE
HM3 - E4 - Navy - Regular
22 year old Single, Caucasian, Male
Born on Oct 29, 1945
in QUANG TRI, SOUTH VIETNAM
HOSTILE, GROUND CASUALTY
OTHER EXPLOSIVE DEVICE
Body was recovered
Religion
PROTESTANT
Panel 35E - - Line 13
Comments
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Photographs provided by:
Arlan B. Coyle, a Navy Pal
HM3 Wickliffe's name
is currently aboard the Stardust spacecraft, launched Feb. 7, 1999, which
visited Comet Wild-2 (pronounced Vildt-2) in 2004. Stardust spacecraft
is now returning to planet earth for recovery on 15 January 2006.
You may read more on this
project here.
I am a former Navy Hospital Corpsman and retired Texas teacher. HM3 Robert Logan Wickliffe, USN, was my best friend in Hospital Corps School. We were Southern boys with similar backgrounds. Bob was from Mississippi, and I was from Texas but we came from like family and social structures. Bob was the one person in the Navy with whom I really wanted to continue an association with after service. We corresponded frequently after Hospital Corps School. I received news of his death while helping manage a huge medical supply warehouse at the Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital. I still have a letter I received from Bob after his death. It was written from Khe Sanh. I completed my service in March of 1968 and returned to Dallas, Texas. With Bob's death fresh on my mind I found out that my high school class mate, Jane Tatum, was his cousin. Twenty years later Jane put me in touch with Bob's mother and brother in Natchez and his aunt who lived here in Dallas. Through her I got to know and visit with those fine folks. Sadly in recent years Bob's brother, a fellow teacher, slipped on winter ice, struck his head and died. Bob's mother and aunt were in their 90s and in a Natchez nursing home when I checked on them a couple of years ago. Bob is buried in New Orleans, and I intend to visit his grave while I'm still on top of the grass. My Marine friends, who have become old wind breakers like me, annually drag me to a Marine Corps Birthday party here in Dallas as a token "Squidly the Corpsman". Sometimes I think of Bob on January 22, the day of his death... but always on the Tenth of November.
Thank you for remembering him.
Chris
HM2 Christopher S. Barker III, USNR,
Serving from 1965 through 1968
S E M P E R F I !
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