Youth, Duty, and One Marine’s Ultimate Sacrifice
By Jack Emery
David Dee Brown Jr.
October 10, 1949 - April 16, 1968
David Brown’s Marine Corps portrait (Find A Grave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/419267/david-dee-brown). He was 18 years old when he made the ultimate sacrifice, just four days into his one-year rotation in country in Vietnam.
Death is an inescapable tragedy of any war. In many cases, the servicemen and women who make the ultimate sacrifice are young and would have had a full life ahead of them. David Brown Jr. was one of the thousands of young men who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Vietnam War when he was killed in the Quảng Tri province in Vietnam.
David Dee Brown Jr. was born in Wrangell, Alaska on October 10, 1949, to Dave and Helen Brown.[1] Sometime in his early life, David and his family moved from Wrangell to Denver, Colorado. David spent the rest of his childhood and teenage years growing up in Denver before answering the call to serve in Vietnam in 1968.
David’s headstone at Fort Logan National Cemetery (Find A Grave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/419267/david-dee-brown)
On April 12, 1968, David joined Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, better known as the 1/9 Marines, in Quảng Trị, the South Vietnamese province just south of the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ. The DMZ was a strip of land that divided Vietnam into the Communist North and the U.S.-backed South.[2] The unit David was serving with, the 1/9 Marines, was already known for taking notoriously high casualties throughout the war, earning the battalion the nickname “The Walking Dead.”[3] The battalion was given this grim moniker through four years of almost constant combat operations and an astronomic casualty rate. From 1965 to 1969, “The Walking Dead” had 747 killed in action as well as thousands more wounded. For reference, a Marine rifle battalion like the 1/9 at full strength would have 800 Marines.[4] 1/9 Marines took part in large-scale combat operations in 1965 and 1966 before being transferred to the area around the DMZ in 1967; it was around the deadly DMZ that casualty rates began to rise for the Marines. 1/9 reinforced Khe Sanh Combat Base while it was under attack from North Vietnamese forces, and played an integral role in breaking the siege.[5] For the rest of 1968 and the first half of 1969, the Marines of 1/9 continued to sustain high casualty rates while conducting operations around the Khe Sanh area before being rotated to Okinawa in the summer of 1969.[6]
Map of the Khe Sanh Valley (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Scotland_II#/media/File:Kasa.jpg)
Immediately after David joined the unit, the 1/9 Marines were sent to take part in Operation Scotland II, a security operation around the Khe Sanh Combat Base.[7] The operation started on April 16, 1968 with Company A carrying out a patrol southwest of Hill 689 in the Khe Sanh Combat Area. Almost immediately, the company came under fire from entrenched NVA (North Vietnamese Army) forces and began taking casualties.[8] With A Company pinned down, D and C, David’s company, were sent to relieve the battered Marines. While C Company was pushing around Hill 689 to relieve A Company, NVA soldiers ambushed the Marines from fortified bunkers. It was on this hill, on his way to help his fellow Marines, that David was killed in action.[9] On April 16, 1968, just four days into his tour, David Brown Jr. was killed by an enemy explosive device on the southern side of Hill 689 near Khe Sanh.[10]
On panel 50E, line 12 of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C., reads the name David D. Brown Jr.[11] What the wall does not tell you is that David was only 18 years old when he made the ultimate sacrifice, just four days into his one-year rotation in country. The tragic sacrifices made by young men like David should be remembered and honored.
Footnotes ↓
[1] “PFC David Dee Brown Jr.,” Find A Grave, n.d., accessed July 27, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/419267/david-dee-brown.
[2] “U.S., Vietnam War Military Casualties, 1956-1998,” entry for David Dee Brown Jr, database, accessed July 28, 2021, https://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=3095&h=99586&tid=&pid=&queryId=f4bae7e6945e09fd2e78bcdf1afa8fff&usePUB=true&_phsrc=prF187&_phstart=successSource.
[3] James Elphick, “How 1/9 Marines Became ‘The Walking Dead,’” Real Clear Defense, n.d., accessed July 28, 2021, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/10/26/how_19_marines_became_the_walking_dead_110260.html.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Jack Shulimson, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Defining Year, 1968 (History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1997), 312.
[8] Ibid., 313.
[9] Ibid., 314.
[10] “U.S., Vietnam War Military Casualties, 1956-1998,” entry for David Dee Brown Jr, database, accessed July 28, 2021, https://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=3095&h=99586&tid=&pid=&queryId=f4bae7e6945e09fd2e78bcdf1afa8fff&usePUB=true&_phsrc=prF187&_phstart=successSource.
[11] “Vietnam Wall,” Fold3, n.d., accessed July 30, 2021, https://www.fold3.com/image/48064217?rec=48323850.
More Stories
