August 1996
Vol. 2 No. 2
~ C o n t e n t s ~
~ Features ~
~ Sports ~
Wall Recalls 10 who died in Vietnam
Capt. Thomas P. Mitchell never allowed his courage to waver, even when
he had begun to wonder if the war was worth it.
A 1959 graduate of FSU, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross,
the nation's second highest award for valor, for an act of bravery that
cost him his life in Vietnam.
There were nine others. From 1st Lt. Johnny Stephens, a popular football
star, to Capt. Michael Odum, a serious, only child; from 1st Lt. Kenneth
West, mechanically and musically gifted, to 1st Lt. Bruce Kline, an expert
on Asia, they are the FSU graduates who died in Vietnam and are honored
now on the Thomas P. Mitchell Wall of Honor in the Harpe-Johnson ROTC
building.
Their stories are different, but they appeared to share one trait: None
seemed able to do less than his best. Several died saving the lives of
others.
Whether sailing, performing in the Flying High Circus, partying at fraternities,
watching car races, or working hard to make good grades, they were ordinary
men who became extraordinary soldiers.
"They are heroes in the truest sense," said Army ROTC Maj. Greg
Moore. "The memorial not only pays respect to these graduates but also
serves to remind present and future generations of the courage and dedication
of those who have gone before them."
Cadets began the project, curious to see how many of the 59,000 who died
in the Vietnam War were FSU alumni. They found 10.
For 15 months, the cadets and staff of Seminole Battalion worked on the
memorial, which took on a life of its own as veterans' groups, businesses,
clubs and individuals came forward to sponsor a plaque for each man. Relatives
eagerly provided photographs, letters and other personal documents that
could be copied to bring each veteran to life on the wall.
All 10 men were highly decorated, and their plaques surround a bronze tribute
to the Purple Heart. Also mounted is the American flag that flew over the
U.S. Capitol Building on Feb. 25, 1996, the day the Wall was dedicated.
Outside, a new POW/MIA flag flies in honor of Maj. Dennis Neal and all MIAs
and POWs.
"A lot of these Vietnam casualties have sort of gone unnoticed or
unmentioned,"
said Roy West, a brother of 1st Lt. Kenneth West. "The families really
appreciated that the university would do this."
Cadets not yet born when the Vietnam War raged often stop at the wall to
read the plaques.
That was the hope expressed at the ceremony by U.S. Rep. Pete Peterson -
a former fighter pilot held prisoner in Vietnam for seven years: "The
bottom line is, we must never forget."
War and Remembrance:
FSU's fallen heroes
Capt. Thomas Peter Mitchell
Graduated 1959. Died March 26, 1967, Vinh Bihn Province
Vina Lee Mitchell LeBlanc was a young wife whose children were 6, 5 and
2 when her husband, Capt. Tom Mitchell, left home to advise a battalion
of South Vietnamese soldiers in the Mekong Delta.
"I remember tearfully asking him why he had to go, that we needed him
more than they did, and I asked why couldn't we just buy a little house
and all live in it like a normal family," she said.
He told her: "It's because of men like me that everyone else can have
their little house. Just remember that and try to be brave."
As a young man, Mitchell helped his father in the Winn-Dixie in Sarasota,
went to the Catholic church and loved sports. He worked his way through
FSU, studied industrial psychology and was in the Flying High Circus.
But in the Army ROTC, he found his true calling. "He was striving to
be the best," said his widow, now remarried.
In Vietnam, about 75 miles south of Saigon, Mitchell was assigned to help
the South Vietnamese troops improve. His long letters to his wife show how
hard he tried, the rigors he endured, and the cultural differences that
caused him to doubt his efforts were working.
"The worst part of this job is that we don't have a room," he
wrote. "We keep our stuff in our jeep trailer and wherever we are we
find some Americans and beg a bed and a shower and food. . .we feel like
three unwanted gypsies.
"When we are in areas where an American compound is, we eat good food
somewhat like in the States, but when on operations it is unbelievable,
mostly rice. . . sometimes we stay in local huts. . .I eat what they eat
except bats, rats and pork. . . Water is a big problem and keeping clean
impossible. . .
"I go to church when I can, in fact went today and talked to a priest
for a while about (the South Vietnamese) shooting prisoners. He said it's
their war and just don't condone it. . .
"I keep reminding myself that I can only advise and suggest. The key
is to find a way to get them to buy your ideas. . .When I think that my
unit has had American advisers like myself for years already and they are
still so poor. . ."
Though Mitchell gradually grew disillusioned, he didn't give up and tried
to do even more, working to distribute clothes and other necessities, collected
by his sister and sent to local Vietnamese.
"He was a man of principles and honorable values," said his widow.
He was killed on Easter Sunday.
Mitchell was participating in a heliborne assault when the troops on the
ground encountered heavy enemy fire. After landing safely, he saw a medical
evacuation helicopter crash and burn.
Mitchell ran across 28 yards of open rice paddy, under continuous fire,
trying to rescue the helicopter crew and wounded men who were aboard.
Five yards from the helicopter, he began to drag an injured man to safety,
placing himself between the man and the enemy fire.
As they approached the comparative safety of a rice paddy dike, Mitchell
was struck and killed outright.
"He died as he had lived," said Mrs. LeBlanc, "striving to
exemplify the principles of duty, honor, country."
Capt. Joseph Richard Harris
Graduated 1969. Died April 8, 1972, Tay Ninh Province
After waiting five weeks for a chance to call his mother, Capt. Joe Harris
had only five minutes to talk.
"The ground troops are going, and it's up to us to hold the line, but
it's too rough," he told her. "We can't do it." He'd be going
on a mission the next day, he said, but added, "I think I'll be all
right."
Joe Harris grew up an only child in the Tallahassee of the 1950s, his world
revolving around Episcopal Sunday School, Cub Scouts and an intense interest
in the military.
"It was hard to find a soldier suit for a child in the Fifties, which
was all he wanted for Christmas," said Mrs. Mary Harris. He especially
wanted to fly.
At the Marion Institute, a military school he attended in Alabama, Harris
piled up a dizzying list of credits, belonging to virtually every club and
serving as Honor Council vice president. He lettered in baseball and soccer
and played on basketball and rugby teams. He made the Commandant's List,
was Cadet of the Month and was a Distinguished Military Student.
It was training that would produce a hero before he ever left for Vietnam.
Harris spent his junior and senior years at FSU, where he majored in criminology
and was president of Kappa Alpha fraternity. The day after graduation, he
enlisted in the U.S. Army and was trained to become a fixed-wing pilot,
then a helicopter pilot.
In November 1970, at Ft. Benning, Ga., he saved the life of a fellow officer
in a gasoline explosion involving a tank.
By April 1972, his first unit had already returned from the war. Harris
spoke to his mother and flew his last rescue mission. When his helicopter
was shot down, he fought to land it.
He saved his crew and his aircraft, then died.
Mrs. Harris, secretary to the criminology department at Florida State, was
notified late on a Sunday by the FSU ROTC. She flew to West Virginia to
tell his fiancee.
"My only consolation, if it is a consolation," she said, "is
that he died doing what he wanted to do - be a part of the military and
fly."
1st Lt. John Sanford Martin
Graduated 1966. Died Oct. 8, 1967, near Da Nang
First Lieutenant John Martin was scheduled to come home in a month, said
his mother, Eva Grace Wyatt.
"The last letter I got from him said, 'I'll be home for Christmas,
Mom. I want the biggest steak you've got.' "
A Floridian from Oklawaha, Martin started winning medals in elementary school.
In high school in Ocala, he was in the honor society and won medals in
track.
"All he ever wanted to do was be in the Army," said Mrs. Wyatt.
"When he was little, he put up a flag in the back of the house and
he would run it up and down, up and down."
At FSU he liked to play football and was a member of Chi Phi, Scabbard &
Blade military honor society and the FSU Jaycees.
His degree in international affairs gave him a background that helped him
enter U.S. Army Intelligence school in Maryland, then Army Special Warfare
school at Fort Bragg.
He saw action in the war from January to October 1967 and was assigned to
the 244th Psychological Operations Company, 6th Psychological Operations
Battalion, Special Troops.
On Oct. 8, his plane left Hue and was coming into Da Nang when it went down
in a monsoon. His family carried out his wish to be buried at Arlington.
1st Lt. Bruce Eugene Kline
Graduated 1970. Died May 24, 1972, Thua Thien Province
First Lieutenant Bruce Kline had a real "Leave It To Beaver"
upbringing
of Cub Scouts and Little League, said sister-in-law Delores Kline.
"Bruce was just a normal guy. He liked girls and cars," she said.
"His brother, Doug, and I also graduated from FSU. We had grown up
together in Lakeland. Bruce was a regular at Ken's, where he liked to play
pool and drink beer."
He ate barbecue at Jim & Milt's and played all-night poker games on
weekends. Every year, he made a pilgrimage to the races at Sebring.
Born in Cincinnati, Kline went to high school in Lakeland, then on to Florida
State, where he enrolled in the ROTC and planned to be a pilot. He specialized
in Asian history and studied Chinese.
"Because of that background, Bruce probably understood better than
99 percent of the population of the United States what was going on (in
Vietnam)," Mrs. Kline said. "It was not an easy decision for him
to go."
During his tour of duty, Kline survived one crash when his helicopter was
shot down, and he was rescued.
But on Memorial Day, his family was told he'd been shot down again.
The UH-1H helicopter that Kline piloted was the Command and Control aircraft
in an operation to move Vietnamese Marines into battle. During the mission,
a CH-47 helicopter crashed nearby.
Kline diverted his own chopper to help in search and rescue, but it was
hit by enemy fire and destroyed. The wreckage was found three days later.
"A memorial service was conducted on 27 May at the Marble Mountain
Army Airfield Chapel," Capt. Harvey Wilson wrote to Mr. and Mrs. Eugene
Kline of Lakeland. "The attendance of so many of Bruce's friends and
fellow soldiers indicated the great respect held for your son by all."
Capt. Tilghman Richard McLemore
Graduated 1966. Died May 6, 1968, Hue
"We got mortared last night and a round landed 30 feet from me. . .that
sucker blew me clean out the door of my orderly room. Boy, I jumped up and
ran to the bunker. . ."
Five months after writing that letter, Capt. Tilghman McLemore was killed
in action during the terrible Hue Offensive.
North Vietnamese forces slammed 500 rounds of mortar and 100-pound rockets
into four vital U.S. headquarters in the Hue area. McLemore was commanding
officer of a company at one of them.
Tim, as he was known, was born in 1940 in West Point, N.Y., into an Army
family. His father was an instructor at the United States Military Academy.
After high school, Tim enlisted in the Army and had duty in the Airborne
Infantry at Fort Bragg, N.C., where he met his wife, Anne. They had two
sons.
"In spite of his love for the military, Tim thirsted for a college
education," said his brother, the Rev. Bill McLemore, also an FSU grad.
In 1962, Tim McLemore entered Florida State, where he majored in international
finance and was a member of Gold Key and other organizations.
Upon graduation, he was commissioned and became a finance officer at Lubbock
Air Force Base in Lubbock, Texas.
"Tim loved adventure," his brother said. "From scooting around
on his BMW motorcycle to sky-diving to earn college money, no danger seemed
too fearful."
In fact, boredom with the Air Force and the desk job prompted him in January
1967 to transfer back to the Army, where he left shortly for Fort Campbell,
Ky., to continue airborne training.
By January 1968, danger had taken on a whole new meaning.
McLemore wrote to his brother:
"During the attack, we took 108 rounds. We had one land about 75 feet
from me that killed three and wounded three. Those kids really looked bad.
I had to dig two of them out of the dirt. . ."
1st Lt. Johnnie P. Stephens Jr.
Graduated 1968. Died April 22, 1969, Quang Tin Province
The football game was against the University of South Carolina. FSU's starting
center, Johnnie Stephens, had been hurt all week and had not practiced.
"We needed him, and I told him it was up to him," the late Coach
Bill Peterson would later recall. "He said 'OK coach,' and went out
and played one of the finest games of his life."
Stephens, commissioned in 1968 as a "Distinguished Military Graduate"
of the Army ROTC, was a popular student at Florida State.
He had been a standout football player at Leon High School and an American
Legion Baseball All-Star. At FSU, he was an active member of Theta Chi
fraternity
and excelled in his studies.
His signature still is visible on the ceiling of Ken's Tavern on West Tennessee
Street.
An assistant football coach while interning at Carrabelle High School, and
winner of a Sportsmanship Award from the Quarterback Club and a Gator Bowl
Association Player Award, Stephens asked to be a graduate assistant coach
at FSU after his tour of duty.
Promised the job would be waiting, the strapping athlete with the shock
of blonde hair left a week later for Vietnam, where he took on a familiar
role as a natural leader.
"His high personal standards, conscientious hard work, warm personality
and his compassion for his men endeared every soldier to him," his
commanding officer would write to his widow, Sally.
Early on the morning of April 22, 1969, Stephens led a search-and-clear
operation near the village of Duc Tan, in northern South Vietnam. His platoon
came under intense small-arms and automatic-weapons attack, and he was mortally
wounded.
He'd been in Vietnam less than three months.
The 1969 Carrabelle High School football team dedicated its season to his
memory and pledged to "serve the principles Coach Stephens taught us."
Leon High School inducted him posthumously into its Hall of Fame. Contributions
in his name poured into a fund for the Florida Sheriffs Boys Ranch, and
continue today.
1st Lt. Kenneth Wade West
Graduated 1965. Died Oct. 4, 1966, An Kne
Kenneth West's family admired his natural curiosity and the way he was so
very good with his hands.
"Ever since he was a small kid he had always done a lot of experiments
that were scientific in nature, or automotive or electrical, or having to
do with photography," said one of his brothers, Roy West.
"He was good at understanding mechanical technologies. He had rebuilt
engines without any training. He would just undertake it and figure it out
and do it.
"He was also a self-taught musician who played the guitar and liked
to sing. I also play guitar and we used to sing a lot together. He liked
car racing. We used to go to Daytona a lot together. . ."
Only two months after he had arrived in Vietnam and not long after he and
his wife, Susan, had graduated from Florida State, First Lieutenant Kenneth
West's plane crashed into a mountainside 250 miles northeast of Saigon.
Susan had lost her father to a German torpedo in World War II. Now, the
Fort Lauderdale News reported in October 1966, "The messenger came
again."
A 1965 Distinguished Military Graduate of the Army ROTC at FSU, West, 23,
of Jacksonville, was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, before going overseas.
He had paratrooper training at Fort Benning.
He had attended FSU his junior and senior years, and majored in finance,
though he maintained a keen interest in science.
"He was an ambitious, active, energetic person," said Roy West.
"He was from a big family with five brothers and a sister. As far as
we were concerned, he was the cream of the crop."
Capt. Michael Ralph R. Odum
Graduated 1964. Died Sept. 11, 1969, Phong Dinh Province
"It's an indication of his patriotism and love of country that Michael
was on his fourth tour of duty when he was killed in Vietnam."
Those words come from Lt. Col. Robert Morris, a retired instructor in the
FSU Army ROTC, who taught Michael Odum.
"I remember him very well. He was one of those people who could always
be relied upon to come in and do the tough jobs."
Odum was 26 when he was killed in action by small arms fire.
An artillery officer with the 101st Airborne Division, he was the only son
of Christine Odum and the late Ralph Odum, an assistant state attorney general
in Tallahassee.
The 1960 Leon High School yearbook shows Odum as an earnest and thoughtful
senior who was in the Mu Alpha Theta mathematics club, was vice president
of the Thespian club, and was president of the Forensics club, which took
him all over the state to debating competitions.
After he enrolled in the Army ROTC at FSU, the military became the driving
interest of his life, and he characteristically took it very seriously.
"He spent what free time he had around the military department learning
all he could," Morris said. He was a leader in the Pershing Rifles,
and joined the Scabbard and Blade, a military honor society.
Odum graduated in 1964, received artillery training at Fort Sill, Okla.,
and went to Vietnam. After two tours of duty he could have come home for
good, but he volunteered again and again.
"Michael was very selfless and giving and patriotic," Morris said.
"I'm proud to have had him as one of my students."
Maj. Dennis Paul Neal
Graduated 1966. July 31, 1969 (Missing in Action)/Sept. 6, 1978 (Confirmed
Dead), Laos
Maj. Dennis Neal's job was to penetrate deep into enemy territory to strike
targets and collect information, as he was doing in Laos when he was ambushed.
A business major and Alpha Phi Omega member at Florida State who loved to
sail, Neal had barely graduated when he first went to war, leaving behind
identical twin David, a graduate of the University of Florida, and brother
Michael, an FSU graduate.
On his second tour of duty, Neal was the team leader on a mission for the
5th Special Forces just inside Laos, due west of the South Vietnamese city
of Hue.
He and his American partner had finished their mission and were waiting
to be lifted out of the area. One of their four South Vietnamese team members
suddenly opened fire on five enemy soldiers who were crawling up to ambush
them.
The enemy answered with rocket and machine gun fire.
Neal, his partner, and two of the four South Vietnamese were severely wounded.
The two remaining soldiers rolled Neal over and took off his emergency radio.
Over the radio, American air patrol heard the English words, "Help,
help, help. For God's sake, help." There's no way of knowing if those
were Neal's last words.
Americans later found and rescued the two South Vietnamese who had escaped
the ambush but, though search teams were dispatched, no trace ever was found
of Neal or the rest of his team.
1st Lt. Tony Harper
Graduated 1967. Died July 30, 1969, Hua Nghia Province
Rushing an enemy bunker, hurling grenades and firing his weapon on the run,
Tony Harper gave his life to rescue a wounded American soldier and fight
off the North Vietnamese firing on his men.
"Second Lieutenant Harper (he was promoted posthumously) distinguished
himself by exceptionally valorous actions," begins the citation for
the Award of the Distinguished Service Cross.
Harper was a platoon leader on a mission near Trang Bang on July 28, 1969,
when his platoon came under heavy fire from a concealed enemy bunker.
A firefight followed, and a machine gunner was wounded close to the enemy
fortification. Harper tried to retrieve the wounded man, but intense fire
drove him back. He then organized volunteers to make the rescue.
The volunteers crawled several hundred yards and assaulted the enemy from
both sides. While the others provided cover fire, Harper rushed the bunker.
He was wounded by artillery, rocket and mortar fire, and died two days later.
"Through his aggressive leadership and actions, the hostile emplacement
and its occupants were eliminated and the body of the American soldier was
recovered," reads the citation.
Harper, of Jacksonville, was the only veteran whose family could not be
reached by the ROTC, so little is known about his time at FSU.
At the ceremony unveiling the Wall of Honor, the members of each family
stood when their veteran's plaque was presented. When Harper's turn came,
the audience suddenly realized that no family member was present to rise
for him.
Without hesitation, they all stood.
"That was the most touching moment for me," said Sally Sperling,
widow of First Lieutenant Johnnie Stephens. "All those families had
been through the same thing."
Visitors are invited to view the Thomas P. Mitchell Wall of Honor on
the second floor inside the Harpe-Johnson ROTC building, located off Wildwood
Drive east of the Leach Student Recreation Center. The building is open
8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and on football Saturdays from 9
a.m. until 30 minutes before kickoff.
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