"Youngest American soldier [a marine] killed in Vietnam" Topic
5 Posts
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| Skarper | 17 Jun 2020 11:06 a.m. PST |
link This was just over 51 years ago. He was 15. |
 deadhead  | 17 Jun 2020 12:58 p.m. PST |
He was born two months after me. I have lived a full life (and then some) ever since. Bless him. Why was his burial site not better marked e.g. Arlington or home? Surely that was one thing the US was great at, getting the bodies off the field, getting them home, ensuring identification and proper military burial. Or at least so I thought. As for treating their surviving veterans… |
| Skarper | 17 Jun 2020 1:39 p.m. PST |
It seems if buried in a normal cemetery the costs are not fully covered. They provide the headstone, but not the cost of 'setting' it. This is from what the current rules are. May well have been different 50+ years ago. Perhaps it was money. Bullock's family were far from wealthy. Such a sad story. |
| 79thPA | 18 Jun 2020 7:41 a.m. PST |
Sad story, indeed. I imagine his family claimed the body, and then did the best they could with limited means. The military does not pay for civilian funerals, nor do they automatically mark graves. You have to fill out paperwork to be buried in Arlington, and you have to fill out paperwork to get a stone, etc. The family might not have been aware of their options, or have the means or energy to pursue them. And, at the end of the day, they probably wanted their son to be buried at home, as most veterans are. |
 Legion 4 | 21 Jun 2020 10:34 a.m. PST |
Yes, very sad. But since then the military is better at taking care of the dead and their families. And even our Vets overall. Certainly much better that WWII. E.g. those buried on Tarawa. A few weeks later the USN came in bulldozed over the graves. Built roads, runways, etc., turn the atoll into an airfield. The US still is trying to dig up those buried there. And many other places during WWII as well as Korea. And SE Aisa of course. One location in the PI. US POWs in IJF's hands that died/murdered were buried by other POWs. Later after the war, PI gov't buildings were built over the site/graves. Recently a US Tm went into find those bodies. They ask the PI gov't if they could dig under the buildings. To find our dead. They said, "Yes, please, we see ghosts all the time here!" …  True story from a recent issue of Military History magazine. |
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