Following is a narrative of the duty I performed prior to my 13 month tour in Vietnam with Charlie Co. 1st Recon Bn.
April 1966
For my first duty station, I was assigned to Philadelphia Marine Barracks for guard duty. I served as a gate guard and later as a brig guard. But during 1966, a burial escort section was formed out of personnel form Marine Barracks and I was chosen to be included in this newly needed detail.
Individual escorts were assigned the duty of traveling to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and there receiving custody of the remains from the graves registration of a Marine who had been killed in action back to his family for burial. The protocol at the time specified that the rank of the individual to whom you were assigned would be of your rank or lesser. Being a private first class at the time, this meant that the rank and age of what turned out to be a total of seven Marines was the same as mine in both categories.
Training for this was very brief due to the pressing need born out of the increasing numbers of KIA's occurring at this early stage of the Vietnam War. My experiences with death up this point had been limited to a few elderly relatives. Nonetheless it was an honor to be the Marine representative escorting these young men on their final to homes which included Las Vegas, Nevada – Niles, Michigan – Murfreesboro, Illinois – Erie, Pennsylvania – Orange, New Jersey- Levittown, Long Island- and Louisville, Kentucky.
The grief that I witnessed and became a part of in those Marine's homes and funeral parlors was terrible and had a profound affect on me then and haunts me to this day. One of these trips in particular stands out in my mind and was typical of what I went through. And although I cannot recall even one family's name which I am sure has been erased from my memory because of the traumatic circumstances involved, I will always remember faces of mothers, fathers, sisters brothers, and friends who I met while carrying out this duty. I arrived in Niles, Michigan in the middle of the night on a train which carried the remains of my fellow Marine in the baggage car. One thing I always made sure of as I watched over the offloading take place at any destination was that baggage handlers treated "my Marine" with the utmost respect. I insisted that the casket, enclosed in a pine box, be taken off first. An employee of the funeral home was there at the platform, waiting to load the casket and myself into the hearse and drive to the mortuary. I was taken to a motel a short walk from the funeral parlor, where I could rest before having to return and meet the family when they arrived.
I remember standing in the foyer looking out front door through sheer curtains which covered the glass.I heard the funeral director say, " here they come," as I watched a middle aged woman, her husband, and three children exit their car and proceed up the front walk. I always had the same feeling of dread as I anticipated meeting the families for the first time, knowing what lay ahead for them. When they walked through the door, the mother immediately looked around the back side of where I stood in my dress blue uniform. Without saying a word, she burst into tears, sobbing, and threw her arms around my neck and hugged me as hard as she could. I knew at that moment she was seeing her boy in me, and my sorrow for her was immense. I could only imagine what my own mother would feel like if put in this mother's position. Then, as I followed, they all walked slowly down the hallway to that viewing room on the left where their Marine was laid. As they entered the room they simultaneously fell onto the floor, wailing hysterically, crying, and pacing back and forth. And as this outpouring continued, I watched silently, helpless and numb.
These were good people. Much like the type of family I had come from. Hard working, God fearing, middle class individuals whose son had just paid the ultimate price for his country.
Now, it was my duty to stay at least until the burial service,( usually two or three days after arriving ), and sometimes a few days longer if the family requested, which was not unusual. During this time, I would spend a little time getting to know the family and hearing stories of the Marine they had lost.
At the burial itself, one of the things which had to be performed was the presentation of the American flag, which had draped the casket, to the next of kin. Following a rifle volley and then taps , the head of the Marine detail assigned as honor guard , would hand me the folded flag, which I would ,in turn ,present to a grieving mother with the words, " This flag is offered to you in behalf of a grateful nation for the extreme sacrifice of your son :__ ." As I mentioned, I performed this duty seven times!
But if that task was hard, what awaited me as I returned from my last trip to Philadelphia would affect me for the rest of my time in the Marine Corps. As I checked back into the company office after flying back from Kentucky, I was handed my orders (literally before I put down my garment bag ) for my next duty station, Westpac, Vietnam.
Given what I had just finished, the psychological impact was strong and affected my frame of mind throughout my entire tour of duty in Vietnam, where I served as a recon scout with Charlie Co. 1st. Recon Bn., for a thirteen month tour. I will add one example of this by telling you of one of our scouts, Jonathan P. Kmetyk. Pete was in 1st platoon, and while on a long range recon patrol he was shot by a V.C. sniper on 14 November 1967, and was killed instantly. Members of the patrol, which numbered about nine men, carried his body for an entire day while trying to elude the enemy. It proved impossible to to find a suitable extraction point and get his body out of the bush due to heavy automatic weapon's fire.Even after subsequent attempts to retrieve his remains, none were ever found. This was devastating to our company, and I especially knew what his recovery would have meant to his loved ones.
My service as a burial escort, while having been an honor, has been among those things which have cost me the most mentally over the years. It will until I die !
Wayne R. Parker
Corporal USMC
Charlie Co. 1st Recon Bn.
Vietnam March '67 / April '68