The WallVietnam Veterans Memorial · The Lake Norman Brief
A CH-47 Chinook lifts off on a resupply mission during Operation Junction City, April 1967.
A CH-47 Chinook lifts off on a resupply mission during Operation Junction City, April 1967. Photo: SSG Howard C. Breedlove, U.S. Army, public domain. Shown for the time and place, not a photograph of Billy Dean Brigman.

The Wall › Panel 14E › North Carolina › Billy Dean Brigman

BILLY DEAN BRIGMAN

Private First Class · U.S. Army

March 10, 1947 – January 17, 1967

Service record

Billy Dean Brigman, of Barnardsville, North Carolina, served as a Private First Class in the U.S. Army. He died on January 17, 1967, in Binh Duong Province, South Vietnam, at age 19. His name is inscribed on Panel 14E, Line 42 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

On the Wall

Panel 14E · Line 42

Position of Panel 14E on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Names are inscribed in the order of loss, starting at Panel 1E at the apex and ending at Panel 1W. At the Memorial, find the panel number at the base and count down from the top line.

Remember

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Service

Branch
U.S. Army
Rank
Private First Class (PFC)
Service
Regular
Occupation
Infantryman (11B)
Unit (as recorded)
173 AIRBORNE BDE
Born
March 10, 1947
Home of record
Barnardsville, North Carolina (Buncombe County)

Casualty

Date of death
January 17, 1967
Age
19
Province
Binh Duong
Country
South Vietnam
Casualty type
Hostile
Category
Killed in Action
Circumstance
Small Arms Fire

Context · from the records

What was happening

25 names on the Wall carry the date January 17, 1967; eight of them were lost in Bình Dương Province. In January 1967, 638 Americans whose names are on the Wall died in the war.

The 173rd Airborne Brigade, his unit in the record, lost 18 of its members that month.

He died in Bình Dương Province while Operation Cedar Falls was under way. Operation Cedar Falls (8–26 January 1967) sent some 30,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese troops into the “Iron Triangle” northwest of Saigon to destroy Viet Cong base areas and tunnels. The casualty record gives the province and date, not the exact place, so it does not say whether he fell in the battle itself.

Also on Panel 14E, Line 42

Source. U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Casualty Analysis System, Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File (as of April 29, 2008), Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Record Group 330, National Archives (NAID 2240992). Panel and line as recorded in that file. This page presents the official record and its historical context; no biography has been written for him yet. See something wrong? Report a correction.