The WallVietnam Veterans Memorial · The Lake Norman Brief
The trench line of the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines at Khe Sanh, 1968.
The trench line of the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines at Khe Sanh, 1968. Photo: Michael Braukus Collection, USMC Archives, CC BY 2.0. Shown for the time and place, not a photograph of David Reynolds Wilson.

The Wall › Panel 47E › Michigan › David Reynolds Wilson

DAVID REYNOLDS WILSON

First Lieutenant · U.S. Army

May 7, 1944 – March 30, 1968

Service record

David Reynolds Wilson, of Kalamazoo, Michigan, served as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He died on March 30, 1968, in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, at age 23. His name is inscribed on Panel 47E, Line 18 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

On the Wall

Panel 47E · Line 18

Position of Panel 47E 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
First Lieutenant (1LT)
Service
Regular
Occupation
Ranger, Infantry Unit Commander (81542)
Unit (as recorded)
MACV ADVISORS
Born
May 7, 1944
Home of record
Kalamazoo, Michigan (Kalamazoo County)

Casualty

Date of death
March 30, 1968
Age
23
Province
Quang Tri
Country
South Vietnam
Casualty type
Hostile
Category
Killed in Action
Circumstance
Small Arms Fire

Context · from the records

What was happening

58 names on the Wall carry the date March 30, 1968; 30 of them were lost in Quảng Trị Province. In March 1968, 1,767 Americans whose names are on the Wall died in the war.

MACV Advisers, his unit in the record, lost 21 of its members that month.

He died in Quảng Trị Province while the siege of Khe Sanh was under way. From 21 January 1968, North Vietnamese divisions besieged the Marine combat base at Khe Sanh and its hill outposts near the Laotian border for 77 days, while U.S. aircraft dropped some 100,000 tons of bombs around it. Operation Pegasus reached the base on 8 April. 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 47E, Line 18

From Kalamazoo

All 39 names from Kalamazoo →

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.