The Wall › Panel 35E › Arkansas › James Calvin Riles
JAMES CALVIN RILES
Private First Class · U.S. Marine Corps
October 5, 1948 – January 28, 1968
Service recordJames Calvin Riles, of Fordyce, Arkansas, served as a Private First Class in the U.S. Marine Corps. He died on January 28, 1968, in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, at age 19. His name is inscribed on Panel 35E, Line 57 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
On the Wall
Panel 35E · Line 57
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. Marine Corps
- Rank
- Private First Class (PFC)
- Service
- Regular
- Occupation
- Rifleman (0311)
- Born
- October 5, 1948
- Home of record
- Fordyce, Arkansas (Dallas County)
Casualty
- Date of death
- January 28, 1968
- Age
- 19
- Province
- Quang Tri
- Country
- South Vietnam
- Casualty type
- Hostile
- Category
- Killed in Action
- Circumstance
- Explosive Device
Context · from the records
What was happening
29 names on the Wall carry the date January 28, 1968; 12 of them were lost in Quảng Trị Province. In January 1968, 1,546 Americans whose names are on the Wall died in the war.
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.
Read the history
Also on Panel 35E, Line 57
- KENNETH EDWARD RASCOPrivate First Class · January 28, 1968
- GREGORY JOHN SINTICSergeant · January 28, 1968
- KENNETH WAYNE SMITHFirst Lieutenant · January 28, 1968
- DOUGLAS MARTIN SOROKALance Corporal · January 28, 1968
From Fordyce
- DANNY MICHEAL GRAYPrivate First Class · October 30, 1968
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.