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 Michael James Kelley.

The Wall › Panel 46E › Wisconsin › Michael James Kelley

MICHAEL JAMES KELLEY

Specialist Five · U.S. Army

April 8, 1947 – March 25, 1968

Service record

Michael James Kelley, of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, served as a Specialist Five in the U.S. Army. He died on March 25, 1968, in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, at age 20. His name is inscribed on Panel 46E, Line 19 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

On the Wall

Panel 46E · Line 19

Position of Panel 46E 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
Specialist Five (SP5)
Service
Drafted (Selective Service)
Occupation
Medical Specialist (91B)
Unit (as recorded)
1 CAV DIV AIRMOBILE
Born
April 8, 1947
Home of record
Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin (Waukesha County)

Casualty

Date of death
March 25, 1968
Age
20
Province
Quang Tri
Country
South Vietnam
Casualty type
Hostile
Category
Died of Wounds
Circumstance
Small Arms Fire

Context · from the records

What was happening

64 names on the Wall carry the date March 25, 1968; 15 of them were lost in Quảng Trị Province. In March 1968, 1,767 Americans whose names are on the Wall died in the war.

The 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), his unit in the record, lost 104 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 46E, Line 19

Same unit, same day

From Menomonee Falls

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.