The Wall › Panel 36E › Texas › Ray Carrol Banks
RAY CARROL BANKS
Specialist Four · U.S. Army
March 11, 1947 – February 2, 1968
Service recordRay Carrol Banks, of Scroggins, Texas, served as a Specialist Four in the U.S. Army. He died on February 2, 1968, in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, at age 20. His name is inscribed on Panel 36E, Line 65 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
On the Wall
Panel 36E · Line 65
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
Did you know him? Family members and friends are invited to share a photograph or a memory. Nothing is posted until it has been reviewed.
Service
- Branch
- U.S. Army
- Rank
- Specialist Four (SP4)
- Service
- Drafted (Selective Service)
- Occupation
- Light Vehicle Driver (64A)
- Unit (as recorded)
- 1 LOGISTIC CMD
- Born
- March 11, 1947
- Home of record
- Scroggins, Texas (Franklin County)
Casualty
- Date of death
- February 2, 1968
- Age
- 20
- Province
- Quang Tri
- Country
- South Vietnam
- Casualty type
- Hostile
- Category
- Killed in Action
- Circumstance
- Artillery/Mortar/Rocket
Context · from the records
What was happening
130 names on the Wall carry the date February 2, 1968; 38 of them were lost in Quảng Trị Province. In February 1968, 2,260 Americans whose names are on the Wall died in the war.
The unit recorded as “1 LOGISTIC CMD”, his unit in the record, lost 30 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.
Read the history
Also on Panel 36E, Line 65
- JOSEPH CHARLES APPLEGATEPrivate First Class · February 2, 1968
- MOSES ANTHONY ARNOLDCorporal · February 2, 1968
- CHARLES JAMES BAUER JRPrivate First Class · February 2, 1968
- ALBERT LEON BETTSSpecialist Five · February 2, 1968
Same unit, same day
- HOMER ALFRED RUPLE JRSpecialist Five · Panel 36E, Line 84
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.