The WallVietnam Veterans Memorial · The Lake Norman Brief
A Navy Swift boat patrols the Long Tàu River to keep the channel to Saigon open, December 1966.
A Navy Swift boat patrols the Long Tàu River to keep the channel to Saigon open, December 1966. Photo: PH1 V.H. McColley, U.S. Navy, public domain. Shown for the time and place, not a photograph of Robert Michael Lathrope.

The Wall › Panel 3E › California › Robert Michael Lathrope

ROBERT MICHAEL LATHROPE

Petty Officer Third Class · U.S. Navy

October 23, 1943 – August 24, 1965

Service record

Robert Michael Lathrope, of Mendocino, California, served as a Petty Officer Third Class in the U.S. Navy. He died on August 24, 1965, in South Vietnam, at age 21. His name is inscribed on Panel 3E, Line 108 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

On the Wall

Panel 3E · Line 108

Position of Panel 3E 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.

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Service

Branch
U.S. Navy
Rank
Petty Officer Third Class (PO3)
Service
Regular
Occupation
Builder (BU)
Unit (as recorded)
NMCB 9
Born
October 23, 1943
Home of record
Mendocino, California (Mendocino County)

Casualty

Date of death
August 24, 1965
Age
21
Country
South Vietnam
Casualty type
Hostile
Category
Died of Wounds
Circumstance
Aircraft Crash — Passenger (MC)

Context · from the records

What was happening

61 names on the Wall carry the date August 24, 1965. In August 1965, 179 Americans whose names are on the Wall died in the war.

Read the history

On the Wall

Elsewhere

Also on Panel 3E, Line 108

From Mendocino

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.