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 Rod Velazquez-Feliciano JR.

The Wall › Panel 42E › Puerto Rico › Rod Velazquez-Feliciano JR

ROD VELAZQUEZ-FELICIANO JR

Staff Sergeant · U.S. Army

November 23, 1937 – March 3, 1968

Service record

Rod Velazquez-Feliciano JR, of Penuelas, Puerto Rico, served as a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army. He died on March 3, 1968, in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, at age 30. His name is inscribed on Panel 42E, Line 55 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

On the Wall

Panel 42E · Line 55

Position of Panel 42E 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
Staff Sergeant (SSG)
Service
Regular
Occupation
Fire Support Specialist (13F)
Unit (as recorded)
1 FIELD FORCE
Born
November 23, 1937
Home of record
Penuelas, Puerto Rico (Penuelas County)

Casualty

Date of death
March 3, 1968
Age
30
Province
Quang Tri
Country
South Vietnam
Casualty type
Hostile
Category
Died of Wounds
Circumstance
Grenade

Context · from the records

What was happening

65 names on the Wall carry the date March 3, 1968; 12 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 unit recorded as “1 FIELD FORCE”, his unit in the record, lost 7 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 42E, Line 55

From Penuelas

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.