The Wall › Panel 45E › Minnesota › Ronald Clifford Fransen
RONALD CLIFFORD FRANSEN
Staff Sergeant · U.S. Army
July 22, 1947 – March 21, 1968
Service recordRonald Clifford Fransen, of Eagle Bend, Minnesota, served as a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army. He died on March 21, 1968, in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, at age 20. His name is inscribed on Panel 45E, Line 46 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
On the Wall
Panel 45E · Line 46
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
- Nuclear, Biological, And Chemical (Nbc) Specialist (54E)
- Unit (as recorded)
- 82 AIRBORNE DIV
- Born
- July 22, 1947
- Home of record
- Eagle Bend, Minnesota (Todd County)
Casualty
- Date of death
- March 21, 1968
- Age
- 20
- Province
- Quang Tri
- Country
- South Vietnam
- Casualty type
- Hostile
- Category
- Killed in Action
- Circumstance
- Small Arms Fire
Context · from the records
What was happening
40 names on the Wall carry the date March 21, 1968; three 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 82nd Airborne Division, his unit in the record, lost 10 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 45E, Line 46
- MICHAEL ROGERS CALLAWAYFirst Lieutenant · March 21, 1968
- MICHAEL LEROY EBERTCorporal · March 21, 1968
- EDDIE LEE EPHRAIMCorporal · March 21, 1968
- ODIS LEON GOSNELLSergeant · March 21, 1968
Same unit, same day
- GILBERT HERNANDEZ-CARRIONSergeant · Panel 45E, Line 47
- CHARLES EDWARD MCGEESergeant · Panel 45E, Line 47
From Eagle Bend
- JAMES RONALD FIRKUSFirst Lieutenant · April 23, 1971
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.