When Valentine's Day Became Memorial Day

On Valentine’s Day 1966, 13 men from the Army’s 25^th Infantry Division died in Vietnam during a battle at an area dubbed “Hell’s Half Acre.” They were a cross-section of America and of the Army. One was an officer, some were senior non-commissioned officers, and some were young enlisted men. They included whites, African Americans, and one Native American. Six were married, five of whom had children. Those killed that day are:

• SP4 Walter Ammons; 18; Chester, VA
• PFC Ira C. Boggs Jr.; 22; Columbus, OH
• PFC Bobby J. Braswell; 22; Paris, TX
• SP4 Donald E. Daniels; 19; Goldsboro, NC
• Sergeant John W. Groover; 25; Farmington, MI
• Sergeant George E. Hayes; 24; Williamstown, KS
• Captain William A. Hoos; 28; East Chicago, IN
• PFC Carlos D. Jelks; 18; Toledo, OH
• Staff Sergeant Gene C. Milligan; 34; Dallas, TX
• PFC Terry J. Reed; 19; Spirit Lake, IA
• PFC Henry M. Starkey; 23; Auburn, CA
• Sergeant William R. Wallace; 20; Ft. Wayne, IN
• Sergeant First Class Watson Willis; 37; Cincinnati, OH

The overall American death toll on that Valentine's Day 1966 was 33. During the entire Vietnam War, 185 Americans died on a Valentine's Day, 52 of whom were married.

A young lieutenant, Russ Dowden Jr., was wounded in the Valentine's Day battle at Hell's Half Acre. His account of the battle can be found online at http://www.rafino.org/russ_story.htm

In the preface to his story he writes, “Most Valentine’s Days are happy events.  They are for sweethearts, for flowers and boxes of candy.  This one turned out to be everything but that.  For the loved ones in this short story, Valentine’s Day became a new Memorial Day.”

Lieutenant Dowden was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry. He served 30 years in the Army, retired as a Colonel, and was inducted in 2011 into the Arkansas Military Hall of Fame. He wrote a particularly poignant passage about Sergeant John Groover, one of the men who died that day, after reading a tribute to him posted to an online memorial wall:

There on the pages reserved for notes to John Groover was a note from Alan Groover, the grandson that John Groover never had the privilege of knowing.  A note that starts, “John Groover was my grandfather …”  Up until then I had accepted the fact that many children of soldiers killed in combat grow up missing their fathers but not until reading the words of Alan Groover had the notion of a missing grandfather crossed my mind.  Once again my eyes blurred from the tears pooling in them.  Why was the emotion so strong?  The answer to that question is most clearly without doubt, because I am a grandfather now.  I am pained to know that he, and countless other young men listed on that memorial, never enjoyed the voices of their grandchildren.  Never knew the thrill of watching them grow.  Never saw them in a school play, on a Little League baseball field, a soccer field, or a football field; never attended a school honors or graduation program; never held them and heard them laugh or cry. Once again, I come to the realization of just how fortunate I was on that Valentine Day in 1966.  I have been privileged to see my children grow to adulthood and, unlike John Groover and so many, many more young American soldiers, I am seeing my grandchildren grow; two privileges for which I am eternally grateful.  God rest you John Groover along with all of the other’s whose names are inscribed in the black granite of that once controversial memorial in our nation’s capital.