A Bob Greene column in the Oct. 29 Wall Street Journal highlighted the heavy toll exacted by the Vietnam War upon the rural community of Beallsville, Ohio. Greene points out that the community lost more soldiers to the war, per capita, than any other community in the country.
Located near West Virginia, Beallsville — about half the size of Ellerbe — lost six of its sons to the war that stretched from the late 1950s until 1975.
If that doesn't sound like many, it is. Vietnam claimed one of the town's sons for every 75 citizens.
To compare, Richmond County would have lost 531 soldiers, assuming our 1970 population, instead of 14. Nationally, our Vietnam death toll would have topped 2,700,000, relative to 1970's population, instead of 58,000.
Beallsville lost four 20-year olds, and two who were 19. Their last young man to fall on that far-away battlefield, Phillip Brandon, died on March 7, 1971. The 26th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which lowered the national voting age to 18, was ratified four months later, on July 1, so none of Beallsville's war dead had any direct say in the policies that ordered them off to war.
Individuals my age related to a war that extended from the time that we were toddlers — munching cereal in front of TV's "Captain Kangaroo" — until most of us had high school diplomas in hand and were headed out to join the adult world.
I was on active Army duty the day South Vietnam fell in April, 1975. Beallsville's young Brandon died the day after my 15th birthday, a time when many mid-teen guys kept a wary eye on the evening news and wondered if it would end before we had orders to the Southeast Asian war zone.
Bob Greene's piece about Beallsville in that recent WSJ also reminded me of a time some six decades ago, and another brush with the Vietnam War.
As a young boy I enjoyed tagging along with mom to buy fresh produce from Lonnie and Pattie Deaver at their farm near Mill Road outside of Hamlet. I first learned of the Deavers' nephew, Jack Deaver, when news reached home that Jack had been killed in Vietnam.
Jack was born in Richmond County but moved to San Diego, California, as a young boy. He spent parts of occasional summers on his aunt and uncle's farm, though, on trips back east during his youth. From attendance at a service of remembrance for him at Cobb Memorial Baptist Church in the days after his death, I recall, it was clear that Jack made an impact here, collecting an ample number of local friends.
With his easy smile and "All-American" boyish good looks, his senior photo from Hoover High in San Diego reveals a Jack Deaver ready to join pals and head out for adventure. He joined the Army's 101st Airborne Division two years later, landing in Vietnam.
Frank Rhoades' piece about Jack in The San Diego Union of Oct. 12, 1967, described the mission that claimed SP5 Jack Deaver. Jack's outfit, the 327th Infantry Regiment, utilized a recon detail to precede the main body of troops in search of the enemy. Known as "The Hawks," this seven-man volunteer detail consisted of four observers, two snipers, and a medic, intended to draw out the enemy and expose fewer U.S. soldiers to enemy fire. Jack was a trained combat medic.
After an earlier mission with them, Jack wrote home saying, "I don't want to go, but they've got to have a medic."
On an Oct. 8, 1967 mission, "The Hawks" attracted enemy fire that felled their company commander. While racing to administer aid to his CO, enemy fire claimed Jack Deaver. He was 12 weeks shy of his 21st birthday on Dec. 31.
Always concerned about friends, Jack made an impact from Vietnam earlier that summer after he noticed that many of his 327th buddies were receiving little, or no, mail from home. He wrote to the newspaper imploring San Diegans to write letters to members of his outfit. A letter from a friendly stranger, he reasoned, beat no letter at mail call.
By late September — some two weeks before his battlefield death — Jack had noted the response from his community to the appeal. "Tremen-dous," he acknowledged to the paper, "I have passed hundreds of letters around our unit."
Jack now rests next to his dad, Lester Deaver, in San Diego's Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. Had he known them, it's easy to imagine Jack forming friendships with Beallsville's Pittman, Greenlee, Schnegg, Lucas, Rucker or Brandon. Like Jack, Bobby Lucas served as a medic, and was also killed while rendering aid to a fallen GI. Notably, Deaver, Lucas, and Duane Greenlee all died miles apart in central Vietnam's Quang Nam province. Charlie Schnegg was killed only 57 days after Jack. As boys of the late 1940s and early 1950s, they were sure to have much else in common.
Sadly, one of those lay in each never having seen his 21st birthday.
NOTE: This column has been updated to include a link about Richmond County's casualties in the war. 4:13 p.m. 11-3-25.
