Youngest KIA in Vietnam

[82Rigger]

Did ya'll know about this young man?

Every war has had its underaged enlistees, Vietnam included, but I didn't realize that "our" war's very youngest had been specifically identified.

Dan Bullock

Birth: Dec. 21, 1953
Death: Jun. 7, 1969

He enlisted in the Marine Corps at age 14. At age 15, he became the youngest American serviceman to be killed in action in Vietnam. When his body was returned, there was no memorial ceremony and no headstone provided for him. A New York veteran's organization recently helped to arrange for these. Bullock was born in Goldsboro, NC and was a quiet child as he grew up. His mother died when he was 11 and his father remarried and moved Dan and his younger sister to Brooklyn, NY. Not liking New York City and looking for a way to improve himself, Bullock changed the date on his birth certificate and joined the Marine Corps on September 18, 1968. He arrived in Vietnam on May 8, 1969 and was killed a month later. One of his colleagues in the Marine Corps, Franklin McArthur, Jr., upon recently learning of Bullock's fate, started the PFC Dan Bullock Foundation to raise funds for a monument to be erected outside the Brooklyn Marine Corps recruiting station where Bullock enlisted. Steve Piscitelli, an Orlando, FL sculptor who had known Bullock in Vietnam, learned of the story and has voluntarily helped design a statue. While playfully sparring with Bullock, Piscitelli had broken his thumb. Bullock, who had originally been assigned to cleaning duties that day, went to a front-line post in Piscitelli's place and was killed. Another former Marine heard the Bullock story and talked to his boss, talk-show host Sally Jessy Raphael, who donated a headstone for Bullock's grave.

Rest in Peace, Dan, and...Semper Fi!

[sn-e3]

I don't think this will end with just a head stone, Its a story well worth telling. America needs hero's and Patroits and PFC Dan fits both those molds

[Desdichado]

That might be the saddest thing I ever read. Damn. Got no religion, but I think I can work in what passes for a prayer tonight.