Memorial Day: Remembering the Richmond Highway area’s Vietnam casualties

For Memorial Day 2016, we tried to recognize service members from the Richmond Highway area who were killed in the Vietnam War.

Eventually we may add lists of local casualties from other conflicts, but for now Vietnam is the focus. It was the first U.S. war fought after major residential development came to Richmond Highway area of the county. Because of that development, we were able to use high school information (if a service member attended Mount Vernon, Groveton, Fort Hunt or Edison) to determine if casualties were from southeast Fairfax.

Please note that this list is not official or comprehensive, which is explained further at the bottom of the page.

Blodgett, Douglas Randolph
Groveton High School (1966)
Army Staff Sergeant
Died: 4/19/1968
Buried at The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific

Burton, James Edward 
Mount Vernon High School
Army Warrant Officer
Died: 3/3/1970
Buried at Evergreen Cemetery, Colorado Springs, Colo.

Conway, Raymond
Groveton High School
Army Warrant Officer
Died: 2/1/1968
Buried at Arlington National Cemetery

Cupp, Robert William
Edison High School (1965)
Army Corporal
Died: 6/6/1968
Buried at Mount Comfort Cemetery

Dean, Robert William
Mount Vernon High School
Army Sergeant
Died: 7/11/1969
Buried at Arlington National Cemetery

Elliott, Charles Henry Jr
Edison High School (1968)
Army Corporal
Died: 8/21/1968
Buried at Mount Comfort Cemetery

Frazelle, Donald Jerome
Mount Vernon High School (1964)
Army 1st Lieutenant
Died: 3/21/1971
Buried at Arlington National Cemetery

Graham, William Richard
Mount Vernon High School
Marine Corps Private 1st Class
Died: 3/6/1966
Buried at Arlington National Cemetery

Harvey, Cleveland Ray “Butch”
Fort Hunt High School (1965)
Marine Corps 1st Lieutenant
Died: 11/18/1970
Buried at Arlington National Cemetery

Hoffler, Richard William
Edison High School (1968)
Marine Corps Private 1st Class
Died: 8/31/1969
Buried at Peninsula Memorial Park, Newport News, Va.

Holland, Kermit W Jr
Edison High School (1969)
Marine Corps Private 1st Class
Died: 3/22/1970
Buried at Arlington National Cemetery

Judy, Herman Leroy 
Edison High School (1965)
Army Corporal
Died: 5/29/1969
Buried at Arlington National Cemetery

Ludwig, Michael Eugene
Edison High School (1964)
Army Private 1st Class
Died: 5/27/1968
Buried at Arlington National Cemetery

Messer, Thomas Hubert
Mount Vernon High School
Army Staff Sergeant
Died: 8/28/1970
Buried at Union Cemetery in Newport, Tennessee

Nadeau, Roland Harold
Mount Vernon High School
Marine Corps Private 1st Class
Died: 8/2/1969
Buried at Arlington National Cemetery

Overbay, Clarence M Jr
Mount Vernon High School (1962)
Army Staff Sergeant
Died: 6/25/1970
Burial Unknown

Powell, Joseph Lewis Jr
Groveton High School
Marine Corps Captain
Died: 10/17/1968
Buried at Arlington National Cemetery

Rose, Harry Quincy
Mount Vernon High School (1962)
Army Captain
Died: 2/21/1969
Buried at Arlington National Cemetery

Thornton, Matthew Winston
Mount Vernon High School
Army Specialist 4
Died: 1/11/1969
Burial site unknown

How the list was compiled

The Library of Virginia’s Database of Virginia Military Dead helped find each of the names, as well as their ranks and dates of death. But the Library of Virginia categorizes some fallen service members from the “Alexandria section” of Fairfax as being from the City of Alexandria. Therefore its list of Fairfax residents killed in Vietnam is incomplete.

Using the old Washington Post articles and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund website, I was able to separate some Fairfax residents from the Alexandria list by finding their high schools. But not every deceased service member from the area was written about in the Post, and not all casualties on the VVMF site had remembrances from classmates.

Per the site memorialdayfoundation.org, this is a list of all the Fairfax residents killed in the war:

Balzer, Michael A.
Barone, Sandro N.
Beauchamp, Ernest M.
Bessor, Bruce C.
Blair, Thomas G., Jr.
Blodgett, Douglas R.
Bonnet, C. Christopher
Brown, Charles E., Jr.
Browne, Ray B.
Buckley, Victor P.
Byrne, Paul R.
Carkin, Harvey M.
Caton, Gerald L.
Chaney, Arthur F.
Cole, Randall E.
Colgan, George B., III
Collins, Ross W., Jr.
Consolvo, John W., Jr.
Conway, Raymond L.
Cross, Frank W.
Cross, Frederick W.
Cupp, Robert W.
Davies, Joseph E.
Dean, Robert W.
Dickey, James W.
Dillenseger, Bernard G., Jr.
Donahue, Morgan J.
Donnell, Peter F.
Dunham Bruce J.
Eads, Walter T.
Elliott, Charles H., Jr.
Feagan, Michael J.
Finch, Melvin W.
Fowler, Roy G.
Franks, Ernest R.
Freudenthal, Richard H.
Gaither, Thomas M.
Gibbons, Darrell L.
Gill, Donald W. Jr.
Gosselin, Robert J.
Graham, Bruce E.
Graham, William R.
Gray, Richard T.
Grayson, Welby H., III
Green, Martin L., Jr.
Gunter, Calvin D.
Harvey Cleveland R.
Hawkins, Johnny L.
Heriot, Theodore S., Jr.
Hoffler, Richard W.
Holdaway, Guy
Holland, Kermit W., Jr.
Holmes, William D.
Honse, George E.
Jenkins, John A. V., III
Johnson, Bernard L., II
Johnson, Lorenzo R.
Jordan, Wayne L.
Judy, Herman L., Jr.
Karas, Paul R.
Keberline, Michael J.
Kidwell, Wayne M.
Kilduff, Michael J.
King, James E.
King, Lyell F.
Ledford, Henry A.
Leichliter, Vyrl E., Jr.
Lerner, David A.
Levendis, William M.
Lewis Robert R.
Lilly, Lawrence E.
Lockhart, George B.
Ludwig, Michael E.
Lyberger, Arden R.
MacLeod, Sidney B., Jr.
Malone, Philip N.
Mashburn, Tschann S.
McCants, Leland S., III
McCarron, Michael J.
McDonald, Robert F., II
McElhannon, Kevin C., Jr.
McNulty, Charles R.
Messer, Thomas H.
Monette, Neal E.
Moore, Donald R., Jr.
Mull, Gerald C.
Nadeau, Roland H.
Ninow, William C.
Norris Kenneth E.
O’Callaghan, Brian J.
Overbay, Clarence M., Jr.
Page, Henry L., III
Pardee, Scott K.
Payne, Darnell M.
Peppin, David D., Jr.
Perry, George E., III
Powell, Joseph L., Jr.
Prochaska, Willard F.
Regan, Thomas F.
Richardson, Harry F., Jr.
Riek, Jeffry R.
Robinson, Bruce E.
Robinson, James W., Jr., CMH
Rohlinger, Joseph E.
Rose, Harry Q.
Rumble, Jon M.
Rush, Joseph B.
Sawyer, Kenneth R.
Schlie, Kenneth M.
Scurlock, Allen G.
Shartzer, Joseph C.
Shelton, Leslie L.
Sigholtz, Robert H., Jr.
Simon, Donald R.
Smith, Johnny J.
Spengler, Henry M., III
Steward, Jerry W.
Stone, Lewis L.
Strickler, David F.
Stuller, John C.
Sullivan, Michael N.
Supinger, Claude C.
Suthard, Charles L., Jr.
Sutton, William J.
Taft, Philip J.
Thomas, Michael O.
Thornton, Matthew W.
Thruston, Robert R., III
Touart, Foster J. G., Jr.
Toward, Ronald J.
Umholtz, Darrell R.
Valentine, Jeron F.
Warczak, David J.
Ward, James C.
Ward, Ronald W.
Weiss, Richard E.
Whitbeck, Robert E.
White, Daniel W.
Whitmire, Warren T., Jr.
Williams, Raymond L.
Winkler, John A.
Wolfe, Hiram M., IV
Young, Carl, L