SSG Earl Frederick Brown, Weston, WV on www.VirtualWall.org The Virtual Wall® Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall

01 Sep 1998

Voices From the Past

The voice on the tape is a young man.
Just a young man who
misses his wife, his little girl;
A young man with hopes and dreams for the future
he will never see;
A young man far from home
trying to transport himself there
by his voice.

The voice on the tape is a young man.
A young man home on leave,
teasing his little girl
and laughing with his wife.
A family, untouched for the time,
by the war so far away.
But the war invades --

The voice on the tape is a little girl
talking to her mommy.
Just a little girl and her mommy.

To the Children Left Behind...

Do not be ashamed to remember. Your fathers were proud men who deserve respect. It is okay to hate war; it is even okay to hate that time and place called Vietnam, but it would be a disgrace to hate the men who fought it.

Do whatever it takes to remember them. Whatever works for you is right. If you choose to remember the good things instead of the bad, that's okay. If you want to put your father on a pedestal, that's okay, too. It's your birthright. Know that they weren't saints; but know that they were good, proud men.

At those times when others would rather forget, you go on remembering. Sometimes it is just too painful for them to remember ... be gentle with them. When they are able, they will share with you. And at those times when you feel like you're the only one who cares that your father ever existed ... and there will be those times ... share those feelings with me; and know that someone else understands and does care.

From Melanie Brown
Proud daughter of Earl F. Brown
US Special Forces, 5th SF
Killed in Action 29 Jan 66
sfdaughter@aol.com

A Note from The Virtual Wall

On 28 Jan 1966 Detachment A-107, 5th SF Group, at Tra Bong was asked by the Vietnamese District Chief to send a team to investigate an attack on the outpost at Long Phu. Captain Fewell, the Det A-107 commander, his Vietnamese counterpart, and the District Chief jointly led a reaction force from the 144th CIDG Company to do the investigating - but the last word heard from the reaction force was a radio call saying "We're going in to attack, request all the support you can give us". All further efforts to contact the reaction force went unanswered. That evening, the Danang headquarters sent a reaction force to Tra Bong, and on the 29th the reaction force located and recovered the bodies of 29 men from the original group. Eight others, including Captain Fewell, were not immediately recovered, although Fewell's remains were later found. Four Americans died in the action:

CPT John P. Fewell, Kokomo, Indiana
SFC Elmer J. Reifschneider, St Louis, Missouri
SSG Earl F. Brown, Weston, West Virginia
SSG Donald J. Jacobsen, Montevideo, Minnesota

Last update 08/15/2019