Billy Joe Taylor
Corporal
CAP 1-3-3, CACO 1-3, 1ST CAG, COMBINED ACTION, III MAF
United States Marine Corps
Wyandotte, Michigan
November 24, 1947 to August 02, 1968
BILLY JOE TAYLOR is on the Wall at Panel W49, Line 1

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23 Oct 2001

Billy Joe Taylor ...

As I trace your name, etched on cold marble,
warmed by the July sun, I wonder about you.
Who were you?
A blonde, with a carefree smile?
Dark-haired and ebony skinned?
Easy going, or sullen? Weighted by the worldï¿ 1/2 s troubles?
I read many names on the wall.
Keiths, Rays, Bryans, Michaels, Todds, Roberts, Bobs, to name a few.
I wonder at all the Smiths, and Jones, a Callahan, an Oï¿ 1/2 Malley or two.
The crowd keeps walking swiftly by -I stop and try to read all the names.
I want to read each one. I remember the war.
I remember the body counts, the blood, the anger.
I remember hating the covers of Time and Newsweek.
I remember the fear of desensitizing the nation.
I had high school friends and neighbors over there. I remember.
I want to remember each of you.
Billy Joe Taylor - Billy Joe Taylor
and I cried.
I didnï¿ 1/2 t know you, a stranger, yet, I cried for the Southern boy.
I wonder if your mom has been here to see the wall.
I touch your name in her honor.
Wonder about a family, a life wretched away.
I imagine you young. Were you here today could you be
A doctor, a lawyer, a farmer. I wonder.
The simple, innocent, friendliness of your name,
Billy Joe Taylor,
Juxtaposed against the hard rock and wall of names
Emphasized what we lost - Billy Joe Taylor.
We lost your smile, your future, the future of each.
I wonder what others are thinking?
How are they impacted? Will they renounce the next war?
I wonder what was said to make you, and thousands go.
I wondered too as I walked the Battlefield of Gettysburg the day before, I cried.
The copse of trees, Pickettï¿ 1/2 s charge, headstones upon headstones.
10,000 more bloodied those fields. Yet we went on to fight other wars?

Billy Joe Taylor,
Thank You.
I wish the epitaph to be "No More!"

Monalisa,
July 1997, completed October 2001

A memorial from
Monalisa Di Angelo

diangelomona@cs.com


 

A Note from The Virtual Wall

Corporal Taylor had served with C Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, but volunteered for duty with the Combined Action Program. The CAP placed a small unit of Marines, usually with a Navy Corpsman, in a village where they lived and sometimes died in company with the village's Vietnamese militia. CAP 1-3-3 was in Phuoc Hoa, Quang Ngai Province.

The 1st CAG command chronology for August 1968 contains the following entry:

"020245H Aug 68: CAP 1-1-3. Upper and lower compounds occupied by CAP 1-1-3 and MTT 1-2 came under attack from two VC companies. VC breached wire of lower compound. Reaction force from upper compound ejected and pursued them. Results: 29 VC KIA (C), 20 weapons captured."
Six Marines died in the fight:
  • CAP 1-1-3:
    • Cpl Larry A. Jamerson, Spokane, WA
    • Cpl Billy J. Taylor, Wyandotte, MI (Silver Star)

  • Mobile Training Team 1-2:
    • Cpl Carl D. Wakefield, Framingham, MA
    • LCpl David C. Crane, Rochester, NY
    • Pfc Michael A. Griggs, Bowie, MD
    • Pfc Peter J. Lovan, Elmont, NY
Corporal Taylor's actions that night warranted award of the Silver Star, America's third highest decoration for valor.

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