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Richard Allen Cesar
Corporal
A CO, 1ST BN, 1ST MARINES, 3RD MARDIV, III MAF United States Marine Corps Corydon, Iowa December 21, 1944 to October 30, 1965 RICHARD A CESAR is on the Wall at Panel 3E, Line 5 |
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It won't be long now until Richard Allen Cesar will have been among the dead twice as long as he lived, but I see him clear as day sometimes — Compact, dark hair, dressed with military precision in bluejeans and black cowboy boots, killer smile — in the old top-floor study hall at Russell High School. Then I start to think about it and he moves into the shadows 40 years have imposed. Richard was the first from our part of southern Iowa, one of the first Iowans, to die in Vietnam. He had lived among us only three years, but some folks are memorable and others aren't. Richard was. He honored us with his presence. Born 21 December 1944 at Boone, in central Iowa, his parents were John T. and Betty Cesar. They soon moved to Rockford, Ill., which was the Cesar family home, and Richard lived there for 14 years. When he was 15, he came to Russell in Lucas County, Iowa, to live with his uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Kastner. His sophomore and junior years were spent at Russell High School. Richard's parents then moved from Rockford to Corydon, just south of Russell in Wayne County, Iowa, and he transferred to Cambria-Corydon High School for his senior year, 1962-63. Richard really wanted to be a U.S. Marine. He signed up 28 February 1963 under a 120-day deferred enlistment plan and entered the active service on 11 June 1963, just a couple of weeks after graduation.
By the spring of 1965, Lance Corporal Richard Allen Cesar, a gunner, was on Okinawa and a member of Weapons Platoon, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines. The 9th Marines were among the first into Vietnam that spring, and Richard was among them. On 1 September, he received a battlefield promotion to corporal. Not long after, he was assigned with a few buddies to Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, to add combat depth to an inexperienced unit. A few days later, on 30 October 1965, he died on Hill 22 near Da Nang — not yet 21. Robert Nordstrom, reassigned to Alpha Company with Richard and others, recalled the early-morning chaos of 30 October when hundreds of NVA overran Hill 22. At daybreak, as order was being restored, Nordstrom ran to the bunker where his friends, Richard and Lance Corporal Richard Dennis Sharp of Dayton, Ohio, another of those recently transferred to Alpha Company, had been. He found them dead on the floor. Friends had died together. When the news of his death reached Corydon, the editor of his hometown newspaper, The Corydon Times-Republican, characterized Richard in words that seem kind of quaint today — "a good student and a polite, gentlemanly lad, not large but capable of taking care of himself, always industrious and polite." I guess that’s the way I remember him, too. Richard's parents had moved back to Rockford before his death, and so that was where he "came home" to. Funeral services were held on 9 November 1965 at Rockford and he was buried in Willwood Cemetery there. He was survived by his parents and a brother, Ed. Almost four years to the day after Richard died, I landed in Vietnam myself. These guys — their hearts were pure and they were men of great honor; their motives, the highest. Their spirits, fanned by war, burned so brightly death can't dim them — unless we stop repeating their names. Semper Fi, U.S. Marine Corporal Richard Allen Cesar. You're in the best company possible out there — and remembered among the green hills and valleys, the rolling farm fields of southern Iowa that we still think of as your home.
From a neighbor, a classmate, and a Southern Iowa Vietnam vet, 07 Nov 2003 I recently received the following in an e-mail from a man who visited this memorial:
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Richard, you were with my brother on that fateful day, October 30, 1965. He was Sgt Marcos Hernandez. Knowing that he was not alone, that you and the others in Alpha Co, 1st Bn, 1st Marines, were all together gives me some form of comfort. May you all be together even this many years later. Someday we may all meet, in the presence of our Savior. It would be my pleasure to meet you, Richard. Until then may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
From the sister of Sgt Hernandez who was with you, |
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In a few days it will be the anniversary of "Hill 22" - October 30th 1965. I will never forget that night as long as I live. I am Robert Nordstrom, a friend of both Richard Cesar and Richard Sharp. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of both of them. I miss their jokes and above all their laughter. They both were Marines to the fullest and gave their all for each and everyone of us. Semper Fi, troops!
Robert Nordstrom |
A Note from The Virtual WallOn the evening of 27-28 October 1965 the VC struck the newly built Marble Mountain helicopter facility on the Tiensha Peninsula and the Chu Lai SATS field. In the two attacks the VC caused considerable damage to aircraft parked on the flight lines, killed three Marines and wounded 91 others - but left 32 dead, 4 wounded, and 4 captured behind.Two days after the airfield attacks, the Viet Cong attempted another probe of the Marine defenses, not at the Danang base areas but against the defensive perimeter on Hill 22, south of the Tuy Loan River. There were 154 men on Hill 22, primarily from Company A, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines. The action began shortly after midnight on 30 October when 10 to 15 VC walked into an Alpha 1/1 squad ambush about a kilometer south of the hill. The Marines opened fire and killed three of the enemy, but were unable to notify their company commander of the contact due to a radio failure. All was quiet for about two hours, when a larger force enveloped the Marine squad, killing three and wounding six. Immediately afterwards Hill 22 and a separate position two kilometers to the west manned by Mike Company, 3/4 Marines, came under mortar fire. The Mike 3/4 position suffered one Marine killed and two wounded, but direct fire from a 3rd Tank Battalion M48 tank silenced the mortar. At Hill 22 some 300-400 VC attacked the Marine positions from the northwest. Enemy troops, supported by two recoilless rifles, were able to destroy three defensive bunkers and an ONTOS (a tracked recoilless rifle vehicle) and penetrated about a third of the northwestern perimeter. The Marines rallied and were able to eject the VC, restoring the perimeter by 0330. By the time three UH-34s landed munitions and a 13-man squad from C/1/1 on the hill at 0345 the VC had withdrawn and the fighting was reduced to sporadic exchanges of fire. During their withdrawal the VC removed a considerable number of their dead and wounded, but left 47 dead and one wounded within the Alpha 1/1 perimeter. The attacks on the ambush squad, Mike 3/4, and Hill 22 resulted in the deaths of 15 Marines and one sailor, with 45 others wounded. The American dead were
In the memorial above, Mr. Carstens recalls serving with Richard Cesar, Richard Sharp, and Terry Neumeier. Cesar and Sharp died at Hill 22; Corporal Terry J. Neumeier was killed in action two months earlier, on 30 August 1965, while serving with Alpha 1/9 Marines. |
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