View the press clipping describing this event.

In response to the killings, over 400 colleges and universities across America shut down. In Washington, nearly 100,000 protestors surround various government buildings including the White House and historical monuments. On an impulse, President Nixon exits the White House and pays a late night surprise visit to the Lincoln Memorial and chats with young protestors.

"When I first got to Vietnam I almost immediately began walking point as a member of the 101st Airborne Division. After a few months the voice of God got into my head and told me that I would die if I kept walking point like I was doing every day. That then led to my transfering into the Scout Dogs, where a trained dog walked point in front of me, as an early warning. My new dog group supported my old infantry unit, as they needed dogs, and they called for a dog team on the July 4th mission. That order was missent to another dog platoon. I was next to go on our list, and would have been with them, but was not. And on the morning of July 4, 1970 (see photo), my old squad, and a dog team, were all killed in an ambush. By the grace of God, I missed dieing there twice.

So on the Fourth I remember, and I also remember that the dogs, my own Ebony included, were not allowed to come home."

An altercation erupted between the handlers and the Commanding Officer of the unit over several issues one of which was a dog fight that broke out between two of the dogs. The CO (whose identity is not known) is alleged to have pointed his rifle at Gibbs causing Joe White to knock the CO to the ground - and a scuffle ensued. This incident and other issues caused the sentiments between the handlers and the unit to turn ugly and suspicious. The following morning the tensions had not been diffused and White and Gibbs refused to continue the mission with the unit as they feared for their safety and support from this unit. Instead Joe White and Teddy Gibbs decided to make their way back to Phu Bai by following the ridge line back down one mountain and over another mountain to the lowlands where they linked up with other Americans who helped them get back to their platoon area at Phu Bai. Their trek back was made all the more fascinating when they ran out of water and Ebony alerted on water which may have saved their lives.

White and Gibbs were eventually court-martialed for disobeying a direct order and penalized by loss of rank and two months' pay.

For further information please see Joe White's book "Ebony & White", 1966, Publisher: Doral Publishing Inc.

In an e-mail dated 3/14/03, Adam Klawonn, whose father Gale served with Tim when he was killed, relates the following:

"The story, according to my dad, Gale Klawonn, is kind of general. I don't have the name of the village or outlying area it happened in, but I do have this...

It was toward the end of my dad's 10 months and 28 days in the bush. He was in the 101st Airborne, and at some point, Tim Newell was brought in as a Handler. They became fast friends (Tim from Des Moines, Iowa, my dad from Grand Island, Neb.).

Dad had on a bracelet that indicated his tour was almost up. He may have had one month left. Whether the bracelet was standard military issue or just a platoon custom, I have no clue.

The group started out into the bush, my father going point. But Tim insisted on letting himself go on point instead, because they were buddies and my dad's time was almost up. They argued for awhile before my dad finally gave in.

Unfortunately, it was Tim's time that was up. Shortly thereafter he was shot in the head at very close range, with my father flanking him. He died in his arms. "

 

In an e-mail dated 6/26/03, 47th handler Doug McCoy relates the following:

"On the mission to replace Tim Newell Charles Fisher and I were sent out. We both ended up with the same platoon. This was the platoon that Tim was with when he got killed. The other platoon was under enemy fire so the Chopper pilot told me to go with Tim's platoon. Charles and I took turns walking point. Sometime after this mission Charles Fisher was assigned as a reporter for Stars And Stripes. Just a little info that I remember from the mission."

 

Above photo originally posted by Shari Kirkpatrick, August 5, 2012, at http://thewall-usa.com/guest.asp?recid=37736

"The location was the Lang-co bridge, the largest bridge in I Corps as I remember. I was walking second man behind Darmstat trying to keep ARVN relatively close for support. It was very scary as on one side of the tracks there was a ridge about 100 ft tall. On the opposite side was the sea, meaning if we were ambushed, the only place to run was into the sea. There was tall, wet, monkey grass between the tracks. All of us were walking between the tracks. It was thick so we couldn't see much through the grass. Rider stopped and sat ( a mine dog's alert ) we peeked through the grass and there it was. Called in a demolitions and they pulled out a 30lb block of c4 obviously enough the blow the next train. Rider saved me and Darmstat from certain death as I was about 20ft behind he and Darmstat."

For a period afterward, platoon members were not allowed to leave the platoon area for any reason without an MP escort.

Diaz was a six foot-six inch tall Supply Sergeant who transferred into the unit. He was very pro-active in soliciting assignments for the dog teams and was trying to get them out in the field working as much as possible. That did not go over too well with the guys. Frank recalled that Diaz would look thru the guys' stuff looking for drugs and confiscate it. At that time the unit was divided into three kind of guys: "The Heads", "The Juicers", and "The Religious Freaks". He said a few of the guys may have been using hard drugs via the needle. It seems things were pretty "cool" until Diaz joined the unit then tensions seemed to elevate.

After the Diaz death, Frank remembered that Lt. Van Clief purchased a Thompson sub-machine gun from one of the guys for $50.00 and kept it for protection. He also says that John Van Clief would move his bunk every night in the hootch. The guys could hear him dragging his bunk to a different location in the hootch as a precaution.

Frank also recalled that some guys (maybe as a prank or to scare him) hung about 50 hand grenades from the ceiling of Van Clief's hootch and locked the door. When John broke in he found them waiting for him. It shook him up a bit. They were not rigged to go off but just the thought...

After the CID investigation (Click link to download the full CID report) of the murder a platoon member was arrested but not prosecuted due to lack of evidence.

Frank expressed fond memories of the guys that he knew in the unit and added that the Diaz murder was an unforgetable event.

Note- John Van Clief, Jr. sent the webmaster a letter on May 9, 2009 with his own recollections of Sgt. Diaz' murder - to read the letter click here.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following article appeared in February, 2007 in the Kane County Chronicle, a Geneva, Illinois publication:

The 2 mysteries of Sgt. Diaz

By Paul Dailing

One of the mysteries surrounding Sgt. 1st Class Rafael Angel Diaz has been solved.

Diaz was killed in Vietnam in 1970, one day after his 30th birthday. He moved with his family to Aurora before shipping overseas, but, until recently, the county lacked the two pieces of proof needed to put Diaz's name among the 837 dead on the Kane County Veteran's Memorial.

The memorial, on the lawn of the Kane County Government Center in Geneva, was dedicated in 2004. It is an effort to honor all the county residents killed in war. It names 53 soldiers killed in Vietnam, but that list does not include Rafael Diaz.

"My husband needs to be in there," said Diaz's widow, Brunilda Diaz, 66, of Aurora. "He deserves to be there. This way we have a place to go and see him."

Diaz is buried in his native Puerto Rico. His name will be added to the memorial this spring.

Locating his family and the needed proof of residence left one mystery regarding Sgt. Diaz - which of his men rigged the explosive mine that killed him.

'Love at first sight'

Brunilda Diaz was 18 years old and talking to a friend outside her New York high school when she met Rafael, also 18.

"My husband was outside waiting for his girlfriend actually," she said, laughing. "When you meet somebody and some bells ring, or whatever you want to call it, and thats what my affair with my husband was like."

The son of a military man, Rafael was raised by his aunt in Puerto Rico. At 17, he came to New York to visit his mother and stayed.

Rafael and Brunilda wed in 1958, right after he left basic training.

When Rafael reached a rank where Brunilda could travel with him, the pair moved as the job demanded. Their daughter Liz, now 48, was born in North Carolina; Rafael Jr., 45, was born in New York; and Robert, 44, was born in Germany.

Liz Diaz, of Plano, said her father moved the family from New York to Aurora to be near his brother, Marco "Tony" Diaz, a minister.

"It was like a holding tank for us until he came back from Vietnam," she said. "This was the longest we had lived in one place."

Two mysteries

After serving in a supply unit, Sgt. Diaz was transferred to the 47th Infantry Scout Dog Platoon in August 1970. He would be killed three months later.

Frank Steinhebel, 57, of Madison Heights, Mich., was one of the platoon's many dog handlers.

"He was a lot older than us, about 30," said Steinhebel, who was 20 when Diaz joined the platoon. "He wanted it to be more military and we were like Hogan's Heroes, rejects."

The group was a young one, with 20-year-old Steinhebel older than the platoon's commanding lieutenant.

Diaz, a career soldier among draftees, irked the men by volunteering them for missions and cracking down on the rampant drug problem, said Spc. 4th Class Ed Reeves, who lives in Grove City, Ohio.

"He busted the people who had the drugs," Reeves said. "He tried to take care of it in-house. He tried to get the guys help, get them in rehab."

Early on the morning of Nov. 30, 1970, someone rigged a M18A1 Claymore Antipersonnel Mine on a sandbag outside the hut where Diaz slept. The by-the-book sergeant became one of the 234 intentional homicides the National Archives attribute to Vietnam.

"I was out in the field when it happened," Steinhebel said. "I come in the next day and there was a hole in the wall. There were rumors that someone did it. They arrested one guy, but they had no proof."

The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command did not return telephone calls for this article. In total, 58,193 Americans died in Vietnam.

It was 1996 before Liz Diaz heard her father might have been murdered.

"Recently, before my uncle [Marco Diaz] passed, he told me there were some things 'unfavorable,' " she said. "My dad was a man of integrity and my dad did everything the military asked of him and he did it effectively. It's just too bad he had to be victimized liked that."

"Whether it happened that way or not, we're still proud of him," Brunilda Diaz said. "He was serving his country."

Seeking Sgt. Diaz

For the past 12 years, John Carr, head of Kane County Veterans Assistance, has collected names of county residents killed in war.

"We would look for any military list, any newspaper articles, any telegrams from the military, any references, family, any item that would help us be able to put that together," Carr said.

Carr, a Vietnam veteran himself, said Illinois' veteran list put Diaz as an Aurora resident, but the national lists still had him as a New Yorker. Efforts to place Diaz were fruitless.

Last year, Penny Falcon of the Hispanic Pioneer Committee contacted Carr while researching Hispanic veterans. Carr mentioned Diaz, and Falcon began the search anew, focusing more on Aurora's tight-knit Puerto Rican community than government records.

At the Hispanic Pioneer Breakfast in September, Kane County Board Chairman Karen McConnaughay told Diaz's story. In the audience was Zaida Chapa, president of the Aurora Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Chapa placed a call to her childhood friend, Liz Diaz.

"She said, 'Hey Liz, guess what? They're looking for your dad,' " Liz Diaz said.

Names always needed

Diaz's is not the only upcoming addition to Kane's memorial. Pfc. Gary Lee Harbin soon will go up on the memorial as well.

The state list put Harbin as an Aurora resident, but the National Archives of Records and the Vietnam Wall records put him in Kendall County.

"Everything we had said he was from Oswego," Carr said. "Well, as it turns out, he was from Aurora, but there was a gentleman from Oswego with very similar death dates."

A recently discovered newspaper article from 1966 declared Harbin the first Auroran killed in Vietnam, giving the needed proof.

Carr said he knew of 228 more veterans with some, but not enough, information placing them in Kane County. Of those, 150 served in the Spanish-American War, so documentation might never be found.

Since the memorial was dedicated in 2004, five names - three from World War II and two from the Cold War - have been added.

Reprinted with Permission.
©2007 Kane County Chronicle. All rights reserved.
Published in Geneva, Illinois, USA by the NorthWest News Group, a Division of Shaw Newspapers

• View an additional news article and photo on SFC Diaz published by the Beacon News on February 15, 2007
• View Ms. Penny Falcon's presentation and press release concerning SFC Diaz
• View a subsequent June 3, 2007 article published by the Kane County Chronicle about Diaz' name being added to the Kane County Veterans Memorial in Geneva, IL.

American troop levels drop to 280,000 by year's end. During the year, an estimated 60,000 soldiers experimented with drugs, according to the U.S. command. There were also over 200 incidents of "fragging" in which unpopular officers were attacked with fragmentation grenades by men under their command. In addition, many units are now plagued by racial unrest, reflecting the disharmony back home.

Return to Main Page
Platoon photographs may not be republished without written permission
© 2000-2017 Jonathan D. Wahl