Timothy Judd Saunders

The database page for Timothy Judd Saunders

17 Sep 2006 I recently spent a week hiking in Grand Teton National Park and used Jackson, Wyoming as a base for venturing into these rugged mountains each day. One evening I walked through a hillside cemetery on the edge of town, much of it overgrown in weeds and small shrubs. I came upon a gravestone almost covered in weeds. When I pulled them back I found a memorial to Tim's short life. I borrowed a rake and shears from the innkeeper where I was staying and cleaned up the gravesite, washed the headstone and squared away the terrain and grass around it. I did not know this young man. He died two years before I was sent to Vietnam in the Marines. I survived 18 months there and am forever thankful for that. Part of that thanks includes a lifetime debt to men like Tim who were killed there. They paid a terrible price so I could live on with my life. If you read this, remember this young man buried in a lonely hillside grave in Wyoming. Semper Fi, Tim! God's speed! From a fellow Vietnam veteran. carson.bartels@cfu.net

A Note from The Virtual Wall The casualty files show four men from E Company, 3/60th Infantry, as killed in action in Dinh Tuong Province on 05 July 1967: SP4 Timothy J. Saunders, Jackson, WY; PFC Edward M. Cornell, North Hollywood, CA; PFC Pedro Ferra-Flores, Miami, FL; and PFC Jerry D. Hudson, Bridgeport, TX. In each instance, the Army's TAGCEN file gives the complementary cause of death as drowning. 3/60 Infantry was part of the combined US Navy/9th Infantry Division Mobile Riverine Force which conducted operations along the rivers and canals of the Mekong Delta region. That fact and the cause of death for the four men led to a fruitless search of the USNAVFORV History for July 1967 in hopes of finding documentation for an action on 05 July. The MRFA web site was no more productive, nor was a general internet search. None the less, it is suspected the four men were involved in Operation CONCORDIA II, which began in Go Cong/Dinh Tuong Provinces on 04 July and probably were killed when a troop carrier was struck by enemy fire.

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With all respect
Jim Schueckler, former CW2, US Army
Ken Davis, Commander, United States Navy (Ret)
Memorial first published on 17 Sep 2006
Last updated 08/10/2009