Patrol Briefing

Written by: Kelly Durham

Good leaders explain the mission and their expectations to their team members.  David Nathaniel Green, Jr. was in the midst of such a briefing when his life came to a sudden end. 

 Green was a member of Clemson’s Class of 1965.  He was an engineering major from Sumter and a member of the Society for the Advancement of Management.  Like his father, who achieved the rank of major, Green went into the military service and was commissioned as an Army second lieutenant.  

 By 1967, the United States was engaged in a steadily expanding air and ground war in Vietnam. More than 380,000 soldiers were in the country and General William Westmoreland, the US commander, believed his troops were ready for major offensives that would seize the initiative for American forces. 

Second Lieutenant Green arrived in Vietnam at the beginning of May 1967.  He was assigned to A Company, 3rd Battalion, 39th Infantry Regiment of the 9th Infantry Division.  Green’s battalion was engaged in Operation Enterprise, a pacification and security mission in Long An Province.  The province was the gateway to the Mekong River Delta, the major rice-producing region of South Vietnam.  Controlling the waterways in the delta was important to sustaining the free transport of rice and other commercial goods.  Based at Rach Kien, the battalion’s mission was to destroy the enemy and deny him the “use of lines of communications.” 

 To destroy the enemy, one had to know where to find him.  In order to pinpoint Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army troops, American forces patrolled their areas of operations.  On July 24, Second Lieutenant Green was briefing a combat patrol before it was to be sent out on its evening mission.  At 1915 hours, A Company’s area was alerted by a shot from a .45 caliber pistol.  One of the company’s soldiers had accidentally shot himself in the hand.  A medical evacuation, or “dust off,” helicopter was requested and the incident was under investigation.   

 At 1945 hours, as Green went over the patrol plan, an explosion from an unknown source ripped through the group.  Eight soldiers were wounded.  Green was killed.  Evacuation of the soldier with the wounded hand was put on hold while two dust off flights airlifted a total of six soldiers to Army medical facilities.  Two others were not wounded seriously enough for evacuation.  Green’s official cause of death was listed as a non-hostile, accidental self-destruction. 

 Second Lieutenant Green was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation with Palm, Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, and the Combat Infantry Badge.  He was survived by his father and two brothers.  He is buried in Sumter Cemetery and is memorialized on the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Washington, DC. 

 For more information on David Nathaniel Green, Jr. see: 

 https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/scroll/david-nathaniel-green-jr/  

 For additional information about Clemson University’s Scroll of Honor visit: 

 https://soh.alumni.clemson.edu/