Our 10

*Content warning: This article features coarse language and instances of violence, which may be disturbing to some readers

In four degree weather on February 23, 1965, students from Michigan State University and East Lansing residents marched through campus and the downtown, ending up at the East Lansing Post Office. They carried signs protesting American involvement in the ongoing Vietnam War.

At that point, fewer than 500 American soldiers had been killed in the conflict. More than 56,000 would be killed before the U.S. withdrew ground troops from South Vietnam in 1973.

According to the National Archives, 10 of those killed called East Lansing home.

Many of them went through the East Lansing school system (the Hannah Community Center served as a junior high school), took sweethearts to the Crest Drive-In on M-43 (before it began showing dirty movies in the ‘70s), spent summers at Lake Lansing and met friends at Varsity Pizza on Grand River Avenue.

Those 10 names are nowhere to be found among the memorial to East Lansing soldiers at the Hannah Community Center; not on the black granite outside or on the wall of the first floor hallways with those East Lansing servicemen who died in World War II. For returning Vietnam veterans who had insults hurled at them and felt ignored by their fellow citizens, this treatment of our 10 dead feels, unfortunately, fitting. 

For this Memorial Day, East Lansing Info sought to learn more about these 10 men, in hopes that our community could reflect on their lives and service in a war that divided the country for decades.

Lt. Geoffrey E. Green

The son of Associated Press reporter Jack I. Green, Jeff was remembered by East Lansing High School classmate Ronald Davis as “quiet and perhaps a bit shy” on an online remembrance for those killed in Vietnam. Despite this, his senior yearbook lists a slew of accomplishments: wrestling, football, and tennis for all four years, varsity club, student council and sophomore class president. 

After high school, Jeff studied at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, earning regular accolades in The Lansing State Journal for his appearances on Deans’ Lists, during his junior year being lauded as “among the top eight percent of his class scholastically.”

Another ELHS classmate, Janet Robson, remembers the last time she saw Jeff.

“The last time I saw him was on a date for New Year’s Eve in 1962,” Robson wrote in the aforementioned forum. “At the party he told me he was going to join the military. Even had he known he would die in combat he would have done the same thing. Jeff was an intense man with a fire of patriotism. No one loved his country more than Jeff.”

According to military service records, Jeff was an Infantry Officer with B Company, 1st Battalion in the 3rd Marine Division. In September 1965, he was involved in an operation in the northern South Vietnam province of Quảng Ngãi. His company captured six Viet Cong soldiers near a cave before being fired on by others in the cave. Explosives were thrown into the cave, killing 65 Viet Cong. A group of Marines, including Jeff, entered the cave but were overcome by the lack of oxygen. While several soldiers were rescued, Jeff died of asphyxia. 

He is buried at Evergreen Cemetery on Mount Hope Avenue in Lansing.

ELi was unable to reach any family of Lt. Green.

Pfc James P. LaClear

“He was the perfect big brother,” Dora LaClear said about James, seven years her senior. Dora is the lone surviving sibling in her family and has just recently moved back to East Lansing. 

“He was athletic, he was into sports. In order to get into shape, I still remember this, I would get on the bus to go home. We lived about five miles from school. He would run those five miles alongside the bus.

“He loved chocolate,” she laughed. “We used to buy that neapolitan ice cream and we would eat the strawberry and vanilla and James would eat all the chocolate.”

James enlisted in the U.S. Army after graduating high school in 1965, reporting to Camp Pendleton in California for basic training. Dora remembered he was able to come home for Christmas the year before reporting to Vietnam. 

“He was in Vietnam for three months and in the field for three days before he died,” she said.

ELi spoke with Bernie Triano who served with James in Vietnam.

“Jimmy was a really quiet young man,” Triano said. “He was in the weapons platoon of the Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines. On May 12, 1966, we were sending a routine patrol out of our forward base. We were about 20 miles southwest of Da Nang [in northern South Vietnam]. James was on that patrol. They walked into an ambush. Twelve of the 14 died that day and he was one of them. There were checkpoints and the patrol was supposed to call in at certain coordinates so we knew where they were. We heard from them the first two times early in the morning, perhaps 7:30, eight o’clock. And then we didn’t hear anymore.”

Triano led a second patrol that was sent to find James’, retracing the steps before coming upon “a tremendous amount of firing.” 

An overhead plane, circling the area, warned the patrol that there were 10 to 12 Viet Cong hiding in the rice paddy ahead. What the aviator actually saw, however, were the bodies of James and the first patrol, surrounded by hundreds of the enemy. Triano’s commander called in air cover and artillery fire, allowing the two surviving Marines from the first patrol to be saved. Those two Marines had feigned being dead so as not to attract any more fire from the Viet Cong.

Dora and her family found out the next day.

“It was Friday the 13th,” she said, “and I was coming home on the bus and my mom and dad had just pulled in the driveway and a car followed them in. Mom got out [of the car] and came into the house. Dad stood out there to wait and see what they wanted and my dad was told that Jim was gone. My mom saw my dad bend his head to the ground and came out and they told her. I remember I got off the bus and I saw my mom run to the neighbors. I walked in and my dad was the one who told me that Jim was gone. I don’t remember anything after that about that day.”

Dora’s memories of the funeral are full of love from the community.

“His funeral procession was five miles long,” she said. “That was big back then. And I remember that all the florists ran out of flowers. James had no enemies. I remember at the funeral home, there was a school bus just full of kids and it was standing room only. People had to stand outside.”

Nearly 60 years after his death, she said the experiences of that May in 1966 still haunt her.

“I live with Vietnam 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year,” she said. “I just can’t get away from it. I wrote to [President Lyndon Baines Johnson] and told him what he could do to himself. My dad just went down the tubes after James died. He died about seven years later.”

James is buried in Rose Cemetery in Bath.

Pfc. John “Jack” E. Cantlon

“If he were any steadier, he would be stationary.”

That’s the quote next to Jack Cantlon’s senior photo in the 1964 ELHS yearbook. The handsome teen wears a crew cut and broad smile.

“He enjoyed the outdoors,” his younger brother Bill Cantlon told ELi. “He loved working on radios [and] had shortwave radios. He listened to stations all over the United States with his shortwave. I remember listening to one program with him. It was about a man collecting belly button lint for homeless sparrows.”

Bill laughs, remembering the brother two years his senior.

“Jack was not a scholar,” he said. “His academics were not his strong point. He was active in scouting, both the Boy Scouts and the Air Scouts they had at the time. We used to go out to Davis Airport [a private airport north of the East Lansing Aquatic Center on Abbot Road where apartments now sit] and watch the planes. The old, yellow biplane that pulled the banners for MSU games was housed out there.”

Bill said that his brother wanted to be a pilot but ended up joining the Marines as a radioman when he was still enrolled at Lansing Community College.

Three years ago, Bill’s father, Dr. John Cantlon – now 102 years old and still living in the area – received a letter from Dr. Marvin Mills. Mills had been Jack’s platoon commander. 

“My platoon was providing cover for the other two platoons in B Company as they crossed a river just north of Hoi An,” Mills wrote in the letter Bill shared with ELi. “The river had a shallow area where you could cross on foot. We received fire from a mangrove area in the river. The first shot hit [Jack] in the groin, hitting his femoral artery. As my radio operator, he was standing next to me. Our two Navy corpsman started working on him immediately. A medivac helicopter was called in from Da Nang a short distance north of us. He was evacuated with one of my corpsmen and the medical team on the helicopter. Unfortunately, they could not control the massive bleeding and he expired on the helicopter. He got as good of care as possible. We all felt the loss of this bright, young man.”

Bill was studying at Oakland University at the time and received a call from his father saying he needed to come home because Jack had been killed in Vietnam.

“I’m not sure what he would have done if he had come back,” Bill said. “I don’t think he would have gone back to school. He might have looked for employment in the area. He was very active outdoors. Loved camping and hiking. He was working for Rosso jewelers in downtown East Lansing and Mr. Rosso was encouraging him to come back and work there. He gave Jack a Rolex watch that dad still has.”

Jack is buried at Evergreen Cemetery.

Sgt. Douglas J. Miller

ELi was unable to connect with anyone who knew Doug. He does not appear in his junior or senior yearbooks.

Through his military record, it is known that he entered basic training at Camp Pendleton in California and would spend weekends off-site with fellow Marine Ron Durham at Durham’s mother’s house. Doug was a tank gunner and had “FUJIMO” painted on his gun tube [an acronym for “f— you Jack, I’m moving out”].

On Dec. 10, 1966, Doug’s company crossed Liberty Bridge over the Thu Bon River when a tank detonated a road mine. It only caused minor damage, but as the Marines worked on repairs, Doug stepped on a buried 105mm artillery shell that exploded, sending shrapnel into his body and killing him.

William B. Ginn, a Marine who served with Doug, wrote a message to him on an online message board.

“You were a friend and a great human being,” he said. “I have thought about you every day for 40 years. I miss you and I love you like a brother. If I could have traded places with you I would have. Doug, you made a difference in my life. I lost a very good friend the day you passed on. I know that God loves you and that you are in heaven with him. My whole life changed December 10th 1966.”

Doug is buried at Evergreen Cemetery.

Spec. 4 Vernon C. Wilderspin

Skip, as he was called by his family, was the oldest of four children. His three younger sisters adored him, even when he teased them.

“He liked fishing, being out in the woods,” said sister Dee Wilder. “He’d catch baby animals and bring them home to show us. He had a big aquarium in his bedroom with snakes in it. And we were not allowed to go into his bedroom, but we would sneak in there. So he would open the bedroom door a little bit and balance a basketball on top of it. So we’d open the door and get hit in the head with the basketball.

“He liked to play jokes on us,” she said, laughing.

Skip graduated from neighboring Haslett High School before earning a degree in fisheries and wildlife management from Michigan State University. 

“He graduated from college and got drafted immediately,” Dee said. “I don’t think he really wanted to go. I believe he had a conversation with my father, who said, ‘the men in our family always served.’ So he went.”

Skip was a medic in Vietnam and had been in the country for less than a month before his death.

His citation for the posthumously-awarded Distinguished Service Cross explained his last moments.

“His unit was moving to engage a combined Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army force which had attacked the air base,” it reads. “It was suddenly subjected to intense automatic weapons and anti-tank rocket fire from the numerically superior enemy. Specialist Wilderspin unhesitantly leaped from his armored personnel carrier to administer first aid to wounded comrades. Exposing himself to a devastating curtain of hostile fire, he gallantly moved throughout the raging battlefield to conduct his lifesaving mission. After aiding many casualties, including his seriously wounded platoon leader, Specialist Wilderspin saw his platoon sergeant lying helplessly wounded in an open area. With a hail of enemy bullets striking all around him, he fearlessly raced to the side of his smitten comrade and performed skillful emergency medical treatment which saved the man’s life. Just as he had finished tending the platoon sergeant’s wounds, Specialist Wilderspin was hit by the withering hostile fire and instantly killed. Specialist Four Wilderspin’s extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty, at the cost of his life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.”

“I often wonder what it would be like to still have him,” Dee said. “I think he would have gone on to become a really wonderful wildlife biologist. I’m pretty sure he had some kind of job lined up working in Wisconsin, but was drafted and never had a chance. 

“I think about him a lot of times and I have pictures of him and talk to my sister about him. We will remember his birthday and text each other.”

Skip is buried at Maple Grove Cemetery in Munising, Michigan.

Lt. Norman A. Freda

ELi has learned little about Norman. He may have been born in East Lansing but lived much of his life in the Detroit area. He graduated from Lincoln Park High School in Lincoln Park, Michigan, in January 1964. That same year, he entered Michigan State University and the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) there, graduating in June 1968.

Before leaving for Vietnam, he married Linda M. and the couple lived in Lincoln Park. We were unable to find Linda or any other family of Norman.

Norman served in Battery B First Battalion, 11th Artillery, 9th Infantry Division. On Jan. 31, 1969, he was killed by friendly fire coming from helicopters and gunships, according to news reports of his death published in The Detroit Free Press.

Norman is buried at Our Lady of Hope Cemetery in Brownsville Township, Michigan.

Sgt. Leo F. Hartsuff

With 14 brothers and sisters, I had to ask Leo’s brother the first question that came to mind.

Catholic?

“Yep,” he said, laughing. “And my dad was the milkman, too.”

Mike Hartsuff was five years younger than his brother Leo and was 16 when the family learned that Leo had been killed in Vietnam.

“He liked mechanics, working on motors and cars,” Mike said. “The other brothers helped too. He worked at gas stations.

“On his dates he would take one of us [younger siblings] to the drive-in movies with them. The girls would say, ‘you can bring a brother with you.’ And he did. He never argued about it, at least around us. We just sat and watched the movie.” 

Their father had been a drill sergeant in World War II and their mother’s brother had died in that war. Leo was drafted into the service after high school.

“He didn’t want to go, but he did,” Mike said. “He did what he thought was best, even though it cost him his life.”

According to military records, Leo was part of the 3rd Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. On Sept. 6, 1969, the regiment marched almost 100 miles southwest of An Loc to begin reconnaissance missions. The next day, they noticed movement among rubber trees and by the time night hit, had been battling enemy movements all day with artillery, helicopter gunships, and air strikes. The firefight claimed both Leo’s life and that of a staff sergeant.

Leo would be posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his bravery during the battle.

Mike and his sister, Nancy, were pulled out of class at ELHS and told to go home, not knowing what was happening. When they arrived, they learned that a lieutenant had visited the house, telling their mother that Leo had been killed.

“Everybody was stunned,” he said. “We were numb.”

Leo is buried at St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery in Lansing.

Pfc. Craig G. Knobloch

Craig was 18 months older than his younger brother, Keith.

“He fished all over,” Keith said. “He was a hunting and fishing person. He went to New Mexico and went deep sea fishing in the Gulf of Mexico with mother and father. He went trout fishing. We even went to Lake Lansing for ice fishing.”

Craig attended the Kentucky Military Institute, graduating in 1967 and, according to Keith, followed in the footsteps of his sister’s husband who flew helicopters in Vietnam at the time.

Keith doesn’t know much about Craig’s time in Vietnam. Their father, Dr. Irving Knobloch (both parents were professors at Michigan State University), traveled to Fort Sill in Oklahoma to speak with the captain of Craig’s unit to learn what had happened in Vietnam. In February 1968, they were crossing a river in the Da Nang province, laying down fire. Craig was ordered up to a high ridge where he was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade. 

“I don’t think my mother ever recovered from it,” Keith said of the loss. “It was really hard for her.”

Craig is buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

Col. Asa Parker Gray Jr.

Asa is the outlier of our 10. He was 50 years old when he died, had served in World War II and Korea before arriving in Vietnam, and he left behind a child.

Born in 1918, he grew up in the East Lansing/Grand Ledge community. He married the former Jeanne Lenore Voight in 1944. The couple had a son 15 years later.

“One of my personal fantasies,” his son Steven told ELi, “would be to have a time machine and go back and say, ‘I know nothing. Tell me about your life.’”

“The clearest memories I have of him,” he said, “we were stationed in Alaska from ‘65 to ‘68 and he was the boss of the NIKE missile program that was the first line of defense against Soviet missiles and Soviet bombers. 

“My understanding is that in late 1968, I remember him saying that he had a choice. He could go from a full colonel to a general, a one star general, and go back to the Pentagon. Or he could remain a full colonel and go to Vietnam. And obviously we know what he chose. As his son, again, if I had my time machine, I’d kick him in the ass and say, ‘you’ve got an 8-year-old son who needs you.’”

In Vietnam, Asa served as the senior advisor for the Long An province in southern South Vietnam. On May 13, 1969, he and his soldiers were in the hamlet of Bo Kinh – believed to be pacified – when they were ambushed by more than 200 North Vietnamese soldiers. Asa was shot in the stomach and carried to safety by his men and flown out by helicopter. Despite the fast actions of his men, Asa died the next day.

Marion Lane served under Asa in Vietnam and spoke with ELi.

“He didn’t bark orders,” Lane said. “He wasn’t that kind of commander. He cared about his men and in return, we respected him. He had a great love for his country and the people of Vietnam. I was proud to serve with him on advisory team 86.”

Steven learned little of his father’s service record.

“The problem with being nine years old when he died, 8 years old when I last saw him, your dad doesn’t necessarily talk to you so much about his life, when you’re 8 years old and he’s walking out the door,” he said “Strangely, I don’t know a lot about him. From those who served under him, I learned one of his positive traits was he was very loyal to his soldiers. Back in those days, being a Black American serving in the military, some army officers treated them poorly and he would not stand for that. That then made those who served with him very loyal in return. I heard those stories after he was killed. I was still a kid.”

Steven’s mother struggled after his father was killed, becoming obsessed with trying to protect him, he says. She didn’t allow him to date or play baseball.

“When I got older,” Steven said, “and I started hearing more stories about how military guys would want to serve multiple terms in war situations and leave families at home. And you hear how the soldiers bond together and it’s hard to come back and live a normal life. I started thinking, son of a bitch, he served in WWII, he served in Korea which was a nightmare. And now he’s 49, 50 years old, and he chooses to go to Vietnam? He’s got a wife and an 8-year-old son. He can go to the Pentagon and have a nice life and career there. I’m hoping there’s an afterlife. Because the first thing I’m asking him in Heaven is what the f— were you thinking? I’m a parent, okay. What the f— were you thinking, going to Vietnam at 49 with an 8-year-old son?

“In the few pictures I have of us standing together, you don’t really look very happy to be there. So did you not want me around? Did you go to f—ing Vietnam to get away from us? So yeah, I’m a little mad now.

“I hope there’s a heaven, because I’ve got some damn questions.”

Asa is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

1st Lt. Theodore R. Leighton

Uncle Ted was a rockstar to his young nieces and nephews.

“He rode around in a TR7 [sports car],” said Dan Leighton, his nephew. “He looked like a Hollywood actor, chiseled jaw, great look. He also rode around on a motorcycle, he was a man’s man. Hell of a shot, I know that. He won multiple shooting awards in high school. It’s almost like he was tailor made to be a soldier.”

“He’d get out of the car and he always had a handful of candy sticks,” Dan’s sister, Julie (Leighton) Lafferty said. “He’d honk when he pulled into the driveway and we’d come running out. He was in the military so we didn’t get to see him a ton, but he was always so fun, a real happy guy.”

Ted attended Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri, serving as Honor Guard Commander during his last year.

“I was an underclassman who was fortunate to be selected to his team as a high school sophomore,” Mark Mullenioux wrote in an online tribute to Ted. “He led by example and was an outstanding gentleman and mentor to all his cadet Honor Guardsmen.”

Back in Michigan, he met an East Lansing girl, Mary Kathleen Robertson, or Kathi. The two married at Peoples Church in August 1969.

When he enlisted for the service, it was almost guaranteed that Ted would end up in Vietnam.

“It was his very first day in Vietnam,” Julie said. “There was some confusion about his role on the flight, but he was the gunner, not the pilot.”

“They had just flown a flight,” Dan said, “and they had heard that another platoon was being attacked. He and his buddies didn’t want to leave these guys to fend for themselves. They got back in and were on their way when they went down.”

“The pilot made a hard turn and hit the trees,” Julie finished. “We were first notified that he was MIA [missing in action] and were worried that he had been taken [by the enemy]. But at least we thought he was alive.”

Ted died Jan. 27, 1970.

“It was tough on my dad,” Julie said. “It was his only brother. They were 10 years apart but my dad always looked after him. Uncle Ted was always looking up to my dad. He wouldn’t bring it up too much because it just hurt [and] he would tear up. 

Ted is buried at Evergreen Cemetery.

We shall not sleep

Ron Springer was a platoon leader in Vietnam and has been a voice for veterans since he returned home to East Lansing. He also worked as a city planner in East Lansing for 27 years. 

Springer travels the area, speaking at veteran events and working to honor those who have died and those who remain. ELi asked him why communities should remember their veterans and those who were lost at war.

“Not to simplify it, but ‘In Flanders Fields’ encapsulates it. The themes of that poem – they didn’t want to be forgotten and they didn’t want to die in vain. Don’t let us die in vain.

“For Vietnam, there were protests, nasty protests, some of them. It just ripped this country in two. There were those who said, ‘you were idiots for going.’ Literally, there were people who made a mockery of serving.”

When asked about the City of East Lansing’s failure to recognize the veterans and war dead, he took a long pause to consider his response.

“We got so hung up in the early 2000s about the greatest generation,” he said. “For Vietnam, there should be something. It would be nice to have something. It’s been overlooked. And this has been a city where you’ve had protests [against the Vietnam War] right on Grand River. Vietnam takes a backseat.

“Do I expect it? No, because that’s just the politics and everything else. I never expected anything in East Lansing so I wasn’t disappointed. There’s not a parade in East Lansing or anything and there’s never been any outcry [about it]. I would go to the one at the [Hannah] Community Center and there would be Vic Loomis, Dick Johnson, myself, and I’m going, aren’t there more than four veterans in East Lansing?”

The website for the City of East Lansing maintains a list of residents who died in combat, admitting that it is likely incomplete and additions should be submitted. Of the 10 men identified here and by the National Archives, only one Vietnam death is listed.

The poem Springer referenced, “In Flanders Fields,” attempts to speak for the dead. Its final lines may be calling to our community, begging to be remembered and considered. The foe is no longer in a far, distant land but instead our own apathy.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields

Correction 5/28: This story was corrected to state the Hannah Community Center served as a junior high school.