After visiting the grave of SP4 John Lobsinger at Lakewood Cemetery, I headed southeast toward my next stop. Ft. Snelling National Cemetery, located on the south side of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, is a sprawling National Cemetery, filled with tens of thousands of military markers. There were two 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry soldiers to visit here. Upon entering the fully fenced in military reservation, I headed toward Section H. SP4 Robert J Larson served in Bravo Company and was killed in action on December 10th, 1967.
Larson, who carried the M-60 machine gun for his squad, had been in Vietnam for 127 days when he died. On the morning of December 10th, he and two other men from Bravo Companies 4th Platoon (SGT Ronald Sandmann and SP4 Robert Campbell) were killed when they walked into an NVA ambush on a long forgotten hill just near the Cambodian border west of Dak To. Another Bravo Company soldier, PFC John Nishimura, was shot in the spine and paralyzed. He would survive the ambush, but eventually died from his wounds on April 4th, 1968. The names of all four men can be found on Panel 31 East of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial Wall in Washington D.C.
Larson’s grave marker was numbered H 4243. I slowly pulled up on the east side of Section H and scanned the headstones. H 456, H 457, H 458…I was a long way off. I eased the car forward, watching the grave numbers steadily increase. 1000s, 2000s, 3000s. When I saw the first 4000 series headstone, I pulled to a stop and exited the car. Traditionally, an upright white granite military marker is adorned with the name of the deceased on the front and the marker number on the back. As I walked down the row in which I would eventually find SP4 Larson, I noticed a few names on the backsides as well. Spouses and sometimes children would be buried alongside their military veteran loved one, and their names etched on the backside just below the marker number. H 4241, H 4242, and there, H243. Below the marker number was etched the following:
His name on the back of the headstone could only mean one thing. He was buried with a family member. I walked around to the front side of the headstone.
Five years prior to his death in Vietnam, at just 14 years of age, Robert Larson had lost his father. What a strange coincidence that both of the first two gravesites I would visit on this trip were for young men who had already lost a parent before they shipped out to Vietnam. For them, death must have been no stranger, having had to deal with the mental anguish that invariably alters the life of a teenager. I reflected for a moment on how lucky I had been, to make it to over 40 years old and still be blessed with both my parents, alive and well and very much a part of my life. I placed a penny on the headstone, a small American flag in front of Robert’s side, and retreated to my car.