GRAVES, TERRENCE COLLINSON *
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps, 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division (Rein),
Place and date: Quang Tri Province, Republic of Vietnam, 16 February 1968
Entered service at: New York
Born: 6 July 1945, Corpus Christi, Texas
Citation:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as a platoon commander with the 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company. While on a long-range reconnaissance mission, 2nd Lt. Graves' 8-man patrol observed 7 enemy soldiers approaching their position. Reacting instantly, he deployed his men and directed their fire on the approaching enemy. After the fire had ceased, he and 2 patrol members commenced a search of the area, and suddenly came under a heavy volume of hostile small arms and automatic weapons fire from a numerically superior enemy force. When 1 of his men was hit by the enemy fire, 2nd Lt. Graves moved through the fire-swept area to his radio and, while directing suppressive fire from his men, requested air support and adjusted a heavy volume of artillery and helicopter gunship fire upon the enemy. After attending the wounded, 2nd Lt. Graves, accompanied by another marine, moved from his relatively safe position to confirm the results of the earlier engagement. Observing that several of the enemy were still alive, he launched a determined assault, eliminating the remaining enemy troops. He then began moving the patrol to a landing zone for extraction, when the unit again came under intense fire which wounded 2 more marines and 2nd Lt. Graves. Refusing medical attention, he once more adjusted air strikes and artillery fire upon the enemy while directing the fire of his men. He led his men to a new landing site into which he skillfully guided the incoming aircraft and boarded his men while remaining exposed to the hostile fire. Realizing that 1 of the wounded had not embarked, he directed the aircraft to depart and, along with another marine, moved to the side of the casualty. Confronted with a shortage of ammunition, 2nd Lt. Graves utilized supporting arms and directed fire until a second helicopter arrived. At this point, the volume of enemy fire intensified, hitting the helicopter and causing it to crash shortly after liftoff. All aboard were killed. 2nd Lt. Graves' outstanding courage, superb leadership and indomitable fighting spirit throughout the day were in keeping with the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.
On Saturday, July 7, 2001, a memorial honoring Lieutenant Terrence C. Graves, USMC, was unveiled on Main Street in the village of Groton, located in Tompkins County, New York.
Thanks to Vietnam veteran, and Groton resident, Leslie Paul Gifford III for the photos of the memorial.
Monday, July 9, 2001
1,500 salute Graves
Groton dedicates memorial to fallen marine
By Dan Higgins
GROTON, N.Y.-- With military precision, the ceremony to dedicate the monument to a fallen war hero was marked by perfect timing, to-the-point speeches, and ideal weather.
Old veterans in baseball caps, young families pushing strollers, marines in dress blues and dark-suited politicians crowded the Village of Groton's bright Main Street at noon Saturday to honor 2D Lt. Terrence C. Graves, a Groton resident who gave his life for his comrades in 1968 in the heat of a jungle ambush in Vietnam.
Since October, eight Groton residents worked to raise more than $50,000 to erect the black, granite monument to Graves, unveiled Saturday to a standing ovation as the Second Marine Division Band from Camp Lejeune, N.C., played "Stars and Stripes Forever."
Graves is a posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor given in the military.
On Feb. 16, 1968, he was the leader of Team Box Score, a reconnaissance unit on patrol in Quang Tri Province. Graves' eight-man patrol was ambushed while searching for a small group of Vietnamese soldiers they had spotted earlier.
Every soldier in Graves' patrol was wounded. As the men made it to a rescue helicopter, they noticed one was missing.
Graves got off the rescue ship with another marine to search for the missing man. His ride to safety took off without him, under heavy fire. Once he found the missing soldier, they managed to board a second helicopter, which crashed. Graves and all aboard were killed.
The next year Graves' parents, Marjorie and then-Groton Schools Superintendent Leslie Graves, were presented with their son's Medal of Honor by then-Vice President Spiro Agnew.
The citation concluded, "He gallantly gave his life for his country."
Many of the speakers at the solemn dedication ceremony sounded that theme of sacrifice, including Maj. General Pete Osman, who represented the Pentagon and read a letter from the Commandant of the Marine Corps.
Graves was a living example of the principle of "others before self," that the Marine Corps tries to instill in all its recruits, Osman said.
Retired Brigadier General Robert H. Purple of the United States Air National Guard recalled his former student as a confident, natural leader.
Purple taught Graves at Edmeston High School. Purple, also his former basketball coach, recalled a student who preferred sports to homework, but excelled at both.
Other speakers included Rep. Amo Houghton, R-31st District, who recalled his own service in the Marines in WWII. Houghton told the crowd to remember that "We who live are here because of those who died."
Assemblyman Martin Luster, D-125th District, presented Graves' parents with a state legislature resolution honoring Graves.
The ceremony culminated in an honor guard gun salute by Company B, 8th Tank Battalion, 4th Marine Division from Syracuse, who stood on the roof of the Main Street Pizzeria, facing the memorial. The sharp reports from the soldier's rifles were followed by a bugler from the Marine Band playing "Taps."
On cue, a lone AH-1 Cobra helicopter flew north over the crowd.
Participants and audience members said the hour-long ceremony was a fitting tribute.
"This is the kind of community that really appreciates this," said 25-year Groton resident Teddy (Big Daddy) Antrum, who sang "Amazing Grace" before the Honor Guard salute.
Many said they came to the dedication not because they knew Terrence Graves but because they know and respect his parents. Les Graves was superintendent of Groton Central Schools for 20 years.
"That's why we're here. It's a community event, and we want to support the (Graves) family," said Lucia Kokebacker, who has lived in Groton with her husband, John, for 10 years.
Les Graves said after the ceremony he was afraid he wouldn't make it through his speech.
He still gets emotional talking about his late son, he said.
But the retired educator spoke in a strong, clear voice, not just about his son, but about his former students, family friends, and the 58,225 other soldiers who died in Vietnam.
"I often think of the last three wars," Graves said, "and how many servicemen's acts of heroism were never witnessed ... were never recognized. That often plays on my mind," he said.
Leslie and Marjorie Graves watch as the U.S. Marine Corps, Prisoner-of-War and Missing in Action flags are raised Saturday at the dedication ceremony for the Terrence C. Graves Memorial in Groton, New York. The ceremony drew 1,500 people to honor their son, who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for his actions in Vietnam.
Thanks to Guy A. Pete GuyA.Pete@Svedala.com for the above photograph; which was taken in January, 1968. The location was at Dong Ha, 3rd Force Reconnaissance company base camp area. In the picture from left to right are:
The Marine holding the AK47 is 1st Lt. G.W.T. (Digger) O'Dell, now LtCol USMC (Ret). 1st Lt. O'Dell was the author of Terrence C. Graves' Medal of Honor Citation.
Looking directly at the camera is Terrence C. Graves.
Next is Capt. John Shebel 3rd Force Operations Officer.
Behind Capt. Shebel is 2nd Lt. Jim Dusenbury, Platoon Commander.
Next is Major Anderson, Commanding Officer of 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company.
The Marine on the right is an unidentified member of the patrol which just returned.
On 28 April 1999, I received the following e-mail message from Bill Kent, the Commanding Officer of the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion ( '67-'68).
Neil: As I mentioned, it is difficult to capture Terry Graves in a few words. At least for me it is, so I will just tell you the thought that comes to mind. I interviewed/welcomed Terry in my hootch in Dong Ha within a few days of his reporting to the Force Company for duty in Dec '67. My recollection of that meeting goes like this:
Mr. Graves came to 3rd Force and Recon Battalion like a breath of fresh air. It took only a moment to recognize him as a leader whose bearing, presence, and sense of purpose was soon to have an impact on his Marines and on the unit. He did, but we lost him....oh, so soon.
Semper Fidelis. Bill Kent
On 14 April 2000, I received the following e-mail message from Mark S. Rader, the platoon comander of the 3rd platoon of India Company 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines.
Dear Sir: Terry and I completed The Basic School together. He was one of those altogether memorable marines: warm and friendly, determined, decisive, and selfless. I was "in country" myself when he died, serving as the platoon commander of the 3d platoon of India Company, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines. I was deeply saddened to learn of his death, but greatly honored when I learned that he had been recommended for and received the Congressional Medal of Honor. It was my privilege and pleasure to know him, to count him among my friends, and to be counted among his.
Semper fi, Mark S. Rader, 1st Lt., USMC (Retired)
Thanks to Leslie
Paul Gifford III
for providing the below excerpt from the book "Inside Force
Recon, Recon Marines in Vietnam", by Michael Lanning and Ray
Stubbe.
Team Box Score of the Third Force Recon Company reached its assigned recon zone six miles northwest of Dong Ha on 15 February 1968 by walking from the nearest firebase. Composed of eight men including patrol leader Second Lieutenant Terrence C. Graves, six enlisted Marines, and a corpsman, Box Score had a rather typical mission, to determine enemy activity, engaging what enemy they found with supporting fires, locating landing zones and trails, and attempting to capture a prisoner.
By the afternoon of the 16th, the team had reached an area overlooking a small stream pocked with bomb craters. Hearing voices in the thick brush across the waterway, the team crossed the stream to set up an ambush in a bomb crater alongside a trail. Within minutes seven NVA walked down the pathway. When the enemy was within five meters of the ambush, the recon men opened up, killing all seven. In the brief firelight, the NVA were barely able to return fire; however, two of the rounds they managed to get off struck Corporal Danny M. Slocum, tearing away shin and muscle from his thigh but not producing life threatening wounds.
While the team medic, HM3 Stephen R. Thompson, was treating Slocum, Graves hastily searched the bodies and found a diary along with other documents. The patrol leader then called a med-evac for the wounded Marine and began moving the team to a better point to bring in the helicopter. Box Score made it only a few meters before the team was raked by automatic weapons fire from two different directions. Graves ordered the team into a hasty perimeter as the Marines returned fire. Several of the NVA machine guns were knocked out by accurate M-79 grenade launcher fire by Corporal Robert B. Thomson, though Thomson had been unable to spot the exact position of the automatic weapons until Private First Class Michael P. Nation exposed himself to mark their positions with tracer rounds for Thomson to zero in on.
The silencing of the enemy machine guns brought only a brief lull to the fighting. Every minute, more NVA joined the battle, until at least two companies were ringing the eight-man patrol. Despite the number of NVA, Graves had to move his team to a better position from which to fight and hopefully be extracted. As the lieutenant directed in air strikes and gun ships to cover their movement, the team began inching its way to the top of a small knoll. At one point a CH-46 attempted to land near the team but took several hits and had to lift off.
As the CH 46 flew out of range, the NVA again concentrated their firepower on the recon team. Graves took a bullet in the thigh, but an inspection by Doc Thompson revealed that the bone was not broken. After a quick bandaging, Graves was back on the radio coordinating the supporting fires. No sooner had the corpsman finished with the lieutenant than Corporal Thomson yelled that he too had been hit. A bullet had penetrated the Marine's left side and shattered the pelvic bone before lodging in the abdominal cavity. Doc Thompson recalls, "He said, 'I'm blacking out, Doc, I'm blacking out. ' Then he passed out on me, and I think at that moment he died. I started closed-chest cardiac massage and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. While I was doing this, Lopez, Private First Class Adrian S. yelled, 'Doc, Emrick's (Lance Corporal Steven E.) hit, I think he's dying.' I looked over and said, Nation [who had been cross-trained by Thompson in medical procedures], just do what you can."
Nation alternated between treating Emrick and doing his best to fight off the NVA. According to Nation, "Emrick kept saying, 'Get the radio off.' That was what he was talking about; he wasn't worried about himself. Lopez finally got it off by snapping off the bottom of the pack. Then Emrick said, 'Oh my God,' and that's the last thing he said. I started to give him mouth to mouth. Lopez said he could still feel a pulse."
There was no letup in the NVA fire despite the repeated runs by fixed-wing aircraft and helicopter gun ships. Graves continued to fight as he directed the team to make another attempt to move to higher ground. With Doc Thompson and Private First Class James E. Honeycutt dragging Thomson and with Nation and Lopez carrying Emrick, Graves and Slocum provided covering fire despite their wounds. A few minutes later Box Score reached the low grassy ridge that was large enough for a set down extraction. Although the patrol was then in a good position for extraction, the ridge they occupied was paralleled by two higher hills, both occupied by the NVA only 100 meters away.
The fight by the eight Marines against several hundred NVA had been going on for over an hour and a half. Another CH-46 made an attempt to reach the team but took heavy fire and had to regain altitude. Captain David Underwood, orbiting the fight at 1,000 feet in his H-34, radioed that he was coming in to make the extraction. Flying behind a Huey gunship for covering fire, Underwood came in at treetop level through a gauntlet of small-arms and machine-gun fire, touching down only a few meters from the team. Intense fire immediately centered on the H-34, shattering the side windows and some of the pilot's instrument panel gauges. More rounds were slamming into the fuselage and fuel pods. Although practically every warning light was lit up on the still operational parts of the instrument panel, Underwood stayed at the controls, waiting for the recon team to climb aboard.
Dragging, pulling, and crawling through the elephant grass, the Marines loaded the aircraft as Graves continued to return the NVA fire. Three long minutes passed as the recon men ensured that their wounded buddies were pulled onto the aircraft that was now profusely leaking fuel and was in danger of exploding. Nation later stated, "I guess Lieutenant Graves saw how bad the plane was hit and realized if the chopper didn't leave then it wouldn't be leaving at all, because I saw him waving at the pilot and yelling 'get' or 'get out.' He did this realizing that he might get hit again and his chances of getting back were pretty slim, but he wanted to make sure that the rest of us made it back. What Lieutenant Graves did is the bravest thing I've ever seen."
As Underwood began to lift the crippled chopper, the NVA ran out of their protected positions for better shots. One burst strafed the bird, a bullet hitting Lopez in the thigh and glancing off the bone and into the Marine's stomach. As the helicopter gained a few feet of altitude, Slocum and Honeycutt realized that Graves was being left behind, with no words exchanged between the two, both Marines jumped from the helicopter to help their lieutenant. With the loss of weight of the two men, Underwood was able to gain altitude quickly and nurse the bird to the nearest medical facility. More than 20 bullet holes were later counted in the aircraft.
Meanwhile, Underwood's wingman, Captain Carl Bergman, was attempting to pick up the remaining recon men. Three passes through the NVA fire failed to find the Marines, but on the fourth try Bergman spotted the trio and set his H-34 down near them. The chopper immediately came under intense automatic weapons fire from NVA so close that initially Bergman could not distinguish between the sounds of the outgoing from his door gunners and the incoming from the enemy. A shout from the cargo compartment revealed that the crew chief had been wounded and that the fuel cells were hit and leaking. Bergman was forced to lift off before the remaining members of Box Score were able to fight their way to the helicopter.
Graves, Slocum, and Honeycutt continued to return fire as they made still another attempt to move to a more advantageous position. The NVA dropped two mortar rounds near the trio but did no damage. Suddenly a UH-1 pilot spotted an opening and swooped in almost on top of the Marines. The Huey hovered just off the ground as the recon men threw their gear aboard and pulled themselves into the aircraft. Cross fire from the NVA zeroed in on the chopper as it attempted to lift off. Graves was hit again, as was the copilot, who slumped over the controls. The Huey nosed over and crashed on its side into the jungle.
Slocum found himself on top of "a heap of bodies." As he crawled out of the helicopter, 15-20 NVA were sweeping toward him on line. The enemy spotted the Marine and opened fire as he turned and ran toward a nearby stream. Hitting the streambed at a dead run, Slocum was able to elude his pursuers.
By then, darkness was closing in on the battle area. A reaction force consisting of a platoon of B Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines air-landed near the crashed Huey to rescue any survivors. Before they reached the downed aircraft, they too became engaged with the NVA from three directions and suffered one killed and four wounded. Unable to proceed, the platoon formed a defensive perimeter.
Slocum heard the firefight from his hiding place near the stream but decided to remain in place. He later recalled matter-of-factly, "I didn't want to go back over there. There was a firefight going on and I didn't want to get shot anymore."
At daylight the next morning, the remainder of B Company was lifted in and finally reached the crashed chopper to report that Graves and Honeycutt were dead and Slocum missing.
The missing Marine's problems were not yet over. In his attempt to link up with B Company, the infantry Marines mistook him for an NVA and called in artillery on him. Slocum states, "It didn't bother me; I got down in a hole."
When the infantrymen started toward Slocum's hole, not wanting to take any more chances, he headed in the opposite direction. Finally a chopper spotted him and coordinated his joining up with B Company. Slocum was evacuated to the Naval Hospital in Cam Ranh Bay where after two and a half months he recovered from his wounds and eventually rejoined the Third Company. Thomson, Lopez, and Emrick were not so fortunate. All three died of their wounds either aboard Underwood's helicopter or within hours of reaching the evacuation hospital.
Slocum, Doc Thompson, and Bergman later received the Silver Star. Thomson's Silver Star and Honeycutt's Navy Cross were both awarded posthumously. Underwood also had earned a Navy Cross. On 2 December 1969, in the office of the Vice President of the United States, Spiro T. Agnew presented the Medal of Honor posthumously to the family of Lieutenant Graves.
--- General / Personal ---
Last name: GRAVES
First name: TERRENCE COLLINSON
Home of Record (official): GROTON
State (official): NY
Date of Birth: Friday, July 6, 1945
Sex: Male
Race: Caucasian
Marital Status: Single
--- Military ---
Branch: Marine Corps
Rank: 2LT
Serial Number: 0101090
Component: Regular
Pay grade: O1
MOS (Military Occupational Specialty code): 0302
--- Action ---
Start of Tour: Sunday, December 10, 1967
Date of Casualty: Saturday, February 17, 1968
Age at time of loss: 22
Casualty type: (A1) Hostile, died
Reason: Gun, small arms fire (Ground casualty)
Country: South VietNam
Province: Quang Tri
The Wall: Panel 39E - Row 071
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