This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Sgt John Langheim
to remember
Marine LCpl James Gormon Goetz.
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Casualty Info
Home Town Desoto, MO
Last Address 508 Jefferson St. De Soto, MO 63020
Casualty Date Mar 16, 1967
Cause KIA-Killed in Action
Reason Other Explosive Device
Location Quang Tri (Vietnam)
Conflict Vietnam War
Location of Interment Calvary Cemetery - De Soto, Missouri
Vietnam War/Counteroffensive Phase II Campaign (1966-67)
From Month/Year
July / 1966
To Month/Year
May / 1967
Description This campaign was from 1 July 1966 to 31 May 1967. United States operations after 1 July 1966 were a continuation of the earlier counteroffensive campaign. Recognizing the interdependence of political, economic, sociological, and military factors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared that American military objectives should be to cause North Vietnam to cease its control and support of the insurgency in South Vietnam and Laos, to assist South Vietnam in defeating Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam, and to assist South Vietnam in pacification extending governmental control over its territory.
North Vietnam continued to build its own forces inside South Vietnam. At first this was done by continued infiltration by sea and along the Ho Chi Minh trail and then, in early 1966, through the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). U.S. air elements received permission to conduct reconnaissance bombing raids, and tactical air strikes into North Vietnam just north of the DMZ, but ground forces were denied authority to conduct reconnaissance patrols in the northern portion of the DMZ and inside North Vietnam. Confined to South Vietnamese territory U.S. ground forces fought a war of attrition against the enemy, relying for a time on body counts as one standard indicator for measuring successful progress for winning the war.
During 1966 there were eighteen major operations, the most successful of these being Operation WHITE WING (MASHER). During this operation, the 1st Cavalry Division, Korean units, and ARVN forces cleared the northern half of Binh Dinh Province on the central coast. In the process they decimated a division, later designated the North Vietnamese 3d Division. The U.S. 3d Marine Division was moved into the area of the two northern provinces and in concert with South Vietnamese Army and other Marine Corps units, conducted Operation HASTINGS against enemy infiltrators across the DMZ.
The largest sweep of 1966 took place northwest of Saigon in Operation ATTLEBORO, involving 22,000 American and South Vietnamese troops pitted against the VC 9th Division and a NVA regiment. The Allies defeated the enemy and, in what became a frequent occurrence, forced him back to his havens in Cambodia or Laos.
By 31 December 1966, U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam numbered 385,300. Enemy forces also increased substantially, so that for the same period, total enemy strength was in excess of 282,000 in addition to an estimated 80,000 political cadres. By 30 June 1967, total U.S. forces in SVN had risen to 448,800, but enemy strength had increased as well.
On 8 January U.S. and South Vietnamese troops launched separate drives against two major VC strongholds in South Vietnam-in the so-called "Iron Triangle" about 25 miles northwest of Saigon. For years this area had been under development as a VC logistics base and headquarters to control enemy activity in and around Saigon. The Allies captured huge caches of rice and other foodstuffs, destroyed a mammoth system of tunnels, and seized documents of considerable intelligence value.
In February, the same U.S. forces that had cleared the "Iron Triangle", were committed with other units in the largest allied operation of the war to date, JUNCTION CITY. Over 22 U.S. and four ARVN battalions engaged the enemy, killing 2,728. After clearing this area, the Allies constructed three airfields; erected a bridge and fortified two camps in which CIDG garrisons remained as the other allied forces withdrew.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
July / 1966
To Month/Year
May / 1967
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories Message 01 Schuster, Danny (Shoe), Sgt 5
RE: Brothers Posted - 2 days ago
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey Joe, Thanksf for adding me to your Brothers list. I responded in kind. Since you asked about Jim it got me thinking about something. Back in March last year I made a post on the Khe Sanh veterans web site describing events as I remember them that day. I thought you might be interested in more of what happened. Here's a copy of it. One of the men KIA, Francis Benoit, was a corpsmen. He received a Navy Cross for his actions that day.
Semper Fi, Danny
I almost never post here but for some reason today has brought memories back in far greater proportion than normal. I need to share this with someone and could not think of a better place to do it. On 15 March 1967,1st Platoon of Echo 2/9 left the Khe Sanh combat base via 6X and were dropped off at a French plantation at the foot of Hill 861 to begin a PPB. We were under strength by at least a dozen Marines. We made it nearly 3/4s of the way up the hill before dusk started to settle in and SSgt. Olson, our platoon Commander, left our squad, led by Lou Damiano, in some elephant grass as an ambush. There was a huge ravine very near where we set in and we heard the gooks talking all night long. When we rejoined the rest of the platoon early the morning of the 16th we told SSgt. Olson we heard a lot of chatter from gooks during the night. He requested artillery support from the Base Commander prior to the platoon moving out that morning and was flatly turned down. That Base Commander should have been court-martialed for dereliction of duty, not only for that but other failures to support his Marines when they were in the field around Khe Sanh leading up to March 16th. We weren't on the move for half an hour when Johnson, the point man that day, saw a couple of gooks setting up a home-made claymore mine. He opened up on them and they returned his fire, seriously wounding him. If it were not for the immediate action of Doug Goodin, our gunner from Weapons platoon that day, I fear many of us would have died very quickly right there. Goodin had the gun up and blazing in a matter of seconds and the fire from the gooks subsided long enough for us to set up a makeshift line along a trail through a bamboo thicket. It was shortly after we set that line up the gooks started rolling grenades down the hill on us. After some period of time SSgt. Olson was successful in getting air support. I can still remember those crazy bastards flying those jets right on top of the tree line dropping 500 pounders on the gook positions and the canisters from them dropping amongst us down below. By some miracle none of the canister pieces hit any of us. Those pilots saved our asses. After that we tried to get Johnson med-evaced out of there and a grasshopper came in. Joe Schroeder was one of the Marines who voluntarily was carrying Johnson to the chopper when a gook jumped out of the jungle and opened up with his AK47. Joe was killed instantly and while no one can say this with certainty he most likely killed Johnson too. Fens killed the gook, and he was the last one we saw all day. After that we were sent out into a perimeter and were digging foxholes when mortars started falling on us. Lou immediately realized that they were walking the mortars with tremendous accuracy along the line of the perimeter. He got my fire team out last and was running behind me when he went down. I remember turning around and not seeing him, going back and finding him and than the entire fire team grabbed him and carried him back to the platoon CP area. When we saw how badly he was hit we never thought he was going to make it. He did but I didn?t know until months later. By the time that was over with we already had somewhere between 5 and 7 KIA and just as many WIA, Lou being the worst of them. Later another chopper came in to med-evac Lou and the other WIAs, and we left the KIAs to be brought on the chopper last because there was no more help for them. Lou was first to be boarded because he was the worst hit. Our fire team carried him on board the bird. We in the fire team are probably alive today because we were on board that chopper. As I remember it a mortar landed on the ramp and the chopper took off. Most of the men in the immediate area of that chopper were killed in the next few seconds and we were on the chopper headed back to base, barely making it in a shot up bird. I remember LCpl Moore being with us because when we got off the chopper and Lou was already on his way to the field hospital (at Dong Ha I think), Moore noticed his chest was bleeding. A corpsman came over and took a look and realized Moore had shrapnel imbedded in his lung. That day turned out to be the day 2/9 took the biggest single loss of it?s entire Vietnam tour for a company, and all were in the same platoon. 12 good men killed in action. A platoon from Bravo 1/9 came up the hill later from another PPB and lost 6 of their own KIA trying to bail out my buddies from 1st Platoon still on the hill. By the end of that stinking day there were 18 Marines KIA and 59 WIA from two platoons. The picture is of the memorial service held at Khe Sanh for the 12 1st Platoon members KIA. I regret to this day missing it because I was down in DaNang at the EENT Clinic. Today is not a good day for me.
Joe Schroeder Lloyd Kurtz Bill Lamon Julian McKee Rich Vedder Andy Alderman Francis Benoit Norm Catlin Jim Goetz Charlie Gunn Ron Imperiale George Johnson
