MIA Charles Wesley Lindewald, Jr. Charles Wesley Lindewald Jr. E7/US Army Special Forces Company C, Detachment A-101, 12th Mobile Strike Force, 5th Special Forces
A Missing American Hero
Charles Wesley Lindewald, Jr. was born July 30th 1938. He had a mother and a father, maybe even a sister or brother. He went to school, just like us. He had friends, maybe even played sports. He could've had a dog, cat or hamster. He had toys when he was little that he may have played with in his families back yard. As a teenager he probably had girlfriends.He may have gotten the car he wanted, and on Saturday afternoon he may have spit-shined it getting it ready for that night. On Saturday nights he may have went cruising with his friends or his girl. He probably stayed out too late and got into trouble, we all did. He may have gotten married and had children. He may have played ball in the back yard with his son, or played baby dolls with his little girl. He may have loved his family dearly. His family, I'm sure, loved him. He fought for our Country, our freedom.... If not for Vietnam and our Country he may have seen his children grow up, he may have danced at his daughters wedding, he may have seen his son become a father. He may have bounced his grandchildren on his knee. If not for that, he may be here today. I love our Country, our Country is not just the politicians, it's people like Charles Lindewald, you, me. The problem now is that there are just too many people running it that don't care. To them, Charles Lindewald is just a name rank and serial number. As you read above, he is REAL.He had a life, a family, feelings.... Charles was from LaPorte, IN On February 7, 1968 he was reported as missing in action in South Vietnam. The Lang Vei Special Forces camp in the northwestern corner of South Vietnam along Route 9, a mile and a half from the Laotian border.had been established in late December 1966 as a result of the Special Forces Detachment A101 having been moved out of its former Khe Sanh location. It seemed ill fated from the beginning. In March 1967, one of the worst tragedies to befall the Special Forces CIDG program during the war occurred. U.S. Air Force released napalm ordnance on the nearby village which spewed exploding fire over the camp, landing zone, minefield and village. 135 CIDG and native civilians were killed, and 213 were horribly wounded, burned or disfigured. Only two months later, on May 4, a Viet Cong night attack on the camp wiped out the Special Forces command group, all in one bunker, and killed the detachment commander and his executive officer, as well as seriously wounding the team sergeant. This attack was a prelude to the larger siege of Khe Sanh, and was a grim reminder of the dangerous neighborhood Special Forces had moved into. By January 1968, several North Vietnamese Army divisions had encircled the Marine combat base at Khe Sanh, placing the more westerly Lang Vei Special Forces frontier surveillance camp in imminent danger. The camp was occupied by Detachment A101 commanded by Capt. Frank C. Willoughby. Willoughby was rebuilding and reinforcing the camp at the time, while soldiers and dependants from the Kha tribal 33rd Laotian Volunteer Battalion streamed into the camp after being overrun by NVA tanks across the border. On the evening of January 24, the camp was pounded by mortars in conjunction with a heavy shelling of the Marine Khe Sanh base, which prevented any effective artillery support for Lang Vei. 1Lt. Paul R. Longgrear had only recently arrived with his Hre tribal 12th Mobile Strike Force Company to help shore up defensive firepower. The influx of the Laotians caused some problems. For example, the Lao battalion commander refused to take orders from the American captain, forcing the Company C commander, LtCol. Daniel F. Schungel, to come to Lang Vei on his first Special Forces assignment on February 6 to provide an officer of equal rank. Camp strength on February 6 totalled 24 Special Forces, 14 LLDB, 161 mobile strike force, 282 CIDG (Bru and Vietnamese), 6 interpreters and 520 Laotian soldiers, plus a number of civilians. Shortly after midnight on February 7, 1968, a combined NVA infantry-tank assault drove into Lang Vei. Two PT-76 tanks threatened the outer perimeter of the camp as infantry rushed behind them. SFC James W. Holt destroyed both tanks with shots from his 106mm recoilless rifle. More tanks came around the burning hulks of the first two tanks and began to roll over the 104th CIDG Company's defensive positions. SSgt. Peter Tiroch, the assistant intelligence sergeant, ran over to Holt's position and helped load the weapon. Holt quickly lined up a third tank in his sights and destroyed it with a direct hit. After a second shot at the tank, Holt and Tiroch left the weapons pit just before it was demolished by return cannon fire. Tiroch watched Holt run over to the ammunition bunker to look for some hand-held Light Anti-tank Weapons (LAWs). It was the last time Holt was ever seen. Along the outer perimeters, the mobile strike force outpost was receiving fire. Both Kenneth Hanna, a heavy weapons specialist, and Charles W. Lindewald, 12th Mobile Strike Force platoon leader, were wounded. Hanna, wounded in the scalp, left shoulder and arm tried to administer first aid to Lindewald. The two were last seen just before their position was overrun. Harvey Brande spoke with them by radio and Hanna indicated that Lindewald was then dead, and that he himself was badly wounded. Daniel R. Phillips, a demolitions specialist, was wounded in the face and was last seen trying to evade North Vietnamese armor by going through the northern perimeter wire. . The tank, which was shooting at the camp observation post, was destroyed with a LAW. Schungel helped Wilkins over to the team house, where he left both doors ajar and watched for approaching NVA soldiers. Wilkins was incapacitated and weaponless, and Schungel had only two grenades and two magazines of ammunition left. He used one magazine to kill a closely huddled five-man sapper squad coming toward the building. He fed his last magazine into his rifle as the team house was rocked with explosions and bullets. The two limped over to the dispensary, which was occupied by NVA soldiers, and hid underneath it, behind a wall of sandbags. At some point, Brande, Thompson and at least one Vietnamese interpreter were captured by the North Vietnamese. Thompson was uninjured, but Brande had taken shrapnel in his leg. Brande and Thompson were held separately for a week, then rejoined in Laos. Joined with them was McMurry, who had also been captured from the camp. The three were moved up the Ho Chi Minh trail to North Vietnam and held until 1973. The U.S. did not immediately realize they had been captured, and carried them in Missing in Action status thoughout the rest of the war, although Brande's photo was positively identified by a defector in April 1969 as being a Prisoner of War. A Vietnamese interpreter captured from the camp told Brande later that he had seen both Lindewald and Hanna, and that they both were dead. Let's bring 'em home!!
Please help us in our fight to bring 'em home! I have written to Congressmen, Senators, even the President, to try to bring Charles back home! That's all it takes for you to help! Have comments or suggestions? Send Me an e-mail! dee1234@aye.net Dee Floyd-Pavey
