North Dakota’s first Vietnam War fatality died helping others, and a national magazine took notice – InForum

Editor’s be aware: On Sunday, Sept.11, for the primary time within the historical past of the Veterans Honor Flight of ND/MN, nearly all of the veterans happening the journey to Washington, D.C., are those that served in the course of the Vietnam period. Discussion board reporter Tracy Briggs is flying with the group. Discover her reviews on InForum Sept. 11-13.  The Discussion board is taking a more in-depth take a look at the primary troopers from Minnesota and North Dakota killed within the struggle. At the moment, we convey you a narrative about Main Virgil Greaney, North Dakota’s first fatality. 

RUGBY, N.D. — Should you make a particular journey to Rugby or are simply passing via, you may’t miss it — the city’s declare to fame. It is proper there emblazoned on the 21-foot-high, 6-foot-wide monument set on a heart-shaped basis. 

“Geographic Middle of North America – Rugby, ND”

It is a common vacationer spot for these seeking to expertise what it feels prefer to be useless heart between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.

However sadly, Rugby holds one other distinction — considered one of its hometown boys was the primary North Dakotan to be killed within the Vietnam Battle.

Once I did my analysis and discovered about Rugby native Main Virgil R. Greaney’s demise by a Viet Cong terrorist on Sept. 25, 1964, I got down to write a narrative about him as a result of he was the primary of 199 North Dakotans to die within the struggle. I did the same story for t

he first Minnesotan who was killed within the struggle, Bob Larson of Moorhead.

However upon my analysis within the Discussion board archives, I discovered one other reporter, nearly 50 years in the past, beat me to the punch. Within the spring of 1966, Discussion board author and photographer Cal Olson was despatched to Vietnam to cowl the struggle. He got down to study extra in regards to the rising battle and possibly even discover some “massive solutions” in regards to the combat.

He left Fargo proper after the notorious blizzard of ‘66 to spend 4 weeks in a sizzling, humid struggle zone half a world away.

He interviewed native troops to see what life was like for them in locations like Nha Trang and Bien Hoa and he needed to introduce Higher Midwesterners to the folks and tradition of Vietnam, one newspaper web page at a time.

The tales I learn had been riveting, but additionally as a journalist who has spent my profession working with all the fashionable conveniences of satellites, cellphones and the web, I marveled at how Olson needed to get his tales from Saigon again to downtown Fargo — through airmail to New York, dictating over the phone strains or sending pictures via particular long-distance Related Press wire picture strains. However he did it.

Olson returned safely to Fargo in late April of 1966, admittedly drained and pissed off that he had not provide you with any “massive solutions” about Vietnam. However he wrote, as an alternative, that he was hopeful he answered a number of of the little questions.

By 1973, when the struggle was almost wrapped up, Olson and others at The Discussion board put collectively one other particular report. It was on this report I discovered Olson’s story about Greaney. I deliberate to learn it, maybe decide a number of quotes out of it, then do extra unique reporting.

However you understand what they are saying, “Why reinvent the wheel?” And I’d add “particularly when that wheel is sort of excellent?” What’s printed under is Olson’s unique story about Greaney together with a go to together with his nonetheless grieving mother and father almost 10 years after his demise. I feel it completely summarizes the sensation many rural North Dakotans felt on the lack of their sons in a struggle some struggled to grasp.

Discussion board archives

North Dakota Main Virgil R. Greaney was the primary North Dakotan to die within the Vietnamese combating. His demise got here so way back that the scars of his passing are actually nearly invisible.

Main Greaney was killed Sept. 25, 1964 by a Viet Cong terrorist. He died unarmed in a village the place he had gone with an American civilian knowledgeable to assist set up a water provide. He was the 238th American to die within the Vietnamese battle.

At the moment, Maj. Greaney’s widow and three youngsters stay in Washington. His mother and father, the Raymond Greaneys, nonetheless stay in a fieldstone home on the south fringe of Rugby. They’ve lived nearly eight-and-a-half years with the stark actuality of Virgil’s demise. Their mementos embrace a few photos of him in Military uniform, a telegram, two newspaper clippings, an Officer’s Candidate College yearbook, and a replica of the March 1966 Reader’s Digest.

If “uneventful” might be utilized to anybody’s formative years, it may be utilized to Virgil Greaney. Born in Rugby Nov. 26, 1930, he was graduated from highschool right here 18 years later, attended the College of Minnesota, and entered the Military in 1951. Whereas within the Military, he acquired his BA diploma from the College of Nebraska.

Virgil made a tour of obligation in Korea and in 1956 he was married in Seattle, Wash. His spouse, Loyal June and the kids adopted Greaney on project, together with a three-year stint in Ethiopia.

Virgil departed for Vietnam on Aug. 25, 1964, leaving his household in Rugby. A month later, his spouse acquired a telegram: “The Secretary of the Military has requested me to specific his deep remorse that your husband died in Vietnam 25 September 1964. Trigger unknown. Data accessible signifies that he was in a jeep into which fragmentation grenades had been thrown. When further info is acquired, will advise.”

Nevertheless, the main points of Virgil’s demise had been gradual in coming. Some components of the story filtered residence in a newspaper clipping forwarded from Salem, Ore. by a former Rugby man. The clipping was an interview of a Salem native, Chester A Richardson, who had served in Vietnam as a civilian knowledgeable with the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth (AID). Richardson instructed how he and Virgil had pushed to the village of Dong Nhi, 5 miles north of Saigon, the place they had been to look at a civilian help mission deliberate by AID. As they entered the village, they got here underneath assault by a “black-clad youth” – a guerrilla terrorist– who tossed a grenade into their automobile. The grenade killed Virgil and dazed Richardson, who fled into the village because the terrorist threw three extra grenades at them.

Not too way back, Virgil’s mother and father talked with a customer about their son’s demise, Mrs. Greaney introduced out a dog-eared copy of Reader’s Digest, dated March 1966.

EBAY/Ourvintagetreasure

“I used to be studying this journal someday and got here on a narrative about Richardson,” Mrs. Greaney mentioned.

Though the story did not title Virgil, it gave corroborated particulars of their son’s demise, in most factors, confirming their earlier info.

Virgil’s physique lies in a army cemetery at Fort Lawton, Wash.

Not way back, because the combating drew to a detailed in Vietnam, Virgil’s mother and father talked in regards to the struggle over espresso of their neat and homey dwelling. Raymond, who drove a bulk oil truck for Farmer’s Union, is retired now. He is a “rock hound.” Samples of his pastime enhance one wall and a espresso desk.

The Greaneys are a quiet couple. They supplied no opinions on the conduct of the Vietnam Battle till their customer requested them.

They thought of the query soberly.

Mrs. Greaney replied first: “It’s an unpopular struggle, now. However you continue to have to guard your nation.”

He: “Virgil thought it was a factor to do. He volunteered. ‘Twouldn’t do for everybody to run off to Canada.”

She: “Or else we would as properly all transfer to Canada.”

A pause.

Virgil’s father picked up on the thread: “Maybe we should not have fought.”

She: “However once we make treaties we now have to stay as much as them. We acquired into these troubles and anyone has to…has to…”

One other pause.

Raymond Greaney stared at his espresso cup, and Virgil’s mom gazed downward on the tablecloth.

She spoke once more: “The one factor… an individual would not assume it might final that lengthy.”

The Discussion board