I was also at Chu Lai. My ship was beached there. The only combat I had was going to the airbase to pick up the bags of ship's mail! Charles Slusser was a "true" combat soldier.
Well, it's a small world I guess. I too spent a year in Chu Lai. I was issued an M79 grenade launcher when I arrived. I was on KP the day they taught us how to use them so it was the first time I had picked one up (I did figure out how to use it pretty fast).
Sorry I never ran into any fellow classmates and I am very sorry some of them did not make it back.
Very heartfelt comments and very well said. Chuck and I were best friends in high school and shared an apartment with Bill Hamblin before going into the Army. Bill and I joined on the buddy system and Chuck followed us a few weeks later. Chuck and I were at Ft. Benning, Georgia at the same time and saw each other twice. I soon left for Viet Nam while Chuck finished Officer Candidate School and later Jump School. We kept in touch by mail. I finished my tour in Viet Nam and was stationed in Germany when I got word that Chuck had been killed.
I had lost many close friends and fellow soldiers in Viet Nam, but this struck much closer to home and was very heart wrenching. I made a promise to myself then that I would do everything I could to never forget Chuck and to do my part in keeping his legacy— and the memory of all those I knew who had given their lives in service to our country—alive and told. I never dreamed at the time that new technology would provide such a wonderful platform to be able to do that.
1LT Charles Slusser and CWO Richard C Worthington were both true American heroes, taken from us too soon. Doug Irby and Keith Rousu also left us too soon, with Viet Nam service being at least a partial contributor in their early deaths. I don’t know why but I find it surprising that so many of our classmates also served. To all who did serve—Welcome Home! Please excuse the condition of Chuck Slusser’s newspaper article; I have had it for 46 years.
I met Chuck in the second grade while attending grade school in Bothell. As is turned out we were neighbors and lived a half mile apart on Simonds road. We spent many hours as kids walking that road and getting to know the others who lived near by. Cheri Fairclough, David Fluharty, Sally Borcherdt (my cousin) Terry Jenson and countless others who lived on that hill. Chuck was one of the most polite, friendly kids I knew. We played outdoors enjoying the tree swing over the slew, the blueberry farm and riding down the hill between our homes without hands. Yikes.
He surprised me with my very first box of Valentine chocolates that Valentines Day and that sweet memory is with me today. We were friends through our graduation from High School and I have thought about him hundreds of times through the years, sad that his life ended so soon. He and Rich Worthington were special guys with huge hearts and their early demise was a great loss for our class.
The best that we can do for those that have gone before us is to be grateful everyday for our lives and our abundance. Thank you God.
As part of the Simonds Road gang Melinda mentions, I remember Chuck fondly as a bus mate, baseball player and all around nice guy.
Some years after the war was over, I had a chance on one of my frequent trips to Washington, DC to visit the Vietnam War Memorial. I found it a very moving tribute to those who served and who did not survive. As I contemplated the myriad names engraved into the wall, it struck me that I had heard Chuck had been killed in the war. I looked up and suddenly Chuck's name stood out as if in neon lights. It was so unnerving that I felt I had to move on. However, as I was approaching the end of the wall I glanced over and Richard Worthington's name popped up -- also in neon. I certainly cannot explain what happened. All I know was how profoundly moving it was to reconnect with high school classmates in such a surreal way.
[My own Army experience did not take me to Chu Lai. I got drafted out of graduate school and was sent off to learn to speak Vietnamese [wouldn't Ms. Vera Howard have been proud]. I arrived in-country as a Vietnamese translator just in time to be part of the Cambodian Incursion working to keep the Montanyard hill tribes out of harms way while operating out of Fire Support Base Camp Speer [Spear]. Then came work as a liaison between civilian governments and the US Army in Binh Long province (Chon Thanh, Anh Loc, Loc Nin).]
The one thing that I remember about Chuck he was very kind person in school. My heart goes out to his parents and love ones. I remember when I came home from work and heard that we had lost another one. I say in my prayers thank you to those lost that served our country we will NEVER FORGET YOU GOD BLESS YOU ALL.
Chuck was such a good friend to all of us. Chuck and I double dated with our dates to the Senior Ball. We went to the Space Needle first, and then we were late to the dance because it took longer than we thought it would. Always calm, cool, collected, it didn't bother him at all. He was just simply, one cool guy. I absolutely could not believe it when I heard he was killed in action in Vietnam Nam. I was serving in the same area at the same time, and I couldn't believe that could happen to our beloved classmates and dear friend. Same thing when Rich Worthington was taken. I hate to say this, but I really believe we should just take care of our own, and let the rest of the world fight their own battles. Isolationism, yes, but we need to protect what we have. God bless Chuck Slusser and his family and God bless Rich Worthington and his family and God bless us all for what all we have.
I found the following dedication to Chuck online and found it very moving RIP my brother:
During the Winter/Spring of 1968, I commanded 3rd Platoon, Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Infantry, 11th Light Infantry Brigade. We operated out of LZ Liz in Quang Ngai Province and up into Quang Tin Province. This was southern I Corps and a very, very nasty place. It was my privilege, at nineteen and a half years of age, to command a rifle platoon. I was awfully proud to be an Infantry officer and I know that my friend, Chuck "Butch" Slusser was equally proud of his Crossed Rifles.
Chuck was my friend. He was about two and a half years older than me. I was badly wounded in action in June of 1968. Chuck was killed in action just about three months later. I spent 18 months getting pieced back together at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. I was retired at the ripe old age of twenty-three due to my wounds. I then went to college, graduate school and law school. I have been a career prosecutor for twenty years. I have been married for thirty years to an extraordinary woman and we have been blessed with four children: a daughter 19 and three sons: 15, 11 & 6. The Good Lord has been more than generous with me and I thank Him every day.
Chuck has always been in my thoughts over the years. He had a marvelous sense of humor and loved to laugh. He was an outstanding Infantry officer and soldiering was quite natural for him. I know that he would have been an equally outstanding citizen had the Good Lord seen fit. Chuck died during a ferocious firefight in Quang Tin Province. I communicated with his mother and sister for a number of years, but we have lost touch. I would like the world to know that a young Infantry officer named Chuck Slusser once laughed and walked among us. He was only twenty-two when that firefight began. He was twenty-two forever at the end of it. I know that he sleeps the gentle sleep allowed those whose spirits place love above fear. Were we that young once, Chuck, and did we walk on the edge of a razor blade for so long? For all of my brothers who fell in that faraway jungle so many years ago, I love you. Thank you for your magnificent courage and sacrifice. We who were there know of your glory. I carry you in my heart. Sleep the sleep of ages. Never, never again must we waste our precious youth for the sake of half hearted political folly.
"I have beheld the agony of War through many a weary season; seen enough to make me hold that scarcely any goal is worth the reaching by so red a road." (Thomas Hardy)
"Think where Man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends." (William Butler Yeats)
"I do not see why I should e'er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew - Only more sure of all I thought was true." (Robert Frost)
God Bless: Charlie Three Zero Out From a friend & fellow Infantry Officer,
James Patrick Casey
Senior Deputy District Attorney
Sonoma County District Attorney's Office: Narcotics Unit: 600During the Winter/Spring of 1968, I commanded 3rd Platoon, Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Infantry, 11th Light Infantry Brigade.
We operated out of LZ Liz in Quang Ngai Province and up into Quang Tin Province. This was southern I Corps and a very, very nasty place. It was my privilege, at nineteen and a half years of age, to command a rifle platoon. I was awfully proud to be an Infantry officer and I know that my friend, Chuck "Butch" Slusser was equally proud of his Crossed Rifles.
Chuck was my friend. He was about two and a half years older than me. I was badly wounded in action in June of 1968. Chuck was killed in action just about three months later. I spent 18 months getting pieced back together at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. I was retired at the ripe old age of twenty-three due to my wounds. I then went to college, graduate school and law school. I have been a career prosecutor for twenty years. I have been married for thirty years to an extraordinary woman and we have been blessed with four children: a daughter 19 and three sons: 15, 11 & 6. The Good Lord has been more than generous with me and I thank Him every day.
Chuck has always been in my thoughts over the years. He had a marvelous sense of humor and loved to laugh. He was an outstanding Infantry officer and soldiering was quite natural for him. I know that he would have been an equally outstanding citizen had the Good Lord seen fit. Chuck died during a ferocious firefight in Quang Tin Province. I communicated with his mother and sister for a number of years, but we have lost touch. I would like the world to know that a young Infantry officer named Chuck Slusser once laughed and walked among us. He was only twenty-two when that firefight began. He was twenty-two forever at the end of it. I know that he sleeps the gentle sleep allowed those whose spirits place love above fear. Were we that young once, Chuck, and did we walk on the edge of a razor blade for so long? For all of my brothers who fell in that faraway jungle so many years ago, I love you. Thank you for your magnificent courage and sacrifice. We who were there know of your glory. I carry you in my heart. Sleep the sleep of ages. Never, never again must we waste our precious youth for the sake of half hearted political folly.
"I have beheld the agony of War through many a weary season; seen enough to make me hold that scarcely any goal is worth the reaching by so red a road." (Thomas Hardy)
"Think where Man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends." (William Butler Yeats)
"I do not see why I should e'er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew - Only more sure of all I thought was true." (Robert Frost)
God Bless: Charlie Three Zero Out From a friend & fellow Infantry Officer,
James Patrick Casey
Senior Deputy District Attorney
Sonoma County District Attorney's Office: Narcotics Unit: 600
I also served in Vietnam and so appreciate the comments about Chuck. My cousin, Arlene, was his sister-in-law so he seemed more than just a classmate. He is still missed. Thank you. Pete.
Gene Olson
I was also at Chu Lai. My ship was beached there. The only combat I had was going to the airbase to pick up the bags of ship's mail! Charles Slusser was a "true" combat soldier.
Al Dodson
Well, it's a small world I guess. I too spent a year in Chu Lai. I was issued an M79 grenade launcher when I arrived. I was on KP the day they taught us how to use them so it was the first time I had picked one up (I did figure out how to use it pretty fast).
Sorry I never ran into any fellow classmates and I am very sorry some of them did not make it back.
Jim Morrison
Very heartfelt comments and very well said. Chuck and I were best friends in high school and shared an apartment with Bill Hamblin before going into the Army. Bill and I joined on the buddy system and Chuck followed us a few weeks later. Chuck and I were at Ft. Benning, Georgia at the same time and saw each other twice. I soon left for Viet Nam while Chuck finished Officer Candidate School and later Jump School. We kept in touch by mail. I finished my tour in Viet Nam and was stationed in Germany when I got word that Chuck had been killed.
I had lost many close friends and fellow soldiers in Viet Nam, but this struck much closer to home and was very heart wrenching. I made a promise to myself then that I would do everything I could to never forget Chuck and to do my part in keeping his legacy— and the memory of all those I knew who had given their lives in service to our country—alive and told. I never dreamed at the time that new technology would provide such a wonderful platform to be able to do that.
1LT Charles Slusser and CWO Richard C Worthington were both true American heroes, taken from us too soon. Doug Irby and Keith Rousu also left us too soon, with Viet Nam service being at least a partial contributor in their early deaths. I don’t know why but I find it surprising that so many of our classmates also served. To all who did serve—Welcome Home! Please excuse the condition of Chuck Slusser’s newspaper article; I have had it for 46 years.
Melinda McClain (Skogerson)
I met Chuck in the second grade while attending grade school in Bothell. As is turned out we were neighbors and lived a half mile apart on Simonds road. We spent many hours as kids walking that road and getting to know the others who lived near by. Cheri Fairclough, David Fluharty, Sally Borcherdt (my cousin) Terry Jenson and countless others who lived on that hill. Chuck was one of the most polite, friendly kids I knew. We played outdoors enjoying the tree swing over the slew, the blueberry farm and riding down the hill between our homes without hands. Yikes.
He surprised me with my very first box of Valentine chocolates that Valentines Day and that sweet memory is with me today. We were friends through our graduation from High School and I have thought about him hundreds of times through the years, sad that his life ended so soon. He and Rich Worthington were special guys with huge hearts and their early demise was a great loss for our class.
The best that we can do for those that have gone before us is to be grateful everyday for our lives and our abundance. Thank you God.
David Fluharty
As part of the Simonds Road gang Melinda mentions, I remember Chuck fondly as a bus mate, baseball player and all around nice guy.
Some years after the war was over, I had a chance on one of my frequent trips to Washington, DC to visit the Vietnam War Memorial. I found it a very moving tribute to those who served and who did not survive. As I contemplated the myriad names engraved into the wall, it struck me that I had heard Chuck had been killed in the war. I looked up and suddenly Chuck's name stood out as if in neon lights. It was so unnerving that I felt I had to move on. However, as I was approaching the end of the wall I glanced over and Richard Worthington's name popped up -- also in neon. I certainly cannot explain what happened. All I know was how profoundly moving it was to reconnect with high school classmates in such a surreal way.
[My own Army experience did not take me to Chu Lai. I got drafted out of graduate school and was sent off to learn to speak Vietnamese [wouldn't Ms. Vera Howard have been proud]. I arrived in-country as a Vietnamese translator just in time to be part of the Cambodian Incursion working to keep the Montanyard hill tribes out of harms way while operating out of Fire Support Base Camp Speer [Spear]. Then came work as a liaison between civilian governments and the US Army in Binh Long province (Chon Thanh, Anh Loc, Loc Nin).]
Pam Festa (Nye)
The one thing that I remember about Chuck he was very kind person in school. My heart goes out to his parents and love ones. I remember when I came home from work and heard that we had lost another one. I say in my prayers thank you to those lost that served our country we will NEVER FORGET YOU GOD BLESS YOU ALL.
Cheryl Eagon (Henry)
Skip Crist
Chuck was such a good friend to all of us. Chuck and I double dated with our dates to the Senior Ball. We went to the Space Needle first, and then we were late to the dance because it took longer than we thought it would. Always calm, cool, collected, it didn't bother him at all. He was just simply, one cool guy. I absolutely could not believe it when I heard he was killed in action in Vietnam Nam. I was serving in the same area at the same time, and I couldn't believe that could happen to our beloved classmates and dear friend. Same thing when Rich Worthington was taken. I hate to say this, but I really believe we should just take care of our own, and let the rest of the world fight their own battles. Isolationism, yes, but we need to protect what we have. God bless Chuck Slusser and his family and God bless Rich Worthington and his family and God bless us all for what all we have.
Lewis Arnold
I found the following dedication to Chuck online and found it very moving RIP my brother:
During the Winter/Spring of 1968, I commanded 3rd Platoon, Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Infantry, 11th Light Infantry Brigade. We operated out of LZ Liz in Quang Ngai Province and up into Quang Tin Province. This was southern I Corps and a very, very nasty place. It was my privilege, at nineteen and a half years of age, to command a rifle platoon. I was awfully proud to be an Infantry officer and I know that my friend, Chuck "Butch" Slusser was equally proud of his Crossed Rifles.
Chuck was my friend. He was about two and a half years older than me. I was badly wounded in action in June of 1968. Chuck was killed in action just about three months later. I spent 18 months getting pieced back together at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. I was retired at the ripe old age of twenty-three due to my wounds. I then went to college, graduate school and law school. I have been a career prosecutor for twenty years. I have been married for thirty years to an extraordinary woman and we have been blessed with four children: a daughter 19 and three sons: 15, 11 & 6. The Good Lord has been more than generous with me and I thank Him every day.
Chuck has always been in my thoughts over the years. He had a marvelous sense of humor and loved to laugh. He was an outstanding Infantry officer and soldiering was quite natural for him. I know that he would have been an equally outstanding citizen had the Good Lord seen fit. Chuck died during a ferocious firefight in Quang Tin Province. I communicated with his mother and sister for a number of years, but we have lost touch. I would like the world to know that a young Infantry officer named Chuck Slusser once laughed and walked among us. He was only twenty-two when that firefight began. He was twenty-two forever at the end of it. I know that he sleeps the gentle sleep allowed those whose spirits place love above fear. Were we that young once, Chuck, and did we walk on the edge of a razor blade for so long? For all of my brothers who fell in that faraway jungle so many years ago, I love you. Thank you for your magnificent courage and sacrifice. We who were there know of your glory. I carry you in my heart. Sleep the sleep of ages. Never, never again must we waste our precious youth for the sake of half hearted political folly.
"I have beheld the agony of War through many a weary season; seen enough to make me hold that scarcely any goal is worth the reaching by so red a road." (Thomas Hardy)
"Think where Man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends." (William Butler Yeats)
"I do not see why I should e'er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew - Only more sure of all I thought was true." (Robert Frost)
God Bless: Charlie Three Zero Out From a friend & fellow Infantry Officer,
James Patrick Casey
Senior Deputy District Attorney
Sonoma County District Attorney's Office: Narcotics Unit: 600During the Winter/Spring of 1968, I commanded 3rd Platoon, Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Infantry, 11th Light Infantry Brigade.
We operated out of LZ Liz in Quang Ngai Province and up into Quang Tin Province. This was southern I Corps and a very, very nasty place. It was my privilege, at nineteen and a half years of age, to command a rifle platoon. I was awfully proud to be an Infantry officer and I know that my friend, Chuck "Butch" Slusser was equally proud of his Crossed Rifles.
Chuck was my friend. He was about two and a half years older than me. I was badly wounded in action in June of 1968. Chuck was killed in action just about three months later. I spent 18 months getting pieced back together at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. I was retired at the ripe old age of twenty-three due to my wounds. I then went to college, graduate school and law school. I have been a career prosecutor for twenty years. I have been married for thirty years to an extraordinary woman and we have been blessed with four children: a daughter 19 and three sons: 15, 11 & 6. The Good Lord has been more than generous with me and I thank Him every day.
Chuck has always been in my thoughts over the years. He had a marvelous sense of humor and loved to laugh. He was an outstanding Infantry officer and soldiering was quite natural for him. I know that he would have been an equally outstanding citizen had the Good Lord seen fit. Chuck died during a ferocious firefight in Quang Tin Province. I communicated with his mother and sister for a number of years, but we have lost touch. I would like the world to know that a young Infantry officer named Chuck Slusser once laughed and walked among us. He was only twenty-two when that firefight began. He was twenty-two forever at the end of it. I know that he sleeps the gentle sleep allowed those whose spirits place love above fear. Were we that young once, Chuck, and did we walk on the edge of a razor blade for so long? For all of my brothers who fell in that faraway jungle so many years ago, I love you. Thank you for your magnificent courage and sacrifice. We who were there know of your glory. I carry you in my heart. Sleep the sleep of ages. Never, never again must we waste our precious youth for the sake of half hearted political folly.
"I have beheld the agony of War through many a weary season; seen enough to make me hold that scarcely any goal is worth the reaching by so red a road." (Thomas Hardy)
"Think where Man's glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends." (William Butler Yeats)
"I do not see why I should e'er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew - Only more sure of all I thought was true." (Robert Frost)
God Bless: Charlie Three Zero Out From a friend & fellow Infantry Officer,
James Patrick Casey
Senior Deputy District Attorney
Sonoma County District Attorney's Office: Narcotics Unit: 600
Vincent Delvecchio
I also served in Vietnam and so appreciate the comments about Chuck. My cousin, Arlene, was his sister-in-law so he seemed more than just a classmate. He is still missed. Thank you. Pete.