The Missing and the Dead
A story for National POW/MIA Recognition Day
By Betsy Alexander, Historical Education Coordinator
Operation Crazy Horse was a search and destroy mission which commenced May 15, 1966, the action centered on and around LZ Hereford in Binh Dinh Province, South Vietnam.
Charlie (or C) Company, 1st Battalion (Airborne), 12th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division were flown into LZ Hereford the night of May 16 from LZ Gold to back up A and B Company, who had already been engaged by the VC a few times; early on the 17th they all met up. Charlie Company spent a sobering day dodging occasional stray gunfire while retrieving the bodies and belongings of Bravo Company’s 2/8th Cavalry dead.
The next few days were spent nearby creating LZ Milton and clearing more space for a second copter to land on LZ Hereford, which was saddle-shaped and very difficult to secure. The perimeter of the cleared landing area was dense five-foot tall, razor-sharp elephant grass ending at the hill’s steep precipice, which contained heavy vegetation all the way down to the valley floor.
Around 1:40pm on May 21, Day 6 of Operation Crazy Horse, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd platoons of Charlie Company were ordered to sweep the valley area surrounding LZ Hereford as the 9th NVA Regiment and the 97th VC Regiment were still lurking. The decision was made by 1st Battalion Commander LTC Rutland Beard to hold back only C Company’s 20-man mortar platoon on the LZ to provide fire support from above as the rest descended the steep hill. This also meant that until helicopters arrived to take the men to another LZ, the platoon would be completely alone and unguarded in active VC territory. The request by C Company’s CPT Don Warren to have at least one rifle squad stay behind for protection was also met with a strong negative from Beard. Warren departed to tell acting mortar platoon leader SSG Robert Kirby the news: they would be left on their own for a minimum of 45 minutes, perhaps longer. The captain and his three rifle platoons then started their hillside descent, and Beard departed in his helicopter.
Kirby tried to arrange his 20 men on the hill as best possible. With that sparse number they could not spread themselves out in the usual perimeter arrangement. Only a U-shaped defensive position could be achieved which left their top side completely exposed.
The men were in foxholes in groups of two, some battle-tested and some newly arrived in Vietnam. Their ranks included one newbie medic, SP4 David Crocker and Kirby’s all-important radio telephone operator SP4 John Spranza. Keeping his eye on the untested young guys in the back was SFC Louis Buckley, Jr., a “respected, competent leader” from Detroit. Buckley and one of the new guys, PFC Wade Taste started to clean up the area in anticipation of their departure.
There were two men on LZ Hereford who were outsiders to C Company. The first was the 2nd Platoon’s PSG Edward Shepherd, who was there only to hitch a ride to An Khe for his promotion board hearing, and he counted down the minutes to departure. Ironically, the second was Look magazine’s senior editor, Sam Castan who was there to shoot and “write a story about death” in Vietnam.
Around 2:15pm, SP4 Charles Stuckey and SP4 Paul Harrison spotted movement and let loose with their M-16s into the elephant grass - then all hell broke loose. Hundreds of VC rushed them and opened fire with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. Spranza was able to radio for immediate artillery back-up even though he was shot five times, including through his head, in the space of 10 minutes. The rest of C Company heard the artillery fire far above and tried to maneuver back up the hill to the LZ, but it was very slow-going through the dense jungle vegetation.
Reports diverge at this point: Some say that battalion HQ ordered A Company Huey’s to fly in for an emergency attack and medical evacuations, but their rescue efforts were stymied by “heavy fog that had rolled in over LZ Hereford.” Other accounts have battalion executive officer, Major Otto Cantrell, “circling above Hereford in his OH-13 observation helicopter, and Colonel Beard watching the battle from his command-and-control Huey” unable to determine who was VC versus C Company, so no immediate action was taken by Beard on Kirby’s requested artillery. “Heavy fog” or “observed from directly above”; which was it?
In any event, no one came to the unguarded men’s rescue fast enough.
Within minutes, 14 of the Charlie Company Mortar Platoon were dead: PFC Robert Lee Benjamin; SP4 Daniel Gibson Post; PFC Joel Tamayo; PFC Henry Benton; PFC Clarence Ray Brame; PFC Wade Taste; SP4 David Stephen Crocker; SP4 Austin Leon Drummond; SP4 Paul James Harrison; PFC Harold Mack, Jr.; SP4 A. V. Spikes; PFC Lonnie Clifford Williams; PFC James Francis Brooks, Jr.; and SGT Charles A. Gaines.
2nd Platoon’s PSG Edward Shepherd who was there waiting for a ride was also dead.
Look photojournalist Sam Castan had run into the elephant grass where a group of VC fatally shot him in the head; Look ran his “death” story.
Badly wounded, SP4 Spranza, SGT Kirby, SPC Isaac Johnson, and SPC Charles Stuckey all were able to crawl into various hiding places or play dead and barely survived the ordeal.
PFC Robert Roeder was the only member of the platoon who somehow escaped injury. Once all of the ammo and weapons he could find were completely exhausted, ha ran deep into the elephant grass and managed to elude the VC until help arrived. As he was the only living person available who knew the platoon’s men and wasn’t hospitalized, he had the sickening responsibility of trying to visually identify his dead brothers’ remains.
SFC Louis R. Buckley, Jr. was the only member of the platoon listed as Missing in Action. He had reportedly run southwesterly into the elephant grass when the shooting first started, and eyewitnesses stated they saw “blood on his shoulder and arm.” A search immediately after the incident did not locate him, finding only his abandoned pack.
SFC Buckley’s status with the DPAA (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency) is listed as unaccounted for, and in the analytical category as Active Pursuit. He’s memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl), and his name is inscribed along with his fallen comrades on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC. SFC Buckley is also remembered with a cenotaph at Arlington National Cemetery.
Louis Buckley, Jr. was born May 20,1943 in Detroit and lived in the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects. He had just turned 23 years old the day before he went missing. Louis’ parents, Elsie and Louis Sr. are both deceased, but his two brothers, Rick and Corey Buckley still await any new leads or information about “Bucky’s” disappearance.
Corey Buckley described his big brother as very nice, well-liked, and friendly; he loved boxing and had an enviable jazz record collection. He recalled Louis attending Detroit’s Bishop Elementary School and thought that Northeastern was his High School. Louis also knew Diana Ross and some of the other Motown artists quite well as their mother, and Mary Wilson of the Supremes’ mother, were best friends. These were neighbors, classmates, and buddies that would congregate at the famed Brewster Recreation Center in the early 1960s to talk music, boxing and their futures.
As with the rest of the mortar platoon, Louis ended up at Fort Benning, Georgia for his artillery training before shipping out. While in Georgia, he met and married his wife, Elizabeth. She gave birth to his son, Reginald Louis Buckley, on April 8, 1966, 43 days before his disappearance. His first tour of duty included Germany, but it was his second tour that landed him in Vietnam.
Both of Louis’ brothers supplied DNA to the DPAA in the hopes of them someday finding a match. The military officially declared him, along with thousands of others, as PFOD (presumptive finding of death) in January of 1978, but there has been nothing tangible to report to the family since the afternoon he went running into the elephant grass. They are still haunted by the idea of the search immediately after the attack, not knowing how thorough it was or if any other searches have happened in the subsequent 59 years. The brothers are now both in their seventies and as Corey shared, “It’s just the not knowing…”
SFC Louis Buckley, Jr. (5/20/1943 – 5/21/1966)
SFC Louis Buckley, Jr.
There are still 1,566 Vietnam War MIAs as of this writing (9/18/2025)
Credits: Thank you to Corey Buckley; Michael Christy, HistoryNet.com; Doug Warden, CharlieCompanyVietnam.com; Marty Eddy, National League of POW/MIA Families; DPAA.mil