Charles Robert Wetzel (Chuck) was born on December 24, 1945, into the small family of Edward Herman Wetzel and Caroline Ostair Wetzel (nee Soders) at Salem Hospital, Salem, NJ.
The following is written by his brother Edward Wetzel:
His parents took Chuck home from the hospital to the small house they rented in Pennsville, NJ. Also at home was Chuck’s two-year old brother, Edward, Jr. Chuck’s mother was a homemaker in a time when most mothers were at home with their children. Chuck’s father had enlisted in the US Army at age 16 during the Great Depression when no jobs were available. After some time in the Army, Edward Wetzel worked in construction. During World War II, he served at US Army training camps in the US and then was shipped to Okinawa for the planned invasion of Japan just before the end of the war. After leaving the Army, Chuck’s father was employed as a structural steel ironworker working on bridges and buildings.
Another brother, Budd, came along in 1947. When Chuck was about three years old, his parents moved the family to their new home on Old Wiley Road, Penns Grove, NJ, that Chuck’s father and maternal uncle, Budd, had built themselves. As life turned out for Chuck, this was the only home that he would ever really know.
As time went on, another brother, Thomas, was born in 1948. Soon it was time to start school, and Chuck entered kindergarten at St. James Grammar School in Penns Grove. This was an old-fashioned parochial school where all the teachers and administrators were nuns wearing full habit. At St. James, discipline and responsibility were the most important subjects taught. These learned characteristics would both serve and haunt Chuck and his siblings throughout their lives.
Growing up in the Wetzel household in the 1950’s was barely controlled chaos. By then, there were four boys growing up separated in age by only seven years. A sister, Edna May, joined the growing family in 1952, followed by another brother, John in 1954. The house was constantly filled with kids, cats, dogs and constant noise and sibling rivalry.
Times were economically hard for the growing Wetzel family. Chuck’s father had a seasonal job and was often without work through the winter weather. “Hand-me-down” clothes from cousins, cardboard patches in shoes with holes, delayed dental care and frustrated desires for the latest toys advertised on the new television programs were reality. Times were especially hard around Christmas when Chuck’s father was usually unemployed. The service organizations like the Moose, VFW and American Legion often helped out with Christmas food baskets and toys for the kids.
Chuck’s mother was instrumental in instilling a sense of pride in her young family. She always assured the children that other families had it really rough and were indeed poor. They were lucky and should always be aware that there were poor people in the world that we should care about. By the standards of middle class society in 1950’s America, they were indeed poor but our mother shielded us from that realization.
The material hardships were more than compensated for by the tremendous opportunities for good clean fun in the outdoors. The family had only one car and when Chuck was small, his mother did not drive. Since they lived quite a distance from town, out in the country, the children amused themselves with outdoor activities like exploring, swimming, raft building and building tree houses.
At eleven years of age, Chuck joined Boy Scout Troup 3 that was sponsored by the Union Presbyterian Church in Carneys Point, NJ. He enjoyed the camping, canoeing and general good fun associated with Scouting. Camping trips and other activities were often shared with his brothers. Chuck enjoyed Scouting and achieved the third highest Scouting rank, Star Scout.
In 1960, Chuck graduated from St. James Grammar School and then entered St. James High School in Carneys Point. At this time, Chuck achieved his full growth at six feet tall, about 170 lbs. with dark blond hair and blue eyes. Chuck played football in high school. His football coach remembered that “Charley was as strong as an ox” and “…as quiet as could be and in a sense was the shy type.” The coach also remembered him “as a fine young man who I respected as an athlete for his courage and devotion to his task at hand. Never complaining, just doing his job and a man on the team that never spoke, but you knew all along he was there.”
Chuck also worked after school helping out at a small one-man auto repair shop in town. Another brother, Paul, was born in 1962, while Chuck was still in high school. Chuck graduated from St. James High School on June 8, 1964.
Not planning on going to college and having no real job prospects, Chuck decided to enlist in the Marine Corps in July, 1964, only one month after graduation. His home of record is Penns Grove, NJ. Up to this time, Chuck had not traveled more than 100 miles from home, so going to Marine Boot Camp at Parris Island, SC, was an exciting experience. Chuck completed boot camp without incident, was declared a full-fledged Marine and assigned to Camp Lejeune, NC, in September 1964. Chuck had only one leave home in November 1964, before his ultimate transfer to Vietnam. During this leave, he made a point of visiting all his family and assuring them that he was happy with his decision to join the Marine Corps.
In early December 1964, Chuck was transferred to Camp Pendleton, CA, for Advanced Infantry Training. Chuck made several trips with fellow Marines to Los Angeles, which he happily described to the family in his letters.
The political situation was heating up in Southeast Asia, and on May 24, 1965, Chuck shipped out on the USS Pickaway from San Diego, CA. The ordinary Marines on the USS Pickaway had no idea where they were going. All they knew was that they had orders to pack their gear load the ship and head out into the Pacific Ocean. On June 1, 1965, the USS Pickaway landed at Pearl Harbor, HI. The Marines enjoyed three days liberty in Hawaii before boarding ship and heading for Okinawa in the far Pacific. Chuck arrived at Okinawa on June 18, 1965. It is not known whether Chuck knew that his father was in Okinawa only 19 years earlier.
After landing in Okinawa, orders were given to unload all the equipment from the USS Pickaway. Then orders were given to reload all their equipment onto the USS Okanogan. They set sail again into the Pacific Ocean about June 24, 1965. Again, the grunt Marines and probably even the officers on board had no idea what their real destination was. Somewhere in the far Pacific orders were received from Washington to proceed to Vietnam.
On July 7, 1965, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines onboard the USS Okanogan arrived at Qui Nhon in Vietnam. After an unopposed amphibious landing at Qui Nhon, Chuck’s battalion operated roadblocks and checkpoints on National Route 1 and sent its infantry companies on patrol into the hills and valleys around Qui Nhon. The real mission of the unit was to provide security for the buildup of larger forces that the US Army was going to deploy through the port of Qui Nhon. Chuck served as a rifleman on many recon patrols and night ambushes, but rarely saw any action or had a glimpse of the enemy. In his letters from this time, he spoke of the boredom, lack of hot food, the sudden terror of night actions, torment of biting insects and the intense rain. Chuck asked his parents to send him hard candy, insect repellent for the bugs and steel wool to deal with the constant rusting of his rifle.
Chuck was hospitalized with malaria at the 85th Evacuation Hospital near Qui Nhon from about November 4 through December 10, 1965. In letters home during this period, Chuck said that he was well cared for but expressed concern that “malaria can sometimes stay with you for the rest of your life.” After he was released from the hospital, Chuck rejoined his battalion, which had transferred to the Chu Lai enclave around November 12th.
When he rejoined the battalion, Chuck found that his company, Echo, had been transferred to another Marine division, the 4th Marines. Chuck was then reassigned to another company, Hotel, in the battalion. The implication of this reassignment was that Chuck was in a new group of men that did not know him well so he had to prove himself all over again.
Around the end of January 1966, Chuck volunteered for 60mm mortar training. He became a member of a team of nine men in a mortar section that handled two guns and provided general support to Hotel Company. Since Chuck was a PFC, he was designated as an ammunition carrier. The mortar team trained through about the middle of February, and then participated in Operation Double Eagle Phase II. This operation lasted from February 19th through the 28th. Chuck wrote home that he did quite a lot of walking and his company was harassed by snipers all the time. He also wrote that he was “glad their fire wasn’t very accurate, if it was, a lot more people would have been hurt.”
The exhausted battalion returned to the Chu Lai enclave late in the afternoon of February 28, and the next day was back on the defensive perimeter at the base. Chuck took advantage of this relative down time to write what would be his last letters home on March 2nd. He made sure to answer every letter he had received, and wrote a letter to everyone in the family. In all these letters, Chuck assured everyone that he was reasonably healthy, proud to be a Marine and expected to arrive home safely in early summer.
Early on the morning of March 4, 1966, the battalion organized for a helicopter airlift to a landing zone about nine miles northwest of Quang Ngai City, near the small hamlet of Chau Nhai. The terrain encountered by the Marines was comparatively flat, unobstructed by obstacles or heavy foliage, dotted with rice paddies, crisscrossed by hedgerows and overlooked by several nearby low hills. The first units into the landing zone were met by fierce enemy gunfire. In the course of the landing, two helicopters were shot down in the landing zone and another about a mile away. By 1:30 in the afternoon, all the elements of Hotel company had arrived and were employed in securing a hilltop overlooking the landing zone from which the enemy was raking with heavy weapons fire. Around 4:30 in the afternoon, Hotel Company was ordered back to the vicinity of the landing zone to aid Fox Company, which was desperately engaged with the enemy. Sometime during this brief time period, the war and life ended for Chuck. The details of his death cannot be determined exactly due to the passage of many years and the chaotic nature of the engagement.
The Wetzel family was later notified of Chuck’s fatal injuries via telegram, which partially stated, “I deeply regret to inform you that your son, Private First Class Charles R. Wetzel, died March 4, 1966, in the vicinity of Quang Ngai, Republic of Viet Nam. He sustained a gunshot wound in the head while participating in an operation against hostile forces.” The telegram was signed by General Wallace M. Green Jr., Commandant of the Marine Corps.
The action of March 4, 1966, was graced several days later with the name Operation Utah. During this operation, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines and its attached support units suffered a loss of forty-four men killed in action, and one man who died of his wounds. A total of 120 men were wounded, 79 of whom had to be evacuated out of Vietnam for treatment. Chuck’s company, Hotel, suffered 21 KIAs and at least 31 wounded out of a maximum of 150 men deployed. March 4, 1966 was a very bad day for Hotel Company.
At the time of his death, at the age of 20, Chuck was survived by his parents, five brothers, one sister and his maternal grandmother. His older brother, Edward, age 22 was married with one child and a student at Rutgers University. His next younger brother, Budd, age 18, had just graduated from high school and enlisted in the Air Force the previous summer. Thomas, age 17 and sister, Edna May, age 13 were both in high school. John, age 11, was in grammar school and Paul, age 4, had not yet started school.
Chuck’s mother was devastated by the loss of her son, but had little time to spare for grief. She had to continue to try and maintain a healthy family atmosphere for the young children still at home. Her son’s loss in Vietnam was the first casualty from the small town of Penns Grove. There were tremendous public displays of shock and concern and many people offered what emotional support they could. However, astonishingly at this early point in the Vietnam conflict, she had to endure the taunts of anonymous strangers expressing joy over the loss of her son because they did not support an increasingly unpopular war. In 1984, she had the sad pride of seeing her son’s name engraved on the newly completed Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC. She endured it all, died in 1986, and is fondly remembered by her family as a pillar of strength.
Chuck’s father took his death so hard that it arguably contributed to his early death at 66 years in 1981. To the extent that a father can have a favorite son, Chuck was it. Being a WW II veteran, he was especially devastated by the controversy about the war at home, lack of sympathy about the loss of his son, and the sometimes cruel remarks he and his wife received from ignorant strangers. His basic life beliefs were shattered, he became embittered and couldn’t handle the increasing pain caused by a lifetime of hard physical labor.
Members of the Wetzel family continued to serve in the military. Budd completed four years in the Air Force based mostly in the Philippines. Thomas joined the Navy after high school and spent four years on an ammunition ship and aircraft carrier in the Pacific. John enlisted in the Army, for three years after high school, and was based in Germany. Fortunately, no more Wetzel family members were exposed to the horrors of combat. The small town of Penns Grove was not so fortunate. By the end of the war, eleven young men from the area had died in Vietnam from a town no larger than about 5,000 people.
Chuck was posthumously awarded the following military decorations: the Purple Heart (US), the National Defense Service Medal (US), the Vietnam Service Medal (US), the Marine Corps Combat Action Ribbon (US), the Navy Unit Citation (US), the Presidential Unit Citation (US), the Gallantry Cross Medal with Palm (RVN), the Military Merit Medal (RVN) and the Vietnam Campaign Medal with Date (RVN).
Chuck now lies at eternal rest between the graves of his parents in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Salem, New Jersey. As a symbolic homecoming gesture, Chuck’s father had arranged that the funeral procession drive by the family home on the way to the cemetery.
Notes:
Budd C. Wetzel died tragically as the result of an automobile accident on March 14, 2002.
Charles Robert Wetzel, II born on September 9, 1966, was named after the uncle he never had a chance to know. “Charlie” is the son of Chuck’s brother, Edward.
Charles’ name appears on the Penns Grove High School Vietnam War Memorial, dedicated in September 2010, which stands near Penns Grove Middle School.
Sources: Edward Wetzel (brother) and NJVVMF.
12/17/2024
