THEOTHIS COLLINS
Hometown:
ASBURY PARK
County:
Monmouth
Status:
Missing In Action
Rank:
LCPL
Branch of Service:
Marines
Country of Incident:
SVN
Date of Casualty:
August 19, 1968
Date of Birth:
September 27, 1949
Loss Coordinates: 165819 North 1065952 East
Message left on virtual Wall...
CHARLES THOMPSON
sonoma81chuck@aol.com
Platoon Sgt., x, Co., 1968.
HEY RAP, GONNA TRY TO WRITE, YOUR BUDDY LEEATOMA VAEOE, I'LL NEVER
FORGET YOU, OR THAT DAY. RAP
Sunday, January 08, 2006
|
Theothis
Collins was born on September 27, 1949, in Neptune, NJ. His home of
record is Asbury Park, NJ.
Collins entered the US Marine Corps and attained the rank of Lance
Corporal (LCPL). He was assigned to 3rd Platoon Fox Company 2nd
Battalion 1st Marines.
Collins was listed as missing in action on August 19, 1968, inside the
DMZ.
- BURIAL INFORMATION
- Birth: Sep. 27, 1949
Death: Aug. 19, 1968
Burial: Beverly National Cemetery
Beverly, Burlington County
New Jersey, USA
Plot: Section MA Site 32
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ASBURY PARK
NEWSPAPER July 2008 by Charlie Webster
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He died on a savagely hot August day in Vietnam.
The consensus is that 18-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Theothis
Collins of Neptune was killed in 1968 in a hostile landing zone
inside the demilitarized zone after an explosion rocked an already
tense mission.
Some people contend the blast was an artillery shell. Others think
maybe it was a mortar. The official records state it was a land
mine.
But one thing is for certain: Collins continues to be unaccounted
for more than 40 years after he was last seen running to the
rescue of the crew of a downed Marine helicopter.
His friends from his days at Asbury Park High School say Collins
was the kind of guy who came to people's rescue.
"My boyfriend at the time liked to play around a little too much
in the classroom and he would get me upset, but Theothis always
came to my rescue," classmate Judy Brooks recalled with a smile.
"He was my knight in shining armor."
His Marine buddies say Collins, highly decorated posthumously,
brought along that same come-to-your-rescue verve to his time in
war-torn Vietnam — a mentality that eventually led to his death
when he was just 18 years old.
"He had a total disregard for his own safety. He just got up and
started running toward the helicopter," said John Kociemba, a
Marine who served with Collins.
Standout athlete, friend
As a child, Collins played with friends like Kent St. John and
took piano lessons.
At Asbury Park High School, Collins belonged to the French club
and played track, football and baseball. Before he graduated in
June 1967, he was accepted to Louisiana State University and had
planned on becoming a surgeon. But first he joined the U.S. Marine
Corps, and his dreams died with him on a landing zone on a ridge
along the Ben Hai River inside the DMZ.
St. John summed up Collins' life with one word: "Altruistic."
"He would do anything for anyone," St. John said as he choked back
tears recalling his childhood best friend.
"He was just the most sociable and caring person that you could
ever know," St. John said. "It was a shock to many of us when we
learned that he died."
St. John, whom many people know as a reporter/anchor for NJN News,
recalls talking with Collins at his going-away party before he
left for basic training at Parris Island, S.C.
"He didn't have to go. While the rest of us were trying to figure
out ways to get out of the war, he just volunteered. I guess he
felt a duty to go. I don't know, he never offered an explanation,"
St. John said.
There was no funeral, but Collins' family and friends did mourn
his loss at a memorial service. There is no grave to pay respects,
but his name is etched in the granite walls of the Vietnam
memorials in Washington, D.C., and Holmdel, where observances will
be held today for the national POW/MIA Recognition Day.
A few years ago, St. John made a visit to the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial in Washington to find Collins' name on "The Wall," as it
has come to be known. St. John recalls the emotions that surfaced
during the visit and the need to make a rubbing of his childhood
friend's name, as so many others have done.
"I framed it and put it up on my wall at home," St. John said.
"You just don't forget people like Theothis, so I find myself
looking at it almost every night."
Never found
Two weeks after Collins was listed as missing, military officials
changed his status to dead, body not recovered. Because there has
been no physical accounting for his whereabouts, he was put on the
list of missing in action from Vietnam. His name remains there
today.
In June 1992, investigators from the U.S. Department of Defense
Joint Task Force for Full Accounting turned over files pertaining
to Collins and others listed as missing to Vietnamese officials
for their review.
In 1993, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command was notified that
two local Vietnamese wanted to turn over items associated with the
landing zone where Collins and Cpl. Terry Hoffman were lost. In
1994, the men turned over several items, including Hoffman's dog
tag and bone fragments that contained his DNA. Hoffman was
identified and returned to his family in Indiana for burial about
a year later.
Pentagon officials say there is little information on Collins'
case because of the nature of the incident. His remains are
considered unrecoverable, so there have been no other
investigations, but his case is not closed.
"This case isn't resolved because (Theothis Collins) never came
back," said Capt. Mary Olsen, public affairs staff officer at The
Pentagon's Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office. "Basically, he's
unaccounted for because he went to war and he didn't come home. To
a family, he's missing. While there aren't any follow-up actions
for this case because of the nature of the incident, we can't 100
percent rule out that in the future we won't come across
something. It has happened before where remains are considered
unrecoverable and then for some reason or another, we find remains
and end up identifying that soldier."
Death amid chaos
Theothis Collins died on Aug. 19, 1968. Eyewitnesses say it is an
assumed fact, because there is no clear picture of what happened
that day. It all depends on who you ask and the perspective they
had of the fighting that day.
But eyewitnesses say they are certain of one thing — Collins, whom
his fellow Marines affectionately called "Rap," gave his life for
his country amid the chaos of an attack by an unseen enemy.
The day started out like so many others in the DMZ. After calling
off a mission to search for suspected North Vietnamese
helicopters, the men of Foxtrot Company 2/1 Marines were charged
with securing a landing zone to give nearly two dozen helicopters
a place to come pick up the bulk of their battalion.
"It was a hellaciously hot day," recalled Michael A. "Doc" Pipkin
of Snohomish, Wash., a Navy hospital corpsman assigned to Collins'
third platoon. "It was just an effort to take a step, it was so
hot. You just baked in the sun."
The Marines were tired from their constant movement since they had
been inserted into the area by helicopters the previous morning.
Now it was time to get out, and get back to base camp.
The routine plan was to simply set up a perimeter security defense
around the landing zone to keep an eye out for "Charlie" — the
enemy. But things quickly turned from routine to chaos before the
first helicopter set down.
The lead helicopter, piloted by Maj. Harvey Britt of Marine Medium
Helicopter Squadron 262 (HMM-262) was the first aircraft to
attempt a landing. Britt's and two other helicopters approached
the landing zone, located on a ridge that overlooked the Ben Hai
River, from about 100 feet in the air hoping to avoid drawing the
attention of North Vietnamese Army artillery units on the North
Vietnam side of the river.
Britt started to lower his CH-46 "Sea Knight" helicopter onto the
landing zone when the first of three rapid explosions rocked the
area.
"We weren't sure if it was incoming mortars, or rockets — we
didn't know what was going on," recalled John Kociemba of Wood
River, Neb., a corporal in charge of the Weapons Platoon for
Foxtrot Company 2/1 Marines. Kociemba and his weapons platoon
machine gunners were on the ground and on the perimeter when the
choppers started coming in and the first blast went off. The
platoon stood its ground as the primary element in the perimeter
security with a clear view of all that was going on around them.
"It was just a strange type of explosion," Kociemba recalled.
Pipkin was on a different part of the LZ sitting alongside Foxtrot
Company's commanding officer, 1st. Lt. Thomas P. Lang, Jr., when
the first explosion went off.
"I never heard a sound. You hear artillery shells coming in, and I
never heard anything that sounded like artillery at that time,"
Pipkin said.
Kociemba believes the first explosion that took out Britt's
helicopter came from somewhere on the ground — perhaps a land
mine, but it could have been artillery or a delayed-action device.
The helicopter's rear rotor stalled and the aircraft hit the
ground. No one on board was seriously injured.
A second helicopter piloted by Capt. "Rocky" Darger was hovering
off to one side of the downed chopper when it took a direct hit
from what is believed to have been an artillery shell. The
helicopter exploded, broke into two pieces and the cabin
containing three crewmen was consumed by fire. When the front part
of the helicopter hit the ground, Darger and co-pilot 1st Lt. Ken
Bradley were ejected from the cockpit. Both men quickly made their
way to a nearby tree line in search of cover.
Three men inside, crew chief Hoffman and gunners Cpl. John
Hutchison and Cpl. Patrick Miles, were killed.
Immediate ly after the first helicopter carrying Britt hit the
ground, a call for help went out among the Marines inside the
perimeter of the LZ. "Rap" Collins just reacted, his fellow
Marines recall.
"The helicopter fell to the landing zone burning and a call for
help to remove the wounded came out," Pfc. David "Rodger" Morris
recalled in a statement about the incident. "Collins was the first
to leave his position and start toward the downed helicopter."
"Whi le we were running, (Collins) fell, and as he did so, I
passed him, there was then a man in front of me and Lance Cpl.
Collins in back of me," Morris stated. "We were about 50 meters
from the chopper when the third explosion went off. . . . After
the dust and rocks had stopped, the other men and I looked back to
where Lance Cpl. Collins had been running — that was where the
mine went off."
"I was approximately five meters behind Lance Cpl. Collins when an
explosion occurred beneath him. After the explosion, my vision was
curtailed because of the flying dirt and debris. I staggered away,
half-dazed, but returned through the area of the explosion
approximately five minutes later. At the time, I observed a large
crater caused by the explosion, however Lance Cpl. Collins was
nowhere in sight," explained Cpl. Michael P. Wargo in a similar
statement.
He was just a few yards away from the helicopter when he
essentially disappeared. Several members of his unit were near him
and reported that only a large crater existed where he had been
seen seconds before.
Collins never made it back home. He was awarded the Bronze Star,
the Navy Commendation Medal and the Purple Heart posthumously. His
mother, Pernella Collins, who has since died, accepted them.
"It's one of those things that has haunted me. I didn't hear any
artillery, but I heard the boom, boom, boom and that was it,"
Pipkin lamented. "We like to bring them all back, but
unfortunately that didn't happen in Rap's case."
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