Ghosts of the Battlefield

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Ghosts of the Battlefield We are a small, privately owned museum in Virginia Beach, VA. Our mission is to preserve and present the history and heritage of the United States Military.

Ghosts of the Battlefield is charitable 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

JOHN ZANG FICKUS — NINETEEN DAYS AT NINETEENJohn Fickus turned nineteen in Vietnam on October 24, 1968. Nineteen days la...
10/24/2026

JOHN ZANG FICKUS — NINETEEN DAYS AT NINETEEN

John Fickus turned nineteen in Vietnam on October 24, 1968. Nineteen days later, he was killed. Today should have been his seventy-seventh birthday, and I keep coming back to how little time he had between those two dates.

Lance Corporal John Zang Fickus was from Baltimore, Maryland. He served with Company C, 1st Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division. His tour began in March 1968 and ended on November 12, when an enemy explosive device killed him in Quang Nam Province.

But the detail that brings him closest comes from someone who remembered him as Johnny. In 2023, Jane D***s wrote that she had been a young girl when he died. She remembered how devastated the guys were, including her brother. More than half a century later, she still remembered their loss.

That tells me something a service record cannot. Back in Baltimore, Johnny belonged to a circle of people whose lives changed when the news arrived. A young girl watched her brother and his friends grieve, and carried that memory into old age.

I’m telling you about him today because his birthday deserves his name attached to it. John Zang Fickus, born October 24, 1949—a Baltimore boy, a United States Marine, and nineteen for only nineteen days.

WILLIAM JOSEPH DUGGAN — FIFTY-TWO HOLESThe helicopter made it back to USS Gridley with fifty-two holes in it. William Jo...
10/24/2026

WILLIAM JOSEPH DUGGAN — FIFTY-TWO HOLES

The helicopter made it back to USS Gridley with fifty-two holes in it. William Joseph Duggan was still aboard, wounded after returning enemy fire with his M16. They got him into sick bay, but they could not save him.

Bill was twenty years old, a Navy Petty Officer Third Class from Lynwood, California, serving with Helicopter Combat Support Squadron One, Detachment 3. On January 6, 1967, his crew launched at dusk on a search-and-rescue mission and encountered heavy fire. Both pilots were wounded, too. Shipmate Brent Curtis later recorded the battered helicopter’s return and Bill’s death.

His fellow crewman Lewis Robertson knew him as “Duke.” Robertson had been in the back of the helicopter that day. Years afterward, he wrote: “We trained as a team and we served as a team.”

That is the voice I want alongside the account of those fifty-two holes—the man who shared the aircraft with him and survived to tell us his nickname.

Today should have been Bill’s eightieth birthday. He rests in Los Angeles National Cemetery, where he was buried on January 13, 1967, one week after his death. I keep thinking about how close that final journey came to safety: the helicopter back aboard ship, help within reach, and a twenty-year-old sailor whose wounds were too severe.

GARY LEE CONAWAY — HE MADE IT BACK FROM THE PATROLGary Conaway survived a nighttime patrol over the waters off Vietnam. ...
10/24/2026

GARY LEE CONAWAY — HE MADE IT BACK FROM THE PATROL

Gary Conaway survived a nighttime patrol over the waters off Vietnam. Nearly nine hours in a Navy Neptune, then a landing at Cam Ranh Bay early on October 24, 1967. Afterward, some of the crew went swimming. Gary never came back from the water.

He had turned twenty-nine just two days earlier. An Aviation Machinist’s Mate First Class with Patrol Squadron One, Gary was the plane captain of Crew 8 and led its six other enlisted crewmen. Their P2V-7 Neptune flew Operation Market Time patrols, watching the coast for enemy troops and supplies moving by sea.

His aircraft commander, Lieutenant Mel Hinton, remembered a meticulous mechanic who caught small problems and made sure they were corrected before another flight. I think about the trust behind that description. Eleven men climbed aboard that airplane, depending on its machinery and on the people responsible for keeping it flying.

After that long patrol, a rip current caught Gary and another crewman. Their friends tried to reach them and barely survived themselves. By the time a rescue helicopter arrived, both men had drowned.

Then came another terrible chapter. According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Gary’s remains were recovered weeks later but could not be identified. He was buried as an unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. Only after investigators reexamined the remains using improved forensic methods was his identity established on April 26, 1984.

Nearly seventeen years separated his death from that identification. Today marks fifty-nine years since Gary was lost. What stays with me is that he had finished the flight. The airplane was down safely, the patrol was over, and a swim with his crewmates became the last morning of his life.

MELVIN MASAICHI YAMASH*TA — THE SON HE NEVER SAW GROW UPYears after Melvin Yamash*ta died in Vietnam, someone left him a...
10/24/2026

MELVIN MASAICHI YAMASH*TA — THE SON HE NEVER SAW GROW UP

Years after Melvin Yamash*ta died in Vietnam, someone left him a message about his son. Paul Carlyle had known Richard growing up in Kailua and wanted his father to know: “You would be very proud of him. He's strong, hard-working, and looks like you.”

That last part gets me. A father’s face carried forward by a son who had to grow up without him.

Sergeant Melvin Masaichi Yamash*ta served with Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade. Born September 18, 1946, he was from Honolulu, Hawaii, and a graduate of Castle High School’s Class of 1964. On October 24, 1969, he was killed in Binh Dinh Province. He had turned twenty-three just over a month earlier.

Alex Hawkins remembered meeting Melvin while attending advanced ROTC summer camp at Fort Bragg in 1969. Melvin was on the staff. According to Hawkins, he had already completed two Vietnam tours and was heading back for a third. Hawkins remembered a friend who had taught him a great deal—a young sergeant passing his experience to men preparing to serve.

Today marks fifty-seven years since Melvin’s death. He would be eighty. Carlyle’s message tells us that Richard grew into a hardworking man and that Melvin had grandchildren, too. Those are the lives beyond the casualty record: a son, another generation, and a resemblance that brought his father’s face back into view.

His name is on Panel 17W, Line 115. His story also belongs with the family who kept living with his absence.

CLARENCE EDWARD WASHINGTON — THE BIRTHDAYS STOPPED AT TWENTY-FOURToday should have been Clarence Edward Washington’s eig...
10/24/2026

CLARENCE EDWARD WASHINGTON — THE BIRTHDAYS STOPPED AT TWENTY-FOUR

Today should have been Clarence Edward Washington’s eighty-fourth birthday. Instead, I’m telling you about a Marine who never reached twenty-five—a man from Natchez, Mississippi, whose life ended in Quang Nam Province on May 10, 1967.

Clarence served with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division. He was a Private First Class and an assaultman, an infantry specialty trained to bring heavier weapons and demolitions into the fight. His casualty record lists an enemy explosive device as the cause of his death. He was twenty-four years old.

That age matters to me. Read a casualty list quickly and a name can disappear between the one above it and the one below. Stop at Clarence’s birthday, though, and the years he lost become impossible to ignore. Fifty-nine birthdays have passed since his death. He never got another one.

Clarence rests in Natchez National Cemetery, back in his hometown. His name is carved on Panel 19E, Line 88 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Today, I want his full name here, too: Private First Class Clarence Edward Washington, United States Marine Corps, born October 23, 1942.

10/23/2026

A tripwire. A buried shell. One step that a man could never take back. When I read through Vietnam casualty records, the words “Other Explosive Device” appear again and again. Behind every entry is someone who never came home.

One historical tally places 7,450 American deaths in that category alone. Artillery, rockets, and mortars were counted separately. Mines and b***y traps made an ordinary movement—a foot on a trail, a wheel on a road—potentially fatal.

That is what stays with me: the danger of the ground itself. Before we move on to the next photograph or the next name, these men deserve a moment of our attention.

FROM THE COLLECTION — THREE WARS IN ONE MARINE’S LIFEOkinawa. Korea. Vietnam. When I look at Gunnery Sergeant Clifford O...
10/23/2026

FROM THE COLLECTION — THREE WARS IN ONE MARINE’S LIFE

Okinawa. Korea. Vietnam. When I look at Gunnery Sergeant Clifford O. Hermann’s Alpha Green uniform, those names belong to the same man. Three wars that we display in separate sections of the museum were chapters in his own life.

Hermann served on Okinawa with the 1st Tank Battalion during World War II. In Korea, he served with Company C of that same battalion. On July 6, 1952, he was wounded in action. He recovered and stayed in the Marine Corps, continuing a career that would eventually carry him into another war.

By Vietnam, he was serving with Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Amphibian Tractor Battalion. Think about the span of that service: the Marine who had known the Pacific war was still wearing the uniform as another generation went to Southeast Asia. Weapons changed, vehicles changed, and the young faces around him changed. Hermann remained a Marine.

His awards also included the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, a decoration recognizing heroism outside actual combat with an enemy. It adds another chapter to a career already stretching across decades.

This is why preserving a named uniform matters so much to me. Hermann’s greens give us something tangible around which to tell his story. We can put his name beside his photograph, explain his service, and make sure the man who wore them stays part of the conversation.

Here at Ghosts of the Battlefield, we have the responsibility of carrying that story forward. Gunnery Sergeant Clifford O. Hermann gave the Corps years of his life across three wars. His uniform has earned its place here.

DOUGLAS R. DICKERSON JR. — HE ASKED TO GO BACKDouglas Dickerson had already been wounded. On August 1, 1967, the eightee...
10/23/2026

DOUGLAS R. DICKERSON JR. — HE ASKED TO GO BACK

Douglas Dickerson had already been wounded. On August 1, 1967, the eighteen-year-old Marine was hurt in Vietnam. Before he had fully healed, he asked to return to his unit. Fourteen days after that first wound, he was dead.

That is the part of his story that stops me. Behind the rank and casualty date was “Dougie,” a distance runner from Trenton Central High School’s Class of 1966. He had six siblings, had been active in the Boy Scouts, and wanted to attend college after the Marines. Georgia Tech was the school he favored. His plans reached well beyond Vietnam.

Douglas arrived there on January 1, 1967, serving as a rifleman with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division. In a letter to his parents, he explained his willingness to serve with four words: “it is my duty.”

On August 15, 1967, an enemy explosive device inflicted the fragmentation wounds that killed him in Quang Nam Province. Charlie Company lost ten men to mines that day, including a Navy corpsman. Douglas was still more than two months short of nineteen.

Today, October 23, should have been his seventy-eighth birthday. I think about that young runner and the college he hoped to attend—the life he intended to come home and build. Instead, Lance Corporal Douglas Randolph Dickerson Jr. came home to a military funeral. His name is carved on Panel 24E, Line 113 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

TIMOTHY JOHN O’CONNOR — THE SMILE THAT STAYED IN THE PHOTOGRAPHWhat gets me about these photographs is the distance betw...
10/23/2026

TIMOTHY JOHN O’CONNOR — THE SMILE THAT STAYED IN THE PHOTOGRAPH

What gets me about these photographs is the distance between them. In his graduation picture, Timothy John O’Connor is smiling. In the later photograph, that smile is gone, his eyes holding what looks to me like a thousand-yard stare. The same young man, but a very different picture.

Timothy was from Loogootee, Indiana. Born January 13, 1952, he served as a Private First Class with the Army’s 79th Maintenance Battalion, under Army Support Command Saigon and the 1st Logistics Command. On October 23, 1970, he died in Bien Hoa Province, South Vietnam. He was eighteen years old.

Eighteen. I keep coming back to that age when I think about the graduation photograph. There was barely any time between finishing school and the date that would be carved beside his name. Whatever that later expression held, Timothy never got the decades afterward—the chance to grow older, tell his own story, and let people know the man behind those photographs.

Today marks fifty-six years since his death. Timothy would be seventy-four. His name is on Panel 6W, Line 18 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, but these photographs bring me back to the teenager himself: the smile, the distant eyes, and a life that ended before nineteen.

# VietnamVeteransMemorial

JAMES BURL HANSARD — THE CAPTAIN HIS MEN REMEMBEREDArmy medic Ivan Katzenmeier remembered Captain James Burl Hansard wal...
10/23/2026

JAMES BURL HANSARD — THE CAPTAIN HIS MEN REMEMBERED

Army medic Ivan Katzenmeier remembered Captain James Burl Hansard walking down a road beside his radio operator as wounded men were being treated around them. He described a captain intent on doing his job and taking care of Charlie Company. That is how I want to introduce you to James Hansard: through a man who saw him lead.

Known as “Butch,” James came from Plainview, Texas. After serving in Vietnam with the 1st Cavalry Division, he became an Army ROTC instructor at Louisiana State University and advised the Bengal Raiders. One former student remembered him decades later as the kind of officer he hoped to become.

James returned to Vietnam in August 1968. He commanded Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 22nd Infantry, and was remembered by Katzenmeier during the August 25 fighting at Ap Nhi. His final recorded assignment was Headquarters, 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.

On October 23, 1968, James was riding as a passenger in a helicopter when enemy small-arms fire struck him. His brother-in-law, retired Lieutenant Colonel Ken Gordon, later clarified that the helicopter did not crash and nobody else was injured. James was twenty-seven.

I’m struck by the people who kept speaking about him: a medic who watched him under fire, a cadet who carried his example into adulthood, and a family who still called him Butch. Together, their accounts preserve something a casualty entry cannot—the impression he left on people.

Today marks fifty-eight years since his death. Captain James Burl Hansard’s name is on Panel 40W, Line 24 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. His men and students left us the reasons to stop and read it.

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1329 Harpers Road Suite 103
Virginia Beach, VA
23454

Opening Hours

Monday 11am - 5pm
Tuesday 11am - 5pm
Wednesday 11am - 5pm
Thursday 11am - 5pm
Friday 11am - 5pm
Saturday 11am - 5pm

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+17573018718

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