Rykoskey, Edward Jay
Marines Lance-Corporal

Edward Jay Rykoskey from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Cumberland county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Thursday, August 18, 1966
Death details: Lance Corporal Edward Jay Rykoskey, who joined the U.S. Marine Corps from Pennsylvania, served with Company C, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division. On August 18, 1966, he was part of a four-man reconnaissance team inserted deep into enemy territory in Da Nang Province, South Vietnam, for a multi-day patrol mission. The team encountered a group of Viet Cong guerillas. Lance Corporal Rykoskey was killed instantly in a rapid exchange of gunfire, and his fellow patrol members could not recover his body as they withdrew from the area. A large force later returned to the area and spent five days looking for LCpl Rykoskey’s remains, but were unsuccessful. Today, Lance Corporal Rykoskey is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives., Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency