Staton, Robert Milton Jr.
Army Specialist 4

Robert Milton Jr. Staton, age 19, from Jamesville, North Carolina, Martin county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Saturday, November 11, 1967

Death details:  On November 11, 1967, a unit from the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade engaged an enemy force near Hill 875 as part of the month-long Operation MacArthur campaign, also known as the Battle of Dak To. Six men from the unit were killed in action before the unit was forced to withdraw, leaving the bodies behind. The next day, the unit returned to recover the remains but found that all six were gone, supposedly removed by the enemy following the engagement. Further searches recovered the bodies of two of the unit’s fallen, but the remaining four could not be located.

Specialist 4 Robert Milton Staton Jr. entered the U.S. Army from North Carolina and served in the 173rd Engineer Company, 173rd Airborne Brigade. He was one of the members of this unit who was killed during the action, and was among those whose remains could not be located following the incident. Today, Specialist 4 Staton is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

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