Wilmington Delaware

Edward Arlo Willing, age 18, from Wilmington, Delaware, New Castle county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: July 21, 1968
Death details: Lance Corporal Edward Arlo Willing, who joined the U.S. Marine Corps from Delaware, was a member of Battery D of the 2nd Battalion, 13th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. On July 21, 1968, he left his unit’s position at the Tu Cau Bridge in the vicinity of (GC) BT 032 648 to pick up his unit’s mail from the base camp of the 1st Battalion, 27th Marine Regiment, in the vicinity of (GC) BT 075 659. Lance Corporal Willing picked up the mail, and left the 1st Battalion base camp that evening. Shortly after LCpl Willing’s departure, a guard heard several shots outside the camp from the direction of the Tu Cau Bridge. Through a scope, he observed an armed Vietnamese male leaving the area while a group of children were pulling a body into the woods. The guard reported this, and a search of the area was initiated when LCpl Willing failed to return to return to his unit’s position, but nothing could be found and he remains unaccounted for. Following the incident, the Marine Corps posthumously promoted LCpl Willing to the rank of Gunnery Sergeant (GySgt). Today, Gunnery Sergeant Willing is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency