Bronson Lee Westfall

Lance Corporal Bronson Lee Westfall joined Charlie Battery, 1st Battalion, 12th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, in Da Nang, South Vietnam on 15 March 1966. He was assigned to the 105 Howitzer guns as a field artillery cannoneer (MOS 0811). Charlie Battery was relocated North to the DMZ area with Camp Carroll as home base. He later extended his tour of duty and volunteered to be assigned to 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines as a forward observer for Charlie Battery and was killed on 27 October 1967 in Quang Tri Providence while calling in the fire coordinates to Charlie Battery. He was killed in action by a short round from friendly fire while under hostile enemy fire.

When Gini Westfalls' son was killed in Vietnam at the age of 21, the family lived in Hampton, Virginia, outside Norfolk. Bronson graduated from high school there in 1965 and joined the Marine Corps a few months later.

He was a Marine cannoneer. He had finished his year's service in ‘Nam in June '67, Bronson volunteered for another six months firing the Marines' big guns on the front lines in Quang Tri Province. He was scheduled to be discharge from the service in December, just in time for a holiday wedding to his high school sweetheart, Debora Drum.