On the Funeral of MSG Clint R. Marshall — by Franklin Trapnell (ASA newsletter, June 2008)
A first-person remembrance written by Franklin "Buck" Trapnell — the wartime Recon Platoon Leader and later D Company XO — for the Angry Skipper Association newsletter (June 2008), reporting on the funeral of MSG Clint R. Marshall, his Reconnaissance Platoon Sergeant in D Company, 2/8 Cavalry.
What it covers
Trapnell recounts meeting Marshall at Fort Benning in early 1965, when they were Platoon Leader and Platoon Sergeant of the Recon Platoon, Company D, 1st Battalion–511th Infantry, 11th Air Assault Division — the unit soon redesignated Company D, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry. He sketches Marshall's life: born and raised in Snyder, Oklahoma; an older brother killed by a kamikaze off Okinawa in WWII; enlistment in 1948 at age 19; jump school and service with the 82nd and 101st Airborne, and in Korea and Germany; marriage to Jo Ann Hines and seven children; and ~22 years in the Army, retiring in 1970.
The two men reconnected by telephone in November 2007 after forty-one years out of touch, and "talked over old times and in particular our battle on 4 November 1965 in the Ia Drang Valley" — Trapnell explicitly points readers to the after-action report (the same 2/8 Cav AAR held in this archive). They planned to meet at the May 2008 Angry Skipper reunion in Salt Lake City, but Marshall died 10 February 2008 before that could happen.
Trapnell drove to Snyder, attended the burial "with full military honors" on 13 February 2008, and was asked to speak at the graveside. Of Marshall he said he "had the magic of small unit leadership," and he reflected on "the gift that small-town America continues to provide the nation's military by way of its sons and daughters."
"He used to tell people that when he was leading he had never lost a man."
Transcribed/summarized by the archive, 2026, from the ASA newsletter (June 2008). Byline: Franklin W. Trapnell Jr. (COL, USA, Ret.), D, 2/8 CAV Platoon Leader/XO, 65–66.