D Company Loss — Death of CPL Kenneth Gonder, Land Mine, May 19, 1970

May 19, 1970 — CPL Kenneth Gonder, lost to a land mine

Research page — in progress. Confirmed: CPL Kenneth Walter Gonder of D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry died on May 19, 1970, in Binh Duong Province — a non-hostile death recorded as "died of other causes / other accident." His sister's tribute supplies the circumstance: he was killed instantly when he stepped on an Allied Forces land mine while walking with his platoon. The exact place within the province and the details of the mine await the unit record.

On May 19, 1970, CPL Kenneth Walter Gonder was killed in Binh Duong Province. He was twenty-three, from Middlesex County, New Jersey, and had been in Vietnam since the previous March — a little over two months. He is inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Panel 10W, Line 64.

A non-combat death — and a death of the war

Gonder's casualty record reads "Non-hostile, died of other causes" — a ground casualty, coded "other accident." No enemy, no firefight, no Purple Heart. But the classification describes the category, not the moment. His sister, writing for the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, records what happened: "He was walking with his platoon and stepped on an allied forces land mine. It still seems so senseless." He was killed instantly. The death is "non-hostile" because the mine was an Allied device, not enemy fire — but it took him on a patrol, in the field, doing an infantryman's job. This page records it the way the Wall does: as one of the war's dead, in the unit's timeline alongside the company's combat losses.

Where the company was — May 1970

Gonder died during the 1st Cavalry Division's Cambodian Incursion (1 May – 30 June 1970), the division's defining operation of the year. But the incursion's combat was across the border in the Fishhook; Gonder's casualty province, Binh Duong, was the division's rear / base-camp area to the south, around Phuoc Vinh. Routine ground movement and security went on there while the division's weight was committed in Cambodia. Exactly where in Binh Duong his platoon was on May 19, and the circumstances of the mine, are not established in the sources we have; the 2/8 Cav daily staff journal (NARA RG 472) would confirm them.

A fire base named Gonder

One day after his death, on May 20, 1970, 2/8 Cavalry opened a fire support base inside Cambodia — grid XU807383 — recorded in the battalion's firebase data as FB Gonder. Naming a new fire base for a recently killed soldier of the occupying unit was common practice, and the one-day gap and matching battalion make it very likely the base honored him. It is a strong inference, not yet confirmed by a primary naming citation.

The man

By his family's account, Kenny was a quiet, gentle young man — active in his church teen group, a 1969 economics graduate of Wilkes College who had spent his teenage years in his room recording songs and practicing to be a disc jockey, hoping for a career on the radio. He disagreed with the war and had hated guns since childhood, but felt it was his duty to go, resolving that he would not kill anyone. In the months before he shipped out he met his first serious girlfriend, and they planned to marry when he came home. He was survived by his parents, Walter and Birtie, and his two sisters, JoAnn and Robin. His full remembrance is preserved as a sister's tribute.

Help us complete the record

If you served with D Company, 2/8 Cav in the spring of 1970, or knew Kenneth Gonder of Middlesex County, New Jersey, we would be grateful for anything you can share. Please reach us through the contribute form.