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Paul
Malec
Malec
SGT · · 11H40 · Infantry Direct Fire Crewman
KIA
In-Country Service
1965-09-20 –
Home of Record
Summerdale, Baldwin County, AL
Character of Service
Honorable
Archive Status
Active
Service timeline not yet compiled. If you served with or knew Paul Malec, please use the contribute form to share what you remember.
1965-09-20
Arrived
Arrived in Vietnam — September 20, 1965
SGT Paul Malec began his tour in the Republic of Vietnam with D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry (Airmobile), 1st Cavalry Division — in time for the division's Pleiku Campaign (the Plei Me / Ia Drang fighting, Oct–Nov 1965). According to his family, Malec had earlier trained as an Airborne paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division, then joined the 11th Air Assault Division — the test unit that became the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) before deploying to Vietnam in 1965. He served as a squad leader.
1966-03-21
Incident
Wounded — March 21, 1966
SGT Malec received the fragmentation wounds that would prove fatal while serving with D Company, 2/8 Cavalry. The date falls within Operation Jim Bowie (mid-March 1966, Binh Dinh Province), during which D Company occupied FB Phoenix City. He was evacuated and did not return to the unit. The official casualty record codes the wounding as hostile. A soldier who served under Malec, in an account relayed by the family in 2025, describes it instead as an accidental detonation while he was setting a trap in the Central Highlands — a blast that also set off every smoke grenade he was carrying. The two accounts agree on the timing, the place, and the fragmentation wounds. The character of Jim Bowie supports the comrade's version: the operation produced only 3 killed but 377 wounded, the majority of those wounds from punji-stake booby traps and similar explosive devices rather than from firefights. The official MACV communiqué dated the very day he was wounded, 21 March 1966, reports that Jim Bowie had had "no significant contact in the nine days of searching" — no firefight in progress — with friendly casualties "majority sustained from punji sticks."
1966-05-14
Incident
Died of wounds — May 14, 1966
SGT Malec died of the wounds received on 21 March 1966, some eight weeks later, on 14 May 1966, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky — the home of the 101st Airborne, in which he had once served. By his family's account he was evacuated first to Japan and then to Kentucky, where he ultimately died of an infection caused by his wounds. He was 29 years old, a career NCO on his first Vietnam tour. He was buried just across the state line at Fort Donelson National Cemetery in Dover, Tennessee.
Did You Know Paul, or Serve Alongside Paul?
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