lest we forget

DARNELL, HAROLD DAIL

Rank / Branch:

  • SERGEANT, U. S. ARMY

Date Of Birth:

  • 1947-01-25

Country Of Loss:

  • SOUTH VIETNAM

Status:

  • NON-HOSTILE-ELECTROCUTED

Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground:​

  • GROUND

Other:

  • MARRIED

Unit:

  • FOURTH DIVISION

Date Of Loss:

  • 1970-01-20-

Loss Coordinates:

  • QUANG NGIA

Catagory:

  • BODY RETURNED

Awards & Decorations:

  • SEE BIO

VETERAN HAGI0GRAPHY

  • DARNELL, HAROLD HAIL, SERGEANT, U.S. ARMY, SWEETWATER, NOLAN, TEXAS

AWARDS AND DECORATIONS

  • BRONZE STAR MEDAL, GOOD CONDUCT MEDAL, VIETNAM SERVICE MEDAL, VIETNAM CROSS OF GALLANTRY, VIETNAM CAMPAIGN MEDAL

BIOGRAPHY

  • Harold was born in Pampa, Gray County, Texas. He was the son of Zeta Willie Bagley Darnell and Wilbert Ralph Darnell. He attended schools in Stanton, Coahoma, DeLeon and Sweetwater. He last attended Sweetwater High School after his junior year and dropped out, married Alois Kay Kocks, August 21, 1964, in Sweetwater. He enlisted in the Army on October 26, 1964, in Abilene, Texas and completed basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana. He was home on Xmas leave before beginning his advanced training and his wife was killed in a car accident six miles north of Sweetwater. She was buried in Snyder, Texas.
  • After the death of his wife, he completed training as radio tower installer/repairman at Fort Polk and then departed for a tour in Korea. He reenlisted for six years at Camp Howze, Korea on 27 October 1965 to go to Germany. He served a tour in Germany and a previous tour in Vietnam. While home on leave prior to his second tour in Vietnam, he married Sharon K. Correll of Sweetwater on December 29, 1968, in Sweetwater.
  • He began his second tour in Vietnam on February 15, 1969. He was assigned as a radio antenna installer/repairman with Headquarters and Service Battery, 4th Battalion, 42nd Artillery under the operational control of the 4th Infantry Division. He was killed on January 20, 1970, at the Chu Chi Base Camp as he was erecting a radio antenna. As he and several other soldiers were raising the tower, it came in contact with a high voltage electrical transmission line, and he was electrocuted. Harold was three weeks short of completing his second-year long tour in Vietnam, He had been writing his family about his homecoming.
  • He was buried with full military honors at the Garden of Memories Cemetery in Sweetwater, Texas. He was survived by his wife and his parents of Sweetwater, by his brothers Frankie of Aledo, Larry of the parent's home and W.R. Darnell, Jr. of Lampasas and two sisters, Barbara Gail Welch of Clyde, Texas and a sister, Billie Sue Darnell of the parents' home.
  • SWEETWATER 1964
  • GARDEN OF MEMORIE'S CEMETERY, SWEETWATER, TEXAS