NOT FORGOTTEN: On 50th anniversary of man’s combat death in Vietnam, loved ones gather

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GREENFIELD — Huger Phelps loved a practical joke. 

A happy-go-lucky child and young man, Huger got along with everyone and was usually making people laugh within minutes of meeting them. 

That’s the man his friends and family gathered to remember on Sunday evening, the 50th anniversary of his death in combat in South Vietnam. Phelps was 22 when he died. 

"If you ever met him and he didn’t make you laugh, you didn’t have a sense of humor at all," said Patti Schinbeckler, who was 20 years old with a five-month-old son when a Naval officer came to her door to notify her that her husband had been killed. "He tried to make everybody feel happy and welcome." 

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The memorial service, held Sunday at the Hancock County Vietnam Veterans Memorial on State Road 9 near Davis Road, was part of the Greenfield American Legion Post’s ongoing series of ceremonies to honor local Vietnam War casualties who took their final breaths 50 years earlier.

Phelps is the seventh Vietnam veteran from Hancock County to be remembered with a memorial service in the past two years, said Tom Pomeroy, commander of American Legion Post No. 119. 

More than 58,000 men and women were killed in battle from February 1961, when the United States’ military involvement in the war began, and May 1975, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Among the dead are 11 Hancock County men; one more is missing in action.

Phelps, a Navy corpsman sent to Vietnam on Dec. 18, 1968, had already spent a year on a transport ship but decided to train to become a corpsman — an enlisted medical officer — so he could be in a more active, helpful role, Pomeroy said.

In early 1969, he was assigned to a headquarters company in the First Amphibious Tractor Battalion, Third Marine Division, which was active in Quang Tri Province. The region included the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Vietnam, and the Marines had been under almost daily attack by the North Vietnamese for months along a thinly manned front.

On the day he died, Phelps was accompanying a patrol that was ambushed and "became heavily engaged with a numerically superior hostile force," a Navy narrative later said. When the leader of the Marine patrol was wounded, Phelps made his way through heavy fire to administer aid to the fallen man.

"Despite the hostile rounds impacting nearby, he courageously elected to remain in the hazardous area, administering medical aid…" the Navy report said.

He didn’t make it back to his unit. 

He received the Silver Star Medal and a Purple Heart, which his widow carried Sunday evening to the service.

Schinbeckler, wearing a scarf and thick coat to protect against the cold wind, thanked with a quiver in her voice the group of about 20 people who attended the outdoor memorial service. Though Phelps died 50 years ago, those feelings of the blur of grief never faded, she said. 

"It literally shattered my heart," she said. "The only thing that kept me alive was my son. I had to work; it was tough." 

Though she now lives out of state, she attended the memorial with her husband, Steven Schinbeckler. 

She shared smiles, memories and a hug with John Burkett of Greenfield, who was the best man at Huger and Patti’s wedding at St. Michael Catholic Church three years before Phelps’ death. 

Burkett, who called Phelps "such a great friend," recalled Phelps’ penchant for lighthearted fun. 

They would often go to a local cafe and split a soda and French fries, he said; Phelps drove a Studebaker with a broken gear shift, and he’d clamp a vice grip on it in order to drive the car, Burkett recalled. 

They later wrecked that Studeabaker on U.S. 52 near New Palestine, and Huger’s first words when Burkett found him hanging halfway out of the car were asking about the other driver, he said. 

"We were best friends," he said. "I often think of him and what might have become of him if God had different plans for him." 

Jim Bradbury, a childhood friend of Phelps, remembers him as friendly and fun-loving when they attended Eden Elementary School and later Hancock Central High School. 

It didn’t matter whether someone was in his homeroom class or even his grade, Bradbury said. 

"He could just get along with everyone," he said. 

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Eleven men from Hancock County died during the Vietnam War, and one is missing in action. They are:

John Modglin on July 18, 1967

Rodger Haste on December 22, 1967

Frank W. Marks on March 9, 1968

Elvin Gose on March 18, 1968

Michael Ebert on March 21, 1968

Vaughn Brown on July 1, 1968

William Brees Jr. on Oct. 8, 1968

Huger Phelps on Feb. 10, 1969

Michael Terry on Oct. 12, 1969

Norris Borgman on Jan. 6, 1970

Mark Draper on July 22, 1970

Robert Harlan II, missing in action on Oct. 25, 1965

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