On April 19, 1969, Second Lieutenant Reese Mark Andersen of the Marine Corps died of an accidental gunshot wound near Quang Tri, in the northernmost province of what was then South Vietnam. He was twenty-five, the son of Mark and Delores Andersen of Arimo and Arbon Valley. The site's Stories entry records his death. The papers of that spring add an outline of his life and show how the news reached his family.
The news from Vietnam
The first report found so far is a short dispatch from Pocatello in the Logan Herald Journal of Wednesday, April 23, 1969. It said that Mr. and Mrs. A. Mark Andersen "of Arimo and Arbon Valley" had received word on Monday that their son had been killed near Quang Tri on April 19, "from accidental gunshot wound." The double address was a real one. Mark farmed at Arbon, but in 1943 he and Delores had bought a house in Arimo, in Bannock County's Marsh Valley, over the mountain east of Arbon Valley, so that the children could go to high school. The family history tells that part of the story.
The page is hard to read. Reese's obituary was set in columns beside that of a former Logan resident, and the scanned text runs the two together, so some lines are lost. What can be read gives an outline of his life. Reese was born at Pocatello on July 31, 1943, and seems to have lived at Arimo all his life, going to grade school and high school there. In his last three years of high school he was on the basketball team and was active in wrestling and other school activities. He spent a year at Utah State University in Logan and then served a mission in northern California for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The family history adds that the money Mark made raising wiener pigs at Arbon, sold at twelve dollars apiece, paid for that mission.
He then entered the Marine Officers Candidate School at Quantico, Virginia, and was commissioned. The obituary mentions further training and seven weeks in North Carolina, though the name of the camp is lost, and says he left for Vietnam on December 3, 1968. The broken text of the obituary seems to call him a commander in Company B of the 3rd Engineer Battalion, which it places in the 3rd Marines, without making clear what he commanded. The Virtual Wall, an online memorial, gives his unit as Company B, 3rd Engineer Battalion, 3rd Marine Division. Besides his parents, the obituary named his brother, E. Dean Andersen of Arbon; the names of the other survivors cannot be read in the scan. The funeral, it said, would be held in Arimo.
Word to Clifton
The news also went to relatives who had once lived in the valley. On May 1 the Cache Citizen, in its column of news from Clifton, in Franklin County, Idaho, printed a short item headed "Nephew Dies In Vietnam." Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bailey had received word of the death of their nephew Reese Andersen, son of Mr. and Mrs. Mark Andersen of Arbon, and the column noted that he had been a Marine lieutenant.
Charles Kerr Bailey was a son of J. R. Bailey of Arbon, and his wife, Ada, was Mark Andersen's sister. They married in 1928 and lived at Arbon until 1940, when they moved to Clifton, where Charles drove a school bus for twenty-three years. Their story is told with the Bailey family and the Andersen family.
The funeral at Arimo
On Friday, May 2, the Herald Journal printed the funeral notice. It spelled the name Anderson and called him a USU graduate "killed in Vietnam action recently." The service was set for Saturday, May 3, at 1 p.m. in the Latter-day Saint ward chapel at Arimo. There would be a viewing at the chapel that Friday evening from seven to nine, and again on Saturday before the service.
On May 8 the Clifton column reported that the Baileys, joined that Saturday by family from Layton and Taylor, had driven to Arimo for the funeral of Lt. Reese Andersen, "a nephew and cousin, who was killed in Vietnam." The column is hard to read, so exactly who went is not certain. He was buried at Arimo. The Virtual Wall gives his home of record as Arbon, Idaho, and his place on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington as Panel 26W, Line 6.
Where the accounts differ
The papers and the family's memory agree on the main facts but not on every detail. By the birth date in the obituary he was twenty-five; the family history says twenty-four. The obituary called his death an accidental shooting, while the funeral notice spoke more loosely of Vietnam action. The family's account is that a fellow Marine was cleaning his rifle when it went off. The Stories entry notes that the casualty records describe a non-hostile accident, and that the memorial databases place it at the Dong Ha Combat Base, in the same province. The obituary says Reese spent one year at Utah State before his mission, while the funeral notice calls him a graduate. The obituary may mention a graduation in December, but those lines are too broken to read. The Idaho papers of that spring, the Idaho State Journal at Pocatello and the Power County Press at American Falls, have not been read for this post.
The story as reported
Logan Herald Journal, April 23, 1969, page 2. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.
POCATELLO — Mr. and Mrs. A. Mark Andersen, who make their home in both Arimo and Arbon Valley, learned on Monday that their son, Reese Mark Andersen, had died in Vietnam. His fatal wound, suffered near Quang Tri on April 19, came from an accidental gunshot.
Andersen had shipped out for Vietnam on Dec. 3. When he died, he held a command in Company B of the 3rd Engineer Battalion, a unit of the 3rd Marines.
Pocatello was his birthplace, on July 31, 1943, but Arimo was his home for his whole life, and he attended its grade and high schools. He played basketball through his last three years there and also wrestled and joined in other activities at the school.
Utah State University in Logan had him as a student for one year, and afterward the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent him to northern California as a missionary. The Marine Corps then sent him to Quantico, Va., where he went through its Officers Candidate School and was commissioned, and seven more weeks of training in North Carolina came before he shipped out.
Besides his parents, he leaves a brother, E. Dean Andersen of Arbon, and other relatives.
Arimo will be the place of the funeral, though the hour has not yet been set.
On this site: the Stories entry for Reese Andersen; the history of Mark and Delores Andersen and of Reese's brother Dean Andersen, who ran and later bought the Arbon farm; and a photograph of the family, with Reese in the back row.
Sources
- Logan Herald Journal, April 23, 1969, page 2
- Cache Citizen, May 1, 1969, page 11
- Logan Herald Journal, May 2, 1969, page 2
- Cache Citizen, May 8, 1969, page 3
- The Virtual Wall: Reese Mark Andersen
- A. Mark Andersen, by Melinda Campbell, on this site
- The Andersen family, on this site
- The Bailey family, on this site
- Lieutenant Reese Andersen killed in Vietnam, Stories, on this site