KING GARLAND BRYAN JR

Name: LTC Garland Bryan King, Jr.
Status: Killed In Action from an incident on 06/19/1969 while performing the duty of Pilot.
Age at death: 41.8
Date of Birth: 09/07/1927
Home City: Ft. Smith, AR
Service: SC branch of the reserve component of the U.S. Army.
Unit: HHC/USARV
Major organization: other
Service: SC branch of the U.S. Army.
The Wall location: 22W-090
Short Summary: Killed by a dropped M-16 that was not on safe. When it hit the ground, it discharged hitting King with four rounds in the chest.
Service number: O1922564
Country: South Vietnam
MOS: 6021
Compliment cause: small arms fire
Started Tour: 07/14/1968
"Official" listing: ground casualty
Length of service: 22
Location: Long An Province III Corps.

Additional information about this casualty:
King was on TDY in country on a classified mission when he was killed. This kind of mix up often occurred when different headquarters were involved. He was under DOD orders working as an Army Item Project Officer assisting Navy SEALS and Marines on their Air Cushion Vehicles. It seems that at the end of a mission while everyone was off loading at dockside a crewman dropped his M-16 which was not on safe. It discharged and stitched King with four rounds across his chest. We were both Signal Corps assigned as Project Officers to the Communications and Electronics Branch of the Army Concept Team in Vietnam (ACTIV). We flew the UH-1B assigned on various projects. King had the DECCA Navigation System which he tested in use on operational missions. I had the Heliborne Command Post (This became the C&C Bird later) and the Psychological Warfare Configured Helicopter (Psywar Bird) Plus some other interesting Malox inducing moments with ARVN. Our initial tour was in 1963-64 with both King and I returning on TDY several occasions. On one of my return trips my job was to introduce to an ARVN M-113 Armor-Infantry Battalion Commander a new state-of-the-art transistor powered P/A system mounted on his command vehicle. The objective was to get him to get to use the loudspeaker system to warn the people in the various villages he attacked to get out of the buildings and leave instead of shooting them up with the .50 cal. He would not change. The classic Capt. vs. LTC who always wins. Kind was one hell of a guy. Wilmer L. Preston, LTC USA Ret., July 1999.

Reason: other accident
Casualty type: Non-hostile - died of other causes
married male U.S. citizen
Race: Caucasian
Religion: Methodist (Evangelical United Brethren)
Burial information: FORT SMITH NATIONAL CEMETERY, FORT SMITH, AR
The following information secondary, but may help in explaining this incident.
Category of casualty as defined by the Army: non-battle dead Category of personnel: active duty Army Military class: officer
This record was last updated on 11/05/2016

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Date posted on this site: 11/13/2023