Veteran Spotlight
by Richard D. L. Fulton
Sergeant Ernest L. Rowe
KIA in the Mekong Delta
Ernest L. Rowe, Waynesboro, was born on November 29, 1947, to parents, John W, Rowe, Jr. and Evelyn “Mickie” L. Rowe. He had one brother, Randy.
Rowe’s father was employed as a machinist by Mack Trucks, Inc., of Hagerstown, while his mother was employed at the Carroll Shoe Company in Mount Alto, at the time of his death.
Rowe graduated from the Waynesboro Area Senior High School in 1965. He was employed at the Grove Manufacturing Company before being drafted into the U.S. Army on June 23, 1967, wherein he served with Company A, 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry, 9th Division.
According to an article published in the October 1, 1968 edition of the Chambersburg Opinion, Rowe had been serving in the Republic of Vietnam since November 23, 1967.
Rowe was wounded on January 8, 1968, while on a mission in the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam, The (Waynesboro) Record Herald reported in its January 18 issue.
According to the newspaper, he had been recuperating from his wounds, which he had suffered to his legs, arms, and face, in a Saigon hospital.
Rowe and five other soldiers were on a mission when one of the men stepped on a land mine. Five of the men, including Rowe, were injured in the ensuing explosion, The Record Herald reported. Rowe apparently recovered enough from his wounds to report back to duty. He had spent two months in the hospital, recovering from his injuries.
The (Chambersburg) Public Opinion reported on October 1, 1968, that Rowe had also been wounded a second time.
As a result of his injuries, he was awarded the Purple Heart and the Oak Leaf Cluster.
However, on September 25, 1968, Rowe, aged 20, was fatally injured, thereby deeming Rowe as having been the sixth Waynesboro Borough soldier to lose his life in the Vietnam War. His parents were notified of his death on September 28, and they were informed that their son’s body would be returned “by the earliest military airlift.”
According to the Public Opinion, Rowe died while engaged in a “defensive position” in “Bentre,” when a booby-trapped mine exploded near him. Bến Tre (the correct spelling) is the capital of the southern Vietnamese province of Kien Hoa Province, located in the Mekong Delta.
Rowe was killed only three days after the official end (September 23) of the Tet Offensive, a major assault initiated by the North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong forces all-out, last-ditch effort to attempt to generate an uprising against the South Vietnamese government, with a secondary objective to prove that the United States and its allies could not win the war.
However, by the time Rowe had been killed, the North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong had sustained 30,000–50,000 casualties and had fallen back in defeat.
The (Waynesboro) Record Herald reported on September 30, 1968, that the last time his parents had heard from him was via a letter he had written on September 20 (five days before his death), in which he had stated his unit “was setting up a new camp,” and further stated that his unit “expected to be under rocket fire in the near future.”
In addition to the Purple Heart, he was further awarded the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Campaign Medal, and the Vietnam Service Medal.
Rowe was interred in the Green Hill Cemetery in Waynesboro, and is also honored on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Panel 42w, Line 10.
In or around 1985, a photo with a note was found taped to the wall next to Rowe’s name, which read, “Ernest L. Rowe, 1966 Homecoming Dance. You’re never gone from our thoughts or Hearts,” with a photograph of Rowe standing with a female believed to have been a prom date, according to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.
As far as is known, up to the present time, the woman in the photograph has never been identified.
