Neil Shipp Brown, KIA 2May69 — by Chuck Hustedt (ASA newsletter, June 2008)
A first-person account written by Chuck Hustedt (Skull, 69) for the Angry Skipper Association newsletter (June 2008), recounting the death of PFC Neil Shipp Brown on 2 May 1969 and the reunion cemetery search that brought the story full circle nearly forty years later.
What it covers
Hustedt opens in the field: on 2 May 1969, during what became Operation Montana Raider in War Zone C, "there was an explosion on 2May69, followed by a brief firefight in which Neil Brown was killed." Top grabbed Hustedt and John Lee (Range, 68–69) and ordered them to carry Brown out through very thick bush. Hustedt was a new arrival — a "cherry" who could barely move under his own load — but he and Lee got Brown out.
The two men did not know each other in-country. Nearly thirty years later, at the 1998 Charleston reunion hosted by Jim and Nancy Nix (Skull, 68–69), Hustedt overheard Lee recounting how hard the carry-out had been and how "a damn cherry" had helped him. Hustedt confessed it was him. From that point they kept in touch, visited Brown's panel on the Wall in Washington, D.C., and resolved that if the association ever held a reunion in Salt Lake City — Brown's hometown — they would find his grave.
That chance came at the 2008 Salt Lake City reunion. John and his wife Jan worked the city's records offices; the Utah State Archives had already closed for the day, but a guard provided the number of a veteran who worked there. Hustedt reached him by phone on the bus to Park City and within minutes had the cemetery address.
On Sunday morning following the reunion, Hustedt, Lee, Al Seal (Range, 71–72), Dirk Olson (Skull, 71–72), and Everett "Corp" Tolbert (Skull, 69–70) conducted a grid search of the cemetery — the grave locator office was closed — until they found Brown at Murray City Cemetery. Tolbert said a prayer. "I don't know why," Hustedt writes, "but I'm proud of the fact that we got him out of there and to say goodbye to him here. To me, that's what we're all about."
Transcribed/summarized by the archive, 2026, from the ASA newsletter (June 2008). Byline: Chuck Hustedt (Skull, 69).
