D Company Loss — CPL Craig Thomas Waterman, Binh Tuy Province, September 3, 1970
September 3, 1970 — D Company loses a man from Range Platoon
Research page — sparse. Confirmed: CPL Craig Thomas Waterman, Range Platoon, D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry, was killed in Binh Tuy Province on 3 September 1970. The official record classifies his death as a hostile ground casualty, misadventure. The precise location and full circumstances are not yet established.
On 3 September 1970, CPL Craig Thomas Waterman — Range Platoon, D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry — was killed in Binh Tuy Province. He was 20 years old and had been in-country for 99 days. His name is on the Wall at Panel 7W, Line 37.
Where the battalion was
The 2/8 Cav had been operating from FSB Powder Ridge (grid YT807786) through 31 August 1970, and would establish FSB Guin (grid ZT100190), roughly 67 kilometres to the southeast, on 4 September. Waterman was killed on the day between — at a temporary patrol base or staging position during the transition. The two firebases are too far apart for overland movement; the unit made this kind of shift by helicopter.
CPL Craig Waterman
Craig Thomas Waterman was from Rockwell City, Iowa — a big, easy-going man his friends called Water Buffalo. He began his tour on 27 May 1970 and served in Range Platoon throughout his time in-country.
He is buried at Saint Francis Cemetery, Rockwell City, Iowa. In May 2021, his Range Platoon comrade Jim Garvin gathered fellow veterans for a Celebration of Life at the cemetery.
Jim Garvin has since described what happened that night. It was pitch black. Craig had gotten outside the wire — how or why, no one knows. He tripped a flare near the position of another squad in the same platoon. In the dark, with confirmed enemy activity in the area that same afternoon, the squad fired. A high school friend who served as pallbearer had been told Craig died "coming back from patrol into a remote base" — the story had compressed across a few retellings before it reached Iowa.
Why Craig was outside the wire remains unanswered.
Help us complete the record
The grid position of the incident on 3 September 1970 has not been confirmed, and no after-action report has been matched to the event. If you served with D Company, Range Platoon, 2/8 Cavalry in the fall of 1970, or knew Craig from Rockwell City, please reach us through the contribute form.
CPL Craig Waterman was killed on September 3, 1970 in Binh Tuy Province. If you served with D Company, Range Platoon, 2/8 Cavalry in the summer and fall of 1970, or knew Craig Waterman from Rockwell City, Iowa, we'd like to hear from you.
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