D Company Loss — PFC Kenneth Frierson, Killed in Action, January 25, 1970

January 25, 1970 — PFC Kenneth Frierson

Contact page. Primary sources: Virtual Wall and VVMF casualty records; firsthand account from Lt. Glen Beasley (Cat 6, D Company, 2/8 Cav, 1969–70), who was with Frierson when he was killed. The specific circumstances — position, enemy unit, and the nature of Frierson's actions — are not fully established in available sources.

On January 25, 1970, PFC Kenneth Frierson was killed by small arms fire in Hau Nghia Province. He was 20 years old, a rifleman with D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry, and he had been in Vietnam for 45 days. He is inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Panel 14W, Line 64.

"Your actions saved us at your own sacrifice"

Fifty-three years after the fact, on December 31, 2022, Lt. Glen Beasley — who commanded the D Company element with Frierson that day — left a remembrance on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund's Wall of Faces:

"Ken, 53 years ago this month. Your actions saved us at your own sacrifice. God bless you."

Beasley signed it Lt. He was Cat 6 — the element commander in the field on January 25, 1970. His words are the only firsthand account of what happened that day, and they are unambiguous: Frierson did something that protected the people around him. He died doing it.

The casualty record codes his death as hostile, died outright — gun or small arms fire, ground casualty. A direct-fire engagement. Not a mine, not a mortar. Frierson was in a firefight, and Beasley, who survived it, has said for the record that it was Frierson's actions that made that possible.

Where the battalion was

In January 1970, the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry was operating in the western War Zone C corridor, conducting the 1st Brigade's interdiction mission along the Cambodian border under LTC Michael Conrad. The battalion's last confirmed fire support base before this date is FB Westphal (YT380835), which was active January 14–17, 1970 — eight days before Frierson was killed. By January 25 the battalion had moved, but to where is not established in reviewed sources. The casualty record gives Hau Nghia Province, which overlaps the southern portion of the XT grid corridor where 2/8 Cav operated.

The ORLL that would cover January 25 — the 1st Cavalry Division's operational report for the period ending January 31, 1970 — has not yet been reviewed. That document would fix the battalion's position and activity on this date.

Kenneth Frierson — from Alcolu, South Carolina

Kenneth Frierson was from Alcolu, a small community in Clarendon County, South Carolina. He was born November 8, 1949. He arrived in Vietnam on December 11, 1969, assigned to D Company as a light-weapons infantryman (MOS 11B10). He was 20 years old and had been in-country 45 days when he was killed. He was brought home and buried at Union Cypress Cemetery, Manning, South Carolina.

He is the first D Company soldier to die in 1970. The company would lose five more men before the end of March — all in the same border corridor, all in the months before the Cambodian Incursion that the division was preparing.

In his community, his memory has been kept. George Frierson, a Vietnam veteran and local historian in Alcolu, has honored him publicly — including before the Clarendon County Council. Lt. Beasley's remembrance, posted more than five decades after the fact, is the other half of that keeping.

Help us complete the record

The specific circumstances of the January 25 contact are not established beyond Lt. Beasley's account. If you served with D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry in War Zone C in early 1970, or knew Kenneth Frierson from Alcolu, South Carolina, please reach us through the contribute form.