D Company Loss — CPL Frank Ware, Tay Ninh Province, March 6, 1970
March 6, 1970 — Tay Ninh Province
CPL Francis "Frank" Ware III, Range Platoon, D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry, was killed in an ambush in Tay Ninh Province on March 6, 1970. He was 20 years old. Official records record the cause as hostile, ground casualty, multiple fragmentation wounds.
Ware had been in-country since August 3, 1969 — 215 days at the time of his death. He served in Range Platoon alongside his close friend Sonny Silva, who later described the circumstances and wrote to Ware's family: "I knew him well. He was a great person. He did not suffer."
The precise location of the contact has not been established. The battalion staged from FB Mary Gwen (XT526796) in late February 1970 and was operating west through the Tay Ninh AO in early March. The 1st Cavalry Division ORLL (AD0512505) does not carry a D Company entry for March 6; the significant contacts log records A Company on March 4 and C Company on March 7–8, both in the XT17x grid west of Mary Gwen.
The named-casualty record and precise grid await the 2-8 Cav daily staff journal (NARA RG 472, 6 March 1970).
See CPL Frank Ware.
If you served with D Company, 2/8 Cav in March 1970, we'd like to hear from you. CPL Frank Ware was killed in an ambush in Tay Ninh Province on March 6, 1970. Fellow Range Platoon soldier Sonny Silva served alongside him. Any detail about that day — a grid, a name, a fragment of what happened — is welcome.
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