Larry
Hackett
Hackett
· Range ·
In-Country Service
1968 – 1969
Home of Record
Character of Service
Honorable
Archive Status
Active
Sourced from CPT Henry Colavita's memoir, "Company Grade: Memoir of an Angry Skipper" (see soldiers/colavita-henry), which recounts Hackett's friendship with SP4 Raymond Ahern and Colavita's own later encounters with him, and from Hackett's own 22 Nov 2005 tribute to Ahern posted on the Virtual Wall (see the hackett-larry-tribute-ahern-raymond document). Service dates (1968-69) per Michael; not yet independently sourced.
1968
Range Platoon
Served in D Company's Rifle Range Platoon
Served with Company D, 2nd Battalion (Airmobile), 8th Cavalry Regiment's Rifle Range Platoon, 1968-69. Became close friends with SP4 Raymond Ahern (see soldiers/ahern-raymond), an artillery RTO attached to the company — the two, per Hackett's own account, first met while the division was still working the Quang Tri area, before the move south into III Corps in late October 1968.
2005-11-22
Tribute
Left a tribute to Raymond Ahern on the Virtual Wall
Posted a personal remembrance of SP4 Raymond Ahern to the Virtual Wall, recounting their friendship, D Company's move into III Corps, the unit's difficult early days at LZ Rita, and the night of 26 Nov 1968 when Ahern was killed. Reproduced in full, with attribution, in CPT Henry Colavita's memoir. See the hackett-larry-tribute-ahern-raymond document for the full text.
post-service
Reunion
Met CPT Colavita at the Wall on Veterans Day
Per Colavita's memoir, Hackett met with him and a group of fellow D Company veterans in Washington, D.C. on Veterans Day on several occasions after the war, to honor their fallen comrades at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
unknown
Passed Away
Died of cancer
Per Colavita's memoir, Hackett eventually stopped appearing at the annual Veterans Day gatherings; Colavita later learned from the other veterans in the group that he had died of cancer. Exact date not yet known. Colavita's memoir notes the group's high wartime exposure to Agent Orange defoliant and wonders, in print, whether Hackett's name "shouldn't also be on the Wall" — a supposition, not a documented finding, and not asserted as fact here.
Did You Know Larry, or Serve Alongside Larry?
We are actively collecting photographs, letters, and memories for this profile. Submissions are reviewed before publication. If you served with Larry — or are a family member with materials — we'd be grateful to hear from you.
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