Editor's note: This is the twelfth in a series of stories profiling the veterans of Whitfield and Murray counties who lost their life during the Vietnam War.
Sandi Cline was at a concert in East Brainerd in Chattanooga with friends when she was told to come home.
“A lot of kids from here went up there to a little club called The Coat of Arms,” she said of some Dalton teenagers. “(Pop music idol) Billy Joe Royal was playing there live that night. They called the club and told me to come home, but they didn't say why.”
Sandi didn't know two men from the Army had come to her home with bad news. Neither did she realize her friends knew what had happened.
“I said, 'Maybe Charles has come home,'” she recalled. “They all started crying and whimpering, but I couldn't see it — they were keeping it to themselves. When I got home, I found out.”
Sandi's brother, U.S. Army Specialist 4 Charles William Cline, 18, was killed in action on Feb. 22, 1968, in Thua Thien Province, 71 days after arriving in Vietnam. The son of Paul Lester Cline and Gertrude (Ophelia) Landreth, he was in a light weapons unit of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 501st Infantry of the 101st Airborne Division. He is buried in Chattanooga National Cemetery.
Sandi noted she and her older brother “ran in different circles — he was with the popular athletes, and I was a shy little mouse.”
“He loved sports and played basketball for Fort Hill starting out, I believe,” she said. “He played football for Dalton High, ran track and played tennis. He was very outgoing, and protective of me growing up — he'd fight guys that were picking on me. He was a little guy, but he could get around you.”
Buddy Hughes was slightly older than Charles, and remembers him as “a nice guy.”
“He was a friend of mine,” he said. “I could drive, so I'd go pick him up and we'd go to teen dance clubs and such. He was a little bit introverted, but he came out of his shadow and we had some good times together. I didn't see him after I was 17 and he quit school. I had joined the Air Force and was in the Air National Guard at Dobbins (Air Force Base). I didn't know he had joined the military.”
Charlie McClain said Charles was a year older and although they weren't close, he remembers him as “a friendly but quiet guy with a great smile.”
“Charles was fast and had some obvious athletic skills, but I'm not sure how much organized sports he might have played,” he recalled. “I'm not sure what led to his going into the military. I do remember teacher Roscoe Carden telling the class about his death. The announcement was in my 11th grade class of 1967-68, and I remember his somber delivery of the news of Charles' passing.”
A dream, and uncertainty
Charles Cline died “as a result of wounds received when a hostile satchel charge detonated while on (a) combat operation,” according to the Coffelt Database of Vietnam Casualties.
“We were told that he was protecting his battalion group and was killed that way,” Sandi said.
A posting on The Virtual Wall website notes the 2nd Battalion of the 501st Infantry lost eight men on Feb. 22, 1968, in operations in the post-Tet Offensive period. According to the Alpha Avengers Association website, A Company casualties included Charles W. Cline of Dalton, who received a Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster. The site also has references to battles and firefights just days before Charles' death that indicate his unit was involved in heavy engagement with the enemy.
Tonya Landreth, who was born in 1980, was the niece Charles never knew.
“I was born many years after he died, unfortunately, so I never actually got to meet him,” she said. “But of course I grew up with stories about him; my grandmother (Charles' mother) actually raised me, so I got to see his stuff in the house on almost a daily basis. My grandmother said he joined to get away. He deployed in December and was killed in February, so he wasn't gone very long.
“My grandmother never got over it.”
Confusion and uncertainty arose when Tonya said officials kept the casket closed, perhaps sealed hermetically.
“(His mother) wasn't allowed to look in the casket, the military wouldn't let her look and see anything,” she said. “My grandmother told me that when he had got hit by the grenade that he pretty much disintegrated. So we didn't know if the casket was empty, or if there was anything in it.”
Ophelia Landreth died at 98 still not knowing if Charles was actually inside the casket, Tonya said. Sandi remembered the church was packed at his funeral.
“The 21-gun salute and Taps was heartbreaking,” she said. “I can't stand to hear it.”
Catherine Harwood's mother, Mary Nell Calhoun, was friends with Charles' mother.
“They worked together, I believe it was at West Point-Pepperell,” she said. “All of the coworkers were told Ophelia’s son had been killed in Vietnam. I did not attend the funeral. I remember mother cooking and taking food for the family.”
Tonya said the mystery of the casket was cleared up years later.
“My Uncle Paul Cline — which is Charles' biological brother — was contacted by a military group, the Alpha Avengers. They do military awards, and Charles had been selected to get this award. Paul was actually able to meet with some of the guys in Charles' unit at one of their reunions, and they told him Charles was whole,” said Tonya, who traveled to the reunion with her uncle.
“They said he was in a foxhole, and the grenade came in — which is what killed Charles — and that he had a large wound in his abdomen, is what was told by the gentlemen who were there. So he wasn't what my grandmother had thought for years, in pieces.
"Unfortunately, my grandmother didn't get to hear that; she had been long gone. But I feel like it brought a little bit of comfort to Paul, because for years we just didn't know. (We wondered) was he really dead? It's just kinda hard to put your head around it.”
And yet a mother's instincts perhaps confirmed her worst fears.
“My grandmother would tell stories about the night she found out Charles died,” Tonya continued. “She actually had a dream about him. She said she woke up and was really startled and upset with an uneasy feeling. It takes a couple of days for the military to relay information to you, and they came knocking at the door two or three days later.”
Although she never met her Uncle Charles, Tonya noted a link in the family lineage.
“He was left-handed, and I'm the only one in the family that is left-handed, so I just kinda find that a funny similarity — and my son is left-handed,” she pointed out. “(Charles) was red-headed, and nobody else in the family was red-headed, so he was just a little different from everybody in the family.”
'Salt to the wound'
Naturally, Charles' mother struggled with his death.
“The Vietnam War was a topic we didn't discuss, because it was just too painful for her,” Tonya said. “As a mom now, I can completely understand that. Years later, when things came out about how things were mishandled and wasn't the way it was portrayed when they were sent over to war, I think (that) added a lot of salt to the wound and made it even harder (for his mother) to process the fact that things could have been done a whole lot differently.”
Buddy said it was only recently, when a newspaper article requested information about the men from Whitfield and Murray counties who had died in Vietnam, that he learned Charles had been killed there.
“I had a lot of friends, but never knew what happened to Charles,” he said. “I didn't even know he had gone to Vietnam. I knew Charles Beavers and that he was killed over there.”
Buddy was asked how the revelation impacted him.
“That 'Nam was just a bad place to send our young men,” he replied. “I don't think we did any good over there. I have Vietnamese neighbors (in Dalton), and one of their daughters is a doctor. Most of them came over here and did good for themselves.”
Commendations for Specialist 4 Charles William Cline include the Purple Heart, Combat Infantryman Badge, Marksmanship Badge, Parachutist Badge, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Campaign Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Army Presidential Unit Citation, Vietnam Gallantry Cross and Army Good Conduct Medal, according to honorstates.org.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Wall of Faces website states he also received a Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster. He was honored with the Some Gave All award in 2006 presented at an Alpha Avengers Association reunion of Company A, 501st Infantry Battalion survivors of the war.
Memories of Charles Cline
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Wall of Faces
“I never knew him as anything other than Charlie. We played football together at Dalton High School. I remember a hit he gave me on a practice kickoff like it was yesterday. It was as hard as I was ever hit. He was the bowling ball, and I was the pins. I spent time at his home, and we hung out together as teenagers. Charlie was always a positive person, no matter what. He was also the guy you could call for help in the middle of the night, and he would be glad you called. I went to see the Vietnam Memorial recently and stood before his name for a long time. I ran my fingers gently across the letters. He will not be forgotten. I miss you, my friend.”
Gerald Pierce
Aug. 12, 2013
“Charles is my uncle. He died before I was born. I researched his military history as much as possible to try to find others who knew him so that I may know him better as well. My grandmother never got over his death. Charles' medals, ribbons and plaques were her most prized possessions.
Tonya Landreth
Jan. 20, 2013
Commented
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.