William Ellis Browning

William Ellis Browning

Company D 1/22 Infantry

4th Infantry Division

DOW 05/06/2000

William Ellis Browning was wounded in Vietnam on August 1, 1968.
He died on May 6, 2000, as a direct result of his wounds.
His name was added to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in May of 2005.

PFC - E3 - Army - Selective Service
MOS: 94B20: Food Service Specialist

Length of service 1 years
His tour began on 07/17/1968
Incident Date: was on Aug 1, 1968
Casualty Date: was on May 6, 2000
In , SOUTH VIETNAM
HOSTILE, GROUND CASUALTY
OTHER EXPLOSIVE DEVICE
Body was recovered

Age at Loss: 56 (based on date declared dead)

Race: Caucasian

Sex: Male

Date of Birth: Nov 2, 1943

From: LUTZ, FL

Religion: PROTESTANT

Marital Status: Married

Panel 26W - Line 32

William Browning was wounded in action while on Operation Mac Arthur/Binh Tay
at grid reference ZU220991, approximately 4 kilometers northeast of the village of Xa Tho Thanh.

PFC William E. Browning's decorations

Obituary of William E. Browning from 2000:

WILLIAM "BILL" E. BROWNING, 56, of Tampa died Saturday. A native of
Tampa, he was a lineman for GTE, an Army veteran of the Vietnam War and a member
of Paralyzed Veterans of America. He is survived by a son, Roger of Orlando; two
sisters, Geraldine Gonzalez of Wimauma and Barbara Jackson of Lutz; and a
brother, Floyd of Ocala. Blount, Curry & Roel Funeral Homes, Carrollwood Chapel, Tampa.

The above four photos are from William's Chamberlain High School yearbook,
showing that he was quite an athlete in school.

Seffner Man's Name Is Added To Vietnam Veterans Memorial - 5 YEARS AFTER HIS
DEATH, QUADRIPLEGIC JOINS LIST

Tampa Tribune, The (FL) - Saturday, May 14, 2005

Author: KEITH EPSTEIN, kepstein@tampatrib.com

By KEITH EPSTEIN

kepstein@tampatrib.com

WASHINGTON — Five years ago, Vietnam finally caught up with William Ellis
Browning. He became a fatality of the war.

This week, a stonecutter added his name to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Shot in combat in August 1968, Ellis was suddenly, at age 24, after only six
weeks in Vietnam, a quadriplegic who would never get better.

Though bedridden, he eventually learned to use a voice-activated computer at home
in Seffner, where his family cared for him. He tried to be upbeat.

He loved the TV game show "Jeopardy." He couldn't push buttons the way the
contestants did, but "he'd make this clucking noise in his mouth with the answers,
and most of the time he was right," said his niece, Roxi Johansmeyer.

When Browning's paralysis finally hastened his death in May 2000, Johansmeyer
didn't think it was right that his name would be left off the Vietnam War
memorial, the nation's most-visited monument. The memorial lists the names of
Americans killed or presumed dead in a war that now appears in seventh-grade
history books.

So she started writing letters and making phone calls. The Defense Department
wanted to see his medical records to make sure they could link his early death to
what happened in Vietnam.

Finally, on Thursday, a stonecutter etched his name into the granite memorial on
the Mall, not far from the Lincoln Memorial and within sight of the Washington
Monument, bringing the number of names on the long shiny black wall to 58,249.

James Lee, a Colorado stoneworker who usually engraves words on government and
corporation buildings, has had special permission since 1986 to add the names,
which he does at a rate of three to eight each year.

"It's a little nerve-racking. There's a little more pressure" than on a
commercial job, he said Friday, shortly after adding the name of Massachusetts
veteran Thomas J. Conners.

"I mean, you've got to do it right. You have only one chance in stone, and this
is — well, it's the Vietnam memorial."

Many people may have assumed the memorial was finished when dedicated and opened
to the public in November 1982. Its creator, artist Maya Lin, thought so.

But as many as 310 names have been added, often after family or politicians have
argued their cases to the Pentagon. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund tries to
comply, finding a space close to comrades who fell about the same time.

"It was our mistaken understanding that there wouldn't be modifications," said
the memorial's architect of record, James Cummings.

A Pentagon database of the dead did not include all the people whose lives could
be cut short. In some cases, it did not include Americans who had died during the
war, either.

Meanwhile, some Americans whose remains only recently have been recovered — such
as Tampa's Malcolm "Mac" Miller, who was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on
Tuesday — have had their names on the wall from the beginning.

Space is running out for some names, especially those that are too long for the
spaces that are left.

When will the memorial be complete?

"When the last name is added," Cummings said.

In Seffner, Johansmeyer was ecstatic at the news that her uncle's name is part of
the commemoration of history. Her extended family of perhaps 40 is eager to make
the trip here on Memorial Day for a formal ceremony.

"I'm so excited," she said. "I can't wait to see it."

Edition: FINAL
Section: METRO
Page: 1
Dateline: WASHINGTON
Record Number: MERLIN_4240262
Copyright (c) 2005 The Tribune Co.

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William is buried at Sunset Memory Gardens, Tampa FL.

Grave marker for William Ellis Browning

The 1st Battalion website is grateful to Roxi Johansmeyer, the niece of William Ellis Browning,
for her untiring efforts to have her uncle memorialized and remembered. Much of the above information
and photos were supplied by Roxi.

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