ELMER FRED KEPSEL

Company A 1/22 Infantry

4th Infantry Division

KIA 02/16/1967

Army - PFC - E3

Age: 20
Race: Caucasian
Sex: Male
Date of Birth Nov 9, 1946
From: MT CLEMENS, MI
Religion: LUTHERAN & MISSOURI SYNOD
Marital Status: Single

PFC - E3 - Army - Selective Service
4th Infantry Division
MOS: 11B10: Infantryman
Length of service 0 years
His tour began on Oct 17, 1966
Casualty was on Feb 16, 1967
In KONTUM, SOUTH VIETNAM
HOSTILE, GROUND CASUALTY
GUN, SMALL ARMS FIRE
Body was recovered

Panel 15E - Line 46

Elmer Kepsel was killed in a battle with NVA forces during Operation Sam Houston,
at grid reference YA598614, approximately 27 kilometers west/northwest of Plei Djereng airfield.

PFC Elmer F. Kepsel's decorations

Elmer Kepsel

Elmer A. Kepsel

Army PFC Elmer F. Kepsel, 21, of 22733 Twenty-One Mile road, Mount Clemens, suffered fatal wounds on Feb.16,
in Pleiku, South Vietnam. Born in Mount Clemens on Nov. 9, 1946, to Harry F. and Margaret Rocker Kepel,
he was graduated from L’Anse Creuse High School in 1965.

On May 4, 1966, he entered service and was a gunner with the 4th Infantry Division,
Co. A-1-22 Infantry and served four months in South Vietnam.

A member of the Immanuel Lutheran Church, Waldenburg, is survived by his parents, in Mount Clemens; two brothers,
Richard, of Utica, and Harry B. and a sister, Cynthia, both living at home.

Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Saturday in Immanuel Lutheran Church, with the Rev. A. H. Klenke officiating.
Burial will be in Cadillac Memorial Gardens East, Clinton Township.
The body will be at Wil & Schwarzkoff Funeral Home, 233 North Gratiot Avenue, Mount Clemens, until 11 a.m. Saturday
and will then lie in state at the church from 1 p.m. until the time of the service.
Full military honors will be accorded by Headquarters Battery – 3rd Battalion (HERC) 517th Artillery.

The Macomb Daily, Feb. 23, 1967, page 7-A

Elmer Kepsel's grave marker

A GI Dies…And A Family Friend Wonders Why

MOUNT CLEMENS – A young GI who felt the war “just can’t go on much longer’ was killed Thursday
by enemy small arms fire in the jungle near Pleiku, South Vietnam.
He was Pfc. Elmer F. Kepsel, 20, son of Mr. and Mrs. Harry F. Kepsel, 22733 Twenty one Mile.
Mrs. Kepsel said her son’s letters implied that some of the men serving with him “just couldn’t take it any longer.”
During a three-day Christmas leave he slept on a mattress for the first time after two months in the jungle
where he served as a jeep machine gunner with the 4th Infantry.
She said his attitude changed following the February truce period which the Viet Cong reportedly used to build up supplies in the south.
He wrote that the war couldn’t go on much longer since it seemed so many of the enemy were being killed.
Kepsel was killed four months to the day after being sent ot Vietnam.
He joined the army last May after a year working at the Pontiac plant.
A 1965 graduate of L’Anse Crease High School, he had been a gold Gold Medalist that year.
During high school he had worked at the Burning Tree Golf Course.

The Macomb Daily, Feb. 21, 1967, front page

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