ROGER LEROY LANE

Company A 1/22 Infantry

4th Infantry Division

KIA 07/01/1968

Age: 33
Race: Caucasian
Sex: Male
Date of Birth Oct 30, 1934
From: FREMONT, NE
Religion: ROMAN CATHOLIC
Marital Status: Married

PSGT - E7 - Army - Regular
4th Infantry Division
MOS: 11B40: Infantryman
Length of service 8 years
His tour began on May 14, 1968
Casualty was on Jul 1, 1968
In PLEIKU, SOUTH VIETNAM
HOSTILE, GROUND CASUALTY
GUN, SMALL ARMS FIRE
Body was recovered

Panel 54W - Line 31

Platoon Sergeant Roger L. Lane was killed in action during a firefight with hostile forces
at grid reference BR101332, approximately 22 kilometers south/southeast of Suoi Doi airfield.

Roger L. Lane in Vietnam

Roger L. Lane in Vietnam
with Montagnard child

Platoon Sergeant (SFC) Roger L. Lane's decorations

This is from Larry Rogers:

This is what I know or I should say I remember of Cousin Roger. His Mother was Fern Rogers, Lane McConnell. She married Leroy Lane
and they had four boys, Pearce still living, Gordon still living, then Kenny and Roger. I believe after the boy’s Father passed away
their Mother moved back to her child hood home, the Dairy Farm in Big Rapids which her Mother Ruth and son’s Charles and my Father Philo ran.
I remember finding their graduation pictures in the High School when I got there.

I know Roger was married but I was seven. Then he came to town to say farewell to his Mother and Step Father Stan McConnell
before shipping off to Vietnam. It was the summer and I remember because he of course was much older than me or my brothers and sisters,
but he was cool he was in the Army and he gave us kids an Army tent, cot and one of those folding shovel with pick that they hang from their back backs.
Well he left shortly after and I know it was probably longer in kid’s terms but shortly after we were told he was killed in Vietnam,
he jumped on a grenade and saved the lives of his Platoon.

I don’t know how much time went by or month of his funeral, but I was there and seeing the casket in the head of our Church,
the First United Methodist Church, draped with the United States Flag and his picture displayed it was mind blowing to a seven year old
who had just seen him a couple months before. I remember next being at the cemetery and looking at this huge monument honoring him
and froze in my steps as a calm silence came through then the echoing bugle and the guns going off scared me to tears.

So now we are in 2012 and I’m 52 yrs. old with a hobby of finding my past and it was about a month ago I updated my Aunt Ferns info
with what I knew plus searching through ancestry.com records. I remember as a kid some years after finding my Grandmother’s three trunks
in our attic I found several old newspaper clippings of Roger and his brothers and they all amazed me from reading them.

Pearce was welter weight contender in the 1956 Olympics and Kenney was number one contender to the light heavy weight champion
of the world and Gordy boxing champ for the Navy. And then Roger he not only boxed for the Army, but also was a bit of a magician
he was standing next to Bob Hope performing a trick the article said he had performed in more than 2000 USO tours with him
from the late 50’s to early 60 something. It blew my mind to think, as a teenager finding these things and not really knowing my cousins at all.
.
I am USAF retired E7 MSgt, 24 ½ years. I retired at Scott AFB, IL in 2009 and still actively employed as a Federal employee at Scott.
Scott AFB is located about 20 miles east of St Louis, MO.

V/r,
Larry Rogers
llfroger@yahoo.com

or Larry.Rogers.3@us.af.mil

Above: newspaper article from the 1957 Stars and Stripes about Roger Lane boxing,
as a 22 year old Private First Class, eleven years before he was killed in Vietnam.

The Lane family included three out of four brothers who were boxers.
To view the history of Roger's brother Kenny click on the following link:

The Cyber Boxing Zone Encyclopedia

Roger L. Lane as a youth

Burial:
Highland View Cemetery
Big Rapids
Mecosta County
Michigan, USA

Grave marker for Roger Leroy Lane and his wife Hildegard

Photos of Roger Leroy Lane courtesy of Melody, niece of Roger L. Lane and
daughter of Roger's brother Kenny.

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