Hometown: Whitesburg, TN
Branch: U.S. Army
Unit: Company A, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division
Military Honors: Purple Heart
Date of Sacrifice: February 10, 1968 - KIA near Hoc Mon District, Gia Dinh Province, Republic of Vietnam
Age: 18
Conflict: Vietnam War, 1959-1975

Along with his brothers Billy and Larry, and his sister Gail, Chester “Wayne” Wilson grew up in Whitesburg, Hamblen County, Tennessee—a small unincorporated community near the Cherokee Reservoir, a short drive west of the Great Smokey Mountains.

Parents Denver and Nola (Royston) Wilson brought the family to weekly worship services at Ceder Grove Missionary Baptist Church in nearby Russellville. Denver worked as a carpenter while Nola tended to the family at home.

Younger sister Gail recalls, “He [Wayne] had several close friends that were always at our house, and they seemed to really love him. I can remember them saying that if you needed someone in your corner, you could count on him to be there. One memory I have: we were outside, and I fell across a sickle (for cutting grass). He put me on his back and ran with me to the house.”

Wayne attended Whitesburg High School, graduating with the class of 1967. Immediately after high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in July of that year, at age 17. At that time, American involvement in the Vietnam War (1959-1975) was escalating, and antiwar protests were becoming more frequent and intense.

Wilson was trained as a light weapons infantryman and assigned to Company A, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment (“The Wolfhounds”), 25th Infantry Division. His 27th Infantry Regiment’s motto is “Nec Aspera Terrent,” Latin for “frightened by no difficulties.”

With the escalating American war effort demanding more soldiers, Wilson was sent to Vietnam just five months after entering the Army. His tour began the day after Christmas in 1967.

PFC Wilson arrived in South Vietnam weeks before a major turning point in the war. The U.S. State Department’s Office of the Historian describes the Tet Offensive:

In late January, 1968, during the lunar new year (or “Tet”) holiday, North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated attack against a number of targets in South Vietnam. The U.S. and South Vietnamese militaries sustained heavy losses before finally repelling the communist assault. The Tet Offensive played an important role in weakening U.S. public support for the war in Vietnam.

Even though the combined U.S. and allied South Vietnamese forces repelled the attacks and regained control of territory that was previously lost, the heavy casualties on both sides turned American public opinion sharply against the costly war effort.

American forces launched a Tet Counteroffensive, and PFC Wilson’s 27th Infantry Regiment became part of Operation SARATOGA—a plan to defend Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital. Wilson’s unit was tasked with conducting daily sweeps and search-and-destroy missions to root out elusive Viet Cong enemy troops.

A CIA intelligence report dated Feb. 10, 1968, detailed “The Situation in South Vietnam” on that day:

…there is considerable evidence indicating that the Communists plan further attacks within and on the outskirts of Saigon. There have been numerous reports of Viet Cong units sighted in the suburbs around the capital. Throughout Gia Dinh, the province which surrounds Saigon, South Vietnamese Regional and Popular Forces reportedly are remaining in defensive positions and are unwilling to press offensive sweeps.

US Army troops engaged what are believed to be elements of this division in three sharp clashes yesterday in an area some 10 to 12 miles northwest of the large Tan Son Nhut airbase. Nearly 300 Viet Cong were reported killed in the fighting. American losses were light.

One of those three “sharp clashes” occurred on Saturday, Feb. 10, ten miles north-northwest of Saigon. Near the suburban township of Hoc Mon, in Gia Dinh Province, PFC Wilson’s unit encountered the enemy while on a reconnaissance patrol, resulting in an intense firefight.

According to a Military Assistance Command summary of the encounter, 105 enemy troops were killed, 31 U.S. soldiers wounded, and five U.S. soldiers were lost—including PFC Wayne Wilson.

Less than two months after arriving in Vietnam, PFC Chester W. “Wayne” Wilson was killed in action at age 18 from “multi-fragment wounds.” First declared missing in action, his body was recovered and identified two weeks later.

Wilson was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart Medal and is laid to rest, with full military honors, in his hometown. He is honored at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., where his name is inscribed on Panel 38E, Line 74. His name is also inscribed at the East Tennessee Veterans Memorial in Knoxville (Pillar XXII, Bottom Panel).

Sources
Original photo and story details provided by Mrs. Gail Self Butler, PFC Wilson’s sister.
East Tennessee Veterans Memorial Association: Chester W. Wilson
The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Feb. 28, 1968: 5th Hamblen County Man Dies in War
U.S. Army Center of Military History: Vietnam War Campaigns—Tet Counteroffensive
United States Department of State, Office of the Historian: U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive, 1968
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund—The Wall of Faces: Chester Wayne Wilson
Coffelt Database of Vietnam Casualties: WILSON, Chester Wayne
HonorStates.org: Chester Wayne Wilson
US 27th Infantry Regimental Historical Society: History of the Regiment
Burial Site: Find a Grave