One of first Vietnam casualties subject of lecture
Courtesy photo Hank Cramer III will talk about his father, the first U.S. casualty of the Vietnam War, at the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center on Thursday.
MOSES LAKE — The story of the first U.S. Army soldier to die in Vietnam will be told by his son at a lecture at the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center Thursday.
“First In: U.S. Green Berets in Vietnam 1957” will be the subject of the lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Moses Lake Civic Center Auditorium, 401 South Balsam St. Hank Cramer III, retired U.S. Army officer and longtime Washington folk singer, is the speaker. Hank Cramer III is writing a book about his dad and his last Special Forces mission, according to a press release from the museum.
Admission is free.
Hank Cramer Jr. died 60 years ago this month, Oct. 21 to be exact, while working with the South Vietnamese army. Cramer was 1946 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a Korean War veteran. He won a Silver Star, among other decorations, serving in Korea in the infantry and as an artillery spotter.
By 1957 he was a Special Forces captain, leading a highly classified mission to train South Vietnamese special forces units. On Oct. 21, 1957, an exercise involving live explosives went wrong. Cramer was killed instantly. He was 31 years old.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was U.S. president at the time. “The situation in Vietnam in the 1950s was much different from that of the 1960s, and Dwight Eisenhower’s strategy for dealing with it differed sharply from that of John F. Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson (Eisenhower’s successors),” Hank Cramer III wrote.
The lecture is part of the museum's Fall Speakers Series, one of two lecture series the museum sponsors. The Speakers Series are evening lectures that focus on Washington history and the state's cultural figures. The Salon Series features Grant County and eastern Washington subjects. People who want more information can contact the museum, 509-764-3830.
Hank Cramer III, Winthrop, is a historian as well as a musician, and uses music to tell part of the historical story. He focuses on songs and stories of the Old West, sailors and their songs and sea chanties, miners and their music. He's also studied Irish folk music. Ireland and Irish music is the subject of his latest album, released in 2016.
Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.