Thurlo McClure was KIA in 1967
Maria McClure tried to walk in her father’s shoes as a toddler, and remembers him sweeping her off her feet and tossing her into the air. It would be her only memory of him.
U.S. Marine Corporal Thurlo Merida McClure was killed in action in Vietnam on August 16, 1967. His death is listed as “a ground casualty due to small arms fire” in Quang Tri Province of South Vietnam, according to virtualwall.org. He was killed the day before his 28th birthday. He served in 1st Platoon, F Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment (2/3) in the III Marine Amphibious Force.
McClure is listed in the Georgia Archives of men killed in Vietnam as being from Upson County (county seat of Thomaston). However, he was born in Gilmer County and wanted to be buried in Tickanetley Cemetery, where his body lies today. McClure’s final resting place is documented by Susan Noles in her publication, “Casualties of War from Gilmer County, Georgia: World War I, World War II and Vietnam.” McClure was the son of Ivory Lee and Josie Weaver McClure, and his siblings were Ellender, Ivory Jr., Farley, Forrest, Doris, Mavis and Melba.
“I was only 2 years old when he was drafted,” said Maria McClure. “He met mom on a bus in Atlanta and walked her home from the bus stop. They started dating.”
Thurlo’s widow, Mariah Hardie, expanded on the story.
“I had never met him before, but we were both getting off the bus at the same stop,” she recalled. “I worked doing liability coding for an insurance company, and he was working at Lockheed. He was planning on going to his girlfriend’s house, and I was going to my aunt’s house where I was staying. It was a real dark, lonely route with no streetlights. He offered to walk me there, and I accepted — it was an immediate attraction between us. He was 6 foot 5 inches tall, well-built and I just felt safe with him. We talked all the way to my aunt’s house, and stood at the door and talked for a long time. Then he kissed me on the lips, and it was like magic — he didn’t go to the girlfriend’s house and started dating me.”
The enraptured couple saw each other 21 out of the 43 days since they’d met before they married.
“I was just in awe of him because he was extremely charismatic,” Mariah continued. “He was in the National Guard and then was a Marine and had served his (enlistment). He was out of the Marine Corps when I met him; he had been trained in guerilla warfare and was just itching to get back in. His brothers and dad had all been in a war, and he wanted his war. When he went in, he told me he would likely not make it back home. Of course, I didn’t want to hear that.”
Perhaps thinking of his daughter, Mariah said one theme in his letters was the compassion he had for the Vietnamese children, giving them food and candy when he could.
Mavis McClure Mennio said her brother was “a character, a lot of fun.”
“He liked to fish and go ‘coon hunting, he and my two other brothers,” she said. “He worked in the yard and the garden and with the animals; he loved to give the dogs their baths.”
Mavis still has the letters he sent to her from Vietnam.
“He said, ‘Don’t worry about me — God will take care of me.’ And I guess God did take care of him because if he came home he would’ve been living as a vegetable, I’m sure. When he was killed, his whole chin was shot away,” she remarked.
One August morning
Fellow Marine Corporal John Verton said McClure had been with their unit only two or three months.
“Corporal McClure was a really quiet man, but very professional and competent; he always did his share of the details and looked out for his men,” Verton said.
If he got something from home he shared with each of us. He always showed he cared about each man he was in charge of. We all knew he was a family man as he shared the pictures of his wife and family and talked about wanting to have a horse ranch back in Georgia. He really loved his family.”
On an August morning, the company was on a search-and-destroy mission.
“Each platoon was sweeping their own assigned area,” Verton detailed. “We came out of a tree line into a cemetery and Lt. Woodard stopped us there. In front of us was a rice paddy and then a tree line and village. The Lt. (lieutenant) called the platoon sergeant and 3rd squad … (and) told them how we were going to cross the paddy to the trees.”
Although he was in 2nd squad, McClure rushed to the aid of 3rd squad members when they were ambushed with a couple of machine guns and rifle fire erupting from the treeline.
“We were in the open,” Verton recalled. “Third squad caught the worse of it, being the closest. As soon as they opened fire, everybody just ducked — except him. He ran down the dike and was firing as he went, trying to break the overwhelming fire coming at third squad. He only made it about 10 to 15 yards before he got hit, and fell off to the other side of the dike (separating the rice paddies) ... We heard nothing from him as we yelled over to him. Three of us crawled out to try and get him but he was on the other side of the dike, and he didn’t respond to us at all and the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) saw where we were and just poured the fire at us. There were a lot of guys wounded that day but only Corporal McClure was KIA (killed in action).”
Verton called McClure “a good squad leader, confident and tactically proficient.”
“He was patient with the new guys, led from the front, and understood and performed his duties to the best of his abilities,” he said.
He was asked if he felt McClure’s action was heroic that fateful day.
“Surely,” he replied. “He was trying to break the ambush, because you’re taught as young Marines that you attack an ambush, you charge into it to try to break it. But most of the time, in the real world when you’re fired upon, you’re hitting the ground. But he ran down that dike, so I would have to say that’s pretty heroic, trying to break the fire that was coming onto third squad.”
Getting the news
Mariah was staying with her parents in Thomaston when they received the dreaded news.
“It was morning and I had on my gown and a bathrobe,” she remembered. “A knock came on the door, it was the mailman and he had a package for me. I was sitting on the couch going through the package; it had some of Mac’s letters and a Vietnam-type dress. There was another knock at the door, and when I opened it there was an enlisted man and an officer in their dress blues, and I shut the door. I waited a minute or so and opened the door, and they were still standing there. And I said, ‘Come in and tell me how he died.’ Because he told me if they came, then more than likely he would be dead. It was a shock because I’d just got that package.”
Mariah said she did not like the way her husband’s face was cosmetically rebuilt, and took off one of his white gloves to recognize his hand. After a memorial service at First Baptist Church of Thomaston, his body was brought to Ellijay.
“I was just in shock, you can’t prepare for something like that,” she said. “They brought him to Tickanetley for burial, and a lot of it was kind of a blur. They did the 21-gun salute and gave me the flag.”
Mavis was living in Connecticut and had a 2-month-old daughter.
“They notified my grandmother, Rosalie Weaver, down in Gilmer County,” she said. “She told my father and my family, and his wife called me and I went, ‘Oh, my God!’ I was absolutely floored, I couldn’t believe it. I left my daughter and went down for his funeral. The service was in Thomaston; there was an honor guard from the Marine Corps there, and then he was taken up to Ellijay to be buried in Tickanetley. When the undertaker laid him out, he put a pillow over the lower part of his face. My younger sister, Melba, took the pillow away. I guess they wondered what we would think about the way they (reconstructed his chin), but they fixed him perfectly. He had a dimple in his chin, and they put the dimple in his chin. He looked normal, like he absolutely always did.”
Maria was asked about her father’s ultimate sacrifice.
“There’s been a lot of conflicting feelings in my life about it,” she said. “There’s always been an empty space; it’s kinda painful and I feel like I’m proud of his bravery and his character. I have a letter sent to me from someone he served with, Corporal Verton. I wasn’t happy about the idea that he went over there. I’m proud of him, but I think the whole war was just a bad situation — and all for nothing, really.”
Verton added, “I do pray for him and his family. It’s a terrible thing to grow up without your dad, to wonder what your life would have been like if he was here. Prayers and my wife got me through my hard adjustment back to normal life.”
Mariah Hardie posted online, “When Mac was killed, he must have asked God to let him see his daughter and wife one last time because he appeared that night at the foot of the bed where we were sleeping. I saw him standing there, looking at us, but I was unable to speak. After a few minutes, he disappeared as silently as he had appeared. My mother was in her bed in the same room. She said to me, ‘Did you see that?’ Not wanting to influence her, I replied, ‘See what?’ ‘Did you see Mac standing at the foot of your bed?’ ‘Yes, I saw him, but I couldn’t speak.’ He looked totally natural and was wearing civilian clothes. Our daughter, Maria, was the joy of his life. I know he came to see her before he went on to heaven because he had recently accepted Jesus as his Savior. We’ll all get together one day in heaven, praise God!”