“He grew up pretty hard ... and never complained’

When Clarance Rogers was 5 years old, his father passed away at the young age of 30. Although not the oldest of four siblings, he was the first boy to come along, in 1945. Gilmer High records show Rogers dropped out of school as a freshman in 1960 — presumably to go to work and help support his family.

In 1966, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, and on June 16, 1967, Army PFC Clarance W. “Tommy” Rogers Jr., 21, became the third man from Gilmer County killed in the Vietnam War — exactly three months after his March 16 arrival in the southeast Asian nation. He was the son of Clarence William Rogers and Rosie Faye Tipton Rogers, both of Ellijay.

The Atlanta Constitution reported Rogers’ death in a brief news item on June 20, stating he was one of two men from Georgia killed in Vietnam. His wife was listed as Mrs. Billie J. Rogers, of Tunnel Hill.

Rogers’ sister, Sandra Hall, said Clarance and Billie met in Ellijay and were married before her brother was drafted. They had a daughter, Debbie, but Sandra said the Ellijay side of the family lost track of Billie and Debbie Rogers after he was killed.

“I put flowers and an American flag on his grave on Memorial Day,” Sandra said. “I do it every year.”

Rogers’ final resting place is in Varnell, near Tunnel Hill. He was a member of the 1st Battalion of the heralded 27th  “Wolfhounds” Regiment of the 25th Infantry Division.

Bryant Strickland, of Ellijay, also a Vietnam veteran, worked with Rogers “long before he went into the military.”

“I used to haul live chickens for the poultry plant here back in 1964-65,” he said. “Tommy caught chickens for Pillsbury. He was a great guy, real friendly and I got along with him real well — and everybody else seemed to. Before he would go in the poultry house, he would always tie a handkerchief around his mouth to where he wouldn’t breathe the feathers and the dust and all. He always wore gloves.”

Strickland recalled that before Rogers married he lived with his family “at the foot of Corbin Hill on the left going up, the house next to where the mini-warehouses are now.”

“I knew he grew up pretty hard, probably because his father died so many years back, and that’s probably why he dropped out of school,” he speculated. “But he was a hard worker, and never complained.” 

Strickland and Rogers actually served in Vietnam at the same time.

“He was killed the same time I was over there,” he said. “We weren’t that far apart, but I did not see him while he was there, and I did not realize he was killed until I got back home.”

‘Kinda became buddies’

Thomas Payne was younger than Tommy Rogers, and knew him from the time he took him under his wing at the old Ellijay Pool Room.

“In 1963, I was a freshman and got a job at the theater downtown in Ellijay,” Payne said. “I got to shooting pool down there, especially on Saturday morning. Tommy was about four years older than me, and he was one of the chicken catchers. They’d all come in and have breakfast before they went home and got cleaned up and went to bed, or whatever.

“Tommy was a real good pool player, he had a really good stroke. He kindly took a hankering to me, and said, ‘Come on, Payne, I’ll split the game with you and show you some pointers.’ I was all for that, because I was in ninth grade and had never shot much pool. But we kinda become buddies, and he taught me to shoot pool. I’m not braggin’ but I become pretty good at it.”

Payne said he graduated high school in 1966 and had lost track of Rogers by then, hearing he’d gotten married. Then Payne was also drafted and joined the Marine Corps with a friend, David Elliott.

“In five months, I was in Vietnam, May of ‘67,” he said, not knowing at the time Rogers was there also. “I knew Jimmie Plumley too, and Charles Burgess and Larry Davis (also killed in Vietnam), and lost track of all of them. I was in Vietnam for 11 months, and then was stationed in Cuba for six months. Some way I got word there —  or at Camp Lejeuene (N.C), I can’t remember which – that he’d got killed, and I didn’t even know he was in the Army. 

“What I’ll always remember about him was that he was nice to us younger boys. I never heard him say anything bad about anybody, and he was real clean-cut. A lot of guys back then were pretty rough.”

Although Payne was wounded twice in Vietnam, he said hearing of Rogers being killed was “real bad.” 

“I was one of the lucky ones to make it back,” he said.

The Vietnam Veteran Memorial Fund Wall of Faces (vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/44207/CLARANCE-W-ROGERS-JR/) states the “casualty province” where Rogers died was Hua Nghia. His gravestone reads that he was killed in action at Bien Hoa, where there was a strategic U.S. air base.

Rogers was part of an “infantry indirect fire crew,” or mortars unit. A page on ancestry.com states he was a “ground casualty” killed by “multi-fragment wounds.”

An inscription on his tombstone reads, “Sacrifices of every generation make more precious the heritage we have as Americans.”

On the VVMF page, a contributor named “Doc” posted the following: “Never forget one of the 12 that died that night.” The post was made on June 16, 2010 — the 43rd anniversary of Rogers’ death. There was no contact information for Doc. 

“He was just a good-old Ellijay country guy,” Strickland said. “I think a lot about him, and all of them that died over there.”

‘To live for the greater good’

“The greatest gift you can give is to lay down your life for another. For my son’s high school project, he had to visit a cemetery and write about some of the people’s graves he saw. We were drawn to Clarance W. Rogers’ gravesite at Varnell Cemetery because we knew how great the sacrifice was that he gave for his country and fellow mankind. 

“Even though it is so many years later, those like C.W. are not forgotten and inspire us today to live for the greater good. He did what his country asked of him, and we thank him greatly for that.” — Ted Smith, Feb. 24, 2007

(Source: TheWall-usa.com. For more comments, search ‘Clarance W. Rogers’ on the website)

‘Had been married one year’ 

A newspaper clipping supplied by the sister of Clarance Rogers Jr., Sandra Hall, of Ellijay, details how the soldier’s widow, the former Billie Green, “received a telegram Saturday afternoon from the Secretary of the Army saying that her husband was killed in an ambush when he engaged a hostile force in a firefight.”

The article goes on to say Rogers joined the Army on June 10, 1966, went to boot camp at Fort Benning and then arrived in Vietnam on March 16, 1967.

“He was born and reared in Ellijay, where his mother, Mrs. Rose Rogers, two sisters, Mrs. Sandra Hall  and Miss Shirley Rogers, and a brother, Jay Rogers, now live,” the story continues. “His widow, who lives at Tunnel Hill, said they had been married one year in March. Their daughter, Debra Louise Rogers, is now five months of age.”

Source: The Daily Citizen-News, Dalton