School to honor fallen Marine
1967 Indian Hill graduate killed in Vietnam War
BY CHRISTINE WOLFFThe Cincinnati Enquirer
INDIAN HILL -- Almost three decades after Richard Weaver left Indian Hill High School, he is returning -- in photographs, a bronze plaque and the memories of his friends.
Marine Corps Pvt. Richard Michael Weaver will be honored Sunday in a ceremony at the school, commemorating him as the only Indian Hill graduate to die in the Vietnam War. A brick monument -- a tribute from schoolmates -- will be unveiled on the school's front lawn. His photo and medals will be permanently displayed in the school.
Mr. Weaver, a native of Camp Dennison, died May 20, 1968, at the age of 19 -- 11 months after his Indian Hill graduation -- in an ambush near Phu Loc, South Vietnam. In his brief military career as an infantry gunner, the twice-wounded Marine fought in some of the fiercest battles of the war -- the January-March 1968 Tet offensive, including the battle for the walled city of Hue.
Twelve of his Marine comrades, from 10 states, will be at the ceremony. To them, the 6-foot, 3-inch freckled-faced Mr. Weaver was "Big Red," the quickly hardened new guy who took other newcomers under his protection.
"They are all guys who served together -- a couple of whom have told us, if not for Richard, they wouldn't be here today," said Bill Wiedemann, 48, of Loveland, one of several Indian Hill graduates who led the memorial effort. "Virtually every day these men were faced with violent death. This was a front-line unit."
The brochure prepared for the ceremony tells in detail the story of Mr. Weaver's military battles, researched by Mr. Wiedemann and other Indian Hill alumni through Pentagon records and interviews.
"All the men we interviewed for the writing of this chronicle told us the same thing: the loss of "Big red" Weaver was the most devastating in their memory," the brochure reads. "His leadership and the example he set gave them the hope of survival for another day."
