Our Arklahoma Hereos: Jean Martin helped a soldier secure a leave one day and took his spot on a recon team the next
On March 11, 1969, about twenty-five kilometers west of Kontum City in Kontum Province, South Vietnam, Sergeant Jean David Martin of Company C, 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, was killed when enemy mortar rounds struck his position, inflicting multiple fragmentation wounds.
The battalion was then operating in the Central Highlands, where its companies rotated between firebases and landing zones such as LZ Swift, conducted search and destroy sweeps, and ran reconnaissance patrols through dense jungle and ridgelines against North Vietnamese forces in the tri-border area.
Martin had recently completed rest and recuperation leave in Hawaii with his wife, and the couple had decided she would not bring the child he had not yet met. Back with the unit he helped a fellow soldier obtain orders for that man’s own leave, hand-carrying the paperwork into the field so the other man could depart.
With that soldier gone, Martin took his place on the scheduled reconnaissance mission the next morning and was on that mission when the mortar fire hit.
He was awarded the Purple Heart for the wounds received in the attack and the Silver Star for his service. A comrade who served with him later described Martin as an outstanding soldier and a good friend who had, in effect, taken the place of another man on the patrol that day.
Martin was born September 10, 1947, in the Harrison area of Boone County, the son of Arthur Arwine Martin and Nettie Bryant Martin.
Arthur, born September 10, 1910, was the son of Arwine Yates Martin and Montie Jane Lawrence and grew up in the Grove area of Newton County; he died November 29, 1990.
Nettie, born August 4, 1913, in Newton County, was the daughter of Lonnie Bryant and Nancy Jane Owen; she and Arthur had married February 1, 1931, in Newton County, and she lived until May 1, 2006.
The family belonged to the rural Ozark communities that straddle Newton and Boone counties, with deep ties to Western Grove and the surrounding hills. Arthur’s brother Lawrence A. Martin later recalled the brothers and sisters raised in that country near the Buffalo River, and Jean grew up with Harrison as his home of record.
He entered the Army, trained as an infantry indirect fire crewman, and by early 1969 held the rank of sergeant in Company C of the 3rd of the 12th.
After his death, his remains were recovered and returned to the United States. He was buried in Maplewood Cemetery in Harrison in plot 5, 94A, 4.
His name is inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Panel 29W, Line 11. Local remembrance and family accounts continue to identify him as the Harrison soldier who served with the 4th Infantry Division in Kontum and who left a wife and a child he never saw.
His mother Nettie is buried beside her husband in Western Grove Cemetery in Newton County.
