05/25/2026
Port Jervis remembers Tommy Case as well as so many thousands of others today. 🇺🇸❤️🤍💙🇺🇸
Remembering Hometown Marine Tommy Case, KIA Vietnam
By Sharon E. Siegel
Port Jervis, NY – Thomas Joseph Case was born to Abram John and Helen Haggerty Case in Port Jervis, NY on July 12, 1948. The youngest of five children (Charles – who served with the Navy in WWII and Korea), Irene, Derwood, Carl, Thomas), he lived at 162 Front Street at the time.
Eighteen years later, his family still lived on Front Street (110 at that time) as the young Marine’s body was returned home from war for burial beside his father, who died when Thomas was six-years-old.
Case graduated from PJHS at 17, in June of 1966. Two months later he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and became part of American Ground Combat Forces in Vietnam. Stationed with Headquarters Battalion, 1st Marine Division and serving as Mortarman, PFC Case was killed in action on May 9, 1967 while on patrol with his unit in the Quang Nam province of South Vietnam.
Case, at the time he was killed, had become part of a specialized Combined Action Platoon (CAP) Marine Amphibious Force, for which he had volunteered. A fellow member of CAP, reached at his home in Virginia this week, spoke of the duties of CAP and noted that a memorial brick for Case had been placed among many others at a Marine Corps Base Quantico (MCBQ) memorial site.
What CAP was comprised of were small handpicked squads of 13-15 Marines, a medical Navy Corpsman, and South Vietnamese recruits who were assigned to live fulltime in isolated frontline jungle villages. CAP Marines trained recruited South Vietnamese militia (called Popular Forces) to assist in defending their own jungle communities against Viet Cong attacks.
Each CAP squad was mandated to complete at least one daytime and two nighttime patrols or ambushes within every 24-hour period, and to maintain nightly listening posts of two-to-three members outside of perimeters to detect enemy movement.
Highly successful in their missions, CAP unit costs were high.
According to an article posted by a former CAP member on mca-marines.org in 2024, of the 209 villages protected by CAPs, not one reverted to enemy control but the fatality rate was more than ten percent. The article sited 540 CAP Marines killed in a five-year period, with 4,900 enemy killed by CAP rifle fire and grenades in the same time period. It notes almost no employment of supporting arms and no gunny, no first sergeant, no company commander to order the daily patrols, but rather peer pressure to mandate them.
Less than a year after arriving in Vietnam, Case’s name was slated for inclusion on the memorial monuments in his hometown, having been killed during a CAP patrol.
But those who grew up beside Case say they will always also remember him as a fun-loving classmate, friend, and overall good guy that they were glad to grow up with.
One who shared a close friendship with Case over many years, chuckled as he recalled daily childhood adventures shared as they grew up in Port Jervis’ Fourth Ward. He recalled later being recruited to play football by Case. It was the grief of this friend’s death at 18 in Vietnam that prompted Mike Martino to immediately enlist himself, and to request infantryman duties as a response.
Another recalled that as a young paperboy he admired and looked up to then 16/17-year-old Case, and got to know him as he delivered newspapers to Case’s mom. As a Fourth Ward neighbor, he recalled last talking with Case on the afternoon of his senior prom. It was late afternoon when Case, his date, and another couple pulled up to show off their outfits. This former paperboy now visits the Marine, graveside, in Matamoras, PA to show his continued respect.
One fellow enlistee who graduated a year before Case recalls being out with Case and a group of friends the evening before Case left for basic training. During all of the fun of the evening, Case made a spontaneous remark to him that they should all ‘party hearty’ as he did not think he would be coming home.
Sadly, he was right.
A classmate who enlisted and also served in Vietnam recalled with a smile that while those who entered the military, like himself and his classmate Case, did not fully absorb the reality of what it would be like in Vietnam, they definitely knew how to party together.
“It was great growing up here together – almost perfect. But we lost friends like ‘Casey’ -- and those of us who came back came back changed. Some parts just can’t be changed back,” he said.
