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Remember...Wayne Douglas Boyer
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Wayne Douglas Boyer was born April 28, 1941, in Martinsburg, West Virginia, the son of William Everett and Margaret Myers Boyer. Wayne, whose nickname was "Bud," had three sisters and two brothers.
A graduate of Shepherdstown High School, he was employed at a Shepherdstown service station. He also was active in the Shepherdstown Fire Department and was well known among the firemen in Martinsburg because he spent much of his spare time at night assisting with fire and ambulance calls from Ryneal Fire Hall in that city.
Wayne entered the Army in the fall of 1967 and received nine weeks of guerilla warfare training at Camp Polk, Louisiana, during October and November. After a furlough spent with his parents in Shepherdstown, he was sent to Vietnam.
Pfc. Boyer's tour of duty began December 9, 1967, with the 25th infantry division. He was in Gia Dinh, South Vietnam, on February 6, 1968, when he died as the result of burns received in a firefight. He is recorded as Jefferson County's first casualty.
The body of Wayne Douglas Boyer, who was posthumously promoted to corporal, was returned to the United States and interred in the Elmwood Cemetery in Shepherdstown. He is memorialized on panel 37E Line 49 of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington D.C.
West Virginia Archives and History welcomes any additional information that can be provided about these veterans, including photographs, family names, letters and other relevant personal history.
