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Remember...Charles Wesley Lantz
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Charles Wesley Lantz was born March 18, 1935, in Madison, West Virginia, to Delbert and Josephine Huffman Lantz of Preston County. He had a brother, Thomas Douglas.
| Charles attended Bayard High School where as a student he was on the annual staff, Tiger staff, acted in the junior and the senior school plays and was a member of the basketball team. He graduated with the class of 1953. It was noted in the annual for that year that Charles's classmates thought he was destined to be a soldier. |  Bayard basketball team |
Charles entered the service in July of 1953 and served two tours of duty in Germany. Three years were spent in Karlshrue, Germany, and two years in Berlin. His service in Berlin included the time during which the Communists built a wall between East and West Berlin.
On December 24, 1955, married Della Jean Cross. They became the parents of two children: Lois Jean and Charles Wesley Jr.
Charles and his family were living at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri when he sent to Vietnam in September of 1966. There he served with Fifth Engineering Battalion. In his last letter to his wife he told her he had fought across Vietnam and was almost at the Cambodian border at the time.
On March 17, 1967, Charles Lantz was killed when a truck he was riding in on a re-supply mission in Binh Duong, South Vietnam, hit a hostile mine. He was posthumously promoted to Staff Sergeant First Class. His body was returned to the United States and sent to Parsons, where his wife was living.
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.
