THEY led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball
teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci had
ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. In quieter
moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the
Apache National Forest. And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of
Morenci's mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted
as a group in the Marine Corps. Their service began on Independence
Day, 1966. When one of the nine failed his service-aptitude test, the other eight
insisted that the corps must take all or none. A second test produced a
passing grade. They helped each other over some of the rough spots in
boot training as members of Recruit Platoon 1055 at San Diego. When one
of them stumbled into the formation of another unit and got the
traditional pummeling, the others rescued him. They spent another six
weeks in infantry training at California's Camp Pendleton, then came
home together for a final round of parties and dates. Beneath their
careless courage, six of the nine harbored a premonition, a vision of a
future that they could only accept calmly. > BOBBY DALE DRAPER, an all-state linebacker whose jolting tackles would
have brightened the Saturdays of any college coach, remained silent as
a couple of buddies talked of what they would do with their separation
pay. Bobby was asked what he would do. “I'm not coming back,” he said. > STAN KING, the oldest and most contemplative of the group, had
abandoned his plans to study engineering at the University of Arizona
in order to enlist with his former high school friends. A 6 ft. 4 in.,
three-sport letterman, he told his mother of his feelings just before
going to Viet Nam. “We were up practically all night,” Mrs. Glenn King
recalls. “He had his grave all picked out in Clifton Cemetery. He loved
that place and those beautiful red hills.” > ALFRED VAN WHITMER, a quiet but competitive youth, most enjoyed riding
his two horses, a mare and a quarter-horse colt, through the secluded
countryside. His parents had just begun payments on a new house when he
came home on leave. “Van said he was increasing his life insurance,”
his mother remembers. “He turned to his father and said: 'Dad, I'm
going to pay off this place for you.' ” > LARRY J. WEST, probably the liveliest and most restless of the bunch,
served one tour in Viet Nam and volunteered for another. Morenci High
Coach Vernon Friedli saw him leaning against the wall of the bowling
alley one night. “His eyes were blank—his mind was a thousand miles
away. We talked, and then he stuck his hand out, shook mine, and said
it had been nice knowing me. 'What do you mean?' I asked. There's no
way for me. I've come close to it a number of times. I won't be back.'
” > JOSE MONCAYO was called “cowboy” by other Marines because he talked
so often about horses. Tall and husky, he was popular with Morenci's
girls because of his quick humor. “My son had a feeling,” recalls his
mother. “He told me not to cry when they brought his body back.”
