Teddy of the 173rd Specialist Four Eleftherios “Teddy” Pantel Pappas – United States Army

He was a New Yorker through and through — quick with a grin, bold in his stride, proud of his roots.
Eleftherios Pantel Pappas, known to everyone simply as “Teddy,” was born on February 21, 1943, in the restless heartbeat of New York City — a place that produced dreamers, hustlers, and heroes in equal measure. When his generation was called to fight in the jungles of Southeast Asia, Teddy answered, swapping the noise of city streets for the humid silence of Vietnam’s green war.

Drafted through the Selective Service System, he entered the United States Army and trained as a Light Weapons Infantryman — one of the men who carried the fight on his back. He was assigned to B Company, 4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, part of the storied 173rd Airborne Brigade, known simply as “The Herd.”

The Herd

The 173rd was among the first American combat brigades deployed to Vietnam. Their patch — a soaring winged sword — came to symbolize speed, aggression, and elite skill. These were paratroopers forged from the airborne traditions of World War II and Korea, trained to jump behind enemy lines and hold ground where others could not.

When they landed at Bien Hoa in 1965, the 173rd brought with them the hard swagger of airborne troops and the belief that no mission was too difficult. They fought everywhere — from the Iron Triangle to the Central Highlands, from Dak To to Phu My — carving a reputation for ferocity and endurance.

By June 1966, when Teddy began his tour, the brigade was deep in the fight. The enemy was elusive, the terrain unforgiving, and the line between safety and peril almost nonexistent.

Into Binh Duong

Binh Duong Province, north of Saigon, was enemy country — a patchwork of villages, rubber plantations, and winding jungle trails used by Viet Cong units to move supplies and ambush convoys. To serve there was to live inside the war’s constant heartbeat: patrols by day, firefights by night, and the ever-present risk of land mines and booby traps.

The 173rd’s operations in this region were designed to disrupt enemy networks and root out hidden forces. Each patrol meant stepping into uncertainty. Every bend in the trail could hide an explosive charge or a sniper’s rifle.

For young paratroopers like Teddy, the war was intensely personal — a matter of trust, instinct, and brotherhood. The platoon was his family, and survival depended on the man beside him.

The Soldier They Called “Teddy”

Those who knew him remember his easy laugh and steady confidence. In a brigade where toughness was the currency of respect, Teddy earned his place quickly. He was the kind of soldier who carried his share and then some, who volunteered when others hesitated, and who found humor even when the rain wouldn’t stop and the leeches wouldn’t let go.

He had the streetwise resilience of a New Yorker and the quiet bravery of a man who didn’t need to announce it. His comrades simply called him Teddy — because in a war full of code names and call signs, that one was enough.

October 31, 1966

By the fall of 1966, the 173rd was in near-constant contact with the enemy. The brigade’s battalions conducted sweeps through the dense growth of Binh Duong, encountering mines, small-arms fire, and ambushes nearly every day.

On October 31, Teddy’s company was engaged in combat operations when an enemy explosive device — likely a hidden mine or command-detonated charge — detonated near his position. The blast was sudden, devastating, and final.

He was killed instantly.

The Army’s report was brief and clinical: “Hostile action – explosive device.” But those words mask the brutal reality of an infantryman’s war — where death could come from the ground beneath your boots, and courage was measured not in medals but in the willingness to take one more step forward.

Teddy had been in Vietnam less than five months. He was twenty-three years old.

The Airborne Brotherhood

In the 173rd, loss was felt deeply and collectively. When one paratrooper fell, every man carried a part of him forward. After the explosion, the platoon pressed on with their mission, fighting through the shock that every airborne soldier learns to suppress — the ache of losing one of their own.

Later, in the smoky quiet of a night perimeter, stories would be told: how Teddy always shared his rations, how he cracked jokes when the leeches got bad, how he carried extra ammunition for a friend. Those memories became a kind of armor for the living — reminders that courage wasn’t about surviving, but about showing up, day after day, no matter the odds.

“The Herd” in History

The 173rd Airborne Brigade would go on to fight in some of the war’s fiercest battles, including Hill 875 at Dak To, where entire companies were nearly wiped out. They became legends not because they sought glory, but because they refused to break.

The men who served in the 173rd carried a particular pride. Their brigade motto — “Sky Soldiers” — was given to them by their South Vietnamese allies. It meant soldiers who descended from the heavens, bringing the fight to the ground.

Teddy Pappas was part of that legacy — one of the Sky Soldiers who fought on the edge of history, whose story now joins the long airborne roll of honor stretching from Normandy to the Central Highlands.

New York’s Son

When the news reached home, it struck like a thunderclap. The city that had raised him — with all its noise, its ambition, its endless pulse — now mourned another son lost to a faraway conflict.

In neighborhoods across the five boroughs, the war was still something distant and confusing, seen only through newspaper headlines. But for the Pappas family, it was suddenly achingly real. Their son, known by everyone as Teddy, had fallen in a place most New Yorkers couldn’t find on a map.

He had gone where his country sent him, served with courage, and paid the price demanded by fate.

The Meaning of Service

For many of the men drafted in 1966, service in Vietnam was not about politics or policy — it was about duty, survival, and the bonds of friendship forged in adversity.

Teddy represented that generation of ordinary Americans who became extraordinary through circumstance. He wasn’t a general or a strategist; he was a rifleman — the point of the spear, the one who walked the trail first.

When his brigade jumped into combat, he was there. When his platoon moved through enemy country, he led by example. And when the war claimed him, it claimed a part of the airborne spirit that has always defined America’s fighting men.

Remembering Teddy

Today, Specialist Four Eleftherios “Teddy” Pantel Pappas is remembered on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, Panel 11E, Line 115. His name is etched in black granite among those who fell in 1966 — the first full year of America’s heavy involvement in Vietnam.

Visitors who trace his name often pause on the uniqueness of it — Eleftherios, a Greek name meaning “freedom.” It is a fitting symbol for a man who fought to preserve the freedom of others.

Though he rests far from the jungles where he fell, his story continues in the hearts of those who remember the 173rd — a brigade that never forgot its sons.

Final Honors

Specialist Four Eleftherios Pantel “Teddy” Pappas
United States Army
B Company, 4th Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment
173rd Airborne Brigade (“The Herd”)

• Born: 21 February 1943 – New York, New York

• Died: 31 October 1966 – Binh Duong Province, South Vietnam

• Entered Service: Drafted 6 June 1966 – Selective Service

• Cause: Hostile – Explosive Device

• Decorations: ★ Purple Heart

He wore New York’s grit on his sleeve
and the paratrooper’s courage in his heart —
a soldier they called Teddy, who never came home.