The Last Steps of Thomas Olearnick: A Young Soldier Lost in the Highlands of Vietnam

In the high, broken mountains of Vietnam’s Central Highlands—where thick bamboo thickets can swallow a man in seconds and the enemy could be ten feet away yet invisible—Specialist Four Thomas Olearnick walked point for his platoon on the morning of November 19, 1967. The jungle around him was cold, wet, and silent, the kind of silence that made seasoned infantrymen nervous. He moved with the caution of a young soldier who had seen enough combat to understand the stakes, yet with the courage of someone who refused to let anyone else take the first steps into danger.

A few minutes later, he was gone.

No call.
No sighting.
No trace.

Just a burst of hostile fire, confusion in the treeline, and the sudden, terrible realization that the man leading the way had vanished into a swirl of chaos.

He was never seen again.

A Son of Pennsylvania

Thomas Olearnick was born on December 5, 1946, in the hard-working coal-region town of Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania. Northumberland County was a place that forged tough, humble young men—sons of miners, factory workers, and laborers who grew up understanding sacrifice long before they were old enough to spell it. It was a community where loyalty mattered, where neighbors looked out for each other, and where every young man knew someone—an uncle, a father, a brother—who had worn a uniform in World War II or Korea.

Thomas grew up in that atmosphere of quiet patriotism and small-town grit. Friends remember him as steady, reliable, and soft-spoken, someone who worked hard, respected his elders, and didn’t complain. There was nothing glamorous about life in that part of Pennsylvania, but it produced people who understood commitment—people who answered when their country called.

And in 1967, the country did call.

Like many young men of his generation, Thomas was drafted through the Selective Service System. He didn’t run. He didn’t resist. He went. On April 20, 1967, he stepped into the uniform of the United States Army and began preparing for the war that was consuming a generation.

Becoming a Cavalryman

After training, Olearnick was assigned to the legendary 1st Cavalry Division, the first American division to adopt air mobility as its heartbeat and identity. The “First Team” rode into battle not on horses, but on helicopters—Hueys that lifted men into places unreachable by roads, terrain, or logic. The Cav fought in the most remote corners of Vietnam, from the Ia Drang Valley to the dense jungles of the Central Highlands. Their enemy was elusive, hardened, and determined.

Thomas became a Light Weapons Infantryman in B Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment—a line company that walked the ridgelines, valleys, and elephant grass fields of the high country. His job meant moving forward with an M16, scouting enemy positions, and often being the first man to encounter danger.

By the fall of 1967, the 1st Cavalry Division was operating across Kontum Province, a rugged frontier near the Cambodian border. The area was a network of enemy supply routes, hidden bunker complexes, and mountain trails used by North Vietnamese Army units infiltrating south. It was unforgiving terrain—steep, wet, tangled with vegetation—and it demanded everything from the young men who patrolled it.

Walking Point

Infantry patrols in Vietnam rotated through roles: slack, rifleman, radio man, medic, gunner. But the hardest—and deadliest—position was point man. The point man was the eyes and ears of the platoon. He chose the path. He watched for tripwires, ambushes, booby traps, snipers, and disruption in the natural pattern of the jungle. He felt the weight of every step.

To walk point required calm nerves, alertness, and courage. Veteran soldiers often took the position simply because they trusted their own instincts more than anyone else’s. Sometimes, they took point because they wanted to protect the younger men.

On November 19, 1967, SP4 Thomas Olearnick was that man.

Into the Highlands

That morning, B Company was on patrol near the rugged terrain of Kontum Province, an area frequently contested by North Vietnamese regulars. The air was cool, the sky overcast—another day in a region where visibility rarely extended beyond a few feet.

As the platoon moved, Olearnick advanced slowly, scanning, listening, and studying the ground ahead. The Central Highlands had a way of swallowing sound, dampening footsteps, and turning the world into a tunnel of shadow and foliage. Every soldier behind him depended on his senses, his judgment, and his nerve.

Then it happened.

Somewhere ahead, unseen NVA soldiers waited—whether in a spider hole, behind a fallen tree, or in a narrow fold of the terrain, no one would ever know for certain. What is known is that gunfire erupted. Confusion tore through the line. The jungle lit with muzzle flashes and the sharp crack of small-arms fire. Men hit the ground, returning fire in every direction the jungle allowed.

When the shooting stopped, Thomas was gone.

The Search That Found Nothing

The platoon shouted his name.
They pushed forward.
They retraced steps.
They looked for blood, gear, signs of a struggle—anything that could explain what had happened.

Nothing.

In the dense terrain of Vietnam, a man could disappear in seconds. The ground was a labyrinth. The enemy was skilled at snatching opportunities—whether by gunfire, explosive traps, or dragging wounded soldiers away during firefights.

Was he hit instantly?
Did he fall out of sight?
Was he taken?
Was he lying somewhere too deep under brush to be seen?

No one knows. And that uncertainty became the lifelong burden of his family.

Multiple search attempts were made under dangerous conditions, but the area remained hostile, heavily booby-trapped, and under constant threat. The mission could not continue indefinitely, and eventually the patrol had to move on.

Thomas Olearnick was listed as Missing in Action.

For his family, it became an open wound—a question with no answer.

The Official Determination

The Army continued investigating his case in the years that followed. Witness statements, terrain analysis, and combat reports all pointed to a single conclusion: Thomas had been killed during the initial burst of hostile fire, his body unrecoverable in the chaos and terrain of the moment.

He was officially declared dead due to hostile small-arms fire while missing in action.

He was only 20 years old.

A Family Without Closure

For many families of MIA soldiers, the experience was a quiet, lifelong heartbreak. Letters stopped arriving. The government sent updates that offered little comfort. Birthdays passed, holidays came and went, and time moved on for the world—but not for them.

They were left with a different kind of grief: the grief of not knowing.

Was he alive somewhere?
Was he captured?
Was he still in the jungle where he fell?

There is a unique cruelty in the absence of answers. For families of the missing, time never fully closes the gap.

The Wall

Today, Thomas Olearnick’s name is carved into Panel 30E, Line 1 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The polished black granite reflects the faces of those who come to touch his name—the living meeting the memory of the fallen.

The Wall does not offer closure, but it offers recognition. It acknowledges sacrifice. It acknowledges loss. It acknowledges that this young man, whose life ended in a remote corner of Vietnam, is not forgotten.

Visitors who pause at his panel may not know his story. They may not know he was a point man. They may not know he was drafted, trained, and sent into some of the most unforgiving terrain of the war. They may not know he was a son of Mount Carmel who worked hard, served honorably, and walked forward into danger so others would not have to.

But his name is there, and that means something.

It means he mattered.
It means his sacrifice endures.
It means his story still echoes through time.

A Legacy Preserved

At Ghosts of the Battlefield and across every community that honors the fallen, stories like Thomas’s hold a special place. They remind us that not every soldier’s journey home was completed, that some stories remain unfinished, and that the cost of war is written not only in battles won and lost, but in the lives cut short and the questions left unanswered.

SP4 Thomas Olearnick’s service speaks to the quiet courage of an ordinary American asked to do something extraordinary. He did his duty. He walked point. He led from the front. And he gave everything he had—his youth, his future, his life.

He was never seen again, but he is not forgotten.

His memory endures in the mountains of Pennsylvania, in the records of the 1st Cavalry Division, in the hearts of those who still search for answers, and etched forever into the cold black stone of the Wall.