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In Memory of Army Pfc.

Larry Wayne Norgaard

Iroquois, South Dakota, Beadle County

 December 25, 1947 - February 5, 1968

Killed in action near Binh Duong, South Vietnam

Larry Wayne Norgaard was born in Brookings, South Dakota on December 25, 1947 to Odegaard Peter and Dorothy Irene (Vincent) Norgaard .The family moved to DeSmet, South Dakota when Larry was an infant, and later moved to Iroquois. He had three sisters: Carol Jean, Charlynne, and Sharon, and one brother, Randy. Larry graduated from DeSmet High School.

On March 21, 1967 Pfc. Larry W. Norgaard was drafted into the army selective services. He took his basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and further training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, before going to South Vietnam. The twenty-year-old infantryman arrived in Vietnam on August 25, 1967, attached to Company C, 2nd Battalion, ________.

After six months in Vietnam, on February 5, 1968, Pfc. Larry Wayne Norgaard was killed in action by a fragmentation grenade near Binh Duong, South Vietnam. His parents had first received a letter advising them that their son was missing in action. Two days later they received another letter telling them that their son had been killed in action.

On February 30, 1968 Pfc. Norgaard was buried in full military honors in the De Smet Cemetery in De Smet, South Dakota. Pfc. Larry Wayne Norgaard’s name can be found on Panel 37, Line 001, of the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.

Zachary Charles Walters, 7th grade, Stanley County Middle School, Fort Pierre, South Dakota, March 7, 2005 respectfully submitted this entry. Information was gathered using an article from the February 29, 1968 edition of the DeSmet News.