Douglas Ellsworth Nichols

DOUGLAS ELLSWORTH NICHOLS was born on April 19, 1942 and joined the Armed Forces while in SAN PEDRO, CA. He served as an 0302 in the Marine Corps. In 2 years of service, he attained the rank of 1LT/O2.

On February 27, 1967, at the age of 24, DOUGLAS ELLSWORTH NICHOLS perished in the service of our country in South Vietnam, Quang Tri.

You can find DOUGLAS ELLSWORTH NICHOLS honored on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Panel 15E, Row 107.

This is a difficult and emotional tribute to do. I opened this page and put the blue background in and stared at the wordless space. Suddenly I wanted to do chores around the house. I knew I was trying to avoid my emotions. I had to sit down, bite my lip, and plunge in. If these men could be brave and answer a call to an unpopular war that may end their lives, surely I could muster the courage to pay homage to a fallen friend and classmate.

When I found Doug's name on The Virtual Wall through a search of my home town I sat back in dismay and the memories came flooding in. Your first impressions in a memory are really quite accurate. Sweet...sweet describes Doug. That beautiful smile. He had a smile that could lift your heart when you felt down. It's funny how we always imagine our out of touch classmates living somewhere, having had a family, and surrounded with laughter and love. Seeing Doug's name there shattered that illusion. I saw two postings with email addresses and contacted them. Both emailed me back. There was a need to draw closer in remembrance of one man whom we did not want to be forgotten. There is comfort in knowing that after these many years that people still love and care for him. He and my son share the same day of birth and he's buried in Green Hills Memorial Park in San Pedro. My mother lies there with him. Fate has an odd way of linking people.

The photos you see, except for the one of Doug and Marilyn, are scanned from my high school yearbook. Click on the photos to see an enlargement.

And so I come to Marilyn, one of the two people I emailed who'd posted a remembrance at The Virtual Wall. It was obvious to me that she loved him a great deal and misses him still. Marine buddies of Doug have begun to contribute their thoughts, thanks to Sim Pace whose remembrance at the wall touched my heart. Sim's remembrance follows Marilyn's as well as others that will be added.

Where do I start. There are two things I know. Love at first sight does indeed happen and a broken heart is a physical, palpable pain. I met Doug in the wedding of mutual friends. I knew him for only 14 months. Long enough. I was very naive. I could never imagine how his life and death could so impact me. Doug was as honest as they come. Kind, full of life and curiosity. Talk with you about anything...great smile with sparkling eyes. I read his letters now, 37 years later, I see more of the man than I did then, being young and in love. He had so much more to give this world. Doug wasn’t sure what he would ultimately do. He spoke once of the FBI. When he was on board ship in the Caribbean he wrote that the sunrises and sunsets on Vieques with its “rolling hills and straying cattle” made owning a small heard seem pretty appealing. I can just picture him. When we met, Doug was much attracted to the Corps. According to his friend Phil, Doug graduated very high in his class at Basic and, no doubt, could have had his pick of assignments. This was fall 1965. Infantry, Vietnam was his choice. Doug never did anything halfway. If I could only turn back the clock. He spent 1966 at Camp Lejeune. So much happened that year. Just look at the casualty lists and the deployment numbers. After a year at Lejeune, he was very disappointed with some of the Marines he worked with....they were not up to the standard he had set for himself and that he believed was the standard of the Corps. By his second letter from Dong Ha, his attitude had changed 180 degrees. How tough and fine these Marines were, saying “the troops are just fabulous.”

During his year at Lejeune, our esteemed leaders escalated the war beyond the scope of imagining. I was still in college at the time, trusting those who held his life in their hands. Johnson and McNamara...the ego and the intellectual, the lives they single-handedly destroyed.

Doug deserved to come home...home to his parents, his sisters, nieces and nephews, his friends and those who cared about him. He deserved to come home whole and in one piece, just as did the thousands who shared his fate. I will never forgive the protesters who created indecision in the hearts of our vacuous leadership. I still cringe at the mention of “flower children” or “the 60s”. Our nation has never been the same. They believe they stopped the war. Instead, they emboldened the enemy. So many of the young men who did return have been haunted by experience...the futility of the entire episode for which they gave their youth and innocence. So much was poorly thought out...troops who were not to fire until fired upon? Nonsense! The young men who served under those conditions have my respect indeed.

When I lived in San Francisco, 1968 and 1969, I volunteered after work at Letterman Army Hospital, doing what I could. All those young men, many still teenagers, whose number had been called and whose fathers had no influence with the local draft boards. Off they went to fill McNamara's quotas. The man simply had no idea what he was doing.

The night I learned Doug was gone, I felt myself slipping into a quite, lonely place. A part of me is still there. I see time differently, too. Events are either, “before...he knew about that” or “after...he never knew”. Doug will be with me always. The memories of things he said and did still make me smile. I am so blessed to have known him and I will miss him forever.

Written by Sim Pace on November 10^th, 2000 at The Virtual Wall. Welcome Home, Sim!

For some reason, this Veteran's Day I am thinking about my Viet Nam Marine buddies more than I have in the last 30 years. Memories continue to surface. Today I was thinking about Doug Nichols, a friend of mine from The Basic School (TBS) for officers in Quantico, VA. We both graduated from TBS in December 1965 -- I went to Viet Nam to join the Third Marine Division and he went to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina to join the Second Marine Division.
After serving in Viet Nam, I was stationed in Okinawa for the last few months of my Western Pacific tour of duty and served as the General's aide-de-camp. Around January 1967, Doug and I bumped into each other at the officers club at one of the Marine bases on Okinawa. He was en route to Viet Nam. Doug noticed the two Purple Heart ribbons (for wounds received in action) on my chest and, in almost a schoolboy tone of voice, said: "I want one of those." Within two months, Doug received his Purple Heart medal -- posthumously.
Doug, I miss your smile and your upbeat style...I wish you had made it back.

Doug and I went through the Officers Candidates Course at Quantico during the summer of 1964. We were in the same platoon, wearing "chrome domes" and baggy utilities - even then, I marveled how much he looked like a Marine's Marine when the rest of us looked like drowned rats.. Doug was there with a contingent from UCLA. Doug stood out because he was a poster Marine, ramrod straight, physically fit, and he had this infectious smile that would light up a room. A year later Doug and I were in the same platoon at Basic School as Second Lieutenants. Doug was still the same model Marine, still with that great blinding smile. When we completed Basic School in December 1965, Doug asked for and got his 03 MOS.

So it was with great sadness and shock that I heard about his death. I forget when or where that was when I heard the news, but it wasn't too long after his death. I think it was after I returned from Vietnam and posted to Camp Pendleton in 1968-69. I recall reading a newspaper clipping that mentioned his death, that Doug had been named "Mr. UCLA" back when he was in college, something he never mentioned, but did not surprise me in the least that he would have been chosen for such an honor. He was a great guy and all who knew him were captivated by his warmth and charm..

In Aug 2001, our Basic School platoon had a reunion back at Quantico -- 23-24 of us, many with our wives, attended. We had lost five, three killed in action in Vietnam (Doug among them), and they were remembered often during our reunion. They were with us, certainly in our thoughts. We missed Doug - we missed them all.

Written by Bill Parker, LtCol USMC (Ret) - Thank you and Welcome Home, Bill!

I went to the Basic School with Doug from July through December 1965 in Quantico, VA. My wife and I adopted Doug because he was a bachelor and we needed to pump him full of good home cooking. Doug's nickname was "Squirrel" and he was my best friend in Quantico.

He helped participate in "Baby watch" with me as my wife's pregnancy became more obvious. He always had a love pat for her tummy for the baby. (I left my wife eight months pregnant and was sent to Viet Nam in April 1966. I did not get to see my daughter Kathryn until she was a year old when I came back in May 1967).

Doug was always cheerful, even under the trying conditions of tough infantry training at Quantico. We were on the three day war exercise where we were marched over 50 miles in the cold December weather and given little sleep. He was covered with frost and mud by the third day and had gotten about 5 hours sleep during the three days, but yet, he still managed to tell jokes and laugh freely.

As you know, Doug was killed in Viet Nam and his name is on the Viet Nam memorial in Washington, DC. My wife and I still remember his name at our church services here in the lovely mountain town of Blowing Rock.

I am Phil Ostrom and I was a classmate of Doug at the Marine Corps Officers Basic School. The officers were assigned to the school's platoons by letter in their last name. As N and O are close I had the privileges to know Doug for six months before Viet Nam.

I remember Doug as being a true professional. He was focused on being the best Marine Officer in the Basic School Class. Doug had a great sense of humor and a strong work ethic. One time Doug and I were on a land navigation test. It was November, rainy and cold. Doug pulled me through the course. He never gave up even though we could not read the maps or see the compass. Because of Doug we got 100% on this test.
Doug was a great individual, who gave of himself. I will always remember Doug and use him as my model for professionalism.

Doug is not forgotten and I think of him many times each year. I know Doug is still helping me even today from heaven.

I remember Doug well and when my brother-in-law (a fraternity brother of Doug's) told me in 1967 that Doug had been killed in Vietnam, I felt crushed. My wife and I visited Washington D.C. a few years back, and my memory of Doug compelled us to look up his name on the Wall of Remembrance. We grieved for all those named on the Wall. My brother and my wife's brother both served in Vietnam, but both, thank God, came home safe.

Although Doug and I attended UCLA at the same time, we did not spend much time together, even though we were yell leaders from 1962-1964. Football and basketball were the primary events for which we prepared. I was gladdened to recall that Doug had boundless energy. Excitement seemed to accompany him to every event we attended. His enthusiasm for life was infectious and he seemed to lift the spirits of all with whom he came in contact. I was blessed and enriched by knowing Doug.

I met many people in college and my fraternity, but I remember Doug to be an exceptional man. He was completely open and I immediately felt, as others did, that he was trustworthy, faithful, and honest. He lived, even then, "Semper Fi". During the 60's, at a time when long hair was stylish, his crew cut, atop a smiling face and ramrod straight posture, made him stand out. He was different. I admired his demeanor and his patriotism. The three years I knew him, he never caused me to change that view of him. I lost contact with him upon graduation, but knew he was headed for the Marines and service in Vietnam.

I was saddened, thinking of Doug's missed opportunities in life, but heartened, thinking of his positive impact on others and the enjoyment that he extracted from the life that God had given him.

He is missed, but not forgotten. May God bless all who served and sacrificed to protect the freedoms we enjoy today.