As she turned the car onto Westover Road in Monroe, Lois saw the military car way down towards the end of the street. She had an idea what it meant but she wasn't sure they were looking for her, so she pulled into her driveway. She got her shopping bags out of the car and went into the house. A few minutes later, her sister came to the door with the soldier in full uniform and they just stood there, saying nothing and she knew that Richard was dead, leaving a hole in her heart that would never mend.
From the time he first played with toy soldiers, Corporeal Richard Van Huggins seemed obsessed with them. He told his mother as young boy that he wanted to be in the military and he never changed his mind. In his last couple years of high school, he told her that he wanted to a Marine because they were rougher.
Lois Huggins Helms had to sign for her son to join the Marines because he was only seventeen. He was the oldest child of James P. Huggins of Florence, South Carolina and Lois Evans from Pageland, South Carolina. James and Lois lived in Florence when Richard was born on August 11, 1948, where Richard spent his early years.
Richard's father died when he was six years old and his mother married Bryce Helms. The new family moved to Monroe in 1956.
Richard had four siblings- Randy, who died early of a heart attack; Charles who lives in Florence; Shirley Parker who lives in Monroe on Stack Road; and Betty Sikes who lives in Monroe on 601 north.
Richard attended Benton Heights and Monroe High School. After he enlisted in the Marines in 1965, he completed basic training at Ft Jackson, South Carolina and paratrooper training at Ft Bragg, North Carolina.
Lois remembers that his first jump out of an airplane in paratrooper school landed him in the top of a tree. He also completed radio communications school and gunner training.
She said that Richard was never a complainer about anything that happened to him while in the military. His sisters remember him as full of laughter and loved to cut up with everyone. His mother said that he was mature beyond his years.
When he was at Ft Bragg, he got a chance to come home for the weekend at the last minute. He called her and told her that he had missed his bus and he was at a phone booth outside a truck stop in Fayetteville and he wondered if she would come get him. She said that there was never one minute of hesitation and she told him "I'll be there soon to get you."
Lois said that her husband was sick and all the children were busy with their own lives, therefore she jumped into her car by herself, with two inches of freshly fallen snow on the ground and left Monroe around 7:00 pm that night. She had no problem finding him because they had visited him several times at Ft Bragg. When he jumped in the car, he told her "Mama, I'm glad to see you, how did you get here so fast?" She drove them back to Monroe, arriving home around 1:00 am.
Lois beamed when she said he would tell her "Mama, I love you. I got the best looking mama around." She said that his father took him to the bus station to go off to Vietnam; she knew that she would never see him again in her heart of hearts. She said that they told each other goodbye three times, one right after another.
The 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division had left Ft Campbell, Kentucky the evening of July 6, 1965 to go to Vietnam. The 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division was formed in February 1964 and nickname of this elite paratrooper unit was "Always the first" Brigade of the famed 101st Screaming Eagles Airborne Division.
Richard was assigned as a rifleman to the 101st Airborne, 1st Brigade, 2nd Battalion, Company A. His company participated in Operation Wheeler in Vietnam, which began in Chu Lai on September 17, 1966. After four months of action, the Screaming Eagle's brigade had killed more than 1,300 Viet Cong.
Lois said that his only request of her while in Vietnam was to send him chewing gum and kool aid.
The Marines told her that Richard was killed on August 13, 1967 by mortar round. He had been in Vietnam for year before he was killed.
Several months passed and the Marines sent her a letter stating that she "had been given some erroneous information concerning the circumstances of her son's death. Her son did not succumb in the initial burst of enemy fire, but rather, he fought fiercely against an overwhelming enemy force for a period of thirty minutes which allowed the remainder of his comrades to escape an otherwise hopeless situation."
Richard received two purple hearts while in Vietnam. He was injured in a fire fight three months before he died, which resulted in his first purple heart. He received the second purple heart when he was killed. He received two Bronze Stars-one for Meritorious achievement and the other for valor, and Air Medal for merit with an Oak Leaf Cluster.