| Mark Rademacher |
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Sergeant Mark A. Rademacher was killed in Action on October 25, 1983, on Grenada. Mark was born June 7, 1963, in Buffalo NY, and joined the Army in September 1981. Growing up in Western NY he enjoyed the outdoors and spent many days exploring the wilds near his home. He played football for his high school, Iroquois Central School, from 1978 to 1981. He graduated from Ranger School on October 28, 1982. Sgt. Rademacher, assigned to A Company, first Battalion 75th Rangers was assigned the mission of denying the enemy forces a major avenue of access to the Salinas airfield. His jeep gun team, using old and inadequate maps, moved to find the point where he was to establish a site to perform his assigned mission. Moving at breakneck speed they overshot their objective and had to reverse course to locate the location. A rocket-propelled grenade hit the Jeep, and one Ranger was killed and the other three Rangers were thrown from the jeep. The team came under intense enemy fire. Mark retrieved the machine gun on the jeep while being wounded. He established a defensive position and managed to send one of the men to get reinforcements while he and another Ranger fought gallantly against a vastly superior force. The one Ranger did make it back to the HQ, badly wounded and reported what had happened. A reaction force moved quickly to the ambush site and found a large number of the enemy dead and, unfortunately, Mark and the other Ranger, SGT Randy Cline, had died of their wounds. Mark received the Bronze Star Medal with “V” Device for his actions. Mark was 20 years old. I have no idea where this country finds men like Mark but thank God they do. |
