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MAJ Mark E Cooper
to remember
Manley, Jack Robert, CSM.
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Contact Info
Last Address Fayetteville, NC
Date of Passing Jan 29, 1990
Location of Interment Fort Liberty Post Cemetery (VLM) (Formerly Fort Bragg) - Fort Liberty, North Carolina
Died of cancer 29 January 1990 at age 57. CSM Manley was a combat veteran of the 187th RCT during the Korean War and the 5th SFGA in Vietnam. He joined the SFA in April 1969 while assigned to Special Forces duty in Vietnam.
According to the Association records, he received his prefix 3 in 1955 while assigned to the 77th SFGA where he served from 1954 through 1958. Other SF assignments included duty with the 1st SFGA on Okinawa in 1959-65, including deployment to SE Asia on Operation White Star 61 -62; the 7th SFGA at Fort Bragg in 1966-68; Company D of the 5th SFGA in 1968-69; and a second tour in the 7th SFGA in 1970-72. He retired from active duty as an Infantryman with 31 years of active service in April 1981.
His awards and decorations include the Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Army Occupation Medal, United Nations Service Medal, Korean Service Medal w/2 Campaign Stars, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Vietnam Campaign Medal, Good Conduct Medal (10 awards), Combat Infantryman's Badge w/Star, Senior Parachutist Badge, Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm, RVN Gallantry Cross with Palm (Unit Award), RVN Civic Action Medal (Unit Citation), RVN Civic Action Medal 1st Class, RVN Honor Medal 1st Class, Presidential Unit Citation, Meritorious Unit Citation, 11 overseas bars, and Vietnamese Parachute Badge.
His survivors include his wife, Norma; daughters, Pamela Pittman and Nina Pairis, both of Fayetteville, and Sandra Hunt of Williston, SC; sons, John, of Frankfurt West Germany, and Gene and Rodney, both of Fayetteville; and nine grandchildres. Funeral services were conducted in the John F. Kennedy Memorial Chapel at Fort Bragg and burial was in the Post Cemetery with full military honors.
Operation White Star
From Month/Year
April / 1959
To Month/Year
April / 1962
Description Operation White Star (also known as Project White Star) was the code name for a United States military advisory mission to Laos during the first years of the Second Indochina War, which would eventually become known in the United States as the Vietnam War. The purpose was to train the Royal Laotian Army as well as indigenous Hmong, and Yao tribesmen to fight the Pathet Lao communist insurgency. This was later extended to include combat against the North Vietnamese Army, which was increasingly using Laos as a staging, transit and resupply area for its operations in South Vietnam.
White Star began in 1959 as "Operation Hotfoot" with the deployment of 107 United States Army Special Forces soldiers (Green Berets) of the 77th Special Forces Group —later named the 7th SFG in May 1960—under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur D. "Bull" Simons. Because Laos was ostensibly a neutral party to the conflict between the United States and North Vietnam, the soldiers did not wear United States Army uniforms.
In 1961, however, the United States lent full and open support to the Vientiane government and the program was renamed "Operation White Star" with U.S. soldiers openly wearing their uniforms. Operation White Star formally ended in July 1962 when Laotian neutrality was officially established. Counterinsurgency efforts were then managed covertly by the Central Intelligence Agency.
