PFC Cameron Joseph Devine USMC
Cameron Joseph Devine was born in Los Angeles California on April 19, 1948 to Joseph and Dorothy Pfeiffer Devine. He had one step brother, John Sandoval, who was four years older. His father was from the Navajo Reservation in AZ and served in the USMC during WW II. His mother had relatives from Fort Defiance AZ and Gallup NM. In 1949 the family was living in Santa Fe NM. In 1959, at the age of 11, his mother, when facing a terminal illness and alone, asked her cousin, Mary Alice Bowlin, to take her two sons as foster children. The Bowlin family raised them both in Deming before moving to Mesilla in 1966 to take over the Mesilla Book Store. After graduating from high school, Cameron attended NMSU during the summer of 1967. Desiring to serve in the US Marine Corps, just as his father had, Cameron enlisted in 1967 and by May 1968 was in country serving with the 3rd Combined Action Group, Combined Action Platoon 3-3-5. CAP 3-3-5 was situated south of Hue in the Thua Thien Province, I Corps. The CAP program was developed by the U.S. Marines in 1965. A Marine rifle squad and a Navy Hospital Corpsman were melded with a Vietnamese Popular Force platoon to provide security for villages from the Viet Cong forces.
The Marines originally lived in the villages. In theory, they trained the villagers, conducted joint patrols and ambushes, and engaged in "Civic Action" work, which included medical care for the villagers, helping them with things like wells, schools, and other projects that benefitted the people. On 27 January 1969, PFC Cameron Joseph Devine accidentally shot and fatally wounded himself while in position just off Route 1. He is buried at Fort Bliss National Cemetery. He was 20 years old at the time of his death.